Extremely complicated grief, advice please.

[MustBeLoopy390]

Having tried talking therapies and currently on sertraline I'm still finding it hard to cope with the loss of my sister just over two years ago. I admit I grieve more for what could have been as opposed to for my sister due to our family situation (I realise this is an awful thing to say but this is how I feel) I normally last between 2 and 3 sessions of talking therapy before I have to self discharge due to severe worsening of my mental health, I cannot revisit childhood etc without becoming extremely anxious and depressed. Has anyone been in a similar situation and found a way out? I'm sick of being stuck in limbo and don't think I'm doing very well as a mother or wife as I can't give 100% right now.

Isn't all of this quite a natural reaction? Two years is nothing, not for someone who was close.

In a situation as you describe, solution focused work would be good
See if this sounds helpful-

www.solutionfocused.net/what-is-solution-focused-therapy/

Make sure you find an accredited therapist though. You don't have to Visit the past in order to move on with your future...

OP, I'm sorry you are going through the heartbreak of losing your sister, and it is heartbreak regardless of how your pain manifests itself. Please continue your counselling because having gone through something similar In regard to feeling absolutely awful after my counselling sessions I eventually found a person who helped me feel safe enough to stick with it and I'm so glad I did.

Thank you all for your replies.
language we weren't close, quite the opposite which is why I'm struggling with the feelings at the moment, I don't feel like I should be grieving at all given our relationship
Isadora thank you for the link, I'll have a look
MrsPeely thank you, I'll have a look for another councillor and see if that helps

My situation was different (PTSD) but I also found that traditional talking therapy with a psychologist just made me feel much worse. He said that things had to get worse before they got better initially, but things didn't get better and eventually even he conceded that he was just making things worse.

I decided to take a different approach and saw an NLP (neurolinguistic programing) therapist who resolved my PTSD in 1 session. I'm still recovering mentally and am not at full strength yet but 3 weeks on none of my symptoms have returned.

If talking therapies arnt helping try a different approach. Even the psychology journals aknowledge that for some people talking therapies make things worse.

EMDR might be worth a try. It is a brief therapy and you don't have to talk about everything in detail for it to work.

Id try and persevere, in my experience these type of sessions get a lot worse before they get better. I remember experiencing some very dark, bleak days after the initial sessions and wondered if I had the emotional strength to continue but I did and slowly but surely things got better.I went from being unable to even speak, weeping uncontrollably and the floodgates opening and everything spilling out.I imagine your sessions are not just grief related but the grief has brought other issues to the forefront, so it's a double edged sword you're handling, which takes some doing, I'm sure there's some progress, but if you were like me you didn't feel like you were moving forward.At one stage, I even thought I'd gone backwards, I felt unable to function and just that I was shit on someone's shoes, but I think that's part of the process, a muddle of feelings and turmoil and as you progress you eventually experience a state of calm.Hang on in there, it's not easy, I feel for you.

OP, my best friend had no relationship with her father at all yet when he died she was distraught and said to me 'I'm upset because of what I didn't have'. She then had to face her family dynamics in order to come to terms with it all and it was far from easy.

I wish you peace of heart and mind soon.

Thank you for your replies. Having a hard day today with it all but going to ring GP tomorrow to discuss more help. I'm certainly not 100% on facing the family dynamic just yet, there is a lot there and I'm not ready (at least I don't think I am)