Sunday 18 January 2015

Mourning the Loss of an Ideal

Good evening, from sunny South Africa! Don't let the sweet sound of that greeting fool ya! We're roasting like peri-peri chickens over here.

Right now, I'm covering school books and ofcourse that automatically requires therapy....hahaahhahha, kidding, not me, I love it.

But I came across something on GoodTherapy.org just now that might be useful to you personally or you as a support system / parent / partner / friend. The just of it was this.......naturally, we all assume that mourning only takes place or needs to take place when there's been a loss of a loved one.

However?

'Cause there was a question posed about "is it harder to mourn an actual loss or a loss of an ideal" right, and because it was something that I was thinking about as well, which is how I came across it, it kinda helped me realize that, "Hey? You're actually quite normal, dear Rambler!"

The therapist found the question intriguing...while I found my eyes racing over word after word, excited to find some advice that I could actually use for myself and for whomever else I might run into one day.

We have a huge piece of a young generation being diagnosed with depression, the rich and famous who have it all committing suicide for the same reason, etc and I've said it myself and I've heard it being said too, "He has everything, what is there to be depressed about?" Or, "She has a chilled life, having fun with her friends, not much responsibility...."

Well? Do we ever consider that there are dreams and visions and aspirations that we carry from childhood into our adult lives that we never ever get to live out? Whether it be that career, that business idea, that relationship, that marriage, whatever! That moment of realization of, "Wow? That's really never gonna happen for me?" It's quite shattering. Young and old, I would assume that it affects us, similarly and my favourite run-back-to line about "everything happens for a reason" doesn't suddenly lift the disappointment one feels within that realization.

If this is you, I still say that there's a reason for everything and it doesn't hurt to keep that at the back of your mind but moreso it doesn't hurt either to allow yourself to grieve that loss, it's how you begin to come to terms with it and how you then eventually get over it and keep your feet moving on a road that will no doubt lead you to the reason that whatever that ideal was, was not meant for you, to begin with.

We have this bad habit of believing that everything that we really want, we should get. There's no harm in belief. But there is harm in that particular belief. I say that because if all of our focus and even hope is set solely on that ideal, never seeing it come to light equates to a huge loss. Is this why we hear people talk about a Plan B? Hmmmmmmmmm? Maybe.

With all of that said, I don't see this changing and honestly, I don't want it to. I will never advise anybody to stop hoping and believing in their dreams. Whether or not they are ever realized. We can't reach a place where we sit back and do nothing "just in case it's not meant for us." We might as well not even exist.

This blog entry is merely to tell you that if you or your loved one is confused about why there are suddenly feelings as bad as there are when just the other day you/them were feeling right as rain? If there is little understanding about how those bad feelings came about and where they stem from, then this is something for you to consider.

Loss is not limited to the tangible.

Here is the link to the blog on GoodTherapy.org
http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/mourning-loss-ideal/
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