Ask Dr. Ding

Oh Dr. Ding:

I have lost two family members within the last 5 years. One I was close to, she was my older brother’s ex-wife, and I’m taking her death pretty hard because she was like an older sister to me when I was younger. The other was an uncle I didn’t know well at all, but his death is ripping my family apart because no one knew he was sick with cancer or had even heard from him in like 6 months. Every time I talk to my parents they’re just in shock and beating themselves up because no one got a chance to say goodbye. I almost feel like watching their pain is worse than mine about my ex-SIL.

I was “downsized” at work three weeks ago, which is a mixed situation because the pace was crazed. I can’t say I miss the job itself, but it was decent as jobs go. At least I have some freelancing work lined out, but no benefits/401K, so I’m stressing about when my Cobra runs out. On top of all this, I just found out that a guy I dated for a few months about a year ago just got married to someone who looks just like me. I know it’s stupid, but this last one is what’s keeping me awake at night. When I’m not crying about my ex-SIL, I’m obsessing about my ex. I should be looking for a new fulltime gig but I feel like curling up in a ball and crying. Anything instead of this awful feeling. I’ve been eating a lot more starchy foods too, but I think that’s not my biggest problem right now.

I feel lucky that I have good friends. They have been supportive of me through these last few weeks, which have been hard. I don’t know what to do next. How do I get the grieving over with? I read your posts on grieving and I know it’s what I need to do, but aaagh. I’m so tired. Exhausted. Are there shortcuts? (I think I know your answer)

My friends all say I need to give myself time to bounce back from my losses and that the fact that my ex married my lookalike is mere coincidence. I don’t know. I think that it’s more like synchronicity, but I’m not familiar with that concept except that it says coincidences have meaning to them.

I feel I’m on the verge of something. A breakdown? (Joke!) A major career change? It’s just a feeling I have. I’m afraid to make decisions right now.

Ideas?

Lost in Atlantis

Dear Lost:

Christ on a cracker, woman! You’ve got a lot going on. Let’s make a list, and proceed accordingly.

1. You’re actively mourning the loss of your ex-SIL.
2. You’re having to contend with your parents’ mourning, which in effect is vicarious grief.
3. You just lost your job.
4. You just lost your benefits.
5. You just realized your ex has moved on, which is another loss.
6. You’re exhausted.
7. You have this nagging feeling that there is some kind of meaning to your experiences that you’re not seeing.

Dang. No wonder you’re asking Dr. Ding if there are any shortcuts to grieving! No wonder you feel like lying on the sofa, watching daytime TV, obssessing about your ex, and eating Spaghtetti-Os straight out of the can. Grief does strange things to the physical body, and exhaustion is a common experience for people like yourself who are experiencing multiple stressors in rapid succession.

Your friends are pretty wise. Of course your life just hurts right now, and if you were hurting over just one or two things, you’d probably be “bouncing back” and not writing me. But see #s 1 through 7 above. You deserve to honor your own feelings for a moment, before you rush out and get another rat race-type job.

Take stock. Can your full-bore job search wait for a few weeks? Days? A month? I’m assuming you’re still afloat financially and don’t have kids to take care of, or serious health problems to consider. Give yourself a time limit, but be sure you give yourself time. If you allow yourself to be emotionally honest in the here-and-now, you will save yourself a lot of time and agony later on when the same old issues resurface. Put more poetically, embrace your demons so they don’t bite you in the ass. Because they always will.

Your grief is your grief, your parents’ grief is their grief. As hard as it is, try not to get too wrapped up in their feelings right now. Offer support, make sympathetic noises, but if you find yourself getting really wrapped up in their pain to the point where you’re not sure if it’s theirs or yours, ease back. Don’t pick up the phone or agree to visits quite so readily. They’re hurting too, but you don’t have to do their hurting for them or try to take care of their feelings.

Did you have a chance to attend your ex-SIL’s funeral or memorial? Have you visited her grave site or left flowers? Made a donation in her honor to a worthy cause? Lit a candle or said a prayer for her? It may sound cheesy, but these rituals evolved for a reason; they connect us to something greater than ourselves, and ultimately remind us that love is what is eternal. Love is stronger than death, but this is notoriously tough to remember. Death rituals help us make sense of the losses that feel overwhelming and engulfing, and they allow us to move through difficult emotions more fluidly by providing literal markers along the way. If you haven’t already, try commemorating your ex-SIL’s life in a way you feel would honor her.

Although your job loss is a problem in some ways, you’re very wise to recognize that it’s also a possible blessing in disguise. In every crisis lies an opportunity for change and betterment.

God, I sound like a fortune cookie. But believe.

Ignoring my predilection for Chinese food for the moment, it sounds like your last job, and possibly the ones preceding it, was a clusterfuck. It’s a technical term. Trust. Unless you’re working in a literal life-and-death environment or, say, launching a rocket into space, there’s no reason to be exhausted by one’s job. Of course, even in the most satisfying of jobs there are going to be days that suck air at 400psi and leave you feeling like a wet sock, but if you’re drained and exhausted more days than not, for more than a couple of months running….something’s gotta give. I suspect you could use a change of venue, or perhaps you need to change your approach to work altogether.

Sometimes people don’t pay attention to those nagging thoughts like “Hmmmm….why are all the plants dead in this office? Why isn’t anyone shaking my hand? Is that guy in the tight pants for real? Did that HR lady just roll their eyes at my application?” When you do venture out on interviews, make sure you pay attention. Get some books, do a little research on the process of career change. If money’s tight, go to the liberry. Sometimes the job itself isn’t quite as important as the ease with which you can communicate with and relate to your work peeps. After all, you’re going to be spending 40 hours a week with these folks, so it’s important you’re not filing widgets with a bunch of folks you deem psychic vampires and malcontents.

The boyfriend thing; this one’s the dealbreaker, right? Just when you thought you’d gotten over the demise of that relationship, fucking whammo Batman, he turns around and marries your body double. Your instincts are good – that’s really unoriginal of him. But not unheard of. And it most likely has something to do with you and your Doppelganger resembling his mother than it does you having some sort of unredeemable personality flaw that renders you unfit for pair-bonding, which Dr. Ding suspects is your concern here.

Lie around on your couch. Watch crappy re-runs and ESPN kickboxing semifinals. Eat a couple pizzas, get it out of your system. But also make sure you start getting some fresh air and sunshine, a little exercise, and keep up with your friends. Gradually start adding some routine back into your life, which has been thrown into chaos by your losses. But don’t be in a hurry.

The Irish have a saying: those who take time to mourn, take time to heal. There can be no healing, in other words, without the grief. It’s a necessary thing, and not to be feared. If you embrace it, you can dance with it, but if you run away it will chase and eventually catch up with you. Let the feelings come, don’t resist. Breathe through them; oftentimes feelings of grief, if not expressed, seem to cause breath-holding, feelings of chest constriction, and in some cases, can even interfere with healthy lung function.

Last, you mentioned synchronicity. No easy answers there either, sista! I’m fresh out. The kicker with the whole acausal connecting principle thing is that the meaning of the synchronistic experience has to be determined by the individual. In other words, I don’t know why you’re having this nagging feeling that a sea change is brewing in your life, or what it portends for your future. But you do. Do you have a philosophy of life, a kind of spiritual belief system perhaps? If you do, use it. If you don’t, you might consider getting one.

I sometimes joke that at least 50% of my job duties take the form of permission-slip writing. It’s hard to give oneself permission to take a risk or make a change, but it’s a helluva lot easier than waiting around for someone else to tell us that we’re headed in the right direction. And fuckall quicker. You certainly don’t need my permission to take up aquaerobics instructor training or to apply to business school. But I’ll give it to you anyway.

So, Lost, you’re not as directionally-impaired as your name would imply. You need to slow down, let those feelings come through, no matter how icky and sad, and take care of yourself first. This means taking some time to give your life and your goals therein some serious thought. Nothing provokes clarity regarding one’s purpose in life quite like the loss of a loved one. Being gobsmacked by mortality is a sobering but potentially empowering experience. Dr. Ding is glad you’re looking at your situation not just as a series of negatives, that you’re insightful and introspective enough to ask some tough questions.

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