How has grief changed you?

[alazuli]

Before my mum died I always believed everything happened for a reason even bad things and that the universe had your back and it would all turn out for the best. Now... I can't see how my mum dying can ever have an upside or teach me something positive. I feel like I don't know what to believe in anymore.

If anything it's taught me that bad things happen for no good reason and the world just keeps on turning.

I'm less sympathetic to stupid people, less tolerant in general.

I cry easily and am on daily medication. People dying is shit.

I realised that nothing really matters anymore. It's like dropping a pebble in a bucket of water.... once the ripples have stopped that's it...... you are gone.
Grief made me drink, have lots of casual sex, hurt people.

It has made me stronger, not that i want that, id rather have my daughter back, but i have three other dc who rely on me for everything. Its the never ending ache that is now part of me that rears its head and envelopes me at such odd times, that happiness glint you get in your eyes is gone and i feel permanantly weighed down by my mask of pretend happiness so that friends and family cant see the truth. My grief has changed how i view every aspect of mine and my surviving dcs lives and this has led to severe stress and anxiety, i wake every day and then the enormity of what happened hits and then its just another day to get through and one day closer to seeing my little girl again, which also makes me feel very guilty as i would never abandon my boys. Grief is utterly shit......

I can't imagine a grief worse than that of losing a child.

There is no rhyme or reason to being bereaved or to death itself. It just is.
I've come to believe seeking answers as to why is fruitless and unhelpful, because you can't change what has happened.
That doesn't change the awful sadness and emptiness that grief brings.
I lost my DF last month. Although he was old, I never expected that he would die before my DM as she has always been more frail than him in recent years.
I also face the fact that my dc1 may well die before me, every day. I try to live with it, but, as is happening now, when their health deteriorates it sets off a chain reaction which leaves me wondering how on earth I would get through that.
Huge hugs (un-Mumsnetty or otherwise, I don't care) and sympathies to those of you on this thread.

Grief made me very bitter for a long time (our baby died 7 years ago) but now I am just quite hard with certain people, as the saying goes I don't suffer fools. However I think I am more empathetic with others who are suffering or having a bad time.

With my other children it has made me more anxious - I don't show them but if they go on trips or our DD (14) stays at home I hate it, I don't like being in the car without them or them being in another car/bus without me. In understand how quickly lives can change but struggle to make the most of everyday.

I'm a bit mixed up really!

Bagina - I can't really do anything reckless as I have a mortgage now. I thought it was what I wanted, some stability, but now I realise I could really do with a few months off travelling and not having to deal with the daily grind. It's depressing me so much being in London. I feel so stuck and wish I had just taken off. My plan has always been to retrain for another career so I guess I'll start that in 2 years or so.

user1471453601 - Totally agree with your spiky explanation about grief. Before my mum died I expected it to be like how you feel when you get dumped - your heart is obliterated and you're in so much pain but then it gets less and less. Obviously it's not like that at all. If anything I'm hurting more now than at the beginning because it's been longer now since I last saw my mum. She was only 62 years old when she died. So young. I expected to have at least 20 more years with her.

I have this constant feeling that something terrible is going to happen even though it already did. It seems like anxiety is a very common symptom of grief from what I'm reading. I just can't seem to stop worrying or seeing things in a negative light even if on the surface it seems like a good thing.

Part of me thought maybe this is a chance for me to get closer to my dad (we're not close AT ALL) but that's proving difficult...

Big hugs to everyone. xxx

I have ptsd, raging anxiety, cry more and life feels futile and pointless. I am a shell now.

Oh, Trucking. I'm so sorry. I think I have PTSD too from nursing my mum through 2 years of cancer. What happened?

Life feels pretty shitty right now. Hoping there's a light at the end of the tunnel for both of us.

It's changed me as I'm more prone to hiding my true feelings and emotions. I never used to do that but since I lost my mum earlier this year I don't seem to be able to help it. I'm using work as crutch, I don't like sitting around doing nothing, I don't want to think.... if that makes sense??
I realise that I haven't yet properly grieved for her and that I may still have some rough times ahead but I can't force it. So long as I'm busy - all is fine.
Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself wtf is wrong with me.
Angry is something else. It's linked to my mums early symptoms and later diagnosis- I still can't believe nor accept what happened to her. Before she died I was always the kind of person who tries hard to let things go, having the opinion that it drains more mental energy to hate/worry/ doubt than it does to let go and move forward but I can't get that back right now.
I think a lot of how I'm feeling is directly linked to the 'firsts' we're doing without mum. It was her birthday this month. Then, of course, we have our first xmas without her, which i'm dreading.
Big hugs to everyone here x

Thanks al. My mum died and then my dad died a particularly horrific and brutal death. I dont think you can ever return to how you used to be. I think you just have to try and shape a new normal.

My dad died very unexpectedly 3 years ago. Dh and I did cpr but it didn't work. He died in front of me.
Later that same day my mother had a heart attack (she is still with us, though very frail now)
He was only just 67
Since then more family members have gone...aunts, uncles, my bill had a stroke, Ds2 and inahve both needed emergency surgery.
It's been pretty shit TBH.
Since dad died everything feels.....insubstantial. Like it could all change in a split second.
Which, of course, it could.
Except until you see it happen in front of you I don't think you ever really truly believe it.
I miss my dad.
Simply that.
I miss him.
Grief is a raw, visceral thing. It's not pretty. It's not edifying.
And it's lonely! I have a lovely Dh, 2 great kids, good friends.
But my grief is my own.
I cope.
Day to day.
I put on a pretty good show.
But the truth is I don't feel safe anymore.
I'm 44 and I feel wide eyed fear all the time now.
All the time.

Sympathies to everyone on the thread.

In a rational way grief has taught me that nothing is forever and the only thing that matters is my relationships with others. so I should treasure those and absolutely make the most while we all still have each other.

The shit part of that is that thanks to bereavement I am anxious and depressed and find all of my personal relationships very hard and this is now many years after our loss. The loss has also fucked up the dynamic in our family so while I do really believe that relationships and being kind to others are paramount actually acting on that is very difficult.

I've barely any friendships left because I find being fun and being available to talk very hard as I am so introverted now and I don't want to go out anywhere busy etc due to anxiety.

Everyone's lives have moved on as well of course which is great but all in all grief has been very isolating.

Definitely agree about learning that bad things happen to good people xx

My grief (my Mum died from a hugely aggressive brain tumour at 69 - 4 months from diagnosis to her death) has left me fearful. Cancer happened to other people or it happened in manageable ways and people recovered. I am literally terrified of cancer now - terrified that my darling boys will get some hideous childhood cancer, that my husband will find he has the family prostate "trouble", that my Dad will be taken like my Mum was, that I will find a lump and be taken from my babies. It's horrible and morbid and I hate it. Every little thing now puts the fear of God in me now in a way that I would never have entertained before my Mum died.

Orange - totally agree. It's made me realise relationships and particularly family are the most important thing of all. But as I deal with my grief I spend more and more time alone. I feel slightly estranged from my friends as they get on with their lives and I'm not really close to the rest of my family.

My mum was the glue that held us together and now she's gone my family has been broken. :(

I can say with absolute certainty that grief has shaped and determined my entire life. My dad died when I was a child and I feel like I can trace so many of my personality traits (mostly the negative ones) and so many (bad) decisions back to that. It's affected my relationship with my mum, my friends, my partner. It's who I am and I hate it, I hate it. I can't escape.
I've just started psychotherapy and I know it's going to be a long and extremely painful and hard journey. I never grieved when I was younger so I have it all to do now.

It has made me serious. I've lost my lightness, I don't feel carefree anymore. Life is good, it's just not as good as it would have been if I could share the ups and downs with my mum.

I've also become a lot more anxious with it. I found my mum dead at her home completely unexpectedly, and the thought of doing that again - with my children, with my husband - haunts me. I worry that something will happen to me and my DC will be alone until DH comes home.

It has changed me and it has changed my relationship. DH and I had three failed pregnancies, two dead parents and two dead grandparents in 3 years. It's not surprising that we're not the same people that we were and I sometimes don't think we give ourselves enough credit for how we've coped.

But we're not alone - here we all are, often thinking we're alone and in fear. Even if this Is "just" online, I take a modicum of comfort in knowing that i am not alone because there are other people who feel, and are expressing, exactly what I feel.

to you all.

For me, the fear of losing more loved ones is ever present, and the effort of not thinking about the fear and the loss is so hard.

Its taught me real pain is not physical.

I cherish life more. And give my babies lots of cuddles and love. Forget the small stuff. Life is short

Agree seaweed, there's a crumb of comfort and a feeling of solidarity in knowing that there are others in the same boat. You never get chance to discuss it cos life/work etc is busy and we tend to not dwell on the difficult stuff but it's such a fundamental part of you that it's difficult to not acknowledge it.

Its made me weak, brittle and anxious. A well of pain is always within me and I fight to contain it day to day. Its made me grasp those I love nearer to me while kicking out at others if they don't understand. I am half the person I used to be. I said grief is not physical, but typing this I can feel my throat close up and ache. So I take it back.

Ah, Seaweed yes you're right. We're together in our loneliness online. Actually I have found a lot of comfort through MN and online forums while grieving more than from my friends but that's purely because most of them have not lost anyone significant yet so it helps so much to be able to talk to people who know exactly what you're going through. Unless you've been through it it's hard to explain.

So thank you all for sharing your stories and your pain. xx

Also in real life after a while you don't want to be the one who brings things down, I feel.