Here’s How You Can Tell You Are Healing From the Loss of a Loved One

Half-asleep, in the early morning darkness I saw my phone-screen light up from across the room. I pulled myself out of bed and read what was easily one of the most heartbreaking texts I have ever received.

A bus had skidded off the road winding up Karakoram Highway. 13 people were killed. Multiple injured. My friend Shehzad had been in that bus. He was no more. It was a text from his sister. And it hit me like the roof of my room had caved in on my head.

Moving forward, for months, I avoided my phone like a plague. I developed a weird phobia of entertaining texts specially in vulnerable situations. I never cried during movies but during that time, I watched movies and cried during them to release pent up emotions.

I still struggle with getting back on texts quickly enough. I blamed the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development up North and hated the lawlessness of where I live with a passion for years after that. Every time a similar incident occurred, I relived that traumatic morning. I didn’t travel at all for two years after that.

After years of that incident now, I finally feel like I am in a place from where I can trace the signs that made sure I was on the road to healing. If you see these, it’s likely you are slowly but surely getting better than yesterday too.

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You don’t feel exhausted anymore

When I first lost my friend, I was always calculating risks and felt a constant fear looming over my head. I was unable to shake off the feeling that something terrible would happen when I checked my phone and this exhausted me beyond recovery.

No night’s sleep was good enough because the last thought on my mind was the same as the first one when I woke up. It was as if my mind was always running. I felt mentally fatigued, unable to focus on much else and though I was so tired of it — there was no way I could stop grieving or thinking about my friend.

While grieving and mourning is a process we all go through — there comes a point when our neural responses to the same stimulus decreases. We are wired in a way that repetitive stimulus over time is translated lesser and lesser by our mind— this our biological way of coping with mental exhaustion. If you’re feeling the brain fog lifting and like you’re no longer fixating on the incident — it might be a good sign.

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You have quit your inner-world

It was the strangest feeling. Though I went on with the same routines and everyday life — people around me told me they felt like I had checked out of my own body on some level. It was like I was no longer there at all.

When you feel this way, its likely that your reflexes have slowed down because your mind is trying to process getting used to this new world without a key person in your life. A lot of who we are is formed through a back and forth between someone we deeply care about. Suddenly not having them there is liking removing the voice in your head.

Your mind is struggling to get used to the new normal. Giving it the time to adjust before you get used to the silence of their voice in your mental world too will help you be more present. An inner-world that’s based off fears and paranoia is only trying to protect you by creating an illusion that you could somehow have prevented it — but that’s only imaginary. With time, you will realize we don’t always have full control over life. And it is a blessing that we were given things we fear losing — because it means they added value to our life.

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You claim full responsibility of your feelings

I remember before my friend went on that trip, I told him not to go because it was snowing and landsliding is very common in that area. He shrugged it off and said I was being paranoid.

Soon after I came to terms with his death, I felt rage and defeat like never before. On some level I started to despise the idea of counting on anyone in your life so much that them being gone could ruin you. I thought he had left the world but inflicted all that came after it on others. I thought he had had it easier and left the rest of us to deal with the repercussions.

I started being a bit more reserved in how I expressed my feelings around people I loved. When I caught myself getting better — I accepted my responsibility towards my own feelings. But our relationships are not a zero sum game and if we don’t risk losing a bit of ourselves every time we love — we are simply not vested enough.

It opened my eyes to other instances in life too. People seldom promise us forever but the role they play can stick with us for a lifetime. It is by allowing others to come into our life, claim sacred places and take a piece of our heart that we grow and learn. It makes us who we are. And it makes them live long after they are gone through the fondest memories.

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You face difficult situations head-on rather than hide from them

When I struggle with things, I’m generally hesitant to admit it because it makes me feel exposed. So I never spoke to anyone about it for the longest while when I couldn’t check texts and avoided my phone.

Everybody just thought it was a phase and when I lost touch with close friends, they thought it was me ghosting them. But the truth was, checking my phone had become a challenge for me. Actively choosing to do it, was costing me way too much mental energy. I was truly terrified of it.

So I figured I could just avoid it. But slowly that habit began to seep into other areas of my life where I could take the path of least resistance. Why choose to do the harder thing if I could find out a backdoor? And for two years, I think that was a huge part of how I lived. I saw my life regress to the lowest quality version.

I think it was a random afternoon after the overthinking and brain-fog had lifted when I realized I had been texting with someone for over an hour. And just like that, I felt free of my mental prison. It gave me back my strength to trust myself when faced with difficult situations rather than change my path. I was no longer cowering in the fear that the past would repeat itself.

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You are ready to walk without the mental crutches

It wasn’t until the pandemic forced me into isolation that I learned to walk without the crutches of family, friends and work to blunt the pain of things.

In the past, I was grateful when I had these things to turn to when going through the roughest patch of everything. But soon I realized, once alone, I was overwhelmed by thoughts of Shehzad. Slowly, my mind stopped racing every time it encountered silence when I wondered what my friend would say about a certain thing.

It was even later that the vocabulary I had borrowed from him and the little gestures that had crept up into my demeanor — tapered off too. I translated my loneliness into solitude. It was useful in coming to terms with the fact that Shehzad and I had spent enough time together for me to predict his thoughts about certain things. He didn’t have to be a non-static document of a person — he could just be a finished draft that I refer to when I miss him.

To view his demise in this perspective, eased the pain for me. When many months later I spoke to his mother and encouraged her to think like this— she admitted it made it sting less to think he had lived for as long as it was meant to be. He was a complete person and we didn’t have to keep thinking who he would be if he was still by our side — it was only painful to do so.

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You are trying to pave your own way in life

When we let certain incidents control who we become, we fail to do justice to the parts of us that are resilient. The parts that have it in them to survive and grow from catastrophe.

It might be uncomfortable the first few times when you pursue a hobby or an interest that wasn’t known to the person who is missing in your life now. But the knowledge that they would want you to actively choose and live your best life should bring you some peace.

We stagnate ourselves when we tie our interpretation of life to one instance when life was gloriously generous or pitifully merciless to us. If anything, we should learn to appreciate the unpredictable nature of the highest of highs and lowest of lows. It should make us take control and determine the trajectory of our life. Hug our parents for longer, be braver when we say “I love you” and not be ashamed to show people the value they hold in our lives on a daily basis.

These are small ways of exercising our control to the full extent however meager it maybe in life. Sometimes it’s eye-opening to realize how much we have that we really fear losing — but that’s indicative that you have a good life and make us more grateful for it.

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This post was previously published on Medium.com.

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