Heads and hearts, loss and dreams and looking away

In my last post, I mentioned that this past weekend I'd received news of a death. The death in question was that of my brother's best friend's wife. While this may seem like a distant connection, it's closer than you may think for reasons that will become clear.( Cut for flist mercy and for cancer and triggery stuff )

I've been thinking about changing my reading habits in the morning. I read LJ at the start of each day, but I'm beginning to think that the things I'm reading in the morning are opening up wounds that never really heal for me and it's beginning to feel like I'm slicing myself to pieces bit by bit. I once had a therapist tell me that I have all the symptoms of PTSD when I talk about my mother's death; I never took it seriously until I was treated for PTSD, a treatment that I have had to acknowledge hasn't stuck mainly due to repeated exposure to new trauma. About the Boston marathon bombing news, suricattus posted on Twitter, "Reminder: if you're feeling echoes of past Bad Stuff, reading the news out of Boston, it's ok to look away. You're not letting anyone down." I'm feeling echoes of Bad Stuff. I may look away for a while. It's not a lack of love or strength. It's a matter of self-preservation.

PS--I don't want condolences upon Nancy's death; I'm serious about this. While her loss is painful, I didn't know her well. I'm mourning more for what her husband and family, and my brother are experiencing because I'm empathetic to their experience. And I'm dealing with the cascade of stuff that's been triggered by her death, especially in the context I've described above. I wrote about all this mainly because it's a way to start addressing it. We deal with things one day, and one word, at a time.