By Ox Drover In Part I we looked at what grief is and what “stages” we may pass through when we lose something or someone of great importance to us. We saw that grief can be “legitimate,” in which others “support us” by validating that we have a reason to be sad over the loss. Yet, there can be “disenfranchised” grief, grief that others do not view as “legitimate” reasons for grief, or shameful private grief that we cannot share. In their attempts to “help” us, many people make fumbling attempts to “cheer us up” or to trivialize our pain, or attach “reasonable” time limits to how long we are able to grieve, which disenfranchises our pain. Since most people view “grief” as equal to …
Experiencing the impact of grief, Part 1
By Ox Drover Many of the people who have been victims of a sociopath have commented here at Lovefraud about how much “different” breaking up with a sociopath is than a “regular” break up, how much more painful. I've read comments from former victims about how intense the feelings are after being conned by a sociopath whatever the relationship has been, whether family member, spouse, lover, or child. I have also felt these same profoundly hurtful feelings as I have worked my way along the difficult and rocky road toward healing. Even though my profession was as a registered nurse practitioner, and I've studied “the grief process” as outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the people who …