I woke up sad

I didn’t realize how long grief could take. My therapist pointed out that the grieving process doesn’t go in a straight line, but rather cycles, or in my case lurches forward with the same lack of grace with which it lurches backward, to borrow a wonderful turn of phrase that I read this morning.

Last year, I made an effort to unmask, and it was really difficult and painful. I’d been masking for so long that it was hard to figure out which parts of me were real and which parts were pretend, fabricated to fit in. In the end, it was worth it. I definitely feel better, for a whole host of reasons that I’d rather not get into now.

Because I don’t feel better right now. I feel pretty shitty. Last year, a freak wind called The Derecho tore through my state like a straight line hurricane, leaving destruction in its wake. This year, an emotional Derecho has blown through me, and I’m still picking up the pieces.

The problem with unmasking, it turns out, is that there was a reason you masked in the first place, and emotionally you revert in a way to the age you were when you first started masking. Part of the work of being a kid (and let’s not fool ourselves; it’s a ton of work to be a kid) is learning how to respond to things emotionally in a healthy way.  If, say for example, you were an undiagnosed autistic child with alexithymia growing up at a time when not a lot was known about these things, you would have run into a lot of societal pressure to regulate your out of control emotions, so instead of actually learning how to regulate them, you learn how to pretend you can. This relieves the societal pressure, but doesn’t resolve the emotional pain.

I lost my cat. I wish I had just misplaced her. Her kidneys failed. There was nothing more to be done. The boys and I said an awful tear-filled good-bye, and then I let the vet take her. And then she was gone.

At first my reaction was that I needed to go back and get her, go tell the vet that I’d made a horrible mistake, could I please have my cat back. I knew that was wrong, that it wasn’t a mistake. I knew logically that we had done the right thing for her. But the inner me, the real me, with the emotional regulation of a toddler, wanted to go to vet and get my cat back.

So I let myself cry. I’m usually pretty reserved with showing my emotions, the last vestige of the mask. But I knew this was going to be hard, that this was the emotional work that needed to be done, and I leaned into it, let myself be sad and mourn my lost little buddy.

And then it got better. I could hours, and then days, without crying, without making myself sad with memories of her. It was so hard. She’d been this constant presence in my life for so long, and her absence was deafening. She was a damn good cat.

I’m so frustrated. I miss her so much. All I want is to be able to remember her without breaking down, bursting into tears as the sorrow pushes its way to the surface. I thought it was getting better, but last few days have been pretty bad, and then this morning I woke up from a dream where I was thinking about the vet, how I needed to go get her, and I feel like I’m right back to where I started.

It’s hard work being an adult, maybe harder as an autistic adult with alexithymia. I don’t know. We all have our own rows to hoe. Maybe this part of the process. Maybe this is how we all do it.

Maybe there are other adults out there staring at an ever expanding pile of used tissues while their workday slips away from them and their children loudly play wrestle in other room. Maybe we’re all gutted on the inside, broken sideways by a real emotional storm. Maybe we’re all thinking that someday we’ll figure this all out.