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.

Bereavement and grief have taught me that being a good person doesn't guarantee any returns. It has helped me to build strong boundaries. I felt liberated when my parents died within 12 months of each other. Now, several years on I can see from a distance just how much I had given from a tiny age and how much they took, right up to their deaths. My grief gave me the strength to cull others, including family members, from my life. I no longer have to put their sensibilities before mine or hide my accomplishments.
Don't get me wrong, I have grieved heavily. For the little girl/young woman who didn't get the love and understanding and support that she deserved and who has relied on herself to get to where she is now. She has succeeded in life in spite of, rather than because of her parents.

whitehandled - I'm sorry you didn't get the love you deserved when you were growing up.

When I was growing up I was very distant from my parents. I used to really envy people who were close to their parents. Then suddenly it all changed, well at least with my mum, a few years before she died and we became best friends. I'm so lucky I had those last few years to really get to know her. The parent/child relationship is never easy. When I look back, I can see now how they tried to communicate their love for me - it was just in a way that was very different from how I expected.

I am glad you learnt to have stronger boundaries - I think it's important to cut people out of your life who aren't good for you and not many people are able to do that.

It's ruined my ability to sleep, and made me ridiculously apprehensive that the people I love most will die suddenly.

I'm back again having re-read the thread.

I'm a month away from the 3rd anniversary of my son's death. He was 18 and had battled 27 months against a brain tumour.

I'm replaying his last month. I'm right back into those feelings I had then. This time 3 years ago he was in hospital and about to come home for the last time. I had to arrange delivery of a sofa bed so he could sleep downstairs, and install s stair lift so he could use the bathroom upstairs.

I remember trying to think how do I make a stair lift seem exciting to an 18 year old when in reality we all knew it meant he was getting weaker and weaker. For 27 months of his illness I slept by his side, either in the hospital with him, on a chair, on the floor beside his bed in his bedroom or on the floor by the sofa bed when he could no longer get upstairs. His last 5 nights were in a hospice where we were all looked after fantastically, with dignity, privacy and love and I lay in a chair by his side not taking my eyes off him.

One of the last things my son did for me makes me howl. One day he was trying to buy something on line and couldn't get his bank card to work - his vision was going. It was only £20. Nothing. I said I'd buy it for him and forgot about it. When he was in the hospice 2 days before he died he asked his Dad (from whom I'm long divorced, but happily friends with) to buy some flowers for me for the £20. Even when he was dying he thought of others.

I don't know why I'm writing. I suppose you think you are doing ok then grief rears up and hits you, takes you back, leaves you a sobbing howling mess on the floor.

It isolates you, it makes you feel alone. You wear a mask to protect others from the sheer horror of grief. I am never unguarded with others. Always alert to not say anything that will ruin other people's enjoyment of whatever it is we are doing. It's exhausting. Especially when all you want to do is speak about that person, my child.

I haven't even begun processing my mother's death. I sat and slept by her side a year after my son's death and watched her die.

I still wonder how I get up, work full time, go on holiday. It's like I am a robot at times. I do it for my living son but hope in time I can do it for myself.

I think there must be some form of PTSD after caring for a terminally ill child. Watching them suffer. I begged and begged for it to be me and not him. It's very difficult to live happy when you have watched your child suffer so.

I'm rambling now. Today my grief is hard.

minmooch - that bit about the flowers made me cry. i'm so sorry about your son and mother. in april it'll be a year since my mum died. how did it get to nearly a year already? it was around this time last year that things started to go downhill. she was in and out of hospital and it was touch and go so many times. i remember it so clearly. at the time i hated it but i would give anything to go back to those days.

today i'm really struggling too. i had a dream about her just before i woke up. the worst bit about grief for me is that horrible, uncomfortable feeling you get realising they're not here anymore. where did they go? it just doesn't feel right.

i feel really sad and angry today; angry that she's not here anymore, angry that i kept on believing she would live to see another day even right at the end. the day she died i thought to myself it wouldn't be today but it was.

i agree with you about ptsd. i took care of my mum while she had cancer and it stays with you. and grief makes you feel so lonely.

anyway hugs for you and anyone else who is struggling xx

minmooch, I am so very sorry. Losing a child has to be the worst thing. I know a couple whose DD died of cancer aged 11, and have followed their journey through grief in the five years since then, they now have what looks like a "normal" life, but really this has changed everything forever. I don't know how people cope with it, except that it has to be borne, somehow. I've seen on another thread how warm and tender you are to someone in extremis, and can imagine how much your son loved you, and you will always love him. Wishing you strength and comfort at this awful time.

Minmooch your pain makes me cry, and pray for the day you can live for you again and not just your son. My grief at the loss of my best friend feels unbearable at times. I cannot begin to fathom yours.

Rage against the loss.

It'll be a year in a few months. Feel like I haven't really given myself time to grieve properly as have been busy with new flat and new job. Anyone else feel like this?

I haven't read the full thread yet but will when I'm having a stronger day.

Grief has changed me insurmountably, it's impossible to count the ways.
I've always been a very level-headed, logical person. Not now, I'm emotional, fiery and often way too quick to act on things and sometimes I make bad decisions because of this.
I'm angry all the time now and that's not who I was, I was always extremely positive about everything but I feel like I've lost that. I can't begin to find any positives in losing my husband at 32. My son has lost his dad at 4 years old.
Our future as a family has been stolen and I can't do anything about it. Grief and loss have made me powerless.
I feel like I can't do my job properly anymore and I just want to run away for a while but don't have that option.
People keep saying, 'you're so strong' and 'you're going so well' and I just want to punch them because they can't see that I'm really, really struggling.
I'm not maintaining my house, my job, simple bloody showering is unbelievably difficult.

I am changed, grief has changed me.

And more than all I've listed above, I feel incredibly alone. I'm lonely and my heart is broken.

My heartfelt sympathies to everyone here who is struggling with their grief, i wish a million times over that none of us ever had to experience this.

Iht22 So much pain. Here's an antipodean hand to hold.

I've been in tears reading through this thread. I'm having a hard day anyway, after holding myself together for a while it all suddenly became too much and I couldn't face leaving the house, pretending that I'm normal.

For me, grief changed me by making me expect the worst all the time. My dad died suddenly and unexpectedly 8 years ago and since then I always think worse case scenario - when my DP goes on a work trip, I picture his plane crashing, when my mum doesn't answer the phone, I picture her fallen over somewhere, when I hear an ambulance i think its for someone I love. I worked hard to stop these thoughts, but recent events have taken me back to square one. I was pregnant but was convinced i would have a miscarriage, and I did. I got pregnant again, and finally after weeks of scans relaxed a bit only to be told the baby had a fatal abnormality and I had to terminate. I feel like I brought these things on myself by imagining them happening.

Like others, I have withdrawn. I have lost friends as I feel let down by their reactions to my losses. I feel so lonely. And I feel guilty - I realise so many people have gone through worse things, so I feel guilty for feeling so awful and self obsessed.

I'm so sorry for everyone on this thread.

Carabella - I'm so sorry about dad and babies. Please, please don't think it was your fault for worrying too much. I'm the same as you. I worry about everything and expect the worse. I've always been like this but my mum dying has made it worse. I think we worry and feel guilty because we feel like this gives us control but the fact is we don't have any control over anything that happens in this world - which may be even more terrifying. And please don't feel guilty for suffering - your pain is every bit as valid as anyone else's. You've been through so much. Try to be kind to yourself and not beat yourself up (easier said than done as I do this all the time!)

lht22 - So sorry for your loss. 32 is such a young age to be widowed. It must be so incredibly tough for you to hold it together. I hate it too when people tell me I'm being strong. It almost feel offensive because you're not being strong, you're just struggling through it and getting on with it because you have no choice. Big hugs. xx

Oh God.
My heart breaks for all of you.
Almost 6 months since I lost my darling son and I am desperate in my grief.
I have no answers, no words, just my thoughts and sympathy.

Grief taught me:
That the five stages of grieving idea is total bullshit;
How strong I am: it was sink or swim, so I swam;
That you can think you're pretty much over it, that it's all under control, and then it can hid you amidships, entirely out of the blue, a quarter of a century later;
That the timing of death is unjust, and that grief is exhausting.

It made me feel more vulnerable, but it also toughened me up. It made me less scared of a lot of things, because I reckoned that if I could survive that, I could survive a hell of a lot. It helped me understand a lot about life at a comparatively young age. It makes me appreciate what I have now.

I still miss DM, if I stop and think about it. I'm sad that she and the DC never met each other. Losing a parent, though, is in the natural order of things. Losing a child is something I cannot imagine. for all of you who have.

You find out who your friends are. I cannot forgive those who didn't offer their condolences.

Alazuli - thank you. I think you're right about the control thing, I also think the worrying is an attempt at self preservation - as if I've pictured something happening and imagined how it would be, then I'll somehow be prepared for it if it happens. Stupid, obviously! I'm trying mindfulness to help me change my way of thinking but it's not easy.

Carabella - Yes, I totally get that. I tend to find I always spend a lot of energy fretting about the worst case scenario and then it never happens. It's exhausting.

I've started CBT. Not sure it's really helping me yet but they sent me some literature about generalized anxiety disorder and suddenly it all made sense.

'Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry, that is, apprehensive expectation about events or activities.[1] This excessive worry often interferes with daily functioning, as individuals with GAD typically anticipate disaster, and are overly concerned about everyday matters.'

Not sure the best way to reduce the worrying but hopefully this is a start. Have you looked into counselling? You've been through so much.

Grieving for my late father changed me profoundly. His very premature death aged only 50 made me angry and embittered. I struggle every day with anxiety and that raw pain that nothing will ever heal. I am bitter that other people have families that are happy and seemingly untouched by death and disaster and my family is shattered into pieces and mired by consuming grief. I have had to watch my poor mother and siblings struggle to move on with their lives knowing that such a huge part of it will always be missing. My father had he been alive today would have adored his two grandchildren and I am so deeply saddened that they never got the chance to know him.

It's me anxious, bitter, depressed and incredibly lonely. Even surrounded by people I love, I'm lonely.

I'd love to think that on day I'll be happy again, but I'm 8 years in and I honestly feel like the best part of me died too.

It's made me*

Hi Alazuli - I've recently started to think about counselling. In my family, we don't really talk about emotions much so I tend to keep things to myself and pretend I'm fine which doesn't help, so counselling is probably a good idea. The GAD description sounds very familiar! Will look into counselling more, hope the CBT works for you.

Thanks for the love on this thread, love to everyone going through the same awful process.
I've just come in from a night out, I haven't had many of these in the last 6 months and they are hard. I live in a little village where everyone pretty much knows everyone, just makes you realise that even in the moments when grief isn't at the forefront of your mind, it's certainly never far away. The head tilts people give when they ask how you're doing, having to tell taxi drivers what happened, etc. There's no time off from loss.

Ps I realised the bit about the taxi driver sounded odd (I've had a bit to drink tonight!), I know him well but haven't seen him for ages. His is a company I've used for about 10 years and, of course, he asked me how my husband is. That was a bit of a downer at the end of an otherwise nice night.

I feel like today has been a manic day, does anyone else experience these as part of their grief? I have days where I can barely speak to or look at people, then I have days where I literally feel manic. I talk at an incredible pace, I laugh really loud, can't keep still, etc. Another things I just can't get used to.