Well I’m sure if I start to seize or something crazy, Wendy will call or stuff me in the car. The very difficult truth is that the meds they gave (the Hydromorphone) really did a number on me. I was a real asshole, and I’m afraid that I blew up or beautiful life. She hasn’t talked to me since the other night, but she said she’s leaving. Now I’m just sitting here trying to figure out if that’s really going to happen, or she’s cooling off. I don’t want to be alone in this house we spent so much time and money furnishing together. Our entire lives are here. I can’t keep paying the rent on my disability, and there’s nowhere and no one who’s can or will help me move out and put my things into storage. And store it for what? My guitars and amps, my music recordings. I can only hope Wendy will change her mind. But right now I’m just crashing. I’m just trying to breathe through it and not let it break me. I’m sorry. I should stop. I’m just making a lot of noise right now.
It's not noise, my friend. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. A debilitating illness, a potential breakup and maybe death - that you're feeling sad in the face of such an intense storm is perfectly natural and normal. Share all you need to - no one is judging you. Our success and efficiency oriented culture is both emotionally dead and death-phobic, and the result is that many of us are grief-illiterate. We know very little about loss, about death, about grief. So it's okay to feel what you're feeling right now - especially with the new medication throwing things off. It's not easy being in 3D.
I found that the most important thing for me at times like this to dip into the IFS approach - to practice a kind of radical acceptance of what I'm feeling. It has been really helpful for me during really difficult times to have a guide to help me process:
In the vid, Schwartz talks about his own revelation process as a therapist. A client was involved in self-harm, and he tried to forcibly remove the emotional 'part' of the psyche who was involved with cutting. The client returned to the next session with even more self-inflicted wounds. The psyche had reacted to his aggressive approach. He realized he was hurting people in a therapy based on denial. I think a lot of us do this to ourselves.
This lead him to develop the idea that there are 'no bad parts' - each emotional-mental complex is there for a reason and serves an important function for a time. Accepting these 'bad parts' is what allows us to transcend them. Full acceptance of all our parts - in particular the shadowy ones that we were trained to reject - is the aim.
When the difficult parts of our psyche are honoured and listened to, they can transform from controlling or constricting forces to supportive and encouraging ones. It can result in some really profound experiences of emotional healing.
The video finishes with a brief meditative exercise, where he leads participants through the process. Perhaps it may be of some assistance to you right now.
And remember - the ripples you've made here will never truly fade. As a living being, as a Soul incarnated, you are interwoven into the fabric of All and Everything. Death doesn't change that. You've undoubtedly added your own unique notes to the crazy, beautiful harmony of Love, Light and Knowledge that we call living. That song never fades, and neither will you.
From Stephen Jenkinson's book
Die Wise:
“What does it take to get us to stand quietly, like somebody under a clear midnight sky, taking all of it in, stilled by the staggering pitch and pull of life? Things going well doesn’t seem to help with this. Good fortune isn’t persuasive on this matter, and it rarely gives people pause. It’s when the news isn’t good news; that’s usually the time you find the limits of what you can bear to know. Then, maybe only then, you might be able to see that the waves of what you believed and did and held off from doing will still have their ripples, long after you’re done. They outlast you. And this is tremendous news. When you are still enough for long enough, sometimes the river, the boat, and the waves and eddies—all of it—can turn into what you mean when you say, “My Life.” If you can do that, you can change things. Your life becomes a little friendlier to the world, to what the world needs from you. It becomes a little friendlier to the endings of things too.”
I hope you can find that sense of something 'a little friendlier' as all this unfolds.