Hi Amy, just an up date, my doctor has decided NOT to put me on the antidepressants for know because I only had one depressed episode, but I am seeing him again 4 weeks today (4th Jan, 2024) and it is under review, depends how I c ope over christmas but for now considered at low risk.
Need to go back to hospital next week to complete an eye examination, they hope I will not react badly to the eye drops (crash team on standby) 
Be in contact later
Tim
Hi Sun, ok as can be expected, whats your story?.
I am Tim . I have a cold and under the weather and still fed up but keeping going … I’ve been feeling run down for ages …
How is everyone doing …
@Jess1 @amyrose92
Glad you’re managing.
My mum died at the end of August, pretty much taken the rug right out from underneath me. Like lots of us on here 
Hi Laura, concerned you are feeling run down, do you think you might have covid?, I did say earlier about treating yourself with a treat and a glass of wine, but if this persist and you can get out safely you need to see a doctor, if you are to ill to attend then they should come to you.
Ring 111 and get there advise, I did last week with an eye problem, I was seeing a doctor later that night in kendal, they wanted to see me urgently, but if you are more or less house bound they can send round the on call doctor, describe your symptoms as fully as you can.
An alternative is to ring your own gp in the morning and get an appointment, do not leave it, it sounds to me like you need looking at.
Timxx
Lost my mum in January after 4 years dementia, cruelest way to die and past in my arms, know live alone and trying to rebuild my life.
How about you?.
My mum was about 3 years (maybe a little more) into her dementia, and after a couple of falls, ended up in hospital with a broken bone, left hospital into a home, back in hospital with pneumonia and that’s where she left us.
There’s been so much going on my head is still not in the game, this grief is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, thought like lots of us it would be linear……how wrong was I?
I live alone, but have people around thank god, I’m not always sure that the full force of sadness has hit me yet, I think I’m still stunned!
Thanks Tim . I think I’ve just been spreading myself too thin and got run down . I’ve taken lots of paracetamol and vitamin c today and rested . Feeling a little better . Grief takes its toll on us I think .
I have a son and home to look after (husband is a good help ) and I do a lot for my mum too .plus I work although not many hours all on top Of feeling sad and missing my Dad .it’s hard going . As you know … as we all do . It’s nice to have you all to chat to .
I hope you are ok - it’s rained all day in Derbyshire I imagine it’s rainy where you are too …
I’m staying home and hibernating as jinx as possible .
Laura xx
My mum was 95 and wanted to die at home, with the help of a local care company and others I was able to bring that about…at a price, it broke my health and I know have hypertension, depression, ptsd, all the lovely things you get from long term stress(NOT!) that has put me under a mental health doctor.
I have kept the ashes at my mothers request and included them as the centre piece to a wall memorial to my family.
I practically conducted her funeral service my self… in April with the ashes having gone for direct cremation earlier.
so at 63 my own family all dead, I have a sis in law near by who is a supply teacher and we get on very well, and she, together with my Niece, is my twin brothers legacy(the one with horns growing out of his head) were it not for him I would be completely alone in the world, he died 2 years ago from a brain tumor.
I have had one depression episode 3 weeks ago, decided today to stay the antidepressants for know to be reviewed in 4 weeks time, not suicidal at the moment, but I have dark days, and everything is harder just thinking is harder, you ask yourself just what is the use sometimes, and that is a dangerous thought and can quickly spiral down to deep depression and suck you down into the barrels of darkness and despair, there were so many things I wanted to discuss with her, and suddenly you find yourself confronting the living dead, that, is what dementia is, there is no cruller death and your mothers [pneumonia probably reduced her suffering by hastening her end, my mother had had the pneumonia jab, otherwise she would have passed sooner, she thought like Ukraine to the very last moment when, gasping like a lung fish, her heart gave out, we were alone in the house and I was basically responsible for her palliative care, I am not medically trained, but a qualified lab technician and there was no one else to do it, it was a 24 hour/7 day a week trial for months on end, it was a question who was going to give out first?, me or my mother, it was a close run thing and I could take no more, but she got her last wish, and I kept the ashes.
That, in summary, is my story, its my mothers story too of course, hope you like the pictures, we are all hear to help each other and you don’t get over a real bereavement because part dies with you, you get used to it and grow around it.
Keep going, contact again when ever you feel like it.
Tim
Hi Laura I’m okay I hope you’re feeling better. Not much to note for me at the moment just plodding along trying not to think about things too much but it’s hard. When you try not to think of something it seems to be all you can think about. Got work tomorrow but from home then Saturday taking my daughter to a Christmas party so just trying to focus on the nice things to keep me going. Collecting the sertraline tomorrow after work just couldn’t be bothered going today but I have the prescription just need to collect it
Amy xxx
Don’t worry Tim I have only had 6 in 24 hours . I’m fine don’t you worry xx
Plodding along ! I say that to everyone who asks how I am. I certainly can’t reply “I’m good thanks “ as I used to . Just going through the motions and getting. Through each day .
Glad you have a plan . I think it will help you .
Xx
Welcome Sun ! Sorry for your loss you are among people who understand .
It’s a shitty club we are all in xx
Glad to hear that Laura, that’s well with in limits, just be careful you do not take more then 2 tablets at a time and NOT LESS then 4 hours apart
I definitely won’t Doc Martin xx
Hi Amy, I am not on the sertraline yet…but I may well be after christmas in 4 weeks time so sticking with St Johns for now.
Hope your little one enjoys the Christmas party on Saturday, and not being funny, hope you do as well, our mums would want us to have a good time, for both of us its our first post mum christmas so it will be different, and naturally at christmas we remember and think of those who are no longer with us in the sense that they were
and that they have moved on to another stage, and one day we in turn will reach that stage and be reunited with them in the next life.
I am having to go back to hospital next week for them to complete a test, hope I do not have to wait 2 hours for a train like last time, I was not allowed to drive because the test involved dilation of my eyes and in the event they found I’m had had an allergic reaction to it and it might kill me, so crash team on standby.
Focus on nice things Amy, we are all in this shit place together at the moment and all our christmases at once would be our mothers back, sadly that we cannot have
and we all desperately miss our mothers and like you, sometimes the happy memories make me sad, because she is not there for me to make her laugh, or share a cup of tea with, the little social interactions that oil the wheels of life and of existence, and yet, and we must all remember this, it is better to have had, and to have lost, then not to have had at all, and I am so grateful that she was there with me for so long, and as I said in the Eulogy, I can turn my face to the wall and sulk at her passing, or I can give thanks that she was there for me for so long, I know in your case Amy, it was all to short, and sadly you do not have 60 years of daughter hood to look back on, and you were not able to develop memories of your mother stretching back over many decades, but you are in a loving relationship and have a loving daughter and your mother, if only for a short time, was able to be part of that, and I am sure she would have taken enormous pleasure and joy from that and doted on both of you, and given her some wonderful moments in the last months of her life, and you made the best of it and did all you could, as I, am sure we all did, life goes on as it must, and opur mothers would want us to move on and prosper.
Let me know please how you go on with the sertraline, I might give it a go yet, at times I get very depressed, not suicidal, but a very dark place.
Blessings to you Amy, I hope the sertraline helps and you move to a better place and your mind gets some rest.
Timxx
Hi Tim, not feeling so great today as I had to get back to the “real” world of dealing with a demand for payment of Dad’s care bills. It might have been a computer generated demand but I have emailed them to say that there’s no money left and they will have to wait till the house is sold. Mind you if they are anything like the Management Company for my flats they don’t talk to each other. I have that nagging feeling in my solar plexus, which is the grief trying to get noticed. I will do a meditation later on.
I agree with you about Lucy Worsley, there is always a twinkle in her eye when she’s presenting. I really liked the programme she made about Queen Anne in her “Histories Biggest Fibs” series. That the awful film made with Olivia Coleman was built on a pack of lies. Also I just recently watched the one about “Mad” King George III. The poor man was struggling with grief for his children.
I think Jesus would have found Life Of Brian very funny as they made a critique about not just believing anyone, just because it was written in a book long ago, doesn’t mean it is true. It’s one of my favourite films and I remember watching it a the local cinema on a double bill with Airplane!
I guess I like David Starkey because he is a rebel and he was brought up as a Quaker, so is anti war. I also like Michael Wood as he tries to bring forward the history of the ordinary people, rather than just Kings and Queens. You’re right about “Liz 1” to maybe quote Horrible Histories. She never did make that famous speech at Tilbury.
From some of your quotations I guess you might see Winston Churchill as an influence. He was a fascinating, infuriating, complex, powerhouse of a man. He was also interested in the Spirit World although he couldn’t mention that during his lifetime.
Interesting you mention Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes he did tried to solve and intervene in some real detective cases. He did get sick of writing about Sherlock and wanted to be taken more seriously as a historical novelist. The same thing happened to Thomas Hardy whose novels were very popular but he always wanted to be a poet. Both of these Spirit gentlemen have come through to me and want to write through me. This has all gone quiet whilst my brain tries to grapple with the large hole in my life left by my Dad.
Lucy Worsley has made a programme about killing Sherlock Holmes, I think it’s on this weekend. I will be watching that along with the last Doctor Who special in which there are Daleks!! I think.
Have a good day, you are a great support to a lot of people who are on this forum.
Blessings to you.
Zoe xx
Hi, what a club to join eh? I’m sorry for your loss, they’re just so difficult x
You have endured quite an amount there haven’t you? Sounds like the antidepressants are a good idea, I hope they help alleviate the dark thoughts and provide you a way to move forward in general.
Lovely pictures, I’m not surprised you like to remember your mum like that, she lights up the picture. Your dad doesn’t look old enough to retire and your brother with horns shows his character (presumably) a lovely tribute to have on the wall.
Sounds like you looked after your mum and was no doubt a huge comfort to her, I’m so sorry you have gone through that, having someone die in your arms who was so important must have been unbearable I couldn’t be with my mum in her last moments I’d spent so long in hospital watching her fight, being traumatised whilst watching one of the most important people in my life dying, I had to leave (my sister stayed, along with mums husband) the majority of the last days in hospital were so incredibly stressful I’m went through most of it in a state of confusion and shock!
You have endured a lot too, and it is no small thing to go through for either of us and no one is the same afterwards,
I take comfort from being able to grant her that last wish, to die at home with me by her side, us all the main family are gone it fell to me to do it, she was my mother, I was available, and it was the least I could do.
Also she was a very good age at 95, this is still her house, and as long as I live there will always be a place for her, if only her ashes.
The house has been left so I can live in it ‘in perpetuity’ if I sell it half after cost goes to my sis in law and Niece, I am lucky to have her living near by, she could easily be living at Church Stretton, then I really would be alone.
My dad was 60 when that photo was taken, he retired slightly early in those days and had worked 40 years and was able to claim his occupational pension, know he would not get that until 66, state pension age.
With a loss like that part of you dies with them, you do not get over that, you learn to live with it and you grow around it, and yes, it was the worst moment in my life, but I was so exhausted I just shut down.
It fell to me to call the undertaker, her body was removed from the house just 3 hours and 10 minutes after passing and I just went into my sleeping bag, I would have died had I not been found a week later.
Bereavement kills thousands of older people every year and is as deadly as pneumonia, this is NOT suicide, the one left behind just sinks into despair, turns over and gives up, my mother and myself virtually lived as man and wife, and since my dad died in 2008 I have lived with my mother since christmas2010, and hotel and shop staff have at times mistaken as as a couple, and I use to play jokes with them about it, much to our amusement and there embarrassment.
I am so glad we had those good years together and am grateful for them, we went to Norway on a tour once. 2015 I think, £5 a cup of coffee, trise what we pay hear know, and until her final years we were always away at Christmas.
‘That was then, this know, get on with it’ my mother used to say, and she was rite, we only have the present and must make the best of that, and I have probably had the happiest years of my life and what I have been through has probably shortened it, I do not care about that, she was my mother and grief is the price we pay for love.
We have both been through the meat grinder.
Blessings to you, try to enjoy your day, I will probably be on antidepressants next month, you are on a good site, we have all been through it and are going through it.
Tim
