People who have experienced past trauma can’t just “snap out of it.”
While their friends and loved ones have the ability to live fully in the present, they are likely split between the present and the past—between now and then. This can cause rifts between them and those who do not understand.
How do we choose between those we’ve lost and those right in front of us?
On one hand, we shouldn’t have to make such an impossible decision. Grieving is never a fast or linear process.
On the other, it is often unhealthy to cling to events, things, or people who are no longer in our lives.
One man shared his own story of tragedy with the internet.
“Before I met my wife I had a daughter with my now ex-wife,” he explains.
“My daughter passed away when she was 7, and the emotional toll of this destroyed my marriage with my ex-wife. We haven’t said a word to each other in almost a decade and I have no desire to speak with her.”
After his daughter died, he left her room untouched.
“At first it was just because there was no reason to change it, but now it’s kind of like a memorial in some weird sense, ” he writes, “I can’t really explain the logic behind it because I don’t think there is any. It just doesn’t feel right to change her room.”
“My wife has always wanted to change the room.”
“At first it was because she wanted a study, but I refused and eventually she gave up.”
The two of them have been talking about having a third child, and naturally, she would like the new baby to have his daughter’s old room. He told her that it wasn’t an option.
He finds being in her old room therapeutic.
The house has four bedrooms, so each of our kids have a room, we have a shared room, and then there’s my daughters old room. My kids know not to go in there and it’s just left there. Occasionally I will go in there and read a book, or just lie down on her bed.
His wife snapped and told him that she was sick of him holding onto the past.
“She was sick of me being unable to compromise on this, ” he explained, “She was sick of feeling like my deceased daughter came first. She said a lot of things but I think that basically sums it up.”
Others really related to his situation.
“I kept this same sentiment for the longest time,” another person shared, “Only after years passed did I make an earnest attempt to change my mindset to ‘she would want me to be happy, she would want me to do all these things that she can’t’. Instead I try to do things FOR her, and in her honor.”
We sincerely hope that he’s able to worth through this complicated dynamic.
Some people were careful not to place blame on either side.
“I don’t think anybody is intentionally trying to hurt the other, ” one person wrote.
“I think it’s lovely you’ve kept her room as-is but there are other ways you can remember her…maybe make a piece of artwork or scrap book or something cool to display in the house permanently? That way she’s still there and you will always remember her and even if you moved house, you’d be able to take that with you.:”
