Grief: What Happens when you bury it.

How I learned to survive ...

As part of my grief therapy sessions, in 1990, I was encouraged to write about grief and share what can happen when you don’t go through the five stages of grief. There is no particular order, but each stage is crucial for healing.

When I was twenty and still a newlywed. My husband, Doug, was killed in action in Vietnam in September of 1969. I was not able, or maybe I didn't know how, to put into words what it was like, even to those closest to me. 

Several months passed and whenever I brought up my feelings with a need to talk about them, I was gently encouraged to “let it go” and told “it was time to move forward, get back into living”.  Looking back, this would have been the time to get therapy.  Instead, I was constantly burying my feelings and emotions. 

More months passed and eventually, I took everyone’s advice and stopped talking about my feelings at all.  Whenever I felt the pain, I buried it deep inside.  I wrote letters to airlines and was accepted by TWA as a flight attendant.

I moved from the safety of my family’s Ohio home and hometown to San Francisco. I think part of me thought by moving away, I could escape the pain I was unable to cope with.

For a while, I continued to wear my wedding ring, which often brought negative questions and comments from those I met. So I locked my ring in a jewelry box —I learned not to talk about him, or about my feelings, because no one wanted to listen, especially anyone who was anti-war.

One night I was feeling low and I had given up all hope.  I hurt inside and I decided I didn't want to feel anything, not ever again. I drove to a beach, parked my car, and calmly walked out into the ocean. 

A couple walking on the beach saw me and dragged me out of the water. They refused to leave, until I had stopped sobbing. They made me promise to get help in the morning and they watched as I drove away.

I knew I couldn’t talk about it, so I ignored my promise. I wouldn’t talk about this again to anyone — ever. Later that same year, I met a Marine Lt. freshly home from Vietnam. His MOS had been transportation, but what he had experienced in country disturbed him.

While we dated, I encouraged him to talk about his tour in Nam and I listened as it all poured out. I could easily relate to much of what he shared: the anti-war atmosphere on his return stateside, the memories, emotions, and the loss of several brothers in Nam (survivor guilt).

Months later we were married, but I learned soon after that it was a mistake. I also needed to talk about what had been the worst point in my life. He saw my need to share very differently. He said he would not compete with a ghost. I assured him I was only asking him to be there for me, to listen to what I had been through and to understand how it had affected my life. He still refused.

Though I knew in my heart the marriage would never work, I wasn’t raised to be a quitter, so I set my jaw, determined to make it work. I stopped bringing up my issues and did my best to bury them.

I knew I was distancing myself, I could feel it, and although I buried everything, it was still there -- I could feel that, too. Whenever anything came to the surface, I shoved it back, and each time it came again, it was just a little worse.

By year seven of our marriage, I was raising three daughters, ages 1, 3, and 5. They were the light and the entire focus of my life and I poured my love into them.

One night, I had a dream:

The doorbell rang. I opened the door and Doug was standing there, a tan jacket over his shoulder, wearing the teasing smile I loved so much.

"Hey, Babe. C'mon, you ready? Grab your jacket, let's go."

I remember in the excitement of seeing him, there was no hesitation. I threw my arms around him in a hug and as I turned to get my jacket, there were my three little girls, staring at me in wide-eyed innocence. Like a knife in the chest, I felt pain and an overwhelming sadness.

As I looked from their faces to Doug in the doorway, then back at them, I woke up drenched in sweat.

The dream haunted my days and nights for months, until I finally broke down and told my husband about it. He pronounced me crazy, or suicidal. I wasn't sure myself what the dream meant, only that I would never choose to leave my daughters -- him maybe, but them, never.

During the next nine years, I distanced myself further. I stopped talking about the dream. It was buried with everything else I wasn't supposed to feel, or talk about.

Then something happened that broke me. My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She and daddy were the life anchors I always thought would be there. Mama's diagnosis weighed heavily on me, until my fiercely guarded control finally unraveled.

When my husband came home from work that evening, I was unable to speak, or do anything, except shake uncontrollably. He was shouting that I was crazy and clearly I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

The next morning, I found a therapist. Over the next year, I had two sessions per week, and I learned I wasn't crazy. Through therapy, I broke down the walls I had built for self-protection. I learned you can't run away from grief. You bring it with you no matter how far you go, how deeply you bury it, or for how long. Grief has stages you have to go through to be whole again.

To heal, I had to face my fear of feeling pain. In the therapist's office, I found I could safely talk about everything I had buried for so long with no repercussions, and no fear of judgment.

I was encouraged to vent the guilty anger I felt; anger towards God for allowing this to happen; anger towards Doug for leaving me; and the anger at my present husband for not allowing me to talk about my own PTSD.

Most important of all, I learned it was okay to have those feelings. They were all normal and necessary stages of grief that I had not gone through when I should have --and until I did, nothing would change.

I was reminded it takes two people to make a marriage work. I could set my jaw with all the determination in the world, but unless both people are willing to do that together, a marriage cannot survive.

We were like oil and water. Each is good separately, but put the two together and they don’t mix –or they do, if they are constantly shaken up, but who wants to live like that?

After twenty years, I filed for divorce.

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
CJ’s World is reader supported.
If you enjoy reading my work, please,
be a paid subscriber so I can continue 
writing.  Thank you!