"we will defeat death"
This post is about grieving and dead bodies. it might be triggering.
During this time of year, especially if it is stressful, I will dream of corpses. Sometimes the dreams are so intense, that I wake up thinking I am sleeping beside a corpse. Or that the Norwegian Penpal has died. So I sometimes watch terrified waiting for him to move or see him breath. It can be a trick because he is a pretty white guy, and in the dark, very corpse-like. It's hard to describe the feeling when you are lying there, half dreaming, thinking your in bed with a corpse and all these things run through your brain - steps of what i would need to do if he was a corpse. Get my roommate? No, maybe call 9-11 right away. Then get my roommate.
It's a pretty nauseating way to wake up.
I normally pushed these experiences outside of my mind, and most of the time feel pretty embarrassed by it. But this year, after experiencing a lot of trauma in my relationship, i am proactively trying to understand these dreams. And get to the point when I can think of the memories of dead bodies so that it won't cause that much pain.
So these past few weeks, I have been working with a psychologist that is working with me on this. Apparently i have post-traumatic stress from finding the body of my lover 12 years ago. even though so many parts of my life have moved on and the episodes are few and far between, the dreams and waking up terrified are not good signs. So she is trying this thing called EMDR where I recount the memories of finding his dead body and focusing on the initial image or moment that scares me the most. While I am recounting the memory she makes me follow a light from side to side. It is the most emotionally exhausted thing I think I have ever done.
I have to go back this Tuesday to continue and I have mixed feelings about what I am doing. I am not sure I want to stop feeling some pain when I think about that day. I feel like I have moved on, and this sometimes makes me feel guilty. And I also don't ever think we should become desensitized to these kinds of memories. Nor is it possible. But I admit that the dreams of corpses and the feeling that it could happen again terrifies me. The other day, I stopped to help someone on Highway 400, and I almost had this fight/flight moment thinking that the driver might have died. And my brain was screaming, "You cannot deal with another dead body."
Here is the thing with trauma - I would prefer to have amazing, beautiful memories of someone I loved. And I have to force myself to remember those memories because sometimes the images of corpses take over. And those memories make me feel really small and make me feel really guilty. Like, because I found him, i was being punished by him. or punished by someone.
When you are alone with the dead body of your lover, there are weird things that rush through your mind. like - why are his hands so blue? almost black? would he want to be more presentable when the ambulance comes? should i cover him with a blanket? why am I still talking to him as if he's going to wake up suddenly?
After that whole experience, i began to research obsessively about death and stages of death. i would print pictures or photocopy textbooks of various stages of death and paste them in my journal. always trying to find out - how does this happen to people you care about? where does it all go? I would spend weeks trying to figure out if he was in Rigor Mortis or Livor Mortis when I found him. Or maybe right at the start of putrefaction. i would scan my memories and try to remember the colour of his face, his torso, but what i remember clearly was holding his blue hand and remember being surprised with how cold he felt.
I get that the dreams of corpses are all products of a broken heart. it's in that same genre of dreams where I bump into him at a coffee shop and am surprised to see him, but we hang out and catch up. I get that the trauma is like dust settling in my bones that will re-trigger itself a few times a year, maybe even once a year. and that when it does, even if i'm screaming in my pillow from fear, it's not real. And that while i'm terrified of going through that with people close to me and hope that maybe i can die before anyone else so I am not left alone to deal with dead bodies and more trauma, i am ready to let go of this fear that is so intrinsic to living and loving. I am pretty much done. I will be sad thinking about him. i miss him. i miss my friend. and i don't think he would want me to remember corpses and bloated hands. so i'm going to sit in an office, watch a light move back and forth and tell the story over and over again until i'm closer to defeating trauma.
During this time of year, especially if it is stressful, I will dream of corpses. Sometimes the dreams are so intense, that I wake up thinking I am sleeping beside a corpse. Or that the Norwegian Penpal has died. So I sometimes watch terrified waiting for him to move or see him breath. It can be a trick because he is a pretty white guy, and in the dark, very corpse-like. It's hard to describe the feeling when you are lying there, half dreaming, thinking your in bed with a corpse and all these things run through your brain - steps of what i would need to do if he was a corpse. Get my roommate? No, maybe call 9-11 right away. Then get my roommate.
It's a pretty nauseating way to wake up.
I normally pushed these experiences outside of my mind, and most of the time feel pretty embarrassed by it. But this year, after experiencing a lot of trauma in my relationship, i am proactively trying to understand these dreams. And get to the point when I can think of the memories of dead bodies so that it won't cause that much pain.
So these past few weeks, I have been working with a psychologist that is working with me on this. Apparently i have post-traumatic stress from finding the body of my lover 12 years ago. even though so many parts of my life have moved on and the episodes are few and far between, the dreams and waking up terrified are not good signs. So she is trying this thing called EMDR where I recount the memories of finding his dead body and focusing on the initial image or moment that scares me the most. While I am recounting the memory she makes me follow a light from side to side. It is the most emotionally exhausted thing I think I have ever done.
I have to go back this Tuesday to continue and I have mixed feelings about what I am doing. I am not sure I want to stop feeling some pain when I think about that day. I feel like I have moved on, and this sometimes makes me feel guilty. And I also don't ever think we should become desensitized to these kinds of memories. Nor is it possible. But I admit that the dreams of corpses and the feeling that it could happen again terrifies me. The other day, I stopped to help someone on Highway 400, and I almost had this fight/flight moment thinking that the driver might have died. And my brain was screaming, "You cannot deal with another dead body."
Here is the thing with trauma - I would prefer to have amazing, beautiful memories of someone I loved. And I have to force myself to remember those memories because sometimes the images of corpses take over. And those memories make me feel really small and make me feel really guilty. Like, because I found him, i was being punished by him. or punished by someone.
When you are alone with the dead body of your lover, there are weird things that rush through your mind. like - why are his hands so blue? almost black? would he want to be more presentable when the ambulance comes? should i cover him with a blanket? why am I still talking to him as if he's going to wake up suddenly?
After that whole experience, i began to research obsessively about death and stages of death. i would print pictures or photocopy textbooks of various stages of death and paste them in my journal. always trying to find out - how does this happen to people you care about? where does it all go? I would spend weeks trying to figure out if he was in Rigor Mortis or Livor Mortis when I found him. Or maybe right at the start of putrefaction. i would scan my memories and try to remember the colour of his face, his torso, but what i remember clearly was holding his blue hand and remember being surprised with how cold he felt.
I get that the dreams of corpses are all products of a broken heart. it's in that same genre of dreams where I bump into him at a coffee shop and am surprised to see him, but we hang out and catch up. I get that the trauma is like dust settling in my bones that will re-trigger itself a few times a year, maybe even once a year. and that when it does, even if i'm screaming in my pillow from fear, it's not real. And that while i'm terrified of going through that with people close to me and hope that maybe i can die before anyone else so I am not left alone to deal with dead bodies and more trauma, i am ready to let go of this fear that is so intrinsic to living and loving. I am pretty much done. I will be sad thinking about him. i miss him. i miss my friend. and i don't think he would want me to remember corpses and bloated hands. so i'm going to sit in an office, watch a light move back and forth and tell the story over and over again until i'm closer to defeating trauma.