I can't cope with my grief for my mum and I'm panicking in floods of tears

[fourikeachairs]

Over the few days it's been building and building and now I can't cope with it at all. I don't know how to make myself feel comforted, everything feels blank and numb and the future is a terrifying void of nothingness.

I can't derive any peace or contentment from anything as simple as taking a nap. Cups or tea or coffee taste like shit. Nothing has any point and I am panicking. I don't want to do anything, well in theory I want to do loads of things but when it comes to doing things i just feel frozen.

I have a potentially very exciting work contract (my biggest opportunity in several years, no lie) I could do and I can feel it slipping through my fingers, like I'm watching at a distance - it all feels completely stupid and pointless and I have no enthusiasm. Like what is the point doing anything?

I feel very low and stupid and like I'm fucking up my own precious life even more than it's been fucked up already because I've lost all motivation.

I am lucky to have a wonderful partner and now i'm just haunted by the reality that one of us will die and have to leave the other. Obviously, I have always known this is the reality of life but it's like something has flipped in my brain and it's taking the joy out of loving everyone i love.

What do I need to do? I need to quell this somehow do I need anti depressants or something? I am exhausted and it's all built to this and I need it to stop I need to feel calm and ok?

How was life for you before bereavement? Have you felt like this before?
I have been helped immensely by antidepressants, but you need to be assessed by a doctor to work out where grief might be depression.

It's shit OP. I'm sorry. Both my parents died 5 years ago when I was 33 (and pregnant)
They were my whole world, and I've been through every feeling, guilt, blame, anger.... but I promise it does get easier. I think when they have both gone, it makes you feel alone. Ask for help if you need it.

Honestly, it will change. I lost my mum over 30 years ago. It is a cliche, but time really, really is a great healer. I think of my mum now with nostalgia rather than sadness.

Allow yourself time to grieve.

Sorry for your loss

So sorry for your loss. Sending love and hugs 🫂

My mum died in my early twenties and it really is awful. I felt exactly like you did, and sometimes still do. Time isn’t going to bring your mum back but three weeks is no time at all, you’ll still be in shock! When my mum first died, I genuinely couldn’t get through the day let alone an hour! I used to count to ten in my head, over and over again just to get through the minutes in the first few weeks. What I will say, is that days will come where you can smile, and have a good time even with everything that has happened. It’s not going to be easy, and it isn’t fair and you’re allowed to sit and bed and cry - life can be shit and some of us get a worse deal than others. Everything has felt pointless at times, I’ve lashed out at others I’ve struggled and cried but I’m still here and coping and you will eventually too. You mustn’t expect too much from yourself in these early weeks. Just get through it and know that one day the thought of your mum will bring a smile to your face before a tear to your eyes once again. There’s a few good podcasts on Spotify, “The dead parent club” - don’t be put off by the name, it’s blunt but I found it really helpful and Instagram pages such as “spokengrief” who can really help you understand what you’re feeling is normal. Aside from that, grief will affect you physically and mentally so I hope there is someone at home who can make you healthy, nice meals and I hope you find the time to take out for yourself.

As for therapy, I was told by my doctor that you should wait 6 months after bereavement as you’ll still be in so much shock. Might be different for you thought or if you can see someone privately then that’s different.

most importantly, grief comes in waves, and whilst you’ll be in a tsunami now the easier days WILL come.

I know exactly how you feel op and im so so sorry. I felt exactly the same after my mum died and now knowing how bad it is, i have developed awful health anxiety as im terrified I'll die and my kids will feel as bad as i felt ir im terrified dh dies and i feel alone and bereft and lost again, without him there to help me through.

Im just terrified of the future.

What you are going through is absolutely normal after losing your beloved mother. Three weeks is very early. You will always miss her, always need her, but it's something you get used to. One day you will be making your first drink of the day and will suddenly realise she hadn't been your first thought that day. When that happened to me it gave me a bit of a jolt, but I realised that it was a good thing. Now I always say "Hello Mum" when I see a certain number anywhere. It was her Mum's house number, and something she always did after her Mum died.
Having said all that, I do think you have a lot on your plate just now. Does your GP do telephone appointments?

For me, until the funeral it was all a bit surreal. Then the next six months were mind numbingly awful. Two years after I started getting to grips with it and was more at ease. It will be eight years this year. I still miss her, but I have happy thoughts now when I think about her, the grief subsides and becomes more positive. She wouldn't want you to be so upset.

I was medicated, but that was due to an abusive husband. In fact, her death flicked a switch for me and I am now divorced, off meds and doing things I want. It gets better as you learn to live with it.

I'm so sorry, the death of my mother floored me. I cried in the bath,/toilet for months afterward (I couldn't inflict my misery on others).

How to manage the grief? I'm not sure I did really. Try to believe it'll get better in time but not soon

💐

So sorry your mum has died. 3 weeks is very recent, can I assure you that things do change over time - you will always miss her but the raw grief subsides gradually overtime, the overwhelming sense of loss, and it's replaced with sadness. This process varies so much from person to person, it's doesn't conform to a calendar but you will get through this.

Your doctor can help now with short term measures like sleeping pills if that would be helpful. Longer term counselling is useful to many, support groups potentially and for some antidepressants. Sitting down talking to someone about the amazing person your mother was I have found helps people a lot in the early weeks, I'm often the person people come to talk to due to my occupation.

Please let yourself grieve, don't get angry with yourself for feeling overwhelmed and so sad, it's very normal. Look after yourself and take care

@fourikeachairs it's trite I know but time will make a difference.

I lost my mum suddenly when I was 21 and my dad after a long slow illness when I was 28 and those first months after each were full of despair, but as time passed I was able to see more joy and I can honestly say that I am happy.

The other day I found a notebook that I'd written in the days after my mums death and I was so sad and angry. I don't feel that way now.

I get that you don't want to feel so overwhelmed, yes I'd be angry too in your situation, so do take whatever help you can get, but please do take care

Op three weeks is still very soon... have you had the funeral yet?

It's been 7 weeks since my mam died and we just had the funeral last week..the two weeks leading up to her funeral I found the worst, her funeral was actual hell but since then I feel a bit more of a sense of peace.

I'm so sorry for your loss, please be kind to yourself. Grief is not linear.

I remember the utter despair and full on grief I had when my parents died. It was hideous. But - like the others said - time is a thing that will help. It won't take away the sadness, just give you the chance to look at things slightly differently. I don't want to sound trite or unfeeling, but take things a day/hour/minute at a time.

And FWIW, it's not your fault that your mum died. Any more than it's my fault that my Mum died. I'm an HCP, I have two HCP related degrees under my belt and I've only ever worked in hospitals. My mum died suddenly. Her tests in the weeks running up to her death were negative/NAD for all the nasties. Yet she died of an aggressive cancer (only diagnosed 6 hours before she died). Don't tear yourself apart looking at the "what if's". I racked my brains for weeks wondering what I'd missed. But I hadn't missed anything. Please be kind to yourself. And try to draw on support of friends/family if you can. xxx

I'm so very sorry for your loss OP. The raw agony of losing a parent is the most horrifically painful thing to go through. I know nothing is going to make this hurt less at the moment and the feeling of hopelessness and overwhelming waves of grief are unbearable. Take this one hour at a time. Try and be really gentle with yourself.

This.

also' acknowledge that it is OK to not be OK. Feeling crap/overwhelmed/devastated/occasionally happy/guilty... it's all OK and the likelihood is that you'll go through every emotion.

it will get better. It fades rather than goes away but it will get better. That's not to say it won't rear up at odd moment through the future but it will ease.

Grief makes you irrational, angry, scared, detatched. You know this. In the early days it is all-encompassing, and in a way it should be - there's no distracting your way out of it, you need to feel it to start being able to live with it there.

But PPs are right: all the annoying bullshit advice that feels ridiculous or borderline offensive (because how could such tiny things remotely help when the loss is so huge?) is what you need to do. Go outside and walk, even just for 10 minutes each morning. Buy some multivitamins and a fridge full of smoothies or fruit or whatever and force them down even when you don't want to. Call people, even when you feel like shutting yourself away. If you're into exercise, keep doing it, even when the absurdity of lifting a weight or swimming feels horrifying when your entire world has tilted on its axis.

Keep going, as much as you can.

And when the hopelessness and lack of motivation are too strong, do the tiniest version - a piece of toast and a handful of strawberries instead of a meal, an episode of something you don't pay real attention to with your partner on the sofa instead of shutting yourself away upstairs. Answer the most important email instead of 5 of them.

Not that losing someone is ever easy, but I do think losing someone after a long period of antipatory grief is particularly painful, because you've grieved a lot already and you can feel like that somehow protects you from when it actually happens, and then you're almost ...less prepared for how much it knocks you on your arse.

My sympathies - it's a horrible road and one all of us travel at some point or another. Take every bit of support you can find and allow yourself to feel the loss but don't allow it to take more from you - most days you'll find that if you push a tiny bit, you can keep going. And that's how you learn to live with it - by living with it as best you can.

Grief is exhausting, raw and ugly.

Be gentle on yourself. Time, unfortunately, is the only healer.

I lost my 18 year old son 9 years ago, thought I'd die from grief but here I am. I lost my mum the following year and I've just lost my Dad a few months ago.

For me I oscillated from shock to rage - exhaustion - numbness and repeat. Over time each stage was less raw, and interspersed with moments of love and beauty.

Now the moments of rage and shock still hit, still hurt, by god do they hurt, but life exists alongside grief.

Go easy on yourself.

I am sorry for your loss.

Nothing will change in terms of what has happened, but it does matter how long ago you lost your Mum as the passage of time does make a difference. At the moment everything is raw and it is likely to feel raw for some time, but it will get easier as time passes.

I am 2 months ahead of you with my loss, but I feel quite differently now in comparison to how I felt at the time, three weeks later, last month and so on.

It is worth speaking to your GP and also considering grief counselling (you may not be ready for counselling yet, or may not even need it, but lots of people find it helpful and it is worth exploring).

This intense feeling is because of love. Grief is because of love. Sending huge hugs to you. Your love for your Mum is huge, your sense of loss is huge, therefore your grief, is huge.

you will get through this. You will, I promise. Keep loving her. Live your very best life because of her. Print photos, do things, because of her.

Have you cried? I found the only thing that helped was big huge sobbing sessions each evening, it went on for a few months and then the pain slowly tailed off. Hope you’re okay xx

I read somewhere that a lot of grief is fear about doing life without them. My mum died two months ago and that’s really helped me: I’ve also been writing about it a lot, every day sometimes twice a day.
also texting my mum so that it doesn’t feel like I’ve lost everything. Listening to audiobooks helps me when I just need to stop my brain hobby, also physical activity somehow is really cathartic

Like you, I feel like I took me eye off of the ball medically, but at the end of the day you cannot advocate for somebody that easily: I completely understand your anger regret and frustration though. My mum ignored a heart condition and never told us she had it. I am angry with her.

I am really sorry for your loss. We are also in the thick of it and it’s hellish.

It’s almost five years since my mother died, you may feel like you won’t have a single happy moment after this but I promise you will. After I lost my mother I wanted to die myself, I was completely distraught. I genuinely didn’t think I would ever recover - I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to feel better. I think it’s normal to feel intense grief, and I don’t think you need antidepressants. You’re not depressed, you are grieving. It will lift gradually.

(Just to clarify that it didn’t take me five years to feel better! It was very intense initially, and gradually subsided.

Google ‘grief is like a ball in a box’, it’s a very good analogy for how grief works)

It will. I promise, I promise, it will.

I felt exactly like this when my mum died - she would never not be dead, so I would never feel any less devastated or awful.

4.5 years later, I promise you, it does get better. All you have to do is get through the next day, then the next, then the next. Take time off work. Just breathe. Survive. And slowly the horror will lift, it will change, you will move forward.

I'm so sorry for your loss x