What is grief meant to feel like? I feel nothing at all

[Ankleblisters]

Two weeks ago I lost the person I loved most in all the world, my best friend and the centre of my every moment of every day. Someone whose death I couldn't even bear to imagine because I thought I couldn't survive it.

The death was very sudden and unexpected. I was the one who found the body. My other family members are all in pieces. Everyone else I know is treating me like I'm probably secretly sobbing all day every day.

But I'm working and going about my day like nothing has happened (although my daily routine is totally different and everything is upside down). I feel nothing at all. When I do feel even the most minute little pang of loss it disappears before I can catch hold of it and try to feel it. It's like a very faint echo.

WTF is wrong with me? Am I a psychopath or something?

Everyone reacts differently and I know you said it was unexpected but you also said you did everything for her all day. Were you her carer?

when my friends dad died, she said felt relieved. She told me she wasn’t sad at all because there wasn’t one more thing she could have done for him. She never got sad. About a year afterwards she started remembering further back happy memories of him but that took a long time.

I did everything for her all day every day.

Maybe you are exhausted and secretly relieved to not be providing that intense level of care anymore-that is completely understandable.

I think this is sort of what I'm afraid of. Yes, I was her carer for 5 years, all day every day. She my mother and I loved her with my entire body and soul. Caring for her through dementia was gruelling and physical and exhausting but also the most rewarding and meaningful thing I've ever done in my whole life.
I was ready and willing and looking forward to carrying on for at least another five years. She was only 70 and strong and robust and healthy and we'd rolled with all the punches and laughed in the face of her dementia every single day. She was so full of laughter and joy and she loved life.
I really really don't want to feel relief. I want her back. I can't begin to imagine the emptiness of life without her in it.
We moved around all our lives and I've had some big issues that made us especially close, but also made it really hard for me to let other people in.
When it happened I realised I don't have any friends outside the family at all. My sisters will be at the funeral next week with all their closest friends and with their DPs too. But I was always really just with Mum. She was my whole world.
It feels like I should be feeling something but they are sobbing and Im usually just tidying up around them, all but whistling cheerfully to myself.
I would hate it so much if I felt relief. I wanted her to be with us for ever.

I’m sorry for your loss, OP. You don’t owe anyone, however beloved, any particular type of grief in any particular time period — everyone grieves differently, on a different timeline. Whatever you’re feeling or not feeling is fine. It sounds to me as if you’re putting pressure on yourself.

Shock and numbness can last varying amounts of time and you've had a dreadful shock finding a loved ones body. It's likely that your brain is protecting you as you gradually assimilate the awful experience. Try not to feel that you 'should' be feeling anything and just allow yourself to feel how you feel. Take each day as it comes. Grief has many stages and everyone deals with it in their own way.

The thing is, life and grief are complicated. You had a lot of time to prepare for this and will have grieved the loss of the woman you knew in many small ways already.

And if you are a pragmatic person, you may simply absorb the new normal and endure.

There is no right or wrong way to feel.

This is a snapshot in a lifetime relationship. There will be moments in the coming years where you will be overcome with grief, with rage, with nostalgia… all the emotions. Grieving doesn’t happen at a particular time, it’s more of a lifetime thing.

Be kind to yourself OP. You are grieving in your own way. I find I look like I am coping but get blindsided by music. Often sob in the car when particular songs come on the radio.
You sound like such a loving daughter.

70 is not very elderly, to have your Mum develop dementia in her sixties must have been heartbreaking in itself; you have been dealing with grief for a long time. I know that after my Dad died it felt impossible that he was longer here, that I couldn’t talk to him ever again. For the first year after losing Dad I was in a daze really and the reality didn’t quite hit until the second year. He has been dead for over a decade now but still sometimes grief hits me in a wave over something unexpected. You do just keep on missing someone you love. Grief is an ongoing state, it isn’t something with an end point. With a parent, they are literally a huge part of you, of who you are physically, but also sometimes temperamentally or emotionally. You carry that person forward within yourself, when you have been close and loved each other, your Mum is in so much that you do, and that’s comforting I find.

I’ll echo what everyone else says - grief doesn’t follow an expected pathway. Your love for your mother is crystal clear and how you process her not being here will be a very personal thing. Don’t worry that you aren’t grieving in the ‘correct’ way - you may well find it hits you at some point, or you may find it actually doesn’t. Neither is right or wrong. Be kind to yourself and keep an eye on everything- stress is a sneaky sod and can manifest in very strange ways.

It doesn't always go the way you expect it to. I felt numb about a friend's suicide but then last week started feeling angry that he'd left us.

If you suddenly start feeling intense emotions @Ankleblisters reach out for people to talk to

There is no prescriptive way to feel. Everyone is different and every grief is different.

My mum often used to say ‘a bellowing cow soon forgets her calf’.

I felt totally numb when she died and have stayed that way. I felt really sad for my dad; he was heartbroken, but there was no tidal wave of sadness that hit me at any point.

When my dog died, I genuinely thought my heart would break.

It sounds like shock but perhaps also over the last five years caring for her you have begun the grieving process and so there might be a bit of acceptance about what has happened?
when my mum was first diagnosed with a brain tumour, i cried and grieved then not at the point I was actively caring for her, I had more strength somehow.

I'm just here to say that you might never feel massive grief and that is okay and normal for some of us. I've experienced quite a lot of deaths of people I absolutely adored and would have done anything for. But; when they died, whilst I truly wished they were still with me, I never experience the grief others talk of.

People kept telling me I was in shock and it would come, and that just made me feel worse because it never did.

Eventually I saw a psychiatrist because I was worried I was a psychopath and they told me it's perfectly normal and that's just how some people are. But people generally don't say it out loud because of the societal expectation that they'll be a sobbing mess.

Maybe you're like me and you'll never feel grief in the way lots of people do. I miss my loved ones and I get pangs of sadness, but it isn't grief like others talk of.

@okydokethen yes my mum had a gradual decline and lost interest in the things which used to bring her enjoyment so although it felt strange, I still go to buy her things then stop, think of a question I want to ask her it's not gut wrenching.

They're out of pain.

As everyone else has said - this is a normal variation. But people don't talk much about it.

This was me - my dear Mum died. She'd been deteriorating for a few weeks, we knew it was coming, but when it did happen it was sudden and I was with her.

It was extremely odd and TBH unwelcome that I stayed completely dry eyed and numb even through her memorial and eulogy.

I can only think that, ultimately, we are mammals - emotions evolved for a purpose. You loved your Mum and did your best for her. Then you saw her after she'd passed away, and at a very deep level your subconscious understood that now, she didn't need you, or anything, any more.

It sucks not having that catharsis. But you can't really force it. Never forget the love and care you shared was real and nothing can ever change it.

Grief can be complicated and sometimes our brains try to protect us.
My dad died in January and I haven't began to process it, I am still in denial and disbelief.
His mum, my grandmother collapsed and had to be sedated, she was hysterical. The morning of the funeral (a few days later in our culture) she woke up and her brain had completely blocked it and she had forgotten that he died. It must have been a protection mechanism to deal with the unbearable.

There is no normal in grief. It affects different people in different ways and it changes all the time. You dont always react the way you or others expect. Take it one day at a time and keep yourself surrounded by people who love you. I'm sorry for your loss.

" I want her back. I can't begin to imagine the emptiness of life without her in it."

That right there. That's grief. How you express it isn't what matters. How you "feel" isn't what matters. Grief is just the fact that there's a hole in your life where a person should be, that wasn't there before, and you don't want that hole to exist.

I didn't feel much after my Mum died. I did feel a bit relieved. Mostly because she'd been in a lot of pain for a couple of months, and I was glad she wasn't in pain any more. But also partly, selfishly, that I wanted life to go back to normal.

For about 3 months I didn't feel much else. I didn't have time! There was so much stuff surrounding my Mums death to do. So I did. My StepDad and brother were amazed, "How can he keep such a calm head, while I can't focus on anything" But I was busy, and I wanted to be busy, it gave me something to focus on that wasn't the hole. Honestly, I spent that time feeling quite happy! It was weird.

And then after about 4 months I ran out of stuff to do. Funeral - done, probate - sorted. Mums house on the market - Bosh. So casting around for something to do, I started planning a holiday, and because I was about to inherit a load of money it was going to be an absolute banger of a holiday.

My Mum would have been proud, she absolutely loved a holiday, and the one thing she loved more than a holiday was planning one. She'd be sat in the car on the way back home from the airport, looking at the TUI website on her phone.

So as I planned, a little thought crept into my head. "Mums going to love hearing about this."

Which is why DP found me sat on the computer at 5 am looking at holidays, sobbing my eyes out. I'd been crying for about 3 hours at that point.

There's a quote from a superhero TV show, that is far too good to have ever appeared in something so cheesy.

"What is grief if not love persevering" You loved your mother in life, you still love her now in death. That love right now is just taking a form you can't quite recognise. You'll get there.

Grief is different for everyone. My DM died at Christmas and I never felt a lot. I didn't cry, I didn't need to take time off, life goes on so I carried on as normal. There's no right or wrong way to grieve.

So sorry for your loss, OP. The way you are responding is not at all unusual. Your body has put itself into shock and provided adrenaline to do whatever needs doing to get through the first phase of your life without your beloved mum. You may feel energetic or even cheerful at times. At some point the loss will hit you and that's when you will need all that support from your loved ones. Try to tell them that so they will be ready. Some find that the next phase starts after the funeral.

that’s quite normal - just be careful as you might fall apart at a wierd time and place - me it was at a station trying to buy a ticket , luckily I was with friends - one hugged me and the other got the ticket

its a protection mechanism and probably means you loved that person dearly

try and keep people around you and tell them that you still just feel totally numb - especially older people who will totally get this