She is Gone…Move On

I am not one to let my guard down, show my weaknesses, my grief, and my struggles to just anyone. In fact, if someone isn’t close to me or if they don’t know me; my hard exterior will not allow my grief to surface.  I’m not proud of this, and I’m working on it.

Someone whom I consider a very close friend said something to me today in regards to the struggle that I continue to have relating to losing my sister to addiction; it numbed me – I was is disbelief, I was angry, and I was sad.  I was told “she is gone….move on”. Talk about sending someone who is as fragile as a porcelain doll spiraling into yet another emotional breakdown…..with 5 words.

I’ve lost plenty of loved ones in my life, and the grief has always been different with each.  The grief that I am dealing with this time; losing my sister to addiction has had the same affect on me as the pain that I felt and continue to feel when I lost my father to suicide – 25 years ago.  Losing a loved one to suicide or addiction is a death like no other.

The 5 Stages of Grief When A Loved One is Addicted:
1. Denial & Isolation
2. Anger & Guilt
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The feelings that I feel, the questions that I ask myself through the stages of grief are intensified from the pain I felt when losing other loved ones.  I can’t explain it, nor do I feel I owe anyone an explanation.  Do I like how I feel? Hell no. Have I ever felt this broken before? No.  Am I trying to grasp on to something that’s not there? Hell no.

What I do know; is that I am bouncing between Stages 1-4; each day is different. I’ve tried to control it, I don’t know how. Some days are better than others. Grief has no timeline, especially when you are grieving something so traumatic.

The one thing that I cannot shake, nor will the image remove itself from my head – is watching my sister take her final breath, knowing that I was the voice behind the decision. As much as I know that she chose me to be her voice when she couldn’t talk – it still hurts, and causes me more guilt than I can bear.

(Psalm 38:4 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.)

What I’ve learned from walking back through today is that telling someone who is grieving to move on can be detrimental. The flood of emotions and thoughts that I had didn’t feel very good. I want more than anything to get back to my life, being the spunk everyone knows & loves; but it’s not that easy for me. I spent my day laying down, staring out the window, questioning my grief and questioning my feelings. I felt like I was some bad guy that is doing something wrong; when in reality, I am a sister; who couldn’t fix her baby sister, nor could I save her from her addiction. A sister who had to watch someone way too young take her last breath.

In a future blog I will go a little more in depth about each stage that we go through….stay tuned.