Grief

[AutumnOctober]

It's really fucking shit isn't it?

Yep.

And it doesn't get any easier with the passing of time, although somehow we reach a kind of accomodation with it until it becomes a part of us that's always there and it's hard to imagine life without it.

YANBU.

I'm not the person I was before my partner died.

Thank you for replying. I feel so guilty because my mother is recently bereaved and she's relying heavily on me. She's at the anger stage and I really don't know what to do. I think she's being unreasonable and even quite mean, she's angry with friends who have been excellent to her. She's cross because they are not as upset as she is, which I know is a part of the grieving process, but she doesn't see that yet and she expects these friends to drop everything and visit her every day. She doesn't recognise that they have their own lives, their own families, and their own worries.
I'm trying to tell her that nobody has a monopoly on pain or anguish or illness and that we all go through shit; that she's not the only one. She's just not ready to hear it yet.

Grief is horrendous to deal with. Everyone deals with it in their own way.
Grief and bereavement definitely changed me as a person.

Grief makes you selfish. I feel like I'm half a person compared to who I was a year ago. My darling DH was my best friend and companion for 20 years, I spent more of my life with him than without him and everything I do, think, experience is forever changed now because it is just me to consider. I have spent the last month more or less incommunicado with the outside world because I am struggling to cope, 9 months on. I feel envious of anyone in a couple. I feel envious of single people who have chosen to be single. I hate being asked how I am and don't want to be pitied, but also feel cross when my loss isn't acknowledged. I know I am being unfair to everyone around me so I have withdrawn from them to try to make it easier. I hate this life, it's shit.

All you can do is be as kind as possible but yet not excuse any of her abuse. She needs to check herself quickly before she drives away everyone who cares about her. I would encourage her to get grief counselling if she feels she can't cope.

Andnone

Just read your message and it's heart breaking. I lost a dear friend a year ago and I think part of me has changed/ lost forever. My BIL died a month before my friend and DH is struggling to accept it.

I can't comprehend the pain of losing someone in your everyday daily life as you have.

It's so shit.

Often someone will not realise that others are also grieving. Someone told my mother that I was also grieving when my father died, having noticed that she had no regard for me whatsoever, left me to deal with everything.

Grief can make us irrational. It can be like Auden's 'Stop the clocks' as all around us life is going on while ours as we knew it has ended and that seems so very wrong.

Our world has imploded. Our beloved is no more. They've gone to the land of death from where no traveller returns. And we are left bereft, grieving, and alone.

There's no map that can help us navigate grief; there are no short cuts. We can only keep plodding along the road and hope we'll find our way to a place where life won't seem quite as cruel or uncaring as it does now.

Can you arrange counselling for her? CRUSE bereavement support might be a starting point or speak to your GP or get her an appointment to see her GP and if possible go with her so you can give her GP details of how she is that she might not admit on her own.

www.cruse.org.uk/

It's one of the most difficult things I have been through but certainly changed me as a person. I'm far more kind to people now. It's also difficult when you want to talk about your loss and other don't. I'd say it took me a couple of years to learn to live with it without feeling upset or overwhelmed.

I'm struggling with similar Autumn, my DM isn't angry, but she's putting a lot of pressure on me to sort things out, won't get in any outside help, and I'm cracking under the strain, I already was unable to work for nearly two months whilst my DF was dying (I'm self employed) yet how can I walk away from my recently bereaved mother who is herself too disabled to leave the house? I'm not sure what you do. Does she have friends who have also lost partners who might understand what she's going through even if it does seem unreasonable?

It’s so so hard. When my DF died my mother didn’t do anything. We did everything. Have you got siblings? The only thing that helped me was that it was a shared burden.

But yes, grief is awful. I’m not the person I was before I lost my parents. I just feel like I’m doing it all alone. And I’m so angry that none of my friends have had to go through this. I know that’s really irrational. My DM died the end of January. I’m still so sad

AutumnOctober I am so sorry to hear your struggles with your mother. I am assuming you have also experienced a loss in this situation? As PPs have suggested, grief is such a personal experience and much of what you describe could be a stage she is going through that will pass. I wonder if her response is consistent with her usual emotional behaviour? Is she generally self aware, able to reflect, empathetic? If so then hang on in there and support and love. But if she has form for being self-absorbed, lacking in empathy, blaming and projecting then I would suggest taking good care of yourself and thinking of how to set strong boundaries so you don't get sucked in to the whirlwind of her emotions. My experience is that those who lack empathy can have quite a catastrophic response to grief - the loss can be seen as a personal injury, their pain - and only their pain. You can also contact bereavement services for advice and perhaps for yourself if you are also bereaved? Just because you're coping and others can't, doesn't mean you are not grieving.

Sorry for your loss Roxy. I have found myself mentally dividing my friends up into those who have lost a parent and those who haven't.