Learning to let go of toxic grief
Content warning: violence, violence against women, and suicidal thoughts
The effects of a traumatic incident can long outlast the incident itself. Flashbacks and emotional trauma can reverberate through a victim like the aftershocks of an earthquake. My natural disaster came in the form of an assault by my ex-boyfriend. He shook my head with a fistful of my hair that he held and pummeled my face into the ground. This beating caused a power outage in my mind.
The attack from my ex-boyfriend didn’t feel traumatic initially. It felt like a fight. A disagreement. A relationship gone awry. We had broken up less than two weeks before he assaulted me. In a way, I had still considered him my best friend. My partner. My person. I held on to this positive perception of him to distance myself from the monster that attacked me. I used this contrived version of him to reconcile the way I understood his abuse. It allowed me to keep loving him while I suffered from the physical symptoms of the concussion I sustained.
But I could not logically operate in this cognitive dissonance. The pain from my migraines came in waves and the sound of his voice reverberated with terror. Everything was emptied from my mind except visions of the way he had grabbed me and the pain that shot through my neck—these were my aftershocks.
Afterwards, I felt afraid to go outside because I thought that he might attack me a second time. When I went outside, innocuous motions like the sound of leaves crunching beneath someone’s feet or the wind through the branches of trees became threatening because they represented a danger that I couldn’t see—a danger that I assumed was him. In every crack and crevice loomed flashbacks or judgments or thoughts of potential danger. I avoided the location of the attack altogether because it triggered anxiety. I re-experienced the whole incident in this way for months and re-imagined myself as the victim whom he overpowered.
My flashbacks and paranoia were both symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which I was diagnosed with two months after the incident. The Canadian Mental Health Association defines PTSD as a mental illness that can occur after exposure to trauma. A traumatic event is one that is “very frightening, overwhelming and causes a lot of distress. Trauma is often unexpected, and many people say that they felt powerless to stop or change the event.” According to this definition, I was the picture of traumatized.
Not only did I suffer through the traumatic event, but the symptoms of PTSD also. Psychiatry.org noted that the symptoms of PTSD are inclusive of “intense, disturbing thoughts and feelings related to their experience that last long after the traumatic event has ended.” Struck with agoraphobia, I stayed enshrouded in my bedroom for two months after the assault. Flashbacks of the physical pain I felt still haunt me during triggering circumstances. Psychiatry.org expanded on the behaviour of people diagnosed with PTSD, that they “may relive the event through flashbacks or nightmares; they may feel sadness, fear or anger; and they may feel detached or estranged from other people.”
In addition to feeling fear and sadness, guilt also clouded my mind as I experienced the symptoms of PTSD. I felt guilty toward my past romantic relationship because I abhorred a man that I once loved. I felt embarrassed because I trusted and gave my body to someone who ended up assaulting me. I could not have fathomed that he would do such a thing. I longed for what we once had but also resented my desire for it. My ex-boyfriend monopolized my thoughts.
Anger, resentment, fear, and sadness permeated in my mind. These emotions festered like an unhealed wound and further poisoned my thoughts. They consumed me and occupied my mind. Still, I buried them deep within myself until darkness coursed through my whole being. The space within my body became toxic to my existence. Clinical psychologist, John Welwood, elaborated on the weighty texture of the space within us in “On Psychological Space”: “When we are sad, space is heavy and oppressive, seeming to press down upon us—it is hard to get moving, the body feels denser, the pull of gravity seems stronger, and space is thicker around us.” The space within my mind felt heavy and oppressive because it constantly reflected my sorrow.
My emotions were shallow, but icebergs of grief stood below the surface. This contributed to the density within my body. I housed so much negativity that I did not have space for rational thoughts or positivity. Having PTSD decreased my autonomy in my own thoughts. I often suppressed all thoughts of my ex-boyfriend because I feared the intrusive flashbacks of his assault.
I contemplated suicide to silence my mind. But I knew that I did not want to die, I just wanted to be at peace. Sleep was an alternative to death, but my anxiety would not allow me the luxury of its comfort. So I closed my eyes and cried instead. I realized that I cried out of regret and sadness; it was a part of my grieving process of letting go of my relationship. It allowed me to release my feelings tangibly and created empty space in my mind. I mourned the person that I thought my ex-boyfriend was and the future we had planned.
As I released my attachments to my ex-boyfriend, I was also left with feelings of emptiness. Who am I, if not the woman who is loved by him? Who am I, if not an assault victim? This lack of identity became the crux of my healing. I did not know what to do with this emptiness that I could not fill. I was not used to the uncomfortable quiet of shifting emotions.
Welwood describes the emptiness as open space: “From a Buddhist perspective, our basic nature is of the essence of open space, which allows for the seemingly inevitable confusion that human beings fall into when they try to avoid or solidify this space, out of fear or ignorance; and the possibility of freedom and liberation.”
Open space both terrified and excited me. I searched outward for answers on defining my identity in my closest friends. I always felt more freedom after I talked about my grief, but I also felt like I burdened my friends. Talking unloaded painful emotions onto my friends, who carried them willingly. They listened, reflected, and sat with me in my misery.
As I healed, I refocused my process inward and began to meditate. While meditating I allowed my mind free range to experience the depth of my anger. I visualized seething red light as anger consumed me, even if only for an hour. Over and over I pictured every manner I could fathom to inflict pain on my ex-boyfriend until this became a mundane, vengeful act. I held on to my anger to justify my loss. But holding onto anger for the person I thought he became did not benefit me any more than holding onto the relationship I thought we once shared.
Slowly, I unpacked my emotions and untangled them like extension cords stashed in a long-forgotten drawer. I sifted and sorted through them, discarding whatever no longer empowered me. And I found something close to a quiet freedom.
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