Dear Lost Child,
I know the feeling, of not being able to cope. Thought you might like to know that..that you're not weak, not the weird one, not the one over-dramatising things, this is bloody hard, its miserable, yours/my heart aches for your/my father. You just want him back, you just want this to all be over. This wasn't supposed to happen to your big strong independent dad. Its like you've had one of the strongest things in your life, your rock, smashed to pieces in front of you...u just want to fall to the ground, picking up the pieces in your hands, feeling them crumble into rubble as you do so, and cry and cry and cry.
But life doesn't work that way anymore..this might be happening to your Daddy, but even though that makes you feel like a lonely 'lost child' again...we're adults now and that means for good or for bad we have to keep going, if its not for our mum's its for our partner's or our children...or even our sick fathers, so that they still have something they can rely upon. I'm not preaching here...like you I don't how I am going to manage to do so...all I do know is that the days keep passing and I am still here...even if some days it is only just. Some days, I have an absolute fit and do spend it 'not coping'...but even when you do get to cry and not cope..I have found that the pain doesn't go away, in fact when I am not coping, I get more time to think about how miserable things are, and that just makes me feel worse, so I have found instead that it works better for me to just pretend I am able to cope, keep going to work, keep being a wife, keep being a step-mum, keep being a daughter, keep busy...and time passes much quicker. But allow yourself to chuck a wobbly every now and again!
The biggest suck about this disease is that even if you don't cope..the situation remains...and remains possibly for years. There is no escape except the unspeakable and frankly if this disease has taught me one thing it is to cherish life while we have it and can enjoy it. That doesn't mean I wasn't thinking very dark thoughts the other night...the thing is though, you just have to give things time. I can be ready to not want to live anymore one night...but three days later I will be fine again, something nice will happen, I will see something beautiful, I will realise how lucky I am to have the husband I do, something will bring me out of my dark mood. Sometimes it might be 3 weeks or 3 months, but something will make life worth it for me again. Even Dad smiling in delight to see me, although it hurts as much as it makes me happy, it reminds me that he would have wanted me to be enjoying life, that he wouldn't have wanted me this sad...and so I keep coping for his sake...so I can be happy again one day in the future for his sake.
I don't know what else I can say, except to reiterate again that I know how you feel, and that you shouldn't feel like there's something wrong with you for not being able to get past this. I almost said exactly the same words that you have written here to my husband the other day...why can't I get past this, accept it...I think we just have to accept that...we can't.
I have been away recently for work and it also made me realise how easy it is to forget, to cope , to accept when you are far away from it all. Made me realise that part of why we can't get over our grief like other people do when their loved ones die is because our loved ones are still here, near us....the mind is wonderful at blocking pain out when it doesn't have to deal with the situation causing it on a day to day basis...but we don't get that luxury...or if we do, our loved ones get forgotten and die alone. Thats why we who don't want that fate for our loved ones, somehow manage to keep coping.
When you are feeling like you can't take anymore, just keep saying to yourself my favourite saying for such times...'this too in time will pass, this too in time will pass'. It is amazing how much better it makes me feel to say that. I guess it reminds you that there is hope of better times, in time.
All the best, another 'lost child',