how can you move forwards [not on] after a breavement

[PandaPicnic]

does anyone have any ideas

I don't think there is a time limit after a bereavement and moving forwards is going too take time.

Grieving has many stages. Accepting that the person has gone and is never coming back. It helps to talk to others about them.

Bottling up tears doesn't help, you need to find time to pour out your emotions which at first may be very raw and all consuming. Write to your loved one as if they were still here and put your thoughts on paper. If you feel it's all too much for you, try and get outside to clear your mind in some fresh air.

If this was someone you lived with, then your environment will feel different. If you relied on that person to drive, then think about taking driving lessons, if you are lonely in your home then a pet such as a cat may help you.

The next bit is something you may feel you might not want to do, but if it was your partner who died, then consider another relationship when you are ready. Your loved one would never have wanted you to be lonely and sad forever, and forging a new relationship or even just making new friends helps you invest emotional energy in a positive way.

You must allow time to grieve. You may need help and support from your GP or a bereavement counsellor or spiritual help from your church if applicable.

Try and hold on to the thought that this person had their life on earth, but yours is still ongoing and you can do your best by this person by making sure the time you have left is not spent forever wallowing in grief but leading a happy life.

If there is any truth in meeting your love one when you die, you will be able to tell them of the good things you have done since you last saw them.

I am sorry for your loss if you have suffered one and hope that your grieving process sees you emerge as being at peace with your loss and your being ready to love and laugh again.

EasterSunday is right. There is no easy way, no quick fix, no way of 'making it better'. You just have to go through it and it takes time- and no set time. You may go forwards and then take steps backwards. I assume that you are asking for yourself, so I am sorry for your loss. The best help is to talk about it, especially with people who are going through the same thing.

Yes, it's time...

I speak to a lot of bereaved parents and I always thing of grief as a journey. It hurts less as you move forwards. Life can become normal. It's just a new normal.

Yy to seeing a bereavement counsellor.

Wishing you peace

thankyou for the replies

it was my son that died shortly after he was born, 2 years and three months ago

still really struggle with it all at times

i things have got easier since the very early days.
just still find it very hard

i do have a couple of rl friends to talk to in rl friends that have been through thte same or similar meet through sands and oone at hospital

and a handful of older friends that i can talk too, some people i cant talk to
as they say crass things that make it hurt more

we have had another baby since we lost our son, another boy who has bought so much love into our lives and given us a new fututre
and we love him to bits along with our older dd

i still find it very hard when asked how many children i have etc and i find i can't relate to many people really as their situations in life seem so far removed from mine

in someways i think it may have made me hard, as when others have problems
i think oh big deal
and i guess thats not very nice as i understand to them seeing their child have an op for tonsilies removed or something is worrying and stressful but its very far removed from my worries

i dont really know the point of this thread really other than to ask does it actually get easier with more time

Hi Panda,

I wanted to say hello.

I lost my DD shortly after birth nearly a year ago. Although I can't say it gets better as you are further on this crappy path than me, I wanted to say hello.

I understand everything you've just posted. I struggle with the same too.

I have other DC who are beautiful and light up my world but I will always miss my daughter who I didn't get to know (Crying now).

You are, like me very early on in this. I can't say I know how it pans out. From what I've heard the grief gets easier to carry with you. I'm just hoping for that.

You haven't become hard, you look at life in a different way from other people because they haven't gone through what we've gone through. Your perspectives have changed, thats not a bad thing it's just the way it is. Please don't beat yourself up about that (although I do know what you're saying as I can't stand people moaning about things when I think "at least your DC are alive").

The hurtful comments, oh my, yes they pull you apart don't they? It's like I've got paper-thin skin now and ouch, the pain when someone says something thoughtless. It hurts.

If you want to join the thread with other bereaved parents (its called Our Special Thread....) please do, we all understand there - we really do.

Sending you love and a big hug xxx Remembering your little boy with you xxxxx

hi the day, you do knoe me, its me white
i dropped out of that thread for a while
perhaps i shoul drop by and say hello
i struggle to keep up with it all on there at times though

remenmbering your dd too xxxxx
i am finding it easier than i was one year in, so hopefully things will improve more with time

i feel like i dont really fit in anymore
i guess

how have you been doing in general?

I'm sorry panda and theday .

I also lost my daughter, during birth, 8.5 years ago. To be honest, I didn't feel 'better' until about 4 years in. Of course, it's not what it used to be, but life is a new normal now. We've built our lives around the loss of our daughter and incorporated her as much as we can in our family. She was my oldest, and I went on to have 4 more dds pretty quickly.

It's taken a long time to say without pain that I have 4 dds, but I can do so now, my first daughter is always on the tip of my tounge. My kids are pretty ace though and when I say I have 4dds, they always pipe up with, "no, you have five!".

In fact, that was probably my biggest hurdle. To accept what had happened. I was a huge lurker here, precisely because I couldn't count my dds. But I am kind of at peace with it, because I mention her here as much as I do the other 4dds (probably more!).

I also feel like I don't fit in. I'm cynical and hardened to the water births that go wrong, or the home births that end up in hospital! I have developed a wry sense of humour. Much of that comes from very accepting school mums who know what happened and are pretty supportive about it.

You will find your place, but it really does take a long time. I guess when I finally had dd4 (2 years ago) I just had to be at peace with all that had happened. That was six years on from losing my first daughter.

Hang in there, it does get easier. Still now, I bang on about my little girl, but usually here . She isn't far away from me, but for the sake of my other dds, we needed to regain a 'normal' life and I needed to feel restored. If that makes any sense. Huge unmumsnetty hugs and kisses...

thankyou imp, it really does help to hear that from someone whos been through this

i am so sorry for your loss too

a mum i know from school, lost a child to still birth and told me she was back to her old self after three years

personally im not sure ill ever be the old me again
but hopefully i will at least accept it more as time goes on

any tips on how i can help myself accept it more or again is it just time ?

Hi White

Sending you a big hug, if you feel like popping by to the thread please do. Please don't feel like an outsider, I struggle with keeping up too so I usually lurk and then pop back it and lurk again, but we'd all love to hear from you if you feel like it xx

I find it difficult to fit in too. I feel sadness underneath everything now and it's there and I don't feel like it will ever ever go away. I am sometimes the 'old' me but with an immensely sad side. I can have a pleasant-ish day but then go home and cry, or feel like I'm missing something and feel incomplete. So I feel different IYSWIM?

My sister was telling me of someone who lost their first child over thirty years ago, when she was only a few months old. She said that she always thinks of her but it has got easier. However she said it took a long time.

I wonder whether accepting that we will never accept our children dying could make it gentler on us? I don't think I'll ever accept it and wonder if I just have to be honest and realise there will always be a part of my life that will be sad. Happy and sad at the same time? I don't know if that's possible?

I'm the same really. Getting good at the mask.....

xxxxxxxxxx

And I don't know about you but I always feel so fragile, so anxious. Sometimes I feel like I could break into a million pieces...

imip, I hope you don't mind me saying but thank you for your words - I shall keep rereading them. (And PandaPicnic sorry for butting in) Especially when you say that she is near to you always. That is lovely, I hope I can feel that my DD is with me at some point xx

I just wanted to say I agree with all of the above. I lost my DS2 at 37 weeks 4 1/2 years ago and it was only because I had my other children that I kept going really. For so long I did everything on auto pilot but it felt so very wrong, we had another baby 18 months after our son died but I think DS3 was over a year old before I accepted that I could not change what had happened.

In the last six months I have been able to think about how I could help others who have suffered the loss of a baby and am hoping to become a befriender for Sands this year. It is not easy to know that there will always be someone missing from your family and every event has a sadness behind it but I can now cope with our new situation. It hurts when people don't mention him or seem to forget he existed but I try to concentrate on those who matter and remember and not be angry at those who will never understand. I did hate them but I don't now.

I am sorry for your pain and loss, it is very wrong.

It is probably the fact that I also am a sands befrienders that has helped me a lot. It's shown me how far I've come when I see the despair and trauma of the recently bereaved. And I am strong enough to cope with it. It's not often that the rug is pulled from under me, whereas that would have happened a lot on the 'old days'.

Recently I found out dd3s friend at nursery was very prem at the same gestation as my first daughter. That was a rug pulled out from me moment. It was with good mum friend (not the mother), who knew and was supportive of us, but she didnt realise how it had affected me. I may not have hidden it all that well.... Her friend survived with no lasting disabilities.

I wish I could offer ways to 'accept' what happens, but I do just think its time. Over the years I've become more interested in fashion, having my hair done, wearing make up. I was always interested in this beforehand, but the aesthetics meant nothing to me for years. It sounds stupid, but for the sake of normal family life, I needed to be 'normal', look 'normal' and act 'normal'. I'll always feel a little different, a little bit sad; and everyday life with 4dds is very very hard, so I get little pause for thought. But our daughter is really part of our lives, and that's because we made her part of it. Our dds know about her, we answer all their questions. I can handle any conversation about the number of dcs I have without caving, but I do always know I am not mentioning her.

Oh, and I cut rubbish friends out of our lives... Perhaps that helps??

theday

Hi Panda, I wanted to say morning and hugs xxx

thankyou everyone
for taking the time to reply to me
it really helped to see your meaasges when i woke
only just got a chance to reply now

hopefully thats all i need more time
i do feel i still have a way to go in accepting whats happned but i think its only time that will help
i guess two years in the life long grief of losing a child is really no time at all really

i'm definatly brighter than i was and siince u had ds2 i can look to the future more

esp as im not having any more children
i can close the door quite happily on the while ttc being pg childbirth stuff now

ive also cut out a group of school mum friend that were not actually friends
and i feel better for it
lighter

ive started making a bit more effort too my my apperence which helps me feel a bit better
bit easier to do that now im not pg anymore and not bf anymore

thankyou so much for just listening to me

i don't know hpw to feel about my inlaws really
they trie to act like nothing had happened when ds1 died
and tried to sort of sweep it all under the carpet

like they went off on holiday about a week later then sent us cheery texts saying stuff like hi how are you did you have a good weekend
what did you get up to......

i think im pretty angry towards them
but then i dont know if holding things against them helps anyone really
but then again
i cant help feeling pissed off with them

It can be difficult to let go of that anger and realise it's how people are.

My own dad never mentions my DS2 and doesn't have his photo up but then he has never been the type of person to discuss family matters, at least he came over for the funeral.

My MIL on the other hand did not, she doesn't talk about our son either or have his photo but I am/was more angry at her - part of it is because she treated my FIL quite badly before he died (she didn't even go to his funeral, her own husband!) and has never supported my DH in the years since his dad then son died.

I read an article recently about why people forgive others who have done bad things. It was interesting because it talked about how anger is such a negative feeling that by forgiving you are not letting the person off the hook, you are trying to remove your own negative feelings and concentrate on more positive feelings. It is something I am trying to put into practice, whenever I feel the anger I start to look at my children playing, read them a story or give them a cuddle. It helps me reinforce in my mind who and what is important.

do you think its best to try and let the anger go?

I think that perhaps the anger creates its own anxieties.

In a way, getting rid of the anger was easy, I live on the other side of the world to family/friends, it was easy to block the insensitive arses.

I saw anger as one of the only ways to protect my daughter. Does that make sense? That my loyalty to her was above the feelings/ actions of all others. Perhaps that helps, that I see anger as an act of love, and so I can be calm about it. Or perhaps that is time, and letting go of anger just a function of time. Perhaps that's acceptance?

I don't really feel anger anymore...

Hi Panda

How are you? Thinking of you xx