“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” C.S. Lewis

One of the things I like about this hospital is there are some alternative therapies being offered. Today I went to a group on EFT (Emotion Freedom Technique) for grief. For those of you unfamiliar with EFT, the instructor guides us to tap on certain points of the body which are acupuncture points while focusing on an issue or feeling we’re hoping to resolve. While we tap, we acknowledge the feeling and repeat affirmations. I’ve done it before with a psychotherapist and spent the whole time crying. This was good, in a way, as I rarely cry. It seems to help release stuck emotions, however I don’t feel the effects are long lasting. Perhaps it is something I need to practice often. Anyway, I decided to give it another go today. There were three other women in the session and we were each asked to say a word to describe what we were feeling. The other women described their grief as panic, anxiety and tension. I said I just felt depressed. When probed further, I said I just couldn’t name any particular emotion, just a crushing feeling and a sense of detachment from all other emotions. So we decided to work with the detachment. I followed the instructor as she tapped on various points on the head, face, chest and hand. It was while I was tapping on my hand behind the knuckles that I felt something shift in me. Beneath the depression and detachment was something, and it wasn’t pleasant. It felt intolerable. I felt light headed, faint and anxious, and I wanted to cry. As uncomfortable as it was, I took it as a sign that something was being released.

I am dealing with a cumulation of loss. I still grieve my old case worker, who I had been working with for years before the service took him away. He was the closest person in my life at the time. It has been a year and I still miss him very much. I still even grieve the loss of my friends when I was about 13 or 14. It was the only year of high school that I had a group of friends whom I felt I belonged with. I still dream about them. It’s like a part of me is frozen in time. I am 31 now but I don’t feel 31, I feel like a teenager. We had a fight and never managed to repair our friendship group. I ended up moving schools and leaving them all behind. I grieve the people who I have connected with over the years, as fleeting as it was, then lost. I grieve my old house I grew up in, and dream that my family still own it. I grieve my health. I grieve the confident, vivacious person I once was before relentless bullying turned me into an anxious, withdrawn shell of myself. I even have anticipatory grief for the relationships I fear I will lose, for my parents’ deteriorating health and eventual death. There is a lot I am grieving, and when I really feel the full extent of my grief, it is frightening. It does make you panic, like the other women in the group were saying.

I am an empath and it was a little overwhelming having all these intense emotions swirling around me, both mine and other people’s. At the end of the session we were asked to close our eyes. I felt like the room was spinning, as though I was tipsy. I am glad to be back in my room now (though there is a very annoying lady next to me talking on the phone). I won’t be going to another group for a while I think.

For anyone who’s interested in doing EFT, our instructor recommended somebody on YouTube called Brad Yates. He guides us through EFT for a range of issues, such as tapping on panic, or tapping through pain.