Initially I turned off emotionally to take care of others processing the same losses. It was more damaging in the longterm, obviously... the longer I delayed tending to my own wounds, the more immersed in other people's I became.. a sick, codependent symbiosis. I became the town emotional mechanic for others, a functional robot of sorts, and thought I was living, thought I was growing and moving forward. Really I was just a stepping stone for others as I spun my wheels in the muddy trench I'd driven myself into, more or less.
You think you see clearly.. that's the absurd..madness of it.. because you deny your pain. You think there's nothing distorting your point of view.. shock and denial are a dangerous, heavy, invisible fog.
I learned.. it took a lot out of me in the end, and a lot of mistakes to uncloud my vision.. I ran out of steam, really. Finally emptied out; the fuel gauge warnings lit up and I hadn't the energy to even care at that point. Systems fail.. and I almost completely gave up..
starting to rust all the way through, y'know.
I feel as if I'm waking from a long, dense sort of sleep, the kind where you know you slept for ages, though it seems as if you'd only shut your eyes. For a moment. And you're vaguely aware you dreamed- intensely- you traveled, stumbled through the darkest corners, screamed nothing into the void, chased the coattails of glimmers of dreamscapes ahead, lived and died over again; reached out through the universe and collapsed into yourself. soared and fell. You land on a mattress. You awaken haunted yet enlightened, depleted but driven. You can see the road ahead of you, finally.
I learned... Don't ignore pain. It exists to signal that there's something wrong. Acknowledge it. Work to heal it. If you don't know how.. you have to understand that's acceptable and seek guidance outside yourself..
I'm still trying to figure that part out. But I want, and I hope.. and I hold fast to that hope. There's a lot of work to be done, but it's not impossible.
Just try to pick up the pieces, figure out where they fit in your new sense of the world, and if they fit at all. Take your time in finding the links, the tools, so you get it right the first time.