"I Just Can't Handle It" -- the excuse to be an ass

VULGARITY WARNING

As a bereavement counselor specializing in Mothers who've lost a child, I am wildly passionate about my work. This rant regards bereaved Mothers, but applies to the general culture of ego-driven people, who are crippled, limited, and small.

Vulgarity warning

"...JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT" -- THE BANE OF BEREAVED MOTHERS

"Sorry, I just can’t handle it.” This phrase is one that many bereaved parents hear from “friends” who don’t respond to their experience adequately.

Someone close to me lost a child recently. She is already experiencing the isolation of parental bereavement, one of the loneliest journeys that a human is forced to make.

One of this Mother’s “friends” who knew the son well, just told her that he (the friend) could not handle the child’s death, and that he would have to “delete everything about the boy -- all his pictures, all the memories, all the experiences” ...because this friend "couldn’t handle it.” Can any of you imagine, for a second what this sounds like to a Mom who’s just lost her SON? (I could kill somebody right now.)

I confess that I am extremely passionate, very impatient, and unforgiving about this position. Some think that I am excessively hard. Could I be more loving? Perhaps. Could I try to understand others' difficulties? Yes.

However, we have become a society of whiners, and many of us (I have been guilty of this) have indulged ourselves and our complexes, hangups, traumas, depressions, sensitivities...at the cost of STEPPING up and doing the right thing, for ourselves,and for others. 

Can't handle it? Then you're a shallow person driven by your own ego, and unable to step outside it for a second to --again -- DO THE RIGHT THING.

"Can't handle it?" Then find out how to. Ask. That is, if you care at all. Grow.

But ohh nooooo! In our society, “I just can’t handle it" seems to be the absolutely acceptable excuse to simply disappear, to not show up, to not be present, to say insensitive things, and in general, to be a piece of shit.

"Can't handle it?" I call BULLSHIT. You WON'T handle it. You follow your selfish ego and do whatever feels good and comfy to you. SHALLOW. EMPTY. People like this...are part of this planet's huge problem.

Those who run from it are fooling themselves. In their (guaranteed) dark times, they perhaps will find themselves all alone, too, because of those who "can't handle it."

I do not like "handling it." It is heartbreaking. Nevertheless, I find life incomplete if I do not experience the darkness; if I do not open my world to the reality of pain in life. It is simply the way life on this planet IS. Life guarantees each one of us trauma. It guarantees difficulties and at times, unfair heart-shattering times. It is what life is; it is real.

And that is the stuff of life. If we run from it all, we are escaping REALITY. All because what...we want life to be "fun?" “Positive?"

Fu** off.

Life IS heartbreaking. Dive in. Be real. Enjoy every moment of light and hope. Enjoy every tiny flower and birdsong. Enjoy every minute of friendship, of sunlight, of warm tea in the morning. Because soon enough, you WILL be touched by darkness. And that, too, is real and normal. "Handling" darkness gives a gift of honoring all of life's teeming beauty, in perspective. 

I even detest that phrase “can’t handle it.” I reject it. It screams selfishness and shallow-nothing-person to me. It screams pussy-ego and self-centered uselessness.

I have heard it so many times, as if it were an acceptable excuse to disappear, to not be patient, to not be supportive, to not respond to family and friends in their darkest times. Bereaved Mothers get it from all over. The world does not like to "handle" such inconvenient tragedies.

Bereaved Mothers eat this crap as a staple menu. They lose friends; people simply disappear. After a time. others, who might have even been very accepting, start dropping off as they see that it is not a quick fix. They start becoming frustrated that the grieving parent is not back to her/ his old self. They are not happy about this new person, and even many times say things such as "I want you to get back to normal.” THERE IS NO SUCH THING. 

Some even assume the right to be irritated with the bereaved Mother, insisting she “snap out of it,” “quit wallowing,” and “get moving.” Many suggest that the bereaved Mother does not want to help herself. Telling themselves these invented excuses, they justify their selfishness, their profoundly shallow, crepe-thin “friendship.” It was always about them, one sadly discovers.

It is driven by EGO. They are dissatisfied because you are not what they demand you be.

FU** EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM.

Find those precious few who get it, and get that life is chock-full of dark, heavy places, and the more we understand and embrace (not celebrate...simply accept) it, the more our life rings of reality, of passion. of truth.

Many people die completely alone. Many people go through the very worst times of their lives alone...because others "can't handle it."

Bereaved Mothers get a free pass. They are in a place that we will never understand. It is a horror. They — in their stumbling, in their enduring sadness, in their scattered personality and tumbling heart, their inconsistency, their ups and downs, their apparent flakiness…they GET A FREE PASS.

There are occasional exceptions...some people who — due to specific traumas — truly can not handle such things, but in 99% of cases, it is not so. It is simple convenience and selfishness, with complete absence of getting outside the ego, or willingness to do so. UGH.

 MISSCARRIAGE: Here, I will continue with my pissed off rant. Moms who have become bereaved through miscarriage are deeply unacknowledged. They get the super shaft. We also have created a ton of catch phrases to get out of recognizing this profound pain. "Well you can try again." "Well, it wan't meant to be." "God takes those who weren't meant to be born...it's his will" "You really did not get to know this child..." "It could have been so much worse" "This child was not right, and that's why it happened."  People almost are snitty and arrogant in their not acknowledging this special type of bereaved Mother, and she is given very little attention around this. These paltry sentences say one thing: Your grief does not count. It is not as "griefy" as "real" griefs. Buck up. Snap out of it. ARRRRAGUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (infinite "h")

An Opinionated Lament about Women's Discomfort in Acknowledging their Gifts

I grow ever-weary of the limits, torment, endless self-deprecation, body-shaming, insecure pandering, oatmeal-mouthed, whiny women out there. Truly, we complain about "MEN" yet men do the many of the rotten things they do (save rape) because we have allowed them to do so.

I have found that when people -- particularly women -- are asked to name something they are good at, or something that they like/love about themselves, the immediate response is a wiggly, silly, "Uh but I'm not good at stuff," or "I don't know," or "I can't do anything!""God, I can't do that!" Or some other entirely self-negating answer, usually seasoned by a dumb expression on our faces...eye rolling, giggling...

Many feel fine coming right out and saying, "There's nothing." "I can't think of anything." One, this is not accurate, and two, it is a rotten thing to willingly say about yourself. How have we come to utter and think such deeply horrid things to ourselves and to *others!?* All of us have gifts. Can you imagine your children speaking this way about themselves? It would break your hearts. However, you provide them with models to follow every single time you utter shitty words about yourself.

I know...I was the daughter of a (beautiful, deeply, vastly intelligent and talented) Mother who had NO self-love and spoke in the most disrespectful way about herself. It has been a devastating thing, and to learn other ways has taken YEARS. Years to find my own sense of self without the immediate jump to cutting myself down, which was default. I will battle this the rest of my life, but I will NOT continue being a shitty role model for females and males, by willingly adopting this "I am nothing" stance that so many of us are encouraged to take on. I fight it every day, and every day, I feel my spine strengthen and my head raise.

What about DIGNITY? Dignity, a trait and position we would be benefitted by trying to always develop, is corroded and goes straight down the drain when we cut ourselves down. I refuse to live without dignity, and it has nothing to do with looks, money or social position. Some of the poorest people with whom I have been friends, or worked with, have possessed a stable, beautiful humble dignity that so many of us have lost. It has nothing to do with ego.

What about honest, non-ego-driven pride in the things we have developed and accomplished? It doesn't have to be loud horn-tooting -- that's ego, so many way-too-loud women out there screaming about how great they are, also UGH. I refer to the deeper realities, the truths about our beings, beyond the daily games played by attention seekers.

I detest our societally encouraged inclinations to become silly and insecure, like whiny doggies, when we it's suggested to us that we think about our talents, the things that are great about us...or anything else that celebrates the things that make us each the person who we are.

I decided some time back, that I needed to re-discover my dignity, and came to the conclusion that it was disrespectful to the higher powers / God (whatever be your thing) to negate and minimize the gifts we are given due to some absurd concept of self-aggrandizement. I find it ego-driven to feel embarrassed by recognizing our gifts, as though we, and our individual little personalities were solely responsible for our successes and positive experiences.

YES. we have a LOT to do with it. And our work and consciousness in cultivating our gifts is crucial; to be celebrated. However, we all have been born with given talents, given skills, given inclinations toward certain excellent attitudes and practices. Others have been fortunate to live exposed to circumstances that have also given them depth and knowledge. Those are not due to our being hot shit. They are gifts.

Why not honor these gifts by ACKNOWLEDGING them, without ego, without bragging. If we have these gifts, we are fortunate, and we are not necessarily being conceited or arrogant on naming and honoring them.

OK. So. Sermon over.

Question: where do you think your gifts came from? What are they (i.e. what do you love about yourself!?)?

Are there gifts you have that you feel you have not respected fully? What are those?

Memorial Services -- How They are the Coolest Sad Things.

This is the response to a friend who recently expressed that she did not want any type of service in her memory.

I had the same thought. In fact, as I do with everything about which I feel very passionately, I was vehement in my rejection of funeral homes and services. I felt that the services were rather morbid, obligatory dramas that did not at ALL truly respect or reflect the deceased.

My first experiences with such services started when I was 10 (1966), and my grandmother died. After that, my first love (1985) and my Uncle (1987). I hated the stranger's (funeral home's employees) words as they talked about MY person; about heaven, and as they offered "inspirational" readings. 

I hated the stayed, contained rows of polite mourners. I hated the fact that in-and-out, from "x" to "x" hour, we would "pay our respects" by listening to the "stuff," and then go back home. I hated the strange disconnection, the creepy aspect to it all. The odd absence of emotion, the odd protocol followed by us, silently sitting in the room, or softly weeping into a kleenex. Nobody talked at these services. Nobody coaxed out the true memories, the joys the funny things, the stories, the love, the PERSON. It was a walk through an odd hell, in my opinion, and I swore that I would NEVER want a "service."

I found that my own story, one of developing my own beliefs around memorial services, was one I wanted to tell.So, here is my take, and my changed viewpoint regarding memorial services:

I always absolutely refused the idea of a "memorial service," they grossed me out in their dark, *paid-for* vibe...How strange that life places one in the positions we don't necessarily expect...had anyone told me that I would end up being an "end-of-life specialist and grief counselor, I wouldn't have believed it.

With this world that I have come to know so well, I see that a service is something that assuages the shock and isolation of grief over somebody we've lost. In other words, the shock, the unwelcome wound, the slamming removal of someone we love, from our sight and days, is so overwhelming that the possibility of joining with others to feel accompanied in that love, that loss...is invaluable. It is the same motivation that brings people to the streets with flowers and candles after a bombing, for example. That need for union with others who also feel the pain…

Dark, moribund tone does not have to mark these gatherings. In those that I have reaped great love and warmth from, there is a lot of story telling and laughter…oral tradition that is so beautiful, which as a society, we have lost. People also learn a lot about the person they've lost...things they didn't know...extra "pieces" of their loved one that are so yearned-for...("I didn't know that story!") How great to leave with yet more of that person...Openings for sentimentality that we do not allow into our daily routines are so valuable, also (especially men, for their myriad societal inculcations).

(I wrote to my friend--) You are so lovely, I have no doubt whatsoever that your leave-taking would (will) occasion deep pain in many — many who would also feel compelled to and comforted by a gathering of hurting souls. I categorically reject association with funeral homes (though some mortuary owners can be wonderful, and some grieving families can not handle doing it themselves)...this is of the heart, not the wallet.

I do, however, now, understand the comfort that a get together gives…it is not a lugubrious, morbid “wahhhhhhh” ~ it is more of a circle of honor…their love for you, and the honor of carrying that privilege of friendship/ family/ acquaintance. It is affirming in ways beyond the person who’s left. It is also a precious reminder of the circle…it is good for all to be close to this consciousness…the fragility of life and the significance of n-o-w. All in all, I can not say enough about the realization of some type of gathering in honor of a loved one.

The way things go is a personal decision, obviously. I wanted to share my story… from a dyed-in-the-wool service rejector, to someone who finds them to be a beautiful window to LIFE, as there are few things that make us prickle with the idea of life, and its beauty and delicate nature, as does death. In those tender circles, I have found great inspiration, and love deeper than I se otherwise. These services are a gift. Thanks for reminding me of this position…I understand it, and do know several friends who vehemently want NOTHING.

I hope that this is a little window into something that we tend not to like to think about. At the same time, it can be the source of love, comfort, and awakening, such that we do not experience in our everyday lives.

May all have a lovely day, Joana