Grieving the Death of a Dream
The payment for love is grief. There is no way around it. In romantic relationships, either the relationship will be rejected and abandoned or one of the lovers will die. Even in friendship this is so.
Getting through the loss of a person is painful, but most people are surprised when I tell them that the loss of a dream can be more painful. A dream can be the ideas that we have of what we will do with another person, like my dream of playing on the little beach with my first grandbaby, or it can be the dream of a vacation in the tropics. It may be the dream of winning a little league game, the dream of graduating from college or being there for your child’s wedding. All of these are dreams. Some are big. Others are small. Regardless, if the small or large dream is important, but it goes unfulfilled then it is a loss. All losses must be grieved. Grief which is not processed will become ingrown and infected, which can lead to depression. If you are suffering from depression and it doesn’t seem to have a culprit, then look for unnoticed losses because they are painful whether recognized or not.
All of us had losses in 2020 when the world was shut down and life did not exist as it had before, but the loss did not stop there. Loss occurred when we went back to the things that we used to do before the pandemic also because we created new ideas and routines. We found that some of those things that we could not do before were worthwhile, even enjoyable, but when we had to return to “normal life” those were lost. Those losses need grieved as well.
If you are suffering from these seemingly invisible losses. Take some time and write down what the losses are. Then let yourself be sad when you remember them. Crying or feeling another negative emotion allows us to move past the loss. You may have to work through the loss repeatedly for the grief to subside, but make no mistake you will get past it, if you keep acknowledging and allowing the negative feeling to come and go.
Don’t worry, if you are consistently letting yourself feel the negative emotion, it may feel as if it will overwhelm and never go away, but eventually it will go away.
Grieving takes time.
You may feel sad, but then rest assured, you will come back to what counselors call baseline. Baseline is the mood that is typical for you. Then after some time, you may feel sad again. This cycle will repeat itself over and over, but eventually, more time will pass between episodes of negative feelings.
Always remember that if you sense that you are stuck and in the same place or a place that feels hopeless, then it’s time to get help.
Seek out the help of a counselor. Feel free to contact me, or perhaps join one of our new grief support groups. This is an affordable way to find support during the grieving process. Click here to sign up for the next one.