To not feel anything about my mums death?

[katemiddletonsnudeheels]

I was young when my mum died (16, almost 17) but not so young I wouldn't have any memories.

However i feel nothing. When I think about it it's like remembering losing a toy as a child - I remember I felt sad but i don't feel connected to the events in any way.

It just feels strange that she had such a huge influence and yet I can barely even muster the tiniest feeling of sorrow or regret. I feel sad for her she died too young but honestly it's like reading about someone unknown in a newspaper.

Is anyone similar? It was eighteen years ago.

[OnceAMeerNotAlwaysAMeer]

kate

Everyone reacts differently. Your reaction may leave you puzzled about what's missing, feeling that there should be more grief, more vividness even. But if there isn't then there isn't and I think that all you can do is accept that is how you feel. Sometimes grief bubbles up later, but sometimes ... the feelings just aren't strong.

Two questions: were you close, or was she indifferent? And secondly have you lost anyone that you were close to, and did you experience grief then?

If she was indifferent then your own lack of feeling is quite common. Children are programmed to love their parents, but that love can die if it's never reciprocated. If you were close, then perhaps the grief is still submerged ... or perhaps it will never come.

Don't give yourself a hard time over it. The books will have it that there are 5 stages of grief or whatever, but sometimes it isn't that neat and people just don't react the 'standard' way. Death and grief are the one big area of life where the normal rules often break down.



( fwiw I'm speaking from the other extreme. For me my adoptive mother's death just before I was a teen was devastating and still affects me decades later. It still doesn't mean that everyone reacts like that! )

[IrenetheQuaint]

My mother was ill for many years before she died - basically all my 20s - and it was all so grim and horrible that when she died I got over it pretty quickly, because really I had lost her years earlier, and I associate her with my childhood rather than with being a grown-up.

I don't think about her much and certainly don't grieve, but I suspect that at some level the whole thing has affected me, and I daresay your loss has affected you too, but in ways you may not be aware of.

Really sorry to hear your dad has died too; mid-30s is very early to lose both parents. I absolutely dread my father dying.