Bereavement and the psychology of crying

[h0rsewithn0name]

My DM is in her final weeks and I am heartbroken. It's so hard, I'm with her every day and dealing with all the day to day care, on top of working part time. Things are tough.

I'm not normally a crier, in fact most people think I'm a bit hard-nosed. But of course I have natural feelings and I'm trying to understand these a bit better. When I'm with close friends and family I can talk about what's happening and how we're dealing with things in quite a factual, pragmatic way. I haven't once cried in front of my very supportive DH or adult DC. But, when bump into a random neighbour, or a colleague I don't know very well, I start to cry. Why is this? Why do I cry in front of randomers, and not family?

I know that crying is a natural process in grief, I really do. I'm not trying to fight it, but just to understand it. Anyone else in a similar position?

I am sorry about your mother. I assume she is at home so have you got all the support you should be getting. My mother was ill and died at home and we had the district nurses team on speed dial plus we had support from the palliative nurse team who stayed with her at night. Carers visits three times a day were free and the GP prescribed an End of Life package of drugs the idea being that we could call a nurse to administer pain relief if necessary. Please don’t worry about when you cry. I didn’t cry when she died or at the funeral but soon after I went to a concert and the song I’ll see you in my Dreams had my daughter and I weeping and hugging each other. We can’t control when we cry - when my father died, a song could catch me unawares or a stall selling baseball caps would make me cry. Take care of yourself.

I always think it's the kindness and concern of more random people that really catches you out. You're also used to talking about it with closer family and as you say in a more pragmatic way.

Thank you for your replies. I'm not really sure what 'stage' she is at to be honest. She can't do much for herself at all and she is in a lot of pain. I've started using the wheelchair to get her some fresh air, which breaks up her day. The nurse visits weekly to monitor meds.

I agree completely about the kindness of strangers. At times like this, I feel that people's humanity is at its best and people are so, so kind, it brings tears every time.

My mum died 6 weeks ago and I’m in the same position! I think as per a PP, with family, you’re going through it together in some way, and in our case it was the ‘new normal’

Ive cried way more with random people (cleaner, fellow school mum etc) which had caught me by surprise as im not really a public crier / emotion person

Look after yourself and each other in the next few weeks. I’ve found grief to be a sneaky bastard and it’s really been a shock as to how much it’s impacted me, even though we’ve known it was coming for months