How do we know when we are ready to get back out there?

As regular readers of The Grief Observatory know, I wrote regularly here, every week, for 20 weeks, before starting a Masters in Creative Writing last September, which, along with a full time job, leaves me less opportunities to write here.

I’ve had a flurry of new followers here on Substack in the past few weeks.  I’m not sure how you’ve found me, but thank you.  While I don’t have the time to post regularly anymore, I thought I’d try and experiment with popping in here a bit more than I have been, with shorter thoughts and observations rather than the more in-depth research based posts.  Let’s see how it goes!

I went out for lunch with a friend one day this week and one of the things we pondered was how to know when you were ready to come out of hibernation and socialise more or take on more responsibility.  This is something I’ve struggled with over the past two and a quarter years since my daughter died at every step of the journey towards returning to what others would perceive as “normal life.” 

On the one hand, rest is incredibly important when your nervous system has been impacted by trauma.  Giving your body regular time to feel safe and to return to your window of tolerance after triggering events or periods of stress is a crucial part of learning to live with grief.  For me, my Friday’s off work are now a non-negotiable part of how I cope with and recover from a busy and stressful 40 hours of work from Monday to Thursday, and thankfully my clients all seem to understand that.  

But how much time can we, or should we, take for this?  At what point are we no longer helping ourselves when we spend too much time alone?  If we used to be a socialising extrovert and grief changed that, how do we know when we are ready to get back out there?  If we used to take on leadership responsibilities in voluntary roles, and grief changed that, how do we know when we can do it again?  And here, I don’t mean just being able to cope with it, to put on a professional mask and squash our feelings down to get a job done or survive an evening at a social event, before returning home triggered and exhausted.  How do we know when those things will be good for us again, when they can be an important part of our healing journey, when those events or responsibilities can once again become a positive and enhancing element of our lives?

Unfortunately, there is no clear answer here.  My friend and I decided that the only way to know for sure was to give it a go, to say yes, to turn up, and see what happens.  She wisely also suggested letting other people know that you were giving it a try and being completely honest that you didn’t know if you were ready, so that if it all became too much, there would be others who could step in, and everyone would understand because you had been transparent about where you were.

As Vannessa May writes in Love Untethered: How to Live When Your Child Dies,

Sooner or later, it’s up to us whether we remain in the depths of despair forever or do our best to gather together our own personal basket of resources, trying anything and everything to see if it might support us, even just a little. Actively engaging in our healing, whilst not in any way denying the stark truth of the loss that we have to carry, can lighten our burden as we travel through this new landscape that we now have to accept as our reality.