My great-aunt died on Friday (March 10, 2017) and I’m still kind of messed up about it. She was in her 90′s. I haven’t seen her or my great-uncle in almost 20 years, but they came out to California from Illinois annually when I was a kid.
I feel like a piece of my childhood has gone dark and silent. I wasn’t particularly close to her, but she was special to me like some mythical fairy godmother from a snowy Narnia-like realm called “Chicago”. (I was shocked to learn Chicago is a real place as a kid!)
I hate how, when someone dies, I can’t easily “see” them in my memory for awhile. It’s like looking at photos where a person was scribbled over or cut out with scissors. I can tell they were there, but they’re obscured. That stops eventually and those memory images return to normal, but it’s so distressing to have the memories I turn to not offer any comfort.
I can also be grieving intensely and it doesn’t show on the outside the usual way. I might get angry. I often isolate myself. I have meltdowns with no visible cause although I know it’s all those stuck emotions exploding on me at once. I’ll say or do things that are uncharacteristic of me, like hurling a box of cereal across the room because I can’t get the bag open, or I’ll say “I don’t give a sh*t” if I hear good news.
Sometimes autism and grief do not get along. Please, if you have an autistic person in your life who is grieving, cut them a little slack.
Негізгі бет Autism and grief
No video
Пікірлер: 8