"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")