I feel bereavement has affected my ability to connect with anyone - what can I do?

[Hesitatin]

Hard to explain, but I feel like bereavement has wrecked something in me. I do want to do things but then I just can't. Both my parents are dead now. I have hardly any other family apart from my DP. No children.

I have very little enthusiasm for connecting with friends. Part of this is to do with the fact that they basically have all withdrawn from me too, but now I just don't really care? So have stopped putting in any effort at all myself. I get it, life is busy so that's fine, I used to be a bit more upset but now I honestly don't mind, I just want to be left alone.

I don't want to listen to my friends going on about their happy jolly Christmases coming up. They don't have perfect families or anything, but they do have alive parents who obviously have some annoying traits (to their kids) but also plenty of nice traits and clearly love them..I feel as though I have nothing in common with my friends anymore now.

On better days, I get flares of enthusiasm for doing something and think it might be nice but then...I just don't want to. It's like carrying around the pain of loss is too heavy and exhausting, and being around people makes it worse because I feel under pressure?

I'll go to my volunteering job tomorrow for a couple of hours and that's it, I'll be mentally tired and want away from everyone.

I just can't sustain being sociable and honestly can't ever see this changing now again.

Can anyone relate? How is life supposed to re shape itself now?

I'm in therapy but it's more of the same - the very fact of talking to the therapist makes me feel isolated and exhausted, in and of itself. The therapist is just another person with kids and family, however imperfect, and so doesn't get it.

I can certainly relate, OP.

My partner died 3 years ago, and I haven't felt able to engage properly with anyone since. When I see friends or colleagues, I just feel like I'm going through the motions, my heart's just not in it and I can't motivate myself.

However, I've recently found a therapist I sort of clicked with over the phone, and had my first session with her last week. I came away feeling sort of "lighter", somehow, if that makes sense, and that feeling lasted a couple of days.

YANBU. It feels like you’re in another world across the sea from your old life. But hold on. It will slowly ( for me anyway) but surely get better such that you can live in your old world albeit with some painful ( but less so with time) new geographies. For me so far, the grief has never gone away but it has got such that I can live with it and still find life worth living.

I can relate. I sometimes wonder if I have depression. I just feel so detached. I’ve recently joined a gym and trying to combat this feeling but in terms of enjoyment it’s hard. Xmas is especially hard, I cba putting a tree up or anything so I won’t.

Yes I could have wrote that as a widow. For me it’s the mundane stuff that people talk about like it’s the most important thing in the world. I can’t relate.
If I don’t speak to people on a teams the only people I speak to are mg own children. Once they fly the nest I don’t think I will need my voice much.

So sorry for your losses @Hesitatin
My df passed 5 years ago and dm last year. No one will ever understand the profound effect it has on your life. It’s like a bitterness and a change in your aspect on your life. I don’t think anyone with both or a parent alive can ever understand.
When df passed, I quit my job and moved on, sos to speak. I relayed my experience to those in my new job and they thought it was ‘odd’ reason to leave my job. My new colleague lost her father and I bumped into her not long after, only then she could understand the ‘cloud’.
I’m 47 years old with no parents alive, even my own parents were older when theirs died. I was expecting them to be around longer.

This is perfectly understandable. Grief can take you by surprise even years later. You sound very low and fed up. I experienced same and still do just don't want to see people, hear about their lives, be in any way sociable. I understood recently that because the person I do want to share things with is dead I miss them so much that I can't have enjoyment in anything else. I have had therapy and am in it again to hopefully learn to accept the loss and accept nice things in life. You can move on but being able to accept the loss or even move through the stages of grief will help.

You sound depressed. Have you seen your GP?

Sorry for your loss OP, sounds pretty much like depression does. There is no way around the fact that grief needs to be grieved, you will feel a mess and disconnected for possibly a long while. Counseling and therapy do help but when you are feeling very numb and demotivated it may help to get ADs as well. The ADs won’t solve the sadness but will help you to function better until you are able to process your feelings.

The GP can't do anything except prescribe generic SSRIs which I am not interested in.

I wonder really, where is the line between grief and depression? Can you go over and back between them?

I took SSRIs after my first parental bereavement and had a stomach bleed, in my twenties. My current GP said he saw my point when I said the idea of trying them again made me anxious.

I think anti-depressants would be worth a go because you sound very low. I think grief can spark depression which can be hard to get out of.

Honestly @Hesitatin that is grief. It takes time for it to settle and you need to surf the waves of it. Large ones at first and then smaller waves. I don’t believe it ever fully goes.

Yes exactly this is it, it's like going through the motions.

I am glad you found a therapist you clicked with. I do like mine (or I wouldn't go!) and it's cathartic, but sometimes I feel like therapy is just a nice idea to help me acclimatise to the reality of life without family, which I hate.

DP has lovely young adult children and I think they're fab kids but I'm on the outside there too, which is appropriate of course. But tough. Everything is just so tough.

I would say that grief and depression very often overlap. Grief can set the ball rolling for depression for most people.

The ADs and counseling can help you to keep going when the only thing you want to do is to stay in bed or alone. They can also give you the strength to get out of the comfort zone you have created to protect yourself from more pain or anger after the bereavement, which in turn may isolate you further and make you feel worse on a more regular basis In the long run.

You can beat depression without help but if you don’t have the strength to change stuff to beat it, it will be more difficult to bounce back. My advice is to take any help in offer, you won’t get to see how bad things are until the depression clears and you are back to your usual self.

yes, I feel the same. My daughter died unexpectedly in June, I will never be the same person I was before. I just feel so desolate but have to keep going for her 2 daughters and my other children/grandchildren.
I went along on a night out 3 months afterwards to celebrate my friend's birthday as I felt I should, hated every minute of it, but had to put on a smile so I wouldn't bring the celebration down. couldn't wait to get home.
I think depression is a normal part of grief but I feel I will never come out of it.....and everyone thinks I'm fine, because on the outside I look fine, but im screaming inside.

How long have you been bereaved? It took me at least five years to start to feel anything after df died and even now I still find it hard to connect with people

Probably a bit of depression as well as grief.

You mentioned about not having a family of your own. Is there perhaps some grief there for a life you wanted and weren't able to have? Have you explored that in therapy?

How recent is the bereavement? I lost a sibling three years ago and I carried around a lot of grief for a good 12 months afterwards. Mine all came out as rage.

I am sorry for all of us missing somebody. It's so shit and nothing can fix it.

You mentioned about not having a family of your own. Is there perhaps some grief there for a life you wanted and weren't able to have? Have you explored that in therapy?

Possibly some grief there but honestly I don't know? I do love kids, find them good fun and often endearing - but not sure I'd have been a good parent myself so it has probably worked out well that I didn't have any.

I have discussed in therapy but I suppose...I just don't feel like I've made any great strides forward even after I talk about things very frankly?

What is supposed to happen in therapy ideally that will allow me to heal myself a little or feel less awful?

I'm a big fan of therapy but not sure I'm doing it right or somesuch.

YANBU op. I've lost both parents also, no siblings and divorced. It's lonely and quite often day to day can feel like walking through tar. I often feel the same about socialising. I don't have the emotional energy to go through the motions. I know it's not rational or fair but my brain also gets annoyed at the completely normal petty moans people have about life. It's a me problem - I know that but I've not dealt with it and so that makes every interaction that bit more emotionally taxing. It's hard to explain but I find sometimes things don't feel quite real - not in any delusional sense - in a "holy shit is this really my life now?!" way. I think grief stays with us always, following us about like a shadow. Sometimes it's quiet and sometimes it screams so loud it drowns out all the goodness in the world.
I was prescribed diazepam as I also don't get on with ssris. I don't have it every day just when I'm really struggling. I've been prescribed 14 tablets roughly every 6 months and this has worked for me but everyone is different and there's no blanket right meds/right therapy. I wish there was! It would be so much easier if it were something we could "cure". I know it doesn't help op but please know you're not alone x

I knows exactly what you mean OP.

I lost my father in March and I feel completely disconnected from everyone around me unless they have also suffered loss. I feel it’s an invisible thread that connects me to a few people, but the rest - including my own family and husband I just feel the disconnect. I’m also in therapy as dad died in my arms.

I don’t know what the answer is to help you. I feel life has irrevocably changed and most days it’s like wading through tar.

I have horses at home which get me outside, but I’ve completely stopped competing them. I just ride now hacking. I often cry whilst riding them. They help me feel like I’ve floated back to the surface for a while. So I can tread water for a while longer.

I just want to lie in bed and cry, but I’ve got to get up to see to them. My family I just find annoying most of the time, I’ve no patience and can’t be bothered.

When people blather on about life or Christmas I tune out.

Grief changes us. There is life before and life after.

I don’t know how to help you, because I can’t help myself, but I do understand and I’m sending you and anyone else feeling the same love.

I 100% relate and had thought I was alone until now, so thank you for sharing. My sister died 17 years ago when I was 17 and I find it so difficult to open up and create natural deep relationships now. Opening up is really hard and I think it is when you have to force yourself to bottle up at first, you get used to doing that and can't switch back. I haven't had any therapy but after reading some of these posts I think that might be a good thing to try.

Sorry for your loss OP, and other posters.

I completely relate OP. Thank you for letting me know I'm not alone in this. I do connect with people with a similar loss though. Just hard to find them.

Another standing in solidarity with you OP - and all the others sharing here - I ache for us all.

I lost my Mum in April 2020 - nursed her for the last month of her life at home which I was very fortunate to do obviously cos lockdown. That took me a while to work through, though it was expected so I guess I'd done the anticipatory thing over the previous three years. Still hard though.

The body blow was my DP unexpectedly in January last year. He was very well known locally due to his job and his flamboyance so it turned into a bit of a circus .... anyway, I am depressed and in therapy and also expected to just get on with it all while feeling like a strange two headed monster that people try to help but they can't so they back off. Sometimes feel like the baton in a weird relay race being passed on between people, or a stick of dynamite perhaps.

I am trying to adjust to it all but I also get rage, and due to some things that have happened I have terrible trust issues too.

In fact I'm so done with it all I'm winding up my failing business, my rented home is being sold out from under me and I'm re-locating to a completely new town where I might be able to find myself and get away from being "the widow".

And the feeling that if I'm not happy or sorted or normal or strong enough or whatever it's just my own damn fault for lacking resilience.

And this time of year sucks. I'm just not doing it this year.