Griefwork is hard work

7 March 2008
After having what I suppose was my first “psychiatry” visit, I have a few thoughts on what the talking cure is all about.
I think we are very much alone in this world, with our thoughts, with the darkness inside our heads. In the aloneness of my car with just my thoughts, I understood on my drive home today the deep emotional need that religious people have for a deity, for someone else to talk to when they are alone. I could imagine my relief today if I had thought there was someone to hear me while I drove. We have moved so far away from community in our warfare, in our lives, that our deep needs for community are simply unmet. How much more bereft are we then when we are grieving. Grief needs not just an outlet, but a human outlet, an ear to hear as well as a mouth to speak. I felt earlier this week when I asked to be heard a deep yearning to speak, and not just to speak, but for someone to hear my tears when I tell my story. I wish there were a way to share my tears with others that are also crying, to be a member of a community in grief, but I am alone with that desire at this time and this place. The opportunity to grieve for my soldiers together with my fellow soldiers was blocked by mental barriers of rank and roles, our physical separation, and our misunderstanding of ourselves as strong and tears as weak. I told myself then that there wasn’t time for anything other than the job, but now I wonder if that was true. Maybe there wasn’t the energy; grieving is work, and just an hour of it today has left me fatigued.