Therapy Session 26 – Pt. 2: Three Tiers Of Grieving For The Family I Wanted But Didn’t Get

The day before Session 26, I was thinking about the sibling I wanted but didn’t get. Then the day of my scheduled hour, I was listening to Joe Sample, who was one of my absolute favorite artists. I mean like real deal, I cried actual tears when he died. So listening to Spellbound and Ashes to Ashes started me thinking about my introduction to this artist. My paternal uncle introduced me to this artist when I was in my twenties. We would talk about music a lot. That was until the implosion of the family unit.

Between thinking about #National Sibling Day, and the shitty sibling I got and the rest of the problematic folks that I inherited genetically, I realized I need to figure out a way to move past them, emotionally. It was then that I realized that I needed to do that by grieving the family that I wanted but never got. That thought process started with me deciding to grieve the sibling that never lived up to what I thought a brother should be. I mean, like NEVER. Then the thought continued to the rest of the family that has been a disappointment for the last ten to twenty years.

I brought these revelations to my therapist without any prompting. I felt a bit proud of myself for being all therapeutically proactive and stuff. I mean, once I brought it to her, then there was homework assigned around my brilliant idea. 🥴🥴🥴

The homework involved me taking a look at my thoughts and taking a deeper dig into how I feel about grieving my idea of, how my family should have looked, versus what I got. Additionally, unraveling the disappointment at decades of dysfunctional familial behaviors and coming to some understanding of WHY they couldn’t be what I wanted them to be, or at the very least be unwilling to participate in, trash behaviors. Then I will need to think about how I FEEL. Therapists really LOVE to know how you FEEL.

There are three tiers to THIS grieving process, and if I hope to be successful in the grieving process for the family I wanted but didn’t have, I must master them all. OK, I might not have to master them, but at least I need to uncover and face them. Those three tiers are as follows:

🔸Relationships
Future relationships involve correcting what I have the power to change. In other words, I must look at behaviors that were unacceptable and make a conscious choice NOT to engage or repeat those.

I was able to do that with my raising my son. I made sure I didn’t raise him to embrace TOXIC MASCULINITY and general shit behaviors that are looked at as “boys being boys” among other unattractive behaviors. These were things that I made a conscious choice NOT to allow for my son.

For the future, I must start to look at my relationships, platonic, and romantic and NOT judge them based on the behaviors I grew up seeing. I am working on this now, and it will be a process.

🔸Empathy
In part one of Session 26, I discussed how behaviors that I experienced with the family that I am now grieving is, the conduct that was probably inherited by them, from their parents. Additionally, I must consider how these behaviors were passed down from generation to generation, probably going back for centuries. Essentially Generational Curses are what we are dealing with when we examine these behaviors.

I must learn to understand and empathize with them based on the presence of these generational curses, and that will be a process. I might have to pray to every Black Jesus in every country in the universe, to help me with that one. I might even have to pray to every race of every Jesus, that ever lived. Just kidding, kind of, but really I know this will challenge me.

🔸Room for my feelings
That one is a LAWD BLACK JESUS HEP’ A SISTA’ kind of ask. Making room for my feelings could be tough for me. I am, either a love them, or I need to mentally say eff them, sort. Keep in mind, once I get to the eff them point, the person has 100% earned it. Some people are in the middle “aight” level of feelings. However, a lot of my deep feelings are either love them or eff them and not eff them in a literal sense.

So, this part will involve a lot of effort on my part to unravel and move through this.

W H E W . G R O W T H

The grieving process will not be an easy thing, but it will be an ongoing process. O.K. I have some homework to do. I won’t be pouring that level of my heart out on here. So, nothing further to see here, mind your business. 😅

I would love to know your thoughts on this session, therapy in general, and more about your journey in getting better in touch with who you are through therapy. Reach out, let’s chat on FB, IG, and Twitter. Until then, Happy Healing.

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