Felicific [ˌfiːlɪˈsɪfɪk] adj making or tending to make happy

I am quite chipper today. I had a moment of realization about my emotions. They are not sneaking up on me like they used to. I am working through some anger issues — I have a lot to be angry about. I have years of bottled up anger I was not even aware of because of the other emotions that had kept me tied up. Many of my loops were actually caused by me trying not to be angry. In order for me to deal with my upsets I first had to deal with the hurts. Let me be more specific — I had to understand how terribly hurt I was. Once that was cleared out (Not that I am completely recovered I am just in a far better place.) I could see with clarity what some of the true issues were.

Unfortunately, it has opened years and years of hurt.

The hurt has now turned to anger. I am not really sure how to deal with it all, but I am doing much better with managing my emotions. I had a moment of tears yesterday, but they did not last long they were not as painful as they have been in the past. I was able to bounce back quickly. Granted I have been in a slight shutdown, but it has been a good processing shutdown. I am feeling pain, but it is different. I am not sure how to explain it. I have noticed as well that my anger emotions have been popping up. In the past if I got angry it was usually an outburst, like my last meltdown or it was a complete shutdown to hide anything I was feeling. Then, I would later explode through a meltdown of some sort. (I am not saying that I will never do that again, I may.)

I have not been suppressing them the last few days.

I felt the anger, I told myself that it did not have to ruin my day, and I let it go. This is huge for me. I have never been able to do that. However, I still feel the tinge of it in my heart because it was not completely resolved. I am not looping though. I am still feeling a mix of emotions from last night. I am currently filling out the necessary paperwork to have Daniel reevaluated. He will not get in until May, but I have to get everything all put together and in as soon as possible. It brought back all of the emotions I felt during the time that we started evaluations. I looked at the dates, and I was so frustrated. I was telling people that something was not right from the beginning. I knew that he needed help, but no one seemed to believe me.

I voiced my concerns to the doctor before he was even two years old.

I had forgotten that when he had his eating clinic evaluation they commented, “possible autism” and suggested occupational therapy. It brought a rush of emotions that were mixed with failure and anger. I felt like I had failed my child, I felt like I had not fought hard enough during those first few years, I felt like I had been abandoned and my voice didn’t matter by family, and authorities. BUT it was right there in front of us all. It also brings a mix of emotions for me with people who are resolved with all of that. I was not able to resolve anything including my emotions toward the people who I felt did not listen to me. It brings a baggage of emotions. It fuels rage with certain people. It reminds me of people saying awful things about why Daniel had autism. It flooded me with the fears, the doubts, the hurt, the frustrations, it brought everything back. I felt like I was drowning alone trying to help my son without a voice. The louder I screamed the more they drowned me out, even after we found out he was autistic.

It revealed how much I have not dealt with.

I am going to have to process all of that. I do not know what it will look like. The positive is that it has not caused me to go into complete shutdown. I am processing in a healthy way, with my new coping mechanisms. It is also making me very happy to feel this freedom. I have not allowed myself to be angry for a very long time. Part of the reason is that I was confused as to how I was supposed to deal with anger. I had a lifetime of hiding my anger and other emotions until they were unbearable and would burst out in some way. I did not allow myself because of how people responded. After working through some other emotions these several months, I accepted that I am allowed to be angry, feel anger, and express it in a constructive way.

I could not let the questions flooding my mind go.

The process that I have been going through felt too familiar — not because I have gone through it, but because I had read about it. This morning I recalled the process that I have been going through — I wrote a poem about it months ago. I hadn’t made the connection that I have been in a grieving process completely. I could very well have said in past posts that I was grieving I do not remember, but it did not make a true connection until today. I may have felt like I did grieve things and processed them, but I truly had not because I didn’t understand what that meant. I thought dealing with things meant you stopped looping about it until it came back around again. If/when it came back around I would stim, meltdown/shutdown until the loops stopped. They always came back sometimes not as intense sometimes they have been more intense, but I convinced myself that I was dealing with them.

I was dealing with them, I was not processing them.

I did process certain things I must say, but I also only dealt with things as well. I did not understand what grief was for a long time. Grief is normally connected to the extreme of loss, a loved one or a cherished pet passes away. It is not limited to that, and I would guess that Aspie’s tend to have more traumatic experiences when losing something important to them. I say that not based on the comparisons of trauma, but because we do not really understand what we are feeling at times. It could cause more trauma not understanding what or why we are feeling something. I would also guess that we grieve a lot differently than others at times. (Guessing based on myself, movies, and others I have read about.)

I believe everyone does actually, and I think it is horrible how there is a blanket of expectation how one should grieve.

Everyone needs their own way to process and deal with emotions. I express all of my emotions differently than other people. I had always assumed that grieving only went with major loss — I didn’t realize that many other things can fall under the grieving process. I have never gone through the process fully. I am at the anger stage with some things. I will add here as well that there is no formula to the grieving process the mind will process according to how it needs to. If you do not allow yourself to go through the process the emotions still manifest only through different means. In my opinion, what I have witnessed some people do instead of truly grieving is take the pain on as an identity and it becomes their new purpose in life. They now become advocates of whatever they are grieving. This can be a good thing if the person is grieving properly, it can be a bad thing if the person is hiding behind the identity. They begin to live vicariously through their made up persona of the “healed” self when they are not healed at all.

They feel they are healed because they are living on the “rush” of helping others.

These people can never be alone, they are usually evasive about feelings, and do not express any negative emotions. If they do, then the façade will crumble so they have to keep up appearances not just for others, but mostly for themselves. Maybe I did that who knows, (probably) but I am not now and it is making me feel very happy to look in the mirror and deal with myself. All of this has been and is painful, but it is also the feeling of felicific. (I just like that word and wanted to use it again.) I think it is important for people to understand what grief is and that it can be turned into a positive. Creativity can be at an all time high during a grieving process, and many great insights can spawn out of it. It is scary, it can be a long process, it can be overwhelming, and hurt like mad! Personally, after working through several things I have found so much peace, and positive things come out after the storm.

I am hanging on to that as I work through anger.

I found this to be very helpful Coping with Grief and Loss Understanding the Grieving Process. What truly helped me the most was this section:

What is grief?

Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. You may associate grief with the death of a loved one – and this type of loss does often cause the most intense grief. But any loss can cause grief, including:

A relationship breakup Loss of health Losing a job Loss of financial stability A miscarriage

Death of a pet Loss of a cherished dream A loved one’s serious illness Loss of a friendship Loss of safety after a trauma

The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief. However, even subtle losses can lead to grief. For example, you might experience grief after moving away from home, graduating from college, changing jobs, selling your family home, or retiring from a career you loved.

I went through seven of those losses from years 2000 through 2002 a few of them more than once in that time span.

I never processed any of it. I completely shutdown. My sense of loss was enhanced by confusion — the confusion of rejection from multiple people who claimed to love me. I had all of that before I ever moved with David to another state, a state that I really did not want to move to. I then was hit with another round of losses that I never dealt with, to move here and add another round on top of those. I think part of the reason was that I had no idea what I was feeling, and I did not know how to process anything. I am not exactly sure how the sense of loss affects autistics, but I do know that we feel it, and it could be a lot more intense than what others feel. Yesterday Ariel was irate — she lost her temper and then got incredibly concerned. She had found a caterpillar in the backyard, she made a dirt hole for him, and sat on a blanket feeding him grass and leaves.

The boys accidentally mauled over it with the pretend lawnmower.

She was devastated, and had to go to her room for a while alone. She was not able to get over it so we explained that maybe he was ok, he could have made it and dug a hole or something. She calmed with that, but David did explain to her that the birds in the backyard may eat him. She seemed fine with nature running its course it was the unjust death that brought such devastating feelings of loss. She is fine with the bird eating it because that is what is supposed to happen, but to kill the caterpillar on her watch was too much to bear. It may seem odd, but in our world it makes perfect sense. She seems to have grieved her caterpillar. The moral of the story? Sometimes explaining things logically can help us grieve properly. Suggesting ways of dealing with loss instead of telling us how to process it could be very beneficial.

Understanding that we may go through a serious shutdown/meltdown at the loss of an object/people we love.

I was depressed for years at the loss of my parent’s relationship, and didn’t even know it. I went into a complete shutdown when my parents got divorced because they did not explain it to me in a way I could understand. It brought about more confusion by them saying that they still loved each other, but could not live together. It also was not the full truth, I didn’t find out the full truth until a few months ago. It cleared up so much and made it possible for me to move on. It’s been something like 35 years that I have been holding on to confusion about it, as well as feeling guilt for things I never should have. I was depressed for days one time when my computer shutdown. When I gave away my stuffed animals from childhood I cried. I didn’t let anyone know though. (I was 30 something) Anytime, I give books away I go through a grieving process. I am attached to them all. I have memories, people, music, letters, numbers, colors all connected to them.

I am intertwined with things that I love.

If they go I feel a loss that I have to be allowed to process without being criticized or ridiculed. When it came to those things I didn’t understand what I was doing, I just thought that I was upset or depressed. I see now that I had to process the loss, and file the memories. It can be alright as long as the process is not hindered or made more confusing by people trying to force their ways of coping onto me. There is a movie that I liked very much, I cannot recall if I have shared it on here. It is titled Snowcake (Warning: There is a collision scene with a truck and car that freaked me out when I saw it the first time. It still startles me.) Sigourney Weaver plays an autistic mother, who loses her daughter, and does not display the “normal” ways of grieving. I saw it a couple of years ago, and it touched me greatly as a film. It was painful to watch, but good for me as well. Here is the synopsis. I am currently at the stage of anger with things that initially were causing me anger when I first started this blog in 2009. I am ready to face them and bring some more peace to my mind.

And also learn better coping mechanisms for anger.

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