How do You say goodbye?<\/p>\n
Some people never do, never let go, never move on.\u00a0 Others avoid saying goodbye by never getting connected to anyone or anything.\u00a0 They are hit and run artists.\u00a0 They have developed the art of saying goodbye to saying goodbye.<\/p>\n
It seems we all have a goodbye problem.<\/p>\n
And yet, we are forever and constantly saying goodbye, whether we to know it or not.\u00a0 Oh we try and hold on and not let go, but…<\/p>\n
He has had an affair.\u00a0 Is this an attempt to say goodbye?\u00a0 To what–his marriage, some part of himself that he wants to regain after sacrificing it for the marital relationship?\u00a0 He says it will never happen again, but he doesn’t know why it happened and doesn’t\u00a0want to understand why it happened.\u00a0 He just wants to say goodbye to it and move on.\u00a0 Maybe he will be able to, but I have my doubts.\u00a0 He says he is good at moving on and closing chapters.\u00a0 His wife is tormented by the affair.\u00a0 She can’t say goodbye to it, and all he wants is for her to let it go so that he can move on.\u00a0 What are they struggling over?\u00a0 Perhaps for her it is saying goodbye to the marriage and who she thought her husband was.\u00a0 What will happen if she says goodbye to this.\u00a0 What will the next chapter be, the future hold?\u00a0 Will she have to sacrifice her marriage, say goodbye to it to find a new relationship withher husband?\u00a0 They are both stuck in a timeless place.\u00a0 Neither can move or say goodbye.\u00a0 Perhaps they are uncertain of what they would be saying goodbye to.\u00a0All they can do is hold onto what they are unwilling to say goodbye to.<\/p>\n
Curiously, the affair occurred just at the moment when their last child was about to say goodbye and leave home.\u00a0 Was this final goodbye a sign, a reminder of their goodbye problem?\u00a0 A sign of what they had covertly, silently said goodbye to in order to stay married?\u00a0 What quiet, unheard, unthought, unspoken sacrifices we will make to have a relationship.<\/p>\n
The patient came into therapy following a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u00a0 The accident was witnessed and should have never been seen.\u00a0 They had other therapy and the recommendation had been made to leave the area where the accident occurred–leave the scene of the crime so to speak.\u00a0 But this didn’t seem to help much.\u00a0 In listening to the patient describe the accident, I could see and feel the impact.\u00a0 They are sitting, waiting\u00a0at the railroad crossing on their way to work.\u00a0 The gate is down signalling a train is coming.\u00a0 They hear the train approach and look down to check the time.\u00a0 Then they look up to see the collision\/impact\/explosion.\u00a0 The train runs headlong into a vehicle.\u00a0 Bodies go everywhere.\u00a0 The patient has to get out and helplessly survey the carnage.\u00a0 The images, sounds, smell of the accident are too much to say goodbye to.\u00a0 We work for a good while, but they can never say goodbye.\u00a0 Instead they say goodbye to me and therapy.<\/p>\n
I think that this goodbye problem is one reason patients are driven\/dragged\u00a0into therapy.\u00a0 There is something they need to say goodbye to–a thought, symptom, problem, relationship.\u00a0 But in my experience this is not really the issue, only the marker of what is hidden and out of sight.\u00a0 Something grips them, possesses them.\u00a0 Something overpowering.\u00a0 Something they can’t let go of and say goodbye to.\u00a0 There seems to be some in-born reluctance to let go, and instead they continue to suffer.<\/p>\n
Perhaps holding on and suffering is preferable to letting go and saying goodbye.\u00a0 It is as if we all get stuck at some mystical threshold.\u00a0 We know we need to let go and cross over, but there appears an immense fear and anxiety at the moment of passage.\u00a0 As if something in us will die .\u00a0 The image I frequently associate with this is a person at the edge of a cliff.\u00a0 They know they have to get to the other side, but they are scared.\u00a0 Once they say goodbye and move on to the other side, they can look back and see their old self across the ravine, alone and desolate.<\/p>\n
I remember as a child that my grandparents would take a cruise each winter on the Queen Elizabeth.\u00a0 I can still see myself at the dock waving goodbye as the Queen Elizabeth leaves port.\u00a0 I don’t remember that goodbye being upsetting.<\/p>\n
But in the following years, there have been an accumulation of goodbyes.\u00a0 My grandparents, my parents, my wife have all died.\u00a0 As have portions of myself.\u00a0 I am not the small boy anymore at dockside waving goodbye, nor am I the dutiful son or devoted husband.\u00a0 The roles have been easier to shed than the parts of my personality that I have said goodbye to.<\/p>\n
On my good days, I accept that saying goodbye is an inevitably painful process which I may be able to endure.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter if I can endure it or not, the goodbyes will remain waiting for me to have the courage to move on and become someone new.\u00a0 Perhaps it is a continual chance to re-create myself, if I have the courage to say goodbye.<\/p>\n
I finish writing this piece, and step outside.\u00a0 I haven’t seen Gilda my pet goose in a few days.\u00a0 She has a broken wing and is recovering from a broken foot.\u00a0 Recently she has taken to floating in the pool having a good time.\u00a0 I originally separated her from the other geese for fear that they would attack her because she was injured.\u00a0 So she had become a favorite pet of mine.\u00a0 As I step outside, I see Gilda floating in the pool.\u00a0 She\u00a0is dead.<\/p>\n
Can I say goodbye?<\/p>\n
Can You say goodbye?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Brody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do You say goodbye? Some people never do, never let go, never move on.\u00a0 Others avoid saying goodbye by never getting connected to anyone or anything.\u00a0 They are hit and run artists.\u00a0 They have developed the art of saying goodbye to saying goodbye. It seems we all have a goodbye problem. And yet, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drbarrybrody.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}