How to grieve

[SmallPiecesOfGlitterAreSomehowEverywhere]

Outing to anyone who knows me but I don't care anymore. My beloved aunt died earlier this year (she had no children and i was her only niece so we were very close). Two months later I gave birth to my gorgeous baby who is happy and healthy. 2 months after that my wonderful dad died. Now it's 2 more months on and I don't know how to grieve for everything. My aunt and dad were siblings and both were over 80 and had had dementia for several years but both died suddenly of different short illnesses unrelated to the dementia. A whole side of the family wiped out. I've been in anticipatory grief for both of them for a few years I suppose and have cried some in the past, and did cry a bit at dad's deathbed and both funerals. But its now a month after the last funeral and I've not cried since. I want to, desperately. I want to open the floodgates and take to my bed for a day and howl against it all. But instead, I'm just a ball of tightly packed up anger alternating with numbness. The baby doesn't sleep. I miss my aunt. I need her. I miss my dad. I need him. They were the 2 people who always just 'got' me, even without words. And they've gone forever. I have a wonderful husband, friends, family, even my amazing mum is still alive and kicking and fabulous but she's got her own grief of course (they were happily married and she was his carer). I can't cry properly or fully. I'm bunged up. I'm packed full of shitty grief that is seeping out as physical health issues, binge eating and a rotten attitude to my surviving loved ones including my lovely older child. Fuck this, I just want to cry and wallow. I don't want to talk to anyone about it, I just want to burst.

Please has anyone got any tips on how to functionally grieve? Thank you.

I suggest you get in touch with the charity Crisis. They are just the kind of people you need in this situation.

You need space to grieve. If you don't get that day alone to process and cry it can take longer.

I’m sorry for your losses

If you can arrange childcare, could you dedicate a day to going through photos, letters and memories? And let yourself feel everything you have been bottling up.

There are also podcasts and books on grief which you might find helpful. Eg The Grief Cast. Also look at The good grief trust

So sorry OP. You explain this so well. I really understand what you've written. I have had a loved one close to me die very recently and I so get what you mean. It's all inside and I'm numb and just full of emotion but it never comes out.

I don't know what to offer you as I don't feel like I have the answer. Only sending you my best thoughts.

You are grieving just not in the way you expected. I was the same. I kept waitigg by for the ‘proper’ grief to kick in. It never did but I was grieiving.

I lost my dad 3 years ago, I was a daddy's girl & it broke my heart but I still haven't cried yet. I still feel totally numb, I'm on antidepressants & I wonder if they are suppressing my feelings of grief.

Handhold OP, grief is so hard, I can empathise. There are no rules, grief is different for everyone. The only thing I can say is it takes time to accept the loss, eventually you learn to live alongside the grief. So sorry for the loss of your Aunt & Dad