Repelling Down the Mountain of Grief, Loss, and Trauma

“I feel like you are repelling down the mountain you have been climbing for some time now. You have been at the top teetering and now you are coming down.” - Hannah (my girlfriend)

I may have gotten a few words wrong in this quote because i'm not the best at remembering details - especially when it is about my healing journey AND just coming off of a day of therapy - but the gist of it is there 😌. Post therapy call with Hannah - debriefing her on the session and starting to process it all.

As she stated this analogy I couldn’t help but visualize my continued healing journey in this way. My therapist and I talked quite a bit about the ways I am starting to be able to acutely feel my ability to balance one foot in the past (the memories of the sick Matt - Wilson’s disease symptoms affecting his logical thinking, processing, and behavior) AND one foot in the present (all the things surrounding me today). In other words - intentionally living this life with less fear of losing myself to the darkness I succumbed to 6 years ago. Because I can trust that I can do the hard fucking work and will come back to myself - present day me.

This is huge for me. The post trauma Shira I used to know was stuck. Stuck in the past trauma when a trigger would rear its ugly head.

I didn’t know how to get unstuck. Years of therapy and a lot of fucking hard work, the Shira today is aware. Acutely aware of my ability to no longer stay stuck. Each day I notice my fear lessening. The fear of a trigger taking me so far back in the past I wouldn’t be able to come back from.

You know what this means? I can finally say out loud that I am ready to do work I’ve been dreading for years. Work ive known for awhile that needs to be done for me to be able to truly heal from my past trauma. Allowing me to fully grieve the loss of the Matt I know and love. The Matt I met when I was 22 and married at the age of 25. To fully love him and remember him in the way I can in the world I live in now and the way he deserves.

My brain has been protecting me of feeling this insurmountable pain that comes with losing him the way we did. It’s taken me 6 plus years to grieve the sick Matt who I didn’t recognize. It might take me even more years to grieve this next part. But it will be worth it. It will bring me the peace and love I know my soul has been searching for. 💙

I’m grateful I didn’t have to jump off the top of the mountain and hope I land in one piece. Repelling down the mountain definitely seems less risky, less terrifying, and more likely to land as my whole self.