"The Fog"

I was in the "fog" for about 6 or 7 years after I surrendered my newborn son to adoption in 1972. And then Betty Jean Lifton published LOST AND FOUND...and the fog lifted almost instantaneously. Years later, I told Betty Jean how angry I was at her back then for taking away my little protective shelter of numbness. In retrospect, though, I think the numbness was just hiding the pain and suffering -- they had been there all along, but I just didn't connect the dots. And it wasn't until I could identify those emotions in tandem with the loss of my baby that I could get ahead at all in therapy sessions. Some days, however, I do wish I could go back into my self-imposed foggy prison cell. But once that fog lifts, you can't ever go back there again.

We really do have to "Feel to Heal".

I think I know just what you mean. Life was much simpler when I was in denial. But, for me, if I want to get past my "issues", I'm going to have to stop denying the hurt, fear of rejection/abandonment and all of the other stuff I'm feeling. Having said that, that may not be what you are talking abut at all. :)

Swimmergirl, that's exactly what I mean...And I agree that it will make life so much better in the end when we can get past them. It's just the getting there that reeeeeeeally sucks! And that society generally thinks we didn't experience anything worth grieving - salt to the wound. :-/

Swimmergirl, that's exactly what I mean...And I agree that it will make life so much better in the end when we can get past them. It's just the getting there that reeeeeeeally sucks! And that society generally thinks we didn't experience anything worth grieving - salt to the wound. :-/

Chickadee, I don't think you ever get past it - I think you find a place for it to reside inside you and it becomes less raw - but you are changed. Think of it this way - someone close to you dies - it changes you, who you are, how you react, how you view life. That loss happened when you were present and had the cognitive ability to feel and process it - relinquishment happened when you had no words or means of processing it except that "she was gone" and brains wire at that time and your first experience was loss. Even though you can't remember it - your brain does in implicit memories. Now you are dealing with those implicit memories. Kind regards,Dickons