Own your grief. For it is felt by no one else, and is yours alone.
You mourn not what was, but the potential of what could have been, the life cut short before you were ready to accept that loss. A path that ended before you reached your goal. A closeness you longed for but never received or felt. Mourn those, for they are your losses. No one else feels them nor must endure them. And more pertinently, no one else really cares that you mourn for they are wrapped up in their own lives.
Your lover, friends, or family may have turned away from you, but in doing so, they broadcast that you were never theirs to begin with. The pain of what could have been is real, and it should be felt and mourned… but realize that what you mourn is only what could have been, not what was really there.
The truth that they were never your friend, never your family is also freeing. Now you can pick true friends and true family… or you can choose to not pick anyone ever again. That choice is yours and the joys or pains of that choice are yours as well. Celebrate them and be thankful that even though your loss was painfully pre-determined by who they were, your loss only signifies what you hoped would develop from those relationships.
Your own value lies undesturbed, resting as though at the bottom of a deep ocean whose surface is a raging storm of criticisms and devaluing hatred. Those thrashing waves blown about by the howling winds of others’ shallowness do not disturb you down here, in your core, at your roots. You know your worth, it may not be recognized by anyone else but it is yours. Own it. Feel it. Celebrate it.
W. Mark Barnet 