'I'm Overwhelmed With Grief!'
Sometimes all you want to do is scream 'fuck you' at everyone.
Notes for an Apocalypse (1978) by Dorothea Tanning
Hi Polly,
I'll try to ask this but succinctly, but in the last year I had three miscarriages and I lost my dad. I am overwhelmed with grief and I don't know how to untangle this messy, ugly, and wet-from-tears season of my life. How do I keep going through the everyday motions when all I want to do is scream “Fuck you!” at everyone at the top of my lungs?
Thanks for your advice.
Drowning In Tears
Dear Drowning In Tears,
I’m sorry about your first miscarriage. I’m sorry about the second one. I’m extra sorry about the third one. It’s just unfair and it’s awful.
And I’m so sorry about your dad.
I want to sit down next to you and hold your hand and say:
It’s not fair. I’m so sorry.
I’d like to just sit for a long time in silence together. If I sat next to you and we didn’t talk at all, it would be awkward for a while. Eventually, though, I would start to feel how heavy your life has been for the past year, just by sitting there. I’d feel the weight of it all in my bones. The light would grow a little dimmer and my eyes would feel tired. It would feel scary and bad to show up for you like that, honestly, because your pain is so deep and so completely out of my control. But it would also feel good to be there, feeling your sadness.
And I think after a while, you’d start to feel how sorry I am.
Then you might decide to tell me what it’s been like, to try to face each day when you’re as devastated as you are. Maybe you’d tell me about the empty feeling in your heart, the headaches, the weakness in your limbs, the mornings when you can’t get out of bed at all, when you don’t want to shower or eat or talk to anyone.
You might tell me, “But life just keeps going, and no one really understands, no one slows down, no one listens, everyone expects me to bounce back, everyone thinks I’m being too dramatic, everyone wants me to shut up about it.”
And I might say, “That’s how people are these days.”
Because it is how so many fucking people are right now. So many fucking people don’t stop and think, ever. They’re terrified of stopping and terrified of thinking. They make choices that seem wise to them, but their choices are mostly just ways of avoiding things that sound scary or dark or difficult. They make choices designed to protect them at the expense of everyone else.
And when someone says to them, “Something terrible has happened to me!” they don’t say, “Jesus, I am so sorry, how can I be a comfort to you?” They say nothing, and what they think is, “What did you do wrong? How can I avoid that outcome myself? How do I get out of this conversation?”
So many people are only focused on their own immediate concerns, issues that directly affect them, and everything and everyone else is irrelevant to them. They aren’t principled enough to put their own needs aside for someone else. They stubbornly refuse to make sacrifices for others, in fact. They have elaborate rationalizations for never, ever feeling compassion for those with less than them. They don’t even understand their own values and principles, because that would require STOPPING and THINKING. That would require knowing how they actually feel, and they don’t want to FEEL. They want to hide behind bluster and oversimplified solutions and outright lies they were told, because they’re afraid of everything.
They say they have beliefs but their core beliefs are all handed to them by other fearful, ignorant, deeply merciless people. They say they have love in their hearts but when it comes time to show their love, they refuse, and when it comes time to spread their love, they spread hatred and fear instead. They say they have compassion but when they’re asked to slow down and give someone their time, they get locked up and scared and they cast blame instead.
But not everyone is like that. A lot people out there are brave. They have big, generous hearts. And when you sit with someone who is brave, who has a big heart, who wants to hear everything, that changes your own heart and makes it bigger. And when someone dares to tell you everything, that changes your heart and makes it bigger, too. With every letter I get from a stranger, my heart grows a little.
And a few of the strangers you think are unfeeling, fearful assholes are actually soft, scared people with big, soft hearts, too. It’s uncomfortable to notice this sometimes, but it’s true.
No one is all good or all bad. Sometimes I’m too tired and I don’t want to read any of my letters. I don’t want to slow down or stop or think. I want to cast blame instead. I want to sum up another person’s bad choices. I want to pretend that by making all the right choices, I can avoid bad outcomes. I want to believe that I know everything and everyone else is confused.
But that’s not true. I don’t know much at all. Bad outcomes can’t be avoided. Life brings us all darkness that can’t be outrun.
The only thing we can do is sit down together in silence, until we trust each other, until we feel like explaining everything, until we let down our burden and let someone else carry it for a minute or two. The only thing you can do, after the year you’ve had, is try to believe that this ugly, messy, drowning feeling will pass. It will pass because you tried to believe it would pass. It will pass because you got out of bed and felt like shit but you took a shower anyway.
It will pass because you sent me a letter. You did that. You tried to connect with a stranger.
Connection is all we have some days. But when you’ve had the worst possible year, connection can feel frightening. It can feel like surrendering to darkness. Letting someone in feels ALL WRONG. All you want to say is “FUCK YOU!”
A friend of mine died a few weeks ago. We weren’t that close but I cared about him a lot. In his last weeks alive, he didn’t want to talk about love or healing or fond goodbyes. He just wanted to say fuck you to everything and everyone. I told him I understood because I felt the same way briefly: I spent one single week thinking I might die of cancer. During that one week, all I wanted was to tell every single person alive to go fuck themselves. They got to live and I was going to die. I didn’t want their empathy. I didn’t want their love.
I refused to connect. My friend was refusing connection, too. People offered him loving words and mostly what he said was “No thanks. I hate that shit.” He didn’t even want to make jokes, which was completely out of character for him. Every word he heard from others seemed to cause him pain. He wanted everyone to shut up and leave him alone.
It was hard for everyone around him, and insanely hard for him, too. It was so sad. But that’s where he was. When things get incredibly dark, it is very hard to stop and reflect and feel and connect. What’s the fucking point?
The last time I saw him, he said he felt abandoned. He didn’t see that he was pushing everyone away. He said no one wanted to touch him. They were keeping him at arm’s length. I didn’t know what to say. I had no words for him. So finally I just put my hand on his bare elbow and I left it there.
It was awkward.
We tolerated the awkwardness together.
“You’re in hell,” I said.
“I am in hell,” he said.
“It’s awful, but… it’s also interesting. I wish I could hear all about it. I know you don’t have the energy to tell me about it, but I wish you could because this moment matters. It’s a piece of your story, as terrible as it is.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me and said, “Yeah. It is interesting.”
“It’s very interesting,” I said, grasping around for some way to express what I meant. “You’re a complex planet. You have so many different ecosystems, so many ideas, so many moods inside you. That’s what I’ve always enjoyed about you. You see things other people don’t see.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.”
“And this is terrible, but this is your story and it’s interesting.”
“It is.”
I’m sure he still wanted me to go fuck myself at some level. He was dying and I was just a friend he’s known for two years, clumsily trying to connect with him. I was just trying and mostly failing. But for about a minute, he did look at me and I could see that he felt understood and appreciated and maybe even loved.
No connection is perfect. No person is pure. No life is smooth and easy. And look, I realize that nothing I can write or say can help that much. I understand that my words are inadequate. Trust me that I recognize this.
You think things can’t get harder and then they do. You think you can’t feel more hopeless and then things get even worse.
Connection feels like nothing when you’re devastated. Who cares? I am completely lost, completely broken, you think. I can’t do this. Stop acting like it’s simple. Stop pretending love can pull me through this shit.
I understand. I feel that way, too. I can’t believe the election turned out this way. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t. I feel like the whole world is slipping away. I feel very scared and I want to tell a lot of people to fuck off.
I’m going to sit still and think about the people I love instead. I’m going to send love to all the people I don’t know who are very scared. I’m going to repeat these words to myself today — and this week, and this year, and next:
Connection is everything.
Just TRYING to connect is everything.
Even TRYING to connect and FAILING is everything.
All we can do is try, Drowning In Tears. It’s exhausting to try. It feels pointless. But it is always, always good and useful and interesting to try, even when you fail. Even when you leave your friend’s house thinking, “I didn’t say the right words. I didn’t do enough to make him feel better. I wish I could’ve said something that made him feel more loved, less abandoned, less alone,” it’s still good that you at least tried.
Trying is a light in the darkness. And it is interesting.
You’ve had a terrible year. Things could get worse from here. But do you feel me now, sitting next to you? Can you hear me telling you, “You are a complex, beautiful planet, and you will get through this, and life will be good again. It will be hard but it will be good, too.”
All is not lost. I’m here with you. We have to try to connect, that’s all. Just try.
It might get harder before it gets better. We might not always understand each other, or feel comforted by each other. You might disappoint me. I will surely disappoint you. I am committed to being here with you, and trying to connect with you, and giving you the space you need to feel whatever you’re feeling. I believe in you. I want you to have a full, colorful life, even when things are terrible. I want you to know that you aren’t alone, and joy is still possible.
I am giving you all of my love. Can you feel it?
Give me your hand.
Polly
Thanks for reading Ask Polly. Sending every single one of you love today.
No better day than today for this. Thank you. Here is my hand, everyone. ❤️
ALL OF YOU - GIVE ME YOUR HANDS 🥹❤️