"Therapy is about grief; the grief of what didn't happen." Edith Eger
I heard this on a podcast yesterday with Brene Brown and Edith.
When you look at your traumas this way, and how you navigate through them, it makes more sense that we are grieving what didn't happen.
What didn't happen after.
What others didn't do.
What we won't be able to do.
There are huge volumes of loss that ripple away from the original trauma.
What didn't happen to me is a huge hole of sadness.
When you are in a family, there are many things you take for granted - all things that happen.
And, if you are in a caring and nurturing family, the things that do happen feel like love.
When your family is dysfunctional and toxic, you grieve what doesn't happen.
Even if you weren't aware of it consciously, there was an un-named sadness that was the backdrop of your childhood.
And, even always seeking and wanting more.
We just didn't know the more we sought, was grieving what didn't happen.
In seeing trauma and childhood wounds in the light of what didn't happen, opens up my understanding of the levels of grief I have been processing. It wasn't just the initial hurt - but all that echoed from there.
From what my father wasn't and who my mother wasn't and how my siblings didn't act - etc and then into what didn't happen for the past so many years.
All that I have missed.
A grief of what didn't happen.
