The Effects Of A Non-healing Wound

Separating from someone you love, either through abandonment, breakup or death, generates suffering. It is an experience that can be lived at any age of life and in many different circumstances. Sometimes that loss leaves behind a wound that doesn’t heal, and then the pain becomes a way of life.

No duel happens or is overcome just because. Of course, time helps , but if it is not carried out and assumes a personal narrative of what happened, it is very likely that we will be tied to a wound that does not heal. We may even stop experiencing pain, at least consciously. However, that same pain will weigh on our existence in different ways.

The work of mourning  has to do with a restructuring of our psychological world, which gives rise to the acceptance of the facts and a transformation in our way of being and living. Only if that kind of metamorphosis occurs, will we manage to make the intensity of the pain subside and finally close that wound that does not heal.

The duel

The word mourning has two meanings. The first of them refers to the pain and affliction that is experienced when something loved is lost. The second meaning refers us to a fight  between two. Both processes are present in mourning.

On the one hand, sadness and longing for what is gone or will not be there anymore. On the other, the strong confrontation with ourselves to which this leads us. In grief, there is necessarily a tension between the past and the future that is extremely concentrated in the present.

Grief is not only related to a person, but is also experienced when there is loss  of situations and even objects. We suffer from lost youth or from the ideal discarded. Also for the money that was lost or for what, finally, we never lived.

That pain and that suffering  awakens differently in each person. This depends a lot on the psychic structure of each one and on the specific circumstances in which the loss occurred. The usual thing is that he refuses and denies it. Over time, some come to accept, while others are reluctant to do so.

Grief as a wound that does not heal

An unresolved grief is a wound that does not heal. A pain that remains valid and does not dissipate over time. It can be covered up or inhibited, but there it is, as a vital backdrop. No duel is easy and this is a problem in an age that rejects the difficult. In many cases, it doesn’t pass quickly either; a whole tragedy in the culture of the instantaneous.

For a time, which depends on the loss and intensity of the grief, we will not be able to live “normally”. That is, sadness and disinterest will prevail. It is also likely that work or academic performance will be impaired and it will be difficult for us to enjoy the company of others. In many moments, that suffering will be all we have.

Loss is the first moment of mourning and it is something unwanted, otherwise it would not cause suffering. The elaboration of the duel consists of losing again what was loved, but this time by our own hand, that is, by the effect of the restructuring work that we do on our ideas and feelings. Sometimes we refuse to go through that process.

Signs of a wound that won’t heal

There are duels of duels. Generally speaking, it usually lasts an average of between six months and two years. Perhaps one of the hardest is the one that stems from the loss of a child. So much so that not even in the language there is a word that designates that type of loss. There are orphans and widowers, but there is no term for the father or mother who loses their child.

A wound that does not heal tells us of a work of mourning that has not been completed. Resistance to accept what happened prevails. Sometimes that resistance takes the form of cynicism or avoidance. In such cases, people become oversensitive to nonsense and fail to connect with themselves in a genuine way. They feel like they live mechanically.

On other occasions, this repression of mourning makes us sick. We develop a more serious disorder of the mind or physical illness. We may also become sour and sometimes self-destructive or irresponsible. Any loss that does not lead to positive transformation is suspect and must be assumed.