GRIEVING THE DEATH OF DREAMS

Ramin Entry #51

13 November 2023

I’ve had an eye-opening epiphany this morning. It’s the relief that this process of embracing emotional pain results; it’s the light at the end of the tunnel; it’s the hope to continue fighting on; it’s the sense of peace and acceptance that I’ve been longing for.

My dreams died when I made the decision to leave Atma Jaya University; the dreams of becoming a Clinical Psychologist and a Psychology Researcher. It was the right decision made with a peaceful heart and mind, yet it triggered a series of buried and unresolved emotions. Traumatic emotions from childhood so deep that I didn’t know still existed.

It hadn’t occurred to me until this morning that the death of my dreams brought about grief similar to any death or loss of something I love.

I have been experiencing extreme grief that shattered me and my reality into a million pieces. In progressing through the 7 stages of grief, I began initiating self-blame to question and doubt my self-worth to the point of an existential crisis that triggered constant thoughts of death. I was back to survival mode where I was feeling intense emotions of unresolved trapped traumas in my body that caused me to be extra sensitive again to things that hadn’t bothered me anymore. I was lost in aggressiveness against my gentle nature. I was thrown into disorientation and confusion in living this new reality, mixed with anger, shame, fear, sadness, and guilt.

My pseudo epilepsy, PNES (Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures), had led me to believe that the cause of my crushed dreams had been my own doing and that I had permitted those traumatic emotions to happen in the first place. Had it been real epilepsy, I would’ve easily moved into radical acceptance and letting go.

I realized that I hadn’t let things go. I was loving the dreams so much that I hung on to them ever so tightly. They were my new-found higher purpose of life, my new hopes of the life I’ve never had, of such profoundly deep passions I’ve never experienced that the mere thoughts would put a smile on my face with such immeasurable joy. Tears are still cascading down my face as I write this…

Having the courage and honesty to face my emotional pain is what gets me through to the light at the end of the tunnel. Avoiding the pain is what has made me trapped inside the dark tunnel, the dark well, and the dark abyss that I’ve numerously described in my journals and in my blog.

To let go will take more time – it’ll happen naturally as I process and evaluate my emotions and dismantle my experience to make sense of it – it can’t be forced. Meanwhile, I will cherish this process and experiential learning. For now, I’m content with seeing and feeling the light, to grasp onto whatever inkling of hope I can salvage.

This journal chronicles my trauma-healing process and progress. If you’re interested to read in sequence in its entirety, you may jump directly from >here