Just been told that my lovely nan has passed away & my parents are away on holiday

[Pinkchampagne]

They have only been gone since last Thursday, so I have to find a way to contact them to try & get them home before the funeral.
My nan had a massive stroke & I didn't know, and now she's dead. I'm in bits, I feel so guilty. I was going to phone her tonight to check she was ok, and now she's gone.[

Can I explain about Valium/ Diazepam. They are the same thing, Valium is the trade name and Diazepam the generic name ( like Panadol /paracetamol) It used to be used for depression years ago but now is not. However it is good for treating acute anxiety in the short term, it "takes the edge off" and you are able to cope, but not drugged. Taking a low dose for a day will not lead to dependency.
Diazepam has also used as a pre-med before ops due to its muscle relaxant properties, and in Intensive care to stop distressed patients unwittingly pulling tubes out, etc. Do not drink alcohol when taking diazepam.
If you have any worries/questions about anti-depressants or any medication at all, talk to a pharmacist at your chemist, they have a wealth of information in some cases more than the prescibing G.P. At worst, they can send you back to G.P., At best you can talk to them sooner!

Thanks for that, KS, I am not very up on these kinds of things!
Other than taking Citalopram for a brief period of time, I haven't really taken anything other than Kalms (which I found made no difference at all) & Rescue Remedy to prevent panic attacks.
Frightened I will have a panic attack on the funeral day, so was planning to take Rescue Remedy that morning, just to try to calm me a little.

Pink, glad to clarify that for you. Also, if you decide to take citalopram in the future, do not take with St Johns Wort it may react badly, also, anti depressants are often started at a low dose and increased to the maximum effective dose for the individual. Do not suddenly stop taking them as your brain will freak out at the loss of the medicine (scary) it needs to be withdrawn gradually. Another use for citalopram is to help treat and prevent panic disorders and phobias.
Don't panic about breaking down at the funeral you have a good howl if it helps, and ignore your cousin, you are the richer for having such a wonderful relationship with your nan, she is not. Better she doesn't go.

I know I will break down at the funeral, it is going to be awful. A friend of mine offered to come along with me, bless her, but I told her I would be ok. It's just a horrible horrible day that you have to get through.
Can't believe my cousin, but I guess I shouldn't be suprised...she never bothered with nan.

Don't want to have to resort to ADs, KS - the very thought of tablets messing with your brain freaks me a bit!

pc i struggled for six months ,could work and do my job work nights, as carer on emi unit, could go to work do my job well ,work with some fantastic girls but come home go to bed and shut everyone else out ,i havent walked to shop for seven months ,i tried once and had a panic attack ,hubby had to come and get me ,i cant go to supermarket on my own,i have fantastic times with my family ,worship my granddaughters and believe me we are mad together,so i dont think i am a miserable cow all times, yet friends that i have known for years ,i shut them out, i only want my family and my special friends, please dont end up like me, i did manage funeral.you can do it,it helps to say goodbye,but really she will always be with you,my hubby didnt believe in afterlife,but things happen and no one can explain,and when i really need my grandson,hes here

i am on week three of ads ,

Pinkchampagne - feeling sad for you, but hope that you may gain some comfort from the funeral. It's usually good to be with other people who loved the person who has died and you may well gain strength from that. My boys went to my dad's funeral when they were 10 & 8 and had a surprisingly happy time. They were sad to say goodbye to grandad, but it helped them come to terms with losing him. I had given them the choice of whether or not to go and taken to the crematorium beforehand to look at the pretty gardens and explain to them what would happen.

Do you feel they have made a difference at all, hazygirl?

Before all this happened, I was feeling a bit overloaded with various things & there were times I felt I was struggling to keep my head above water, and questioned whether I was going to have to give into ADs, but I normally managed to pull myself back together.
Exactually a week before news of nans death, I was feeling kind of down (as poor Blu is well aware!) & last Tuesday I actually thought to myself "I am feeling much better than this time last week"
Then about an hour later I received the terrible news about nan & felt a million times worse than ever.

I had to rely on the boys dad to take care of them for the first couple of days because I was such a wreck.
I got the boys back on the Thursday & DS2 started throwing bad tantrums, where he would scream names at me & throw things. I know this probably due to him feeling confused after spending two nights with daddy at his grandparents house.

On Saturday, I was all over the place, I couldn't sit or stand still.
Dad & BIL were making digs at me, and I wasn't in the mood.
BIL offered to drive me home on the condition my boys shoes were removed before entering his car (they had no mud on them or anything), and I felt myself getting angry, telling him it was easier just to walk.

Got home & DS2 bit his brother, so I gave him time out on the step, where he screamed "Hate you, mummy!" Then "Stupid!"
I tried to ignore, I knew why he was behaving this way, but I knew I couldn't take that much more.

I kept calm while dealing with all this, then once he apologised, I allowed him to sit with his brother, and like a bad mum I put on the TV for them. I needed them calm.
Within minutes there was arguing, and I took myself upstairs into my room, held the door shut & howled.
Boys were blissfully unaware of this, but I shocked myself that I felt I was starting to reach breaking point, and this is why I have to think about maybe getting help in the form of tablets if this continues. I need to be able to cope because I'm on my own with those boys most of the time & they need a strong mummy.

I'm not normally that much of a wreck mother btw, but I did shock myself a bit.
I guess it was only days after the news of nan, and my parents had only just returned home.

I hope I can just get through without needing extra help, but when you are on your own you have to be able to cope because you can't pass the children to anyone else.

Fortyplus - thank you for sharing your experience. I am glad the funeral worked so well for your boys.

Thanks. It's such early days for you. When my dad died it was though I had a video playing over and over in my head that I couldn't control and couldn't switch off. I know other people who've had a similar experience. But it did wear off eventually.

PinkC, neither did I. The next best thing to do is talk and talk and talk, eventually you will start to get your head around things and cope better. After my bereavements I'd go to counselling and then go over it all again with my friends at work. By the last session the counsellor said she'd never had a client who had made such noticeable progress each week, it was obvious I'd worked over in my mind all the issues. Eventually a way forward comes to light.

Further to last message , it you don't have to do counselling as such,talking to anyone you trust who can be non-judgmental and honest will help, it's just sometimes you need an impartial ear.

I normally try not to go on about things that may depress other people, but I have found I cannot help but talk about nan atm, even in my breaks at work.

pc i am not sure yet, my head feels clearer, im not crying as much, and i feel less angry,and remembering happy more times x hubby feels im not , i think am .am more positive, but i think the guys on here have helped even though hubby says im obsseessed, i only do it when on own,or everyone walking tv

i meant watching tv ,it helps no one knows me here, and i just hope they dont think oh here she goes again , i found this link through mile for maude which i did with my family,and thought what nice people they must be ,they will talk about sids not change subject, and they helped me through the worse time of my life.thanks guysx

Week 3 is still pretty early days actually, hazy, they can take a good few weeks to kick in from what I remember.
Hope you find they help you out a bit. You have been through a terrible time.

MN is a great place for support, hazy. There are some wonderful people on here. Keep posting.

I know how horrible this is. I especially know about the thing of planning to phone.

Love to you.

xx

Hi Pinkchampagne,
Ive had a day of it to. Woke up feeling better, not taken a single diazapam. One of my boys came down with a temp, so stayed home, phone seemed to ring all morning, surgery phoned to say they had a cancellation for a counselling apt would I like it, come NOW!Couldnt because of James, but we chatted instead and the counsellor actually hinted that it sounded as though I maybe don`t need their help! Then surgery phoned again, the medical secretary to tel me they cannot get me a copy of Matthews post mortem report to take to London with me as after 10 yr all his records have been destroyed, that so hurt. Then the phone went again, a friend who I met thru losing our children, died this morning of brain cancer. Their second child is in YR6 at our school, and Dad was picking her up and would have to tell her, life is the pits! Just when I said to myself that I have to stop helping other parents, 13 yrs of it is taking its toll, how can I not offer to help, feel so so sad. Like you Pink, I have an appt tomorrow at Canterbury hospital and was going to pop in and see her, too late. You never know what each day is going to bring. Thats two 11 yr old girls in the same class both lost their lovely mums to cancer in the last 9 months, there had better be a heaven.

Oh triplets, I'm so sorry to hear that, how awful.
You are so good helping all these people when you have so much to deal with yourself.x

I guess as we get older we naturally are going to come across more sad times like this, its just that this last year seems to be full of sadness for alot of people. We all have sad times, but hopefully most of us know that they are out weighed by the good and happy times. I try to think of it like this, when its bad, you want to cry, let it happen, for it wont last, it cant, you do and will smile again. Its like the weather, wet, windy, miserable, gets you down, but the next morning you wake up to blue sky and you feel good again.

I haven't cried today. I am thinking of nan constantly, but for some reason I haven't yet cried.
Been to work this morning & it was sports day, so I was pretty busy, but I have some days where I am more tearful than others & I have no idea why this is, there is no real pattern.
Tomorrow is the day Nan's obituaries will appear in the local paper, so it is likely to be a tearful day.
It is also the day we are able to start viewing her if we wish to. I think I am pretty decided in that I'm not going to see her because I don't want to see her dead, but part of me still fears I may regret this once it's too late.

hi triplets hope tomorrow is a better day,and hope your son is feeling better.take it easyx

hi pc hope your day goes ok, thinking of u all xxx