Funeral tomorrow

[blondiebea]

My mum passed away two and a half weeks ago and I am dreading the funeral tomorrow. I don't fear the sadness and grief but I suffer from panic attacks and often get them when I really don't want to...I.e I am thinking I will get one in the limousine following the hurst as I will feel trapped and unable to stop the car and get out.

I also have forgotten to send underwear with my mums clothes to the funeral home I have no way of getting there again now and the funeral is in the morning. I feel so guilty.

Am so sorry to hear about your mum. I was just wondering if you have any strategies that you can try and use to help your panic attacks? Or someone you can lean on to help you cope tomorrow? I know it’s a major platitude but take it 5 or 10 minutes at a time - try and focus on getting through the next 5 minutes at a time. Try not to worry about how you might act - there is no rule book on grief.

As for the clothes - am sure the undertakers have taken huge care of your mum. Is there anyone who can drop some things off tomorrow?

Different as it was my grandparent but I had similar fear a few years ago about having a panic attack in the limousine on the way there.

Like a PP said, do you have any coping strategies? I usually play games on my phone ( I have general anxiety about being trapped) but as I didn't have my phone instead I wore a bracelet that I could fiddle with ( count the beads), star breathing and I used a grounding exercise - 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. If you can't smell/taste anything, think about your favourite smells/flavours.

I'll be thinking of you today x

Thinking of you today Blondie. My Dad died six weeks ago and funeral was quite quick afterwards - our choice. I know you will be really worried and sad and anxious about the underwear aspect, but - and I know this sounds patronising and I am worried it is coming out wrongly, but anyway.... There will be something. If it wasn't that, it would be something else. I feel huge emotions that we got the cheapest coffin we could for my Dad. I bought it online! At the time I was proud to have saved money. Now I'm panicked that we did something as cheap as we could. Everything feels wrong. I think being with that feeling, as best you can, is all you can do. Accepting it's there and knowing it may stay with you or may change to something else. That's all we can do. And be as kind to ourselves as we can. Thinking of you.