On #DisenfranchisedGrief 👇🏻

"About this grief you experience over not having known your bio family, she says, 'You own it, you know it, you feel it. & then you have this social surround—all the people around you saying you should just be grateful for everything you have.' While there’s no reason for adoptees to feel gratitude, it’s not only expected but also believed to erase any pain associated w/ the #adoption experience.'" https://severancemag.com/disenfranchised-grief-mourning-in-the-shadows/ #AdopteeVoices

Something I've noticed when I think back on pre-pandemic socializing is that so much of it for me wasn't necessarily about who I was and who I was with but if I felt like who I was with and what I was doing could turn me into the sort of person I wanted to be. There was something aspirational about it. There was no direct satisfaction in it, more like the promise of a future satisfaction that I was stepping toward. I never quite reached it.

One of the losses of the on-going #pandemic has been not having that feeling of possibility, that sense of becoming the kind of person that I dreamed I could be. I feel like I have no future—that I'm perpetually stuck in a present in which I've forgotten how to dream because it hurts too much. I'm not just #mourning who I was before #covid but who I could have been and who I wanted to be.

#covid19 #yearning #longing #grief #self #ego #aspirations #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp #WearAMask #DisenfranchisedGrief #Loss #MentalHealth

I'm rereading a very long, rambling document of word vomit that I wrote about a year ago in which I was (and still am) struggling to come to terms with the #shame and #DisenfranchisedGrief that I feel around #ComingOutAsAnAdult.

A year ago when I wrote it, I felt ashamed that I even had to write it. But looking back at it now, as much as I wish I could go back and redo my whole life so I'd never have to write it, I feel a lot of compassion for that past version of myself. She didn't deserve to be so alone and deal with so many of those horrible, overwhelming feelings by herself. Maybe there's a small act of meaning and bravery in that writing.

Is this #SelfCompassion? Am I doing it right?

#LGBTQ #Bisexuality #Bisexual #queer #writing #RandomThoughts

The more that I sit with #shame, the more that I think it's really a manifestation of #DisenfranchisedGrief. It's the loss you mourn that society or someone tells you you're not allowed to have. It's #sadness denied to you. So of course you're going to turn that sadness inward and blame yourself—you think there must be something wrong with you that you feel sad about something the world tells you that you have no right to be sad about.

I'm not sure I'm at the point yet where I can tell you what happens when you fully acknowledge and mourn that #grief, but maybe, if you're mired in shame and can't see a way out, ask yourself what you're #grieving.

And take care of and be gentle with yourselves, as much as you are able! It's a tough world out there!

#Mourning #RandomThoughts #MentalHealth #Feelings #Emotions #ImposterSyndrome #QueerImposterSyndrome

Yet another day careening toward the #Apocalypse. The world is literally on fire. The air is poison. An unaccountable, elite judiciary perpetuates racism by striking down #AffirmativeAction. The #COVID19 #pandemic continues unchecked while an #H5H1 pandemic looks increasingly likely. #Christofascists continue their attempts to rollback #LGBTQ rights...

And through it all, I'm supposed to be cheerful at work, pretending none of this is happening and the most important thing is the ridiculous arguments between two organizational leaders about fucking serial commas?!

There is something insidious and traumatizing about the demands of emotional labor in workplaces. It's dehumanizing. It perpetuates the numbness of #DisenfranchisedGrief that we're all suffering from. This isn't natural. It isn't normal. We shouldn't have to act like it is.

#AnotherWorldIsPossible #ClimateCollapse #ClimateChange #SocialismOrBarbarism

Rev. Dr. Rita Brock Discusses Moral Injury & Soul Repair at VOA
#Ukraine #disenfranchisedgrief #moralinjury

https://youtu.be/T7zSBBmM0wg