Losing my mum - stuck in past

[alovelycupoftea]

This is my first ever posting on Mumsnet, so please bear with me.
I am 52 years old. My mum got ill with breast cancer when I was 12, was ill on and off or about 8 years and died when I was 20. I don't think I have ever dealt with it properly.
Part of me feels 52 and grown-up, but part of me feels 12 , overwhelmed and emotionally 'scared' of life and the future. I am desperate to move on, as this has caused me enormous problems with depression and anxiety, but I also recognise that part of me is hanging on to that scared little girl whose daddy was still there taking care of everything for her (he died 17 years ago). I have had various bouts of counselling and medication, all of which helps, and I have a wonderfully supportive family & friends who all try their best to help, but I feel so bad dumping on them all the time and thought there might be someone out there in the same boat that I could talk to. Is there anyone else who understands what this feels like?

I'm sorry, I haven't been in your situation, but it sounds really hard and I didn't want to leave your post without answering. In sure your friends and family don't feel you're dumping on them

Have you tried semi permanent counselling? Bouts don't help IMO - you need ongoing and indefinite support from the same counsellor.

I suffered a major loss at 18 which I never dealt with and it came back to haunt me ten years later. I then lost my mum very suddenly in December and counselling has helped me start to process my thoughts in a more healthy way.

Regression to a childlike state is quite common with parent bereavement from what I'm told - so it sounds like a natural, but delayed reaction.

My mum supported me when I was 18 so losing her so young has also hit me incredibly hard - she was the first person I'd turn to in a crisis. Same with you and your dad, I guess.

Just to say sorry for what you're going through. Grief never goes away, but you need to try and learn how to live with it.

I'm so sorry that you are sad in this way.

I know it will sound a bit woolly, perhaps, but I think your post really describes a need to work with inner child help. If you haven't, then please try it. I have been reading something about a concept of an 'outer child' which is a more rebellious and anxious, but not very effective, defender of the inner child, which is the part of you, age 12, that has been hurt. You can't 'give' the part of you that is still the child to someone else to look after, or just hope it will manage and stay as it is. Somehow you may have to find it take it back and work out a way to look after it. This is hard to describe but do have a look at some of the theory which says it better than I can.