grief and mourning

For a long time after my diagnosis I struggled to identify my feelings surrounding it. Looking back I realize it started even before I knew what was wrong with me.

It took a few years and periods of reflection to realise what I was feeling, was grief. 

I know grief is typically associated with losing a loved one, but sometimes that loved one is yourself.

I was grieving a version of myself that will never return, a version of my life, body and mind that I will never get back. 

It's something that lots of people with chronic illness will go through, and for some it may never stop. Watching the world go by without you, missing out on things your past self could have done. 

Personally for me that weight of grief on my chest is yet to leave.

But I allow myself to mourn now. Sometimes that mourning is screaming and crying and cursing the world for doing this to me.

Sometimes it's sitting quietly alone in the dead of night.

Both of those instances are important and valid. I've been learning to just let myself feel these things rather than suppressing it.

Whilst my past self is long gone, at least to the world, I think of them fondly. I live for them. I thrive in their hopes and dreams for the future. Because after grief comes acceptance and I hope one day I greet the new me with open arms.

But for now I allow myself to mourn.