Anniversaries

[avant-garde]

My dad's birthday was yesterday and every year it's hard because of what happened on that day... it was also a tough memory anniversary of another child that was deemed useless...

How do you cope with days like these?

Because I have a lot of them...

[Glisten]

Hi 👋🏼 @avant-garde I use to celebrate my parents birthdays by having a girls weekend away.

Unfortunately that’s how I met my ex and now my life is more about paying my lawyer and surviving.

@Jynx will have a really good therapeutic ideas of how to deal with your grief anniversary.

[MJG017]

Hi @avant-garde.  Yesterday must have been a very tough day for you, strong reminders of such painful memories are really hard to deal with.

I have some days of the year that bring up some bad memories for me, and these days I try not to fight them... it's just a losing battle.  So rather I try to remember that it's not so much about trying to cope with them easily, but just using that day to allow myself to feel what I need to feel.  Whether that is anger, pain, sadness etc. 

Maybe for you, it would be helpful to remind yourself that you are now in the present, not the past and use these days to remind yourself that you've survived and that they no longer define what you are.  And to think of the incredible resilience, strength, and courage that has gotten you so far from where you were back then.  Sort of trying to turn those memories into a strength I guess by focusing on where you are now and how much you've done to get here.

I can't even imagine how painful those memories must be for you but I can understand how these days like yesterday can feel so overwhelming, especially when it's more than just one or two days each year.  Has there anything you've found that has helped a little in the past?  Does writing about it here help for example?  The answer may not be one big thing to learn how to cope better, but rather a collection of small things that you can build over time.

[avant-garde]

@MJG017 

The people in my physical life... they don't understand days like it... I don't have a great deal of survivors in my physical life that kind of just get it... so often I feel so so alone on these days that no one could understand the pain I feel... from what my dad did to me on those days... to the sweet child that I grieve for that I first remembered on that day... nobody quite knows how to treat me on those days... that they're so scared they'll hurt me in their attempts to help so they don't take the chance...

Writing has always been my release and so writing here... even just one of those love heart things... it helps me feel less alone...

I normally plan a bunch of self care things... like ordering in... listening to music... doing something creative... yesterday though it was racing from one thing to the next to the next to the next and so didn't have any time to feel or to breathe...

And after Sunday I just... I couldn't...

[Glisten]

@avant-garde I totes agree with @MJG017 you got to acknowledge and feel those feels.

If I didn’t have a big axe 🪓 and a massive invasive tree to cut down, I’d be on way 🙌🏼 much more medication.

[avant-garde]

@Glisten 

I appreciate the sentiment, and I know how important releasing emotion is, but I also know that I need to feel in my time, in my way, one that isn't overwhelming for me that makes me worse.

[Glisten]

@avant-garde true that. It’s your life, your evolution and only you can do it in a way that you want.

We are all here to learn. Learning is life long. 
I didn’t know what a boundary was or how to use them until a year ago.

I didn’t have a basis for choosing friends or partners.

The amount of important information and skills my parents didn’t teach me - HUGE 🙌🏼