A Pretty Mess

My deep dive into radical acceptance and how I am using it to reduce suffering.

May 25, 2025

It’s a well known fact that grief isn’t linear. It can present itself in various forms. We traditionally think of grief in the aftermath of death. But, grief isn’t isolated to the passing of a loved one. Sometimes, it’s necessary to grieve a life we thought we would experience. We also can grieve the loss of love or even a friendship.

I have found myself living in a perpetual state of grief this past year and a half. It first appeared in January 2024 following my daughter’s suicide attempt. Such a devastating event can leave a wake of despair that is difficult to escape. Healing requires a skillset that few of us have innately. The pain can be almost suffocating. If you have the family history that I have, then healing from a child’s suicide attempt can also dig up skeletons you may have thought you already processed and released. While I was able to rise to the occasion and carve out a healing path for my family, it permanently changed me.

Healing takes work. It requires learning, the passage of time, implementation of skills, and a lot of self-compassion. The old adage is true, ‘the only way out is through.’ It’s also true that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. The universe has been throwing me challenges repeatedly to test that strength. The same year that we almost experienced the unimaginable, I found myself enduring continued loss of innocence through major surgery, familial health diagnoses, the death of a loved one, work stress, political upheaval, and the deepest depression I’ve ever personally encountered. Still, I remain committed to healing.

My blog entries normally are centered around whatever skill or issue I am examining internally. One special reader has described my blog as a window into the messy middle. The messy middle is exactly where I am. I have fundamentally changed and yet, I don’t think I have reached the final destination. I certainly have not finished healing. Each blog entry takes you along my transformational journey. The content is deeply vulnerable, personal, and filled with pearls of wisdom that my higher self is hoping for me to process and internalize.

In this moment, I am struggling to process the loss of close friendships that I’ve shed while navigating the messy middle. Many of us who are in our healing period find ourselves weeding out close friends who once meant the world. Sometimes, they still do. Difficult times have a way of separating the seasonal from the forever and the aftermath can be shocking.

The benefit of this experience is that we gain greater clarity on our wants and needs. Saying goodbye to old friends allows us to make room for new ones. I’ve been fortunate enough to make new friends who have already enriched my life in ways I didn’t know I needed. The greatest of these is the friendship I am building with myself.

Still, it can be heartbreaking to say goodbye to a friend you love. The pain of losing a friend is not discussed nearly enough. The bond between girlfriends is particularly intense. We confide in the highs and lows of life. They are the family we choose. We all make and grow distant from friends throughout the course of our life. If we are lucky, we are able to do so with ease and with little pain to ourselves or others.

I’ve certainly had friendships that ended slowly and quietly over time. Typically, this has occurred as I’ve progressed through the natural stages of life. I have been grieving a friendship breakup since the peak of my suicidal ideation. The realization that the separation was necessary was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The path from January 2024 to December 2024 was filled with individual hardships that tested my resilience, but saying goodbye to people I deeply loved was simply a bridge too far after a year of repeated losses and trials.

I began this odyssey with close friendships that fueled me, sparked joy, and provided support. We shared vacations, holidays, family milestones, and personal heartache. As I navigated the treacherous terrain, I realized I was walking a different path and doing so solo. This experience brought up feelings of loneliness, confusion, and unrequited love.

Maybe there is something wrong with me? Maybe I’m too needy? My life is certainly a rollercoaster, maybe I’m just too much? Maybe I let them get too close and they didn’t like what they saw? Maybe I’m just selfish and I could have been a better friend?

While expected when I was younger and dating, these were feelings I never expected to feel with close girlfriends. The heartbreak burned more deeply than the heartbreak from rejection in my 20s.

The frequent and repeated pain made it necessary for me also to distance myself from the unhealthy coping habits that I could easily turn towards to numb myself. This was especially important given the intense grief that I was processing along the dark road of suicidal ideation that began in April. I replaced these numbing habits with regular exercise and began to avoid alcohol, unhealthy food, and revenge scrolling social media at night in lieu of sleeping. It also meant avoiding unnecessary triggers.

When you say goodbye to a loved one, you feel their absence most during anniversaries, holidays, and birthdays. To celebrate my 45th birthday last weekend, I organized an intimate gathering with those who supported me during pivotal moments this past year. It was a thank you letter with the family I chose and the new friendships that were blossoming amidst the messy middle. Still, the absence of past friends was palpable.

Despite my best efforts to avoid unhealthy numbing habits, I slipped. My active ideation did not reemerge, but the “dark passenger” scary thoughts did. I felt like I was back at ground zero. I spent the week lying awake until well after 11 and waking at 3 am. Sometimes, I even sobbed myself to sleep. The self-compassionate words of understanding and love had dissipated and the self loathing, hateful words returned.

How did I get here? I thought I had grown? Why am I back at ground zero?

Welcome to the messy middle. This is what people don’t see. The truth is we cannot prevent painful events and emotions from emerging. They are a part of life. This blog exists so I can provide a portal into what true healing looks like. It’s not always pretty.

This week, I began a dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills class. DBT teaches distress tolerance skills aimed at helping people manage emotional pain and minimize suffering. My first session led me to revisit the concept of radical acceptance. The timing couldn’t have been better. I have mentioned radical acceptance a couple times in this blog, but I’ve never really dived deeply into what it entails.

Radical acceptance is the complete and total acceptance of facts as reality both mentally and emotionally without judgement. It prevents people from becoming stuck in the feelings of unhappiness, bitterness, anger, and sadness in order to prevent pain from turning into suffering. Life can be worth living even during painful events.

Pain is necessary because it signals to our brain that something is wrong. Rejecting that message keeps us stuck so that we continue to suffer. We can’t avoid sadness when we accept a painful reality. However, acceptance allows us to try something differently. As stated beautifully in Marsha M. Linehan’s DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, “The path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell.”

How do we practice radical acceptance so that we can right a wrong and end suffering? We take the following steps:

Observe when you are questioning or fighting reality
Remind yourself that you cannot change the unpleasant reality
Acknowledge the events that led to the reality and admit that the reality had to occur in response
Accept the reality with your mind, body, and spirit through
- Compassionate self-talk
- Mindfulness or meditation
- Deep healing breaths
- Half-smiling (yes, even when your heart is breaking)
- Prayer (if that is your thing)
- Changing your surroundings
- Using imagery
Brainstorm activities you would engage in once you accept reality and you are on the other side of your sadness, then engage in those activities
Cope ahead by identifying events on the horizon that may remind you of the painful reality and implement tools that will support you when that sadness emerges (e.g., throw a luxurious party for yourself and invite the friends who you leaned on when you were at your lowest)
Allow sadness, disappointment, and grief to come up
Notice sensations in your body when you experience sadness about the painful reality you want to accept
Acknowledge that life can be worth living even when there is pain and make a list of those things you don’t want to miss or the things that bring you joy
Write a pro and con list to remind you why it is unhelpful to look backwards or return to what wasn’t serving you

I write this blog not because I am a wise and fully healed queen. It is intended to serve as a tool for me to return to when life gets difficult and I need a reminder of why I chose myself. I expect I will be returning to this one repeatedly.

In case if you missed them, here are helpful resources I linked and consulted when writing this week’s blog: