To ask if you ever feel normal again after grief?

[Elephant1079]

Had a recent loss of my brother - we are both in our mid thirties. It was a sudden and unexpected death - he was not unwell beforehand.

Since it happened I have been living life in a fog of grief. On the edge of crying most of the time. I feel like a part of me has gone.

I keep reading online that grief never goes away and you just ‘grow around it’ but I don’t really understand that, and I honestly don’t think I can manage feeling like this for the next ~50 years. It’s making me feel complete doom and despair.

So Aibu to ask anyone who has experienced the loss of a close family member - do you ever feel normal again?

You don’t feel that grief stricken for the rest of time
it eases- but takes time
dad died 15 years ago - I will occasional feel a wave of grief , I think about him every day but I have joy and laughter and the ability to do more than exist

but this initial stage yes it’s very all consuming and so difficult

I guess the victorians knew a thing or two - don’t expect to be able to move forward properly for at least a year

if it goes on beyond that perhaps seek help

Minmooch

I'm a mumsnetter from 'days of old' , I cannot believe it's been 12 years since you lost your DS. As with these things it seems like a long time ago & only yesterday - at the same time. Love as always xx

I’m so sorry, siblings are like no other. Your siblings see all and they tend to be relationships for life.

Things never go back to normal but you will find a new normal x

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I wouldn't say you ever feel normal.

You just learn to live with the new normal.

Sending you hugs.

Having experienced something very similar, I could not have put it better myself. It’s like being plunged into a boggy pit of despair, that there’s no way of climbing out of it because it just sucks you back in. Then, one day, something just feels a little lighter, a memory that makes you smile and laugh instead of crying. There will always be sad moments, but the best piece of advice I was given was the same as this post, you have to make a new normal, take each day as it comes and be kind to yourself. xx

I’m so sorry for your loss.

My very best and closest friend of 35 years died last year from a cardiac arrest. Totally out of the blue.

The first few days, weeks and months were a blur of shock, disbelief and profound grief. I quickly ran out of tears which was hard as crying did help a bit.
I’m now in a better place and while she is constantly in my thoughts, it’s a bit easier. Her DH and DC are making progress too. It’s a lonely and bumpy path.

In case it’s helpful, she actually lost her brother to cardiac arrest when he was much younger and her grief was awful but she 100% did move on and enjoyed her life to the full. If by any chance your DB died in this way please ensure you receive proper cardiac screening.

Take care.

@Elephant1079 it's so different for everyone. Some pists resonate, some definitely do not. Your journey will be yours alone.

I am so sorry to hear about your brother xx

my own experience is that you gradually learn to live alongside the grief, it gradually stops being the only thing you think about & the first thing you think about when you wake up, so in that sense it becomes more bearable, but for me the actual grief still is intense. I can't talk about my loved ones without feeling that & crying. It frustrates me as I'd like to talk about them more without falling apart. I'm going through too much else health wise at the moment, but if/when that gets any better I think grief counselling might be worth trying.

it doesn't sound like your brother died very long ago, so just be kind to yourself. Do what you need to do to get through each day & know it won't always be this intense 💕

Yes, you'll feel normal again.

Your grief isn't a new part of you. It's your love for your brother, and right now that part hurts so much it's all consuming. But it'll die down.

Think of it like you've broken your leg. In the moment, it's agony. By the end of the day, you've learnt to live with it. You're taking painkillers, you're on crutches, you've got your leg in plaster. A few weeks later, it's healing, and within 6 months it's a dull ache that bothers you in cold weather.

Grief takes a bit longer, especially for someone you're got a very close relationship with. Right now, you're still in the agony. But at some point, you'll learn to live with it. My "crutches" involved trying to take my mind off it by going on rollercoasters and taking on stupidly big DIY projects (along with too much alcohol). Yours will be different.

But at some point you will start healing, and you'll be able to get through the day without your crutches. It'll still hurt, but not as much, and you'll be able to forget about it for periods of time. And then at some point you'll be able to think about him, remember the good times without it hurting at all, and it'll only really be painful at certain times or certain places, like on his Birthday, or in his favourite restaurant.

Think about how much you thought about your brother when he was alive. He probably popped into to your mind across the day, maybe some days you didn't even think of him. That's what your grief will become over time. The love of your brother and the pain it's causing you right now will shrink back down to take up the space it did while he was alive. You'll keep feeling it as pain for a long while, but less and less overwhelming, and one day you'll be able to poke that spot and mostly just feel the love for him, just tinged with the dull ache of sadness.

And you'll feel normal. Just like feeling that dull ache in your leg in winter feels normal.

I believe the first year is the hardest,... afterwards you just handle it better. Sorry for your loss 😞

I lost my mum when I was youngish, and my dad a few years back. Living around it for me means the acceptance that my life has fundamentally changed, and a part of it can't be returned to. A bit like closing the door to a room and knowing you'll never go in again.
However, I still have all the other rooms in the house open to me, with new doors appearing ever so often. And the things in those rooms are different but just as beautiful.
In practical terms, it means that in my day to day, I'm happy and enjoy and feel fulfilled by my life. I don't think about my parents all the time, and when I do, it might be a passing thought or a funny one or one that makes me feel happy.
Now and again something will trigger a sadness. My mum not being there for important milestones, thinking how much my dad would have loved this or that. The death of other people, my friends parents, my parents friends. Then I might even have a little cry. But mainly, time has given me another life, full of other people and distractions, so it passes and doesn't hurt too much for too long anymore.

Very sorry for your loss. I lost my mum when I was 32 and my brother at 34 - both cases it was very sudden and unexpected. That was more than a decade ago, and yes, I feel “normal” almost all the time. Every so often I do feel a wave of overwhelming grief - but they come less and less frequently. I miss them both, a lot, but the fog of devastation in the immediate aftermath has definitely gone.

I’m so sorry your DH died young too. It’s hard to get your head around, with my brother it feels like he was cheated out of a long life which stings.

I really want to get to a point where I can mostly look back on his life and our memories with love, but at the moment it’s equal parts love and pain. I did a speech at his funeral and said that I wanted to make sure I spent the rest of my life celebrating his. He really was a unique person - always the first to see the funny side in any situation, even before anyone else could.

I lost my sister when I was 17 and my mum 5years ago. My sister it took aFew years to feel normal. Now over 30 years later I occasionally think of her but I don’t grieve or feel sad unless I replay her death/funeral in my head. My mum had a painful drawn out death. I felt a lot of relief. I still miss her but my grief isn’t acute anymore.

But every one and every situation is different. There’s no right or wrong

I’m sorry for your loss. I have been crying a lot but at other times it’s like I have nothing left to cry, and it’s just this sadness, shock and hollow emptiness.

I’m glad she managed to enjoy her life even though she tragically lost her brother. We still don’t know why my brother died yet - the post mortem didn’t give any obvious cause and so we are waiting for the results of his histology.

That’s another thing weighing on all of us - what on earth happened. He was completely fine the day before, then all of a sudden dead. If I hadn’t seen him at home after he died, I think I would have struggled to believe it.

Thank you for sharing this - it gives me some hope. I know to some extent I will always carry this around because my brother meant so much to me. But at the moment it is completely debilitating. I’m sorry for your losses.

I think you need to redefine 'normal'. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”

My experience is that grief leaves you battered and hollowed out, but after a while the agony is less and eventually you get to choose what to do with that huge hole in your life. I decided that filling it with things I'd learned from my bereavement was better than filling it with anger, pain and resentment and I made an effort to acknowledge the good that has come from it. I learned things from it that I would not be without. I just wish I could have learned them another way.

I heard someone say one time that grief doesn't become lighter, you just become more used to carrying it. That is kind of how I have felt. I lost both of my parents in my early twenties and I still miss them every day and that will always be with me, but it's easier.

I read something once that described grief very well. I can’t remember it exactly but I remember thinking it was accurate.

It described your mind as a square box, and grief is a big ball that fills that box at first, touching the sides of the box on all sides. All the other parts of your life are tiny balls filling the small gaps.
As time passes, the grief ball gradually gets smaller so it hits less frequently and the other balls get bigger. It’s always there, but other parts of your life gradually come back and take up more headspace. I’m not sure if I explained it very well but yes, in time it gets easier.
You’re still at the stage where it’s all consuming - that grief ball is constantly filling your mind. Sorry for your loss 💐

I am sorry for your loss.

Everyone is different. That said I do think it stops taking so much space in your day to day life. I lost my mum in my early twenties, so almost 20 years ago. In the beginning I was like you, I almost felt I couldn't go on, would cry all the time. I think it took me a good 5-7 years to not cry about it fairly regularly but the intensity definitely got "less". It took me maybe 15 to let go of the guilt. Only last year did I finally have the capacity to seek clarity on some potentially hereditary implications of her death which I worried about for almost 20 years, but yet just couldn't get myself to address because it was too painful. Some things trigger some of those feelings still (I can feel that lump in my chest writing this), but most of the time I don't think about her too much. I guess some of it is you don't think about it as much as time and experiences and life fills that space with time.

I can from personal experience (of having not done it) really recommend seeking help to deal with some of your feelings. I think things would have been far better for me had I done so many years ago.

Hi @ThousandYardStare my own lovely dad died in March. My mum is the same. It’s genuinely awful to witness. Sending love to you 🩷

OP, please watch Billy Bob Thornton talking about grief about his brother dying. It is so accurate about grief in general.

I’m so sorry for your loss OP.
It’s 7 years since my younger brother died. The feelings of pain and loss were so excruciatingly hard. I didn’t think there would ever be a time when thinking about him wouldn’t reduce to me to tears and cause that tearing sensation inside, but that has passed. I can think of him now and not be transported back to finding him as I did. I think about him a lot, but not everyday now, and thinking about him makes me smile because I focus on the happy times.
It will be different for everyone. I hope your able to remember the good times soon

Thank you, and to you

Sorry for your loss.
I've never experienced a sudden and unexpected death so I'm not sure if it will be the same. I have lost people to cancer and for a good few months I thought I would never get over it and never feel happy again. It has got easier, I still miss them but when I think of them I can smile at the memories. It was a gradual improvement so I couldn't put a timeframe on it but it was still quite raw after a year. My life has now gone back to normal, there's a bit if guilt with saying that but I am living a full life and I don't think they would've wanted anything less.

What a lovely response and what great advice.

I love the sack analogy, its perfect and you describe exactly how I felt when my own mum died suddenly 4 years ago.

Those early stages of grief are brutal and I remember thinking that I would never ever smile again, or be happy ever again and that my life would never be the same. I honestly couldn't see how I could ever recover. BUT little by little, I started to feel a little less heavy and burdened by it.

Grief counselling helped me massively. My bereavement counsellor was worth every penny I paid her. She listened to me intently, allowed me to be quiet when I needed to, encouraged me to talk about my Mum and help me understand my grief and the steps to take to navigate my way through it. I felt like she held my hand through the process and pulled me out the other side.

At the end of our sessions I felt I could see a way forward. I could see a future without my Mum in it and for once not feel broken and sad and full of dread. During the end of the process I was able to turn all my negative feelings and thoughts into positive ones and instead of think of her and feel sad, I would think of her and feel utterly utterly grateful that I had her as my Mum. I was grateful for all the times we shared, all the love we had, for the Mum she was, for the Nanny she was and that this wonderful human being was part of my life for as long as she was.

You may not feel that way now, but hopefully one day you will look at and see things differently to the way you do now.

I am so so sorry for your massive loss.

Please be kind to yourself and know that the deep grief you feel now will one day be less. You WILL get there. It does get better, I promise.