My Messy Grief, Continued

7 of Cups: Daughters of the Moon Tarot Deck. Learn more about this deck: https://sageandshadow.com/daughters-of-the-moon/

I lost a family member in late February, and it shattered my whole world.

I feel exactly like this card depiction; depressed, sad, vulnerable, lost, confused, questioning alot more about my career and life choices than I ever have in my life. The last time I saw this family member was in my condo celebrating my 36th birthday. Time stopped during that visit, the bullshit of the inauguration wasn’t applicable to us that weekend, it was just us, picking up where we left off. Family is a huge source of pain, a pain I kept in my body since I was 17 years old, where I made the tough decision to go no-contact with the majority of my family, this member included. There were periods in my life where we kept minimal contact, but there was always pain every time I re-engaged. When I moved into this condo 7 months ago, I always imagined I would rub it in a family member’s face. “I did this all without your help, just like the majority of my life.”

Well that’s not how it went down. I was in tears and depressed and felt so alone without having at least one family member to share the news with. So I called this person, I opened the door this time to re-engage, and it was the best decision I ever made, to spend what would be the last 6 months of this family member’s life in right relationship with them again. We healed so much during that short amount of time. 

The night I found out he left this world, I had to face one of the biggest demons and long kept trauma secrets I thought I’d never face, re-engaging with my family of origin. After all, I’ve been in therapy for years unpacking my family of origin trauma, I wasn’t a teenager anymore so I thought I’d have all the coping skills I needed for facing them on this trip. I haven’t fully engaged with my family in this way since I was 18 years old. I met his chosen family, learned alot about his last two years of life, reckoned with hard truths and gaps I had in how I remembered my traumatic past all in that week.

The week before that trip was brutal. I remember driving 4 minutes to get my haircut and being super confused while driving a route I’ve driven several times. I couldn’t cook or feed myself. My friends sent money and door dashed food, and took me grocery shopping. I had to take time off from a job I just started earlier this year. I’m so glad I work somewhere that’s very flexible and understanding, and allowed me to take that time away. I came back from that family trip, lost. I’m still lost. Learning more about the systems of care I participated in failing this family member, our family in general. Why should I continue working in these systems if they don’t care about how they contributed to my family member passing? Why should I continue being a cog in a machine of a white supremacist assimilation project under the guise of mental health care? Why would I want to be a facilitator of that? That’s not why I got this degree or opened my practice in the first place.

Before this family member’s passing, I was barely hanging on with my therapy clients as their mental health worsened. I couldn’t hold the space anymore and just masked that I could. I was and continue to be worried about my financial stability as a homeowner in a world that continues to be more expensive, to the point where I barely leave my house because everything is unaffordable. I remember I would text this family member everyday and he held space. I don’t have that anymore. Our clinical world still frowns upon providers practicing when their mental health is not stable. Does that even apply anymore, when no mental health practitioner I know is doing well right now? 

Accessing care as a self-employed person during this grieving was equally brutal. I have accrued some dental debt, can’t see a doctor until July, and don’t have paid family leave until I actually pay into it. I’ve been working, but took time off from my therapy practice. I’m scheduled to come back in June, with a way smaller caseload, turning the majority of my caseload away because I don’t have it in me anymore to hold space. I don’t have it in me anymore to just be known as a therapist, and I know the world needs more of us.

In my early grieving process, I actually didn’t have my therapist for the first month as they took an already planned and well-deserved vacation. I obviously forgot about that when my grief was very new to me, and had to accept that therapy could not be my only container anymore like it had been for years while unpacking my family of origin trauma. Some of my friends became those containers instead, and they got to really know all the trauma secrets I had kept in my body for 18 years. Like this tarot card, just all of it bare and visible, raw, real. Therapists, specifically queer, trans, and people of color therapists I’m sure are just as fucking exhausted as I am holding space for our community during this time. Our world teaches us implicitly or explicitly that therapists should be the only vessel, when we should actually have more containers to hold us during tough times. What does community care look like? For me it was friends holding space, bringing food, driving me places, giving me enough money I needed to make my trip and my family member's celebration of life less of a financial burden on our family. Is community care actually possible under our current systems, or does it need to be imagined and executed outside of them?

I have no answers to these questions, and I’ve accepted that they will continue to be questions at the forefront of my mind. I will say though that I’m tired of the rigidity of our mental health care systems, when they continue to shortchange me as a human and a provider, and when I see how they shortchange clients. I often wonder whether I’m just screaming this into a void or another echo chamber. Do you feel the same way?