Second Christmas After Losing Mother Is Even Worse. Anyone else feeling this?

[ItsAllSoBleak]

Ive heard that the second year after a bereavement can be worse than the first. Events during the first year seem disguised by shock I think. I mean it was horrendous but in a different way.

This year seems much worse and more stabbingly paingful. My user name was chosen last year but it now seems so much bleaker. Recently I had been feeling less raw about it all and felt Id made grief progress but the approach of Christmas makes me feel like I was fooling myself.

I think it is because now the fact that THIS IS IT forever is really starting to sink in and be absorbed properly whereas last year it was still coming to terms with it.

Im absolutely dreading it. Ive become a carer myself and before we could manage but now we need a carer so there will have to be strangers in the home on Christmas day for the first time.

When I think of the lovely family Christmases we always had with my mum, it brings me to tears that it is over for ever. It's a searing pain. Now so many people who were part of that are dead grandparents etc. It will just be me and my father and strangers to help. I dont want strangers in the home. I want it to be back as it was with my lovey mother and father.

I know its just one day but it really feels like the end of happiness really. I am terrified and scared that this will be my fathers last Christmas touchwood so as bad as it will be it could be my last Christmas with anyone. Im single with no children or brothers or sisters. The future looks pretty awful to me but really right now I just miss my mum so SO much.

I know there must be others in the same position from the thread I was on last year - not sure if you are still posting but tagging you in case you are feeling the same? @JBT27 @againstmachine @ady1

I lost my stepdad, mum and dad within a few years. I can't look at photos, I have none on display. I got rid of my old Xmas decorations because most were given to me by them. Every year me and stepdad would have a competition who could buy the loudest Xmas decoration. They had Santa and I had snowmen.

i got to a point where I knew I had to move on and be at peace with the fact they're not here. I raise a quiet prayer on their birthdays and on Xmas morning but then I'm up and living my life. It did me no good dwelling on the past.

So sorry you're struggling. Two years on I could relate to your user name. I had no joy, everything was hard work and faking living happy was wearing. Eventually I spoke to my GP and said I was sinking and not improving. She prescribed antidepressants and within a few days I felt so much better. It was like it enabled me to have some perspective and process my grief rather than be 'stuck'

It is so very hard, not as raw but still heartbreaking.
I'm trying to be positive and take joy from the small things
I really hope you can have a nice time with your Dad over Christmas
But don't put pressure on yourself it is a day like any other.
I'm making some goals for myself for the New year to try and keep me from feeling down and to keep my mind occupied

thanks @JBT27 @JamJarJimJam @Wishthiswasntmypost sorry for your losses. its a tearful club.

@JamJarJimJam I don't feel the same way about photos. I have some around mainly for my father at first but it gives me comfort to look at her smiling at me. I also talk to her a great deal

@Wishthiswasntmypost Ive considered this but Im too scared to be honest of addiction or becoming reliant on medication to get through a day. I had been feeling not better exactly as the pain is always there but more copeable not a word I dont think - but that I was coping a bit better.

@JBT27 goals for the new year is a good idea. for me Im goal free. the caring is a full time job so I cant really have good goals other than eat well, drink water, more sleep type thing rather that go on holiday to the maldives . thanks for your good wishes but Im thinking it is going to be a day to be got through rather one of any joy.

Be kind to yourself, cry and laugh and try to keep motivated and positive you are not alone in feeling this way, we just have to muddle through.
I think of how my Mum lost her sister and both her parents and maintained a very British stiff upper lip( her heart must of been broken) , she will be looking down on me telling me to pull myself together😂 with my still daily tears.

@JBT27

this made me laugh

she will be looking down on me telling me to pull myself together😂

I expect mine too. maybe its a generational thing. It really gets me when well meaning people say 'she wouldn't want you to be upset. she would want you to live your life well and happily'. It sets off tears for me because I just think I don't care because I don't want to be without her 😭

Very tough day today. Made the huge mistake of going to a carol service while a carer was here. Kept thinking of memories of my mother and carols and christmas. fact I was all alone and knew no one just made me feel even more isolated. full of happy looking families which I can never have. its amazing how you can be in a place with lots and lots of people. it was packed. and still feel so isolated and alone.

before, if Id gone somewhere like that alone, I'd have made an effort to chat to people and been upbeat and relaxed. Since bereavement, now I just cant face it. I feel like I am so lonely and isolated that the desparation for human contact is just so obvious and by trying to engage with people they will see me as sad, lonely old woman who is desparate to make friends. I went there and came back without speaking to anyone.

I honestly feel like a completely different person before and after her death. I used to be relaxed and happy. now I'm bleak, depressed and scared for my future.

I thought it would be good for me to get out of the house and do something Christmassy. It was a huge huge mistake. driving back the radio was full of christmas songs and it made me think that after my father dies I will have even more of this weight of aloneness and depression. I think I will want to die rather than feel this forever and ever every December.

You won't feel like this every year. It's just how your depression is making you feel. Depression as a reaction to bereavement is inevitable and must be waded through. BUT not for ever...not bleak.

Throughout the world people die and their loving families have to grieve then pick themselves up to carry on. You will get there. It will not feel like this forever.

Re antidepressants- I'm not addicted and nor am I medicated against feeling, emotion or feeling grief. It's still there. But I do have the ability to balance that with hope and pleasure in ordinary things. Its what my mum would have wanted for me

I was obsessed with death, losing loved ones and was quite happy to die myself (from illness or accident) rather than watch others die around me. I hadn't realised this was a passive suicidal thought process. Please talk to your GP

thank you for responding @Wishthiswasntmypost it helps to hear from othres.

I have definitely had phases of being passively suicidal. tonight driving back, I was feeling like when my father dies, I would flip to being actively suicidal because I would really have nothing at Christmas and be so alone. I know others are too but its more that feeling of how lovely it was and how black it is now and blacker still it will yet be almost certainly.

it feels such a heavy weight to bear. and its surprised me as I've never really been a big Christmas person. I didn't think Id care really but the carol service really tipped me over the edge

Hello @ItsAllSoBleak sorry about your mum and that you are having such a tough time. Do you have old friends you have lost touch with? Or you could join a meet-up or book club or similar to make friends. You are in a very isolating situation as a full-time carer but if you could find away to carve a little time to create a social life for yourself it might help you feel a bit happier.

You are still relatively early in grief so that’s really tough. Being a carer is also tough.

I do think you sound both lonely and depressed.

I understand you can’t go rushing off round Australia because you are looking after your Dad, but can you start to build up a social life locally. He isn’t going to be around for ever and you do need a life for you when he’s gone.

I also think you should see the GP, anti-depressants and some CBT counselling could be really useful.

It’s important to be gentle with yourself but it’s also important to be a bit firm and move yourself (gently) forward.

Christmas carols in shops and on radio made me want to sob hysterically. The contrast between the Christmas fib and my grief and reality was huge.

However it's a fib for many. Lots of families argue, suffer poverty, domestic violence and just hate the merry go round of family get together when everyone is tired frazzled and tipsy. That's not a very cheery comment but it is reality for others....so you're not alone in finding Christmas tricky.

Try and avoid the trap of seeing a perfect Christmas as something others have but is not obtainable for you. Its a different thing to lots of people.

Being a carer was almost more traumatic than being bereaved if I'm honest. Loving someone and watching their deterioration whilst managing the burden of caring is so so so hard. You don't get time for you or to enjoy life. Are there moments in the day when you can go out on your own? If so join a group close to you doing anything you can....book club, walking, cold water swimming, a carers group....anything to connect you to something outside of the caring situation

It's not at all surprising you feel as you do with what you have going on in life but I promise you it will not feel like this for ever.

@ItsAllSoBleak I completely agree with you. The first year I felt in a haze of shock and denial. I'm also facing a second Xmas without my beloved relative and it's the realisation I'll never hear her voice or laugh again. I'll never again see joy light up her face or hear comforting words.
I cried buckets when I decorated the house for Xmas, it was her favourite time of year and she embraced everything about the season, I can barely raise a smile.

I keep a grief wheel, at the centre is a big black circle, for every moment of happiness I draw a different colour around the black circle. The circle is not getting smaller but the colours around it are getting bigger. That black circle will always be there but it gives me a visual of my healing. Some days I don't add any colour and that's normal, tomorrow or next week will see an additional colour.
Grief is a journey, a slow, harrowing journey. Acknowledge and feel your emotions, embrace the moments of happiness.
Don't pressure yourself to have the perfect xmas or try to re-create the Xmases of past years, that's an impossibility. Have the xmas that feels right for you.
Have you considered bereavement counselling? It really does benefit you in processing your emotions.

I hear you OP my second xmas after dad died was awful (first wasn't great tbh) I think I expected it to be easier but it floored me. I kept thinking is he still dead?(?) it really hit me that he was. 7 years later and I think fondly of him rather than wanting to pull the duvet over my head. It's hard.good luck.x

thank you @Charley50 @theduchessofspork @Wishthiswasntmypost @Morrigandeity @Greedybilly

Being a carer was almost more traumatic than being bereaved if I'm honest. Loving someone and watching their deterioration whilst managing the burden of caring is so so so hard

@Wishthiswasntmypost I think caring is so so hard and my father has dementia so it is literally like watching him disappear. Im really struggling to be honest.

I cant see a future in which I feel any happier. The best I can see is where I feel less depressed but I cant see I can ever be happy again. I feel very low and very unloved in the wider world which is true that I am but it is my fault. I have built my life and made choices I have made including deciding to care for my father which is very isolating.

It is true to those who asked that Ive lost touch with friends but Ihave no time and then on top of that, I feel like becaues I dont know how much time I have left with my father I want to spend all the time with him. This Christmas feeling is making it worse I think. It's like I'm projecting my love for my mother on to my father. I feel like a mother who is too scared to leave her newborn baby.

The other thing is that because of my fathers condition and how horrific I have found the loss of my mother I am terrified of his death because I dont want to be alone or without anyone who loves me in the world (which is how I will be as I have no one who really loves me) and I am shit scared of having go through this grief process again. At least with my mothers death I had my father to give me some comfort and mourn together, when my father dies I will be alone with no one to hold me or cry on a shoulder.

@Morrigandeity ive had bereavement counselling and it was helpful very helpful but all this Christmas stuff has really knocked me for six. I am scared of how empty and alone my future life looks at Christmas and how overwhelming that sense of aloneness is already when it hasn't yet happened.

Hi this my second year with out my dad he passed just before Christmas. It’s heart breaking I have children so trying to be happy and cheerful is so hard .
The first of everything they say is the worst , but m you don’t get used to the fact you will never see them again.
like you said when my mum died I had my dad who I was so close too . I looked after him but now he isn’t here I feel so alone. I had cruise counselling but it did not really help. It’s hard god bless and take care. Take comfort there are sadly alot of us going through this

It IS a thing isn't it... the grief getting "worse" not necessarily better. The actual reality of that person REALLY being gone. My dad wasn't so much into Christmas, but he was hugely into his family, cooking & looking after my house - so he was involved everywhere with everything. Four years now - no it's not as "raw" but the grief tsunamis knock me over many times every day

@Greedybilly @Mother87 @Carol52
It IS a thing isn't it... the grief getting "worse" not necessarily better. The actual reality of that person REALLY being gone

This is the problem I think. Its different to that initial shock and denial and searing pain but it is worse Im finding.

I assume its part of the grief journey to acceptance but I really dont think I'll ever get there. this awfulness of the second year of well this is it for life now, second year, third year, twentieth year - I will never again have my lovely mother. every night I go to sleep I wish to dream of her.

I keep seeing posts on here from bereaved usually recently bereaved saying things like where are you? where have you gone? and I feel that too now approaching a second christmas.

I dont think it will ever go. the pain is so great that if I focus on it too much I honestly think that without my father I will not be able to bear it. Im not joking when I say I fear for myself becoming suicidal as I will be so alone and I cant face going throught all this again. given where I am now, I will be looking at another two + years of feeling utterly shit and like there is no purpose to life. I will actually have no purpose because my purpose is caring for my father and I have no children.

Im so tired of feeling this oppressive black weight of emotion - its like its dragging me down to hell.

You need to talk to your GP.
https://www.thecalmzone.net/ please seek help. You won't always feel this way

Hi OP. I'm so sorry you're feeling this way. I think it's true that the second year can be worse. There is lots of really good advice on this thread. I can't add much to what has been said already but wondered if you could do someone slightly different on Christmas Day with your Dad to what you would have done in the past? Even something small like watching a movie you both like that isn't Christmassy or eating something different? I don't know how bad your Dad's condition is of course so these things may not be possible.

Hi it’s heart breaking reading your post.
my mum died over 20 years ago and from then my dad lived with me in a little annexe at the side of our house with me and my children.
The lose of my mum was horrendous but still having my dad meant I focused on him. I cared for my dad full time a lot of those 20 years through many illnesses and operations.
when he died at Christmas 2 years ago . My world feel apart and the feeling of being alone is dreadful. No one can explain you are on your own and have no one for advice or in unconditional love my parents were the best.
what you are describing Is normal but I do think you also need to talk to someone eithe bereavement counselling or a doctor. You still have your dad and you are so lucky . The times you have left together need to be of good memories and treasure them. You do not want it to be weighted down with your grief for your mum. I know it’s so hard.
The pain does not go away and it does not get easier but our parents would not want us to be sad. Do not worry about what could happen I have been there and we waste our energy on doing that. Enjoy your times with your dad and be strong and go to your doctors for advice and help.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.

I lost Mum last year and my Dad earlier this year. From that perspective, the second Christmas is definitely worse - I miss Mum far more this year than last. And I echo the loneliness - I'm on my own too. I seem to spend a lot of time in tears.

aw bless you. When both your parents have passed you will always feel alone.
I never say I have lost my parents because they are still with me , I know that

I'm not there yet, but my dear mum will soon be gone, and I already relate to so much of what you feel. And the terror of feeling purposeless afterwards.
My heart goes out to you.
Please know that you have a purpose beyond your father (as important as that is). For a start, you have connected with other people here. You've helped me feel less alone. Did you realise that you have the power to do that? It's important.