For Anyone Needing Support After Losing a Parent. Very Supportive Thread (March 2022) )

[Crunchymum]

I hope no-one minds me starting a new thread, the old one is almost full.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bereavement/4352163-For-Anyone-Needing-Support-After-Losing-a-Parent-Very-Supportive-Thread-September-2021

As always lots of love and strength and support to you all xxx

I think grieving is a horribly lonely and isolating experience. I just don't want to be around anyone at the moment; I hate not to say I've just lost my Dad but then I can't talk about him at all without tears. So it's easier not to be around anyone.

It's also hard as the rest of my family are moving on in their own way, whereas I'm the one stuck in the quicksand... just missing my Dad. I also don't think my husband understands at all - he's lost both his parents, his Mum in his teens and his Dad about 10 years ago but they weren't close. I think he sees me coping really well which I really don't think I am, and as my counselling via the hospice ends next week (i've had 10 sessions, most of which were before Dad died) he thinks I'm "better". And I'm really not.

@CiaoMay just couldn't ignore your posts @Badger1970 @lollipoprainbow grieving is the rawest , loneliest feeling I've ever felt. I miss my mum with every fibre of my being I feel completely and utterly robbed , for me, for my children who never met her but most of all for her she never even made it to retirement. Just worked all her life was like a slave to my dead then just vanished. It's so so unfair. I do find some comfort in this thread in that I'm not alone in my feelings, i lost my mum 3 years ago next month and just this last week I've started my 4th try at therapy, it's a long shitty road and I know it's going to last forever, how could it not.

I'm so sorry for what everyone is going through. I echo the comments about how lonely and isolating deep grief is. Sadly I've got a few friends who have also lost parents recently so there are people who at least are sympathetic to my extreme flakiness at the moment!

I'm four months in now. First numbing grief and shock is gone and I'm still very up and down. The 'firsts' this year are tough- Mother's Day was awful tbh, just wanted to shut myself away and howl for my mum. I feel a bit more functional though- feels like the days where I just can't cope are slightly fewer and I don't feel quite so disengaged with the world. Slightly fewer days where I want to burn it all down and run away!

I've just been shocked by how debilitating it is, physically and mentally. I knew she was deteriorating and thought I was ready for it but it's hit me like a truck. I can see there is a normal afterwards but it's not the same as the old normal

I was with my db today and he seems to be doing okay, feels a sort of relief that our dm is no longer suffering and that the daily worry we had has gone. I thought I would feel that too, but I don't really. I feel numb to it, and bone achingly sad when I allow myself to dwell on her not being here.
I also feel the loss of my ddad all over again, as though mum was a custodian of him and his memory. Her house had been their house, our family home. It all feels a bit too much.

@grosslyunfair new normal and old Normal is
So right. I always say life goes on , but it isn't as good .

Hi everyone,

I’m just checking in to see how everyone is doing today. I’ve been reading all the new posts and so many people say things which resonate so exactly how I feel and have felt in the last 18 months. I read myself writing that, and can’t believe it. It was 18 months on Friday since I tragically and unexpectedly lost my Dad and although time goes on, the weeks go on and the seasons change, we have not moved on. As a family, we are almost standing still. I think when you are so deeply impacted by something like this that you don’t move on from it. You sort of stay in the rawness. To me, it feels like 6 months ago since we lost our Dad. I was reading what @Crunchymum said on the 17th and it’s spot on, I carry a darkness and sadness now with me wherever I go. I don’t think you ever feel the same person again. I feel most days like I’m in limbo, waiting for Dad to come back. I don’t know if anyone else feels like that?
I went to visit my Dad today and took yellow roses as yellow was his favourite colour. It is nice having somewhere to go and sit and talk to Dad but at the same time, soul destroying that I have to do that and that he’s not at his house with my mum where he should still be.
Anyway, just letting everyone know that I am reading the posts and feel for every one of us on here going through this x

Hello, I had no idea there was a Bereavement section and a thread to help those losing a parent. My dad died recently and I’m really not okay. I’m worried about mum but I’m also finding it difficult to function.
I’ll read the thread and lurk and maybe then post a bit. I’m so sorry there are so many of us.

I can resonate with so many of you here, I almost feel glad that I'm not going mad and how I feel is normal.

It's been 4 weeks since my Dad left and because his illness was so rapid and he was gone suddenly I'm traumatised by what I saw each day and how quickly he deteriorated. Now I don't have funerals to sort and paperwork to organise I just feel bereft. I feel cheated that because he deteriorated so quickly I didn't get the chance to just be with him caring for him, I was arguing with doctors, consultants to try and get him the care he needed. It shouldn't have been that way.

@Sonotokay So sorry about your Dad. It’s the worst thing ever to lose a parent, it really is. I’m the same as you, I’m finding it so difficult without my Dad, and I’m so worried for my mum as well. It’s been 18 months for me and life gets no easier.

Tomorrow will be one week since my lovely mum died after a short sudden battle with sepsis. I’m still in a state of shock at what happened to her and our family. Sending love to everyone whatever stage of this agonising journey you are on.

I am back to work tomorrow after 6 weeks. Really do not feel ready for it.

@Strugglingwithoutmum

Hello i thought I would reach out my mum also died through sepsis 2 years ago she was gone within 11 days of being admitted into hospital with a infection in her leg the drs spoke about her having sepsis then her kidneys failed and she was gone. @Bluemat I fought with consultants to no avail for dialysis for my mum it was very traumatic. It helps a little to know that you are not alone, that there are other people out there, on here feeling what you are feeling and are understanding for the huge loss that you have both experienced

@CiaoMay what you say resonates with me and it's taken a long time for me to unpick some of my feelings about my mum.

I now know that ultimately no-one on this Earth cares about me like my mum did. And that is a very final and difficult thing to try to come to terms with. The irrevocability and totality of the person who loved me most no longer being here is agonising.

My mum was all about us children (4 of us, all adults) and our children. She was so interested in us, she was so genuinely proud of even the most minor of any of our achievements. She loved us, championed us, supported us and was positive about all our choices and experiences.

She remembered each and every little, inconsequential thing - the kids parents evenings, Dr's appointments, dentists, coffee mornings at school. She remembered every injection each of my kids had, every work presentation I did, every test I ever sat throughout my whole academic life, she remembered every holiday I had (she would check flights took off and landed in pre-mobile phone days). She remembered my boyfriends (the good, the bad and the downright ugly), she knew about my friendships and adventures. She came to friends weddings with me.

Things that mattered to me - and no-one else really - mattered to her too. It was a genuine investment in my mundane existence. My Mum never made it feel mundane though, she made me feel like it all mattered and it was all important. I don't have that anymore and it makes my heart ache to be honest.

God I miss her so much. And God I hope I can give my kids what she gave me. I am lucky to have had such a divine, unequivocal, and absolute love in my life.

I can’t really “talk” yet, but I’m so very, very sorry to all of you. I’m sorry for all the pain but it has enabled me to see that I’m not going mad.

I think we all go a bit mad. Or maybe it's just that raw grief is not socially accepted and so we go to the doctors and try to plan to go back to work and expect to be ok after the first few weeks. It takes everyone the time it takes and some (most?) of us will be changed forever. I do feel better than I did immediately after, and I think there's a happy future, but the loss won't go away.

I remember going to an exhibition in New York by Anna Wintour of "Death becomes her" which was a display of mourning clothing through the ages.

I almost feel that we should still be doing this - wearing black and visibly seen to be "in mourning". Then maybe we could give up the pretense of life going on and "being normal" when it's so very far from it. In victorian times, you mourned a parent for a year.

I feel like I'd like to wear all black and hide behind a veil most days.

I've had to go back to the doctors and get my fit note extended for another week. I know I have to return sometime I just do not feel up to facing people and saying I'm ok when I'm not. I'm haunted by my dads last few weeks, some days I feel like I'm cracking up.
I'm not ok, I'm not over it just because it's been a month.

Society does expect us to be ok once the funeral has taken place and it just doesn't work that way. My gp has just said to me that how I feel is normal and to not punish my self over how I feel. He said it will never go away but it will get easier and soon the sadness will be replaced by happier thoughts and memories. At the moment all I can remember is watching my DDad deteriorate every day for two weeks and no one helping him.

It takes as long as it takes, and you deal with it however you can.

Its been six months since dad died. Those awful memories of my dad being treated so poorly in hospital stopped haunting me after a few weeks, but I’ve had so much to sort out for probate plus my mum has been really poorly and has needed lots of care. I also have my own little business, so no sick pay for me, and I’ve had to keep plodding on. I feel like I’m swimming at the top of a whirlpool at the moment and could go under at any point. My beloved horse had to be pts two weeks before my dad died, and that had me in floods of tears out of the blue last night, I’ve barely cried about her previously. This week I’ve also kept thinking about my dad a fortnight before he died. He had sepsis and kept seeing leaches at the bottom of the bed and bluebottles all over the walls - how disturbing that must of been when he was in a side room and couldn’t get out of bed.

@Crunchymum god your post made me
Ugly cry, I feel you I really do

He wasn’t able to drink and I’m still not sure if he was painfully thirsty. He was on morphine and lots of other drugs. But I can’t get it out of my head that we just didn’t feed him, or give him water. It seems barbaric. I just went along with the medics but maybe I should have done something else.

And I slept next to him for two nights, but that last night I was so tired that I only held his hand for a little bit. I couldn’t hold it and sleep. I feel so guilty that I put sleeping over my dad’s dying.

I can’t go back to work as I can’t function. My brain isn’t working. I’m anxious and panicky and I can’t stand being with people. I’m actually a bit frightened.

and my mum, I can’t imagine the pain she’s in. And I’m nowhere near her. A days journey away.

@Crunchymum
Your mum sounds just like mine there for you every step of the way and interested in absolutely everything about your life. Boy were we lucky to have mums like that 💔

@Sonotokay

I recall pushing the medics too with my mum when they withdrew fluids and transferred her over to the palliative care team for end of life care. I tried everything to get them to keep giving her fluids but they said she had fluid overload and they couldn't give her anymore. It haunts you, it truly does asking yourself what if i did this or what if i said that. Ultimately my mums care decisions were taken out of my hands and there was no where else to turn. Am in the process if legal proceedings its very painful to revisit those very dark days and nights in the hospital when they withdrew all treatment and said to me that "there is only so much that medicine can do". I keep thinking what if i fought harder for her but by god am sure that i did.

Was/ or is anyone else totally crippled with guilt in those early weeks and months. I made myself ill with it. That was 2 years ago and now i have had to let go of that otherwise it was going to swallow me whole. I keep thinking that my mum wouldn't want me to punish myself. I went up to the hospital with my sister to go over my mums care with one of the consultants after mum died. I had a lot of unanswered questions. I came away with some answers but still not feeling like everything was done that could have been done hence why i have taken legal representation but it took me about 6 months to feel anywhere near up to staring this process 💔

Put work on the back burner and concentrate on you and your mental health.

Can I sadly join? My mum died 2 weeks ago and I'm struggling. She had dementia and I'd gone through all the anticipatory grief with that. Then she was diagnosed with late-stage cancer 6 months ago, and I did the whole anticipatory grief thing again, but then got over it much quicker than I did when she'd been diagnosed with dementia 3 years ago.

I genuinely thought I'd be okay when she died. I thought I'd come to terms with it and I thought I'd done all my grieving over the last 3 years as she started to lose parts of her character as the dementia progressed. I even thought - when she was diagnosed with late-stage cancer - it would actually be a relief because we wouldn't have to go through the really terrible later stages of dementia now. The early stages had been bad enough.

I was so naive. There's no relief, I'm not okay AT ALL. The first week after she died was like being punched - the devastation and shock took my breath away and I just kept crying. No sleep at all. The second week, I got over the shock but then this awful flat, depressed, sad feeling settled in, and that's even worse than the shock of the first week. I've no interest in anything at all. I only want to be with my husband, my dad and my siblings. I don't want to see anyone else, I don't want to work, I don't want to exercise. I'm so so sad.

@CrocodileRocks sending you love. It's 5 weeks tomorrow since my Dad passed and I feel the same as you. Some days are ok but I'm feeling the same.

One thing this thread has shown me is that we all grieve differently and it really does just take time. I'm trying to just put one foot in front of the other and get through each day at the moment. I should have been back at work this week but I can't face it mentally I'm burnt out, I plan on trying to return but next week is one of the many firsts that my Dad should be here for and I don't know if I can do it. If I do go back it will only be for financial reasons as I'm going to be short on money now after having so long off.

Don't beat yourself up about how you feel. It is normal, be kind to yourself.

This thread has been a huge source of comfort to me lately - it's awful others have gone through the same thing but we all have one thing in common, losing a parent is the worst thing I've ever had to go through.

@CrocodileRocks

The sadness is relentless just go slowly, take life a day at a time even just getting up out of bed at this stage is something and when you get into bed at nighttime say to yourself that you have managed to get through that day and you will get through the next day too. Loosing a parent knocks you sideways, it completely floors you, changes everything about who you are and how you live your life. I wanted to died too when my mum died i honestly think the only thing that kept me alive was my kids. I would never wish this upon them, although i know that it will come eventually.

Back then I couldn't handle the pain, it was just too much but through time all that hurt and pain becomes part of you and you do carry on living, everything is different and nothing is the same again. It cant be, its impossible for life to go back to how it was before.

I still avoid places, those places that should be happy memories having been there with mum but i can't and it sounds crazy but i can't even travel to a country where i was on holiday with mum or even anywhere in the UK as i won't be able to say that the last time i was there was with mum. I now only visit/travel to new places, ones that don't hold memories of mum even restaurants i avoid those too where i have been with mum and 2 years down the line am still the same don't know if that will ever change but that's just the way life is now.

Take care and you are not alone