Seesaw of emotions

CWR

Registered User
Mar 17, 2019
212
0
Two weeks ago was mum's first anniversary. I took 2 days off work, met up with some friends and thought: well, that's that. Another milestone. Then today, out of the blue, I suddenly feel bereft.I lived with her for 61 years, and she was always there for me, we got on well, even with the dementia, she knew me and told me often that she loved me. Everyone says that over time
grief lessens, but today it just gave me a mighty whack, as if to say, I haven't gone away, you know. I feel I am almost expected to have moved on, and try not to talk about so much, but then I realise that I am not going to see her friendly face again, and I am back at square one.
I had thought about counselling, in the past, but decided to wait to see how I got on. I don't know how lockdown has affected me. I live on my own, and other than the carers who visited mum, I would never see anyone else. So lockdown is no different from how things are. I do wonder if it has made it more difficult for me to move on emotionally.
At the moment, it just seems that I am stuck. I appreciate what people say about no timeline for grief, but it just seems a spiral. I know that getting back to any " normality"is a long way off yet. I feel I have lost my carer role, but dont know what my role is going to be.Sorry for rambling self-indulgently, but I just feel at a loss .
 

jennifer1967

Registered User
Mar 15, 2020
23,130
0
Southampton
you are not being indulgent. if you dont talk about it and get feedback then it will just go round and round in your head with no outlet or different perspectives as to the way you look at it. you have had a life time with your mum but when she went, you lost a mum support nurse etc etc no wonder you are lost and i think that you dont forget but learn to live with it. the more you fight it, the worse it gets
 

She-Luna

Registered User
Jun 30, 2020
21
0
Grief never really leaves you. My Dad died suddenly 40 years ago and, even now, sometimes it all comes back. My sister died 4 years ago and I haven't really 'processed' that properly as, not surprisingly, it was also the start of Mum's decline. My Mum went in to a care home 2 weeks ago and it feels like a kind of bereavement, even though I know she's warm and cared for and doesn't look panic-stricken any more. However she is not 'my Mum' any more. Talk, rant, share, write, do whatever you need to help you.
 

CWR

Registered User
Mar 17, 2019
212
0
I do think that the whole COVID situation has affected my ability to move on, but yes I think that poem is more helpful than all the assumptions that
are made about grief. Thanks.
 

Hazara8

Registered User
Apr 6, 2015
697
0
Two weeks ago was mum's first anniversary. I took 2 days off work, met up with some friends and thought: well, that's that. Another milestone. Then today, out of the blue, I suddenly feel bereft.I lived with her for 61 years, and she was always there for me, we got on well, even with the dementia, she knew me and told me often that she loved me. Everyone says that over time
grief lessens, but today it just gave me a mighty whack, as if to say, I haven't gone away, you know. I feel I am almost expected to have moved on, and try not to talk about so much, but then I realise that I am not going to see her friendly face again, and I am back at square one.
I had thought about counselling, in the past, but decided to wait to see how I got on. I don't know how lockdown has affected me. I live on my own, and other than the carers who visited mum, I would never see anyone else. So lockdown is no different from how things are. I do wonder if it has made it more difficult for me to move on emotionally.
At the moment, it just seems that I am stuck. I appreciate what people say about no timeline for grief, but it just seems a spiral. I know that getting back to any " normality"is a long way off yet. I feel I have lost my carer role, but dont know what my role is going to be.Sorry for rambling self-indulgently, but I just feel at a loss .
Have you ever noticed how, when you are concentrating completely on a task or perhaps reading, that the impending cloud we term "grief" is absent. Also, on awakening first thing in the morning there is often nothing whatsoever disturbing the mind. Then it all comes flooding in as before and sadness or despair prevails. The association or the attachment to a life led with a parent stems from birth fundamentally. But the relationship with all its ups and downs, the companionship and the shared love, all of this which has been, ceases to be. Loneliness is magnified when you live alone. Bereavement makes it especially so. There are all manner of theories and supposed means by which grief can be addressed. The longing for what has been fuels grief. Thought fuels the longing. When next you have that fleeting moment during which the mind and heart are truly free of all pain or grief, then those thoughts and images will be absent.
The here and now cannot relate to thoughts, all of which fuel either happy or unhappy events. To be free of such imagery is not a betrayal of a loved one, nor can it possibly deny the life which was led and shared with a loved one or a parent in actual fact. Memory and remembrance play their part in specific areas of functioning throughout life. Which way to the railway station? The name of my house or the time l start work. And to curb grief or indeed eliminate it is to see that " thoughts " are just that and if you try to grasp hold of them you will fail, because they are of your own doing. And as has been said before , what has been can never change. The joy and the sad times , the many years of growing up and that very special relationship of parent/child merging into adulthood and perhaps the Caring role -- all of that can never ever be harmed. And the truth of it knows nothing about grief. Only the imagining of it invites grief.