Help with grief

[Applegreenery]

Hello all. I've lost both my parents within a year, one expected, one not, at least not yet. It's my first experience of grief and I'm struggling. My partner who has never experienced grief is struggling with me. Does anyone have any resources I can point him to, to help? I appreciate he can't understand, I didn't until I experienced it myself. But he feels like a happy day means all future days will be happy. I'm not currently equipped to articulate it.

Thank you.

I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost my grandfather and father within 16 months of each other and had also never experienced grief before. I didn’t end up using them, but Cruse were recommended to me by so many people. They may be able to support you both.

it’s certainly an emotional rollercoaster. Like you say, one good day doesn’t equal all days being good forever more. Even one good morning doesn’t equal a good day! I found things could change in an instant.

I found it helpful to ‘feel the feelings’…..if I needed to cry, I cried. If I needed space, I asked for it. I didn’t brush any feelings under the carpet as I felt it wouldn’t help in the long run.

Thinking of you

Sorry to hear of your close loses. My df and dm passed 5 years apart and I thought that was close. The bereavement of being an ‘orphan’ had a profound effect on me. It really hit hard. My dm too didn’t understand, but I knew it wasn’t my problem to solve his non understanding of the situation.
When I lost df I started a new job and my new colleague was quite dismissive of when I said I lost my df it was hard. She too lost her df and not until after this happened she could truly understand my feelings and agreed to why I left my previous job. It was too much and some do not understand this. How can they? They’ve never experienced this.
All I’m saying is, you cannot make your dp understand and it’s not your job to do this. If he isn’t stepping up, I’d be questioning the relationship.

I’m sorry for your loss, I lost my DF and DM in close succession one unexpectedly, and even now 3 years on I still have my moments, it’s hard for partners especially those who have not lost somebody close to them to fully understand. Please take care of yourself , cruse was recommended for me although I never got around to contacting them x when you feel able to vocalise to your partner do try and ask for some space or some quiet time or just to sit and be or whatever it is you may need -it’s hard for others to understand exactly what you might need as this is likely to change regularly x

Maybe this analogy with help him to understand you.

When it comes to dealing with loss our mind can conclude that the thing we
have lost was so integral to our idea of what happiness is that we can never be happy again. In these instances, we need to ‘zero the scales’.

When we want to weigh out ingredients to cook something, we place a bowl on the scales and hit the zero button so that the weight of the bowl does not confuse our calculations. Then we add the ingredients and the numbers go up; were we to remove the bowl, the scales would read a minus number. To continue weighing anything accurately we must hit the button to zero the scales once more, now the bowl isn’t there. When we have a tragedy in our life we can be plunged into depression because our happiness levels now read a minus.

Any attempt to improve our life would result in slightly less of a minus... but a minus all the same. Depression is when we don’t see any way of getting back to zero. A person’s ability to move on from tragedy depends entirely on their ability to adapt to where they are now. If we can accept where we are today (minus that loved one, or that relationship, or that job), we can start to once again build on our happiness levels.

There will be days when you are below zero, days when you are at zero but can't seem to break through but there will also be days when you are at a positive.

Maybe if you could have a simple code to let him know where you are on the happiness scale he can understand and behave accordingly?

Thank you all, some good advice and pointers for me. I'm sorry for your own losses x

Grief is so personal and different for everyone. I needed to find my own way and that included the realisation that DH couldn't understand how I was feeling, although he was never dismissive of it. I don't think I could have dealt with that on top. He supported me as much as he could but only time helped for me.
My DB was only a teenager when he died in an accident. It was very shortly after 9/11. Even now when something crops up for that it transports me back there. DF died not long afterwards and it felt like I'd never be happy again.
In time the wonderful memories shone through but life changed. I felt like I'd floated along before, not realising how easy my life was. Slowly a new normal emerged. I've since lost DM quite suddenly. Past experience helped with this I think. Counselling didn't help when DB and DF died but it might for you so I would be open to that.
I'm sorry for you loss. In time what I understood was that even those that had experienced loss did not know how I felt. You feel what you feel and that's ok.