Dear All. My mum past away in June 2016 and then 3 months ago I lost my 24 year old son in an accident. I thought that losing my mum was hard enough but it does not compare to the utter grief and pain of losing a child. Ever day is a struggle and I feel like I am living the same day over and over. Will I ever feel anything other than pain again?
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Hi Jan. What a terrible situation. I am so sorry for your recent losses. I lost my younger sister recently and have found this site useful in terms of helping me come to terms with my grief. I can’t begin to imagine what you are going through but please know that you are not alone. Many people share your pain and your utter sense of loss. It helps to talk, and cry, and talk again. Be strong - you will come through this I’m sure. Steve
Hi Steve. Thank you for your kind words, I am sorry to hear of the passing of your sister recently too. I have to other children and they are struggling with losing their big brother, they were all close and miss him so much, we have a massive gap in our lives without him. Our home is a very sad place at the moment.
It was good to hear from you, I have realised that there are so many people going through so much grief. we knew that mum was dying but I think it was the sudden and unexpected death of our son that makes it hard to cope with.
Hello again Jan. I understand completely. Although my sister wasn’t sudden it was very quick - just eight weeks from being diagnosed to her passing. I have three children of my own so can only imagine the horrors you are facing on a minute by minute, day by day basis. There are no words that anyone can say to you that will make you and your family feel better. What I can say is that positive human interactions and acts of spontaneous kindness from others will help you through this. I’m sure that today you feel small and your pain feels huge. But as each day passes you will get slightly bigger and the pain will get slightly smaller. Eventually you will be bigger than your pain. Always here if you need a chat. Steve
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Hi Jan,
Welcome to the Sue Ryder Online Community. I’m so sorry for both of your losses. Losing a child is a terrible thing.
You aren’t alone on this website - there are other bereaved parents here, and many of them find that it helps a little to be able to talk to others who understand. While you wait for more replies to your post, you may wish to read and reply to some of their posts, for example:
Many bereaved parents post regularly in this long-running conversation started by Wynne: Loss of our son aged 27.
Here is another conversation started by Christinexxx: Sudden loss of my 28-year-old daughter.
The Compassionate Friends is another organisation that supports bereaved parents - they offer a telephone helpline (0345 123 2304), online support and local support contacts and groups.
If there’s anything I can help with, or you have any questions about the online community, please don’t hesitate to drop me a private message or email me on online.community@sueryder.org.
Priscilla
Community Manager
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Hi jan
So sorry for your losses just cant imagine how you must be feeling right now. I lost my partner 4 weeks ago and i have never known anything like this. She was my life and hate having to get used to this new life.
No magic answers but i would say try all the support you are being offered i am waiting to hear re counselling and finding out about bereavement group. I am on amti depressants and also had lorazepam initially just to help me sleep. I am very lucky to have supportive family and friends too. I find this site the best comfort because people on here just get it regardless of who you have lost-it was someone we loved and just want them back. You can post anytime and just share how you feel which i find helps. At first i just read posts and like you couldnt believe how many people are out there feeling like this.
You are in my thoughts and i truly cant imagine your pain over your son
Carol x
Dear Carol. Thank you so much for your reply. I have to say that the lat 3 months have been a living hell and I imagine it is much the same for you. I have been having counselling for about 6 weeks via a grief charity and the lady who comes to see me is so wonderful and you can tell by the way she talks that she has obviously had loss in her life too. At the beginning, just after our son died, I did not think I would see this day, it is not that I wanted to take my own life but that I was not sure that I would survive the pain, but having 2 other children has driven me on, but at the moment I am alive but I am not living, just existing and I am unable to see a future that has any happiness in it.
I am sure you are feeling much the same but I can say that having someone who was unconnected to our son to talk to has been of great help and I am hoping that things like this foru,m will help to. I do not think you can really understand true grief unless you have experienced it yourself. I think until you have lost the most important thing in your life you cannot really understand the depth of loss.
We must cry when we feel like it, be alone when we want to and be with others when we want to. I have decided that if I do not want to do something then I just won’t. My filter is turned down and I find that I am tending to say what I think and I can be quite intolerant, something that I think my son would find very funny,
Have you got lots of support from friends and family? I hope you do, we cannot do this on our own.
Janet x
Hi janet
Yes i am very lucky that i have a loving and caring family and friends. I have read posts on here where people have no one to support them which is unimaginable to me and so sad.
My sadness started in march last year when we were told it was terminal and cancer had spread and no amount of treatment would cure her. I remember shouting saying no you cant leave me and fell apart. For her we all carried on and stayed positive and i went back to work but was so hard knowing the day would come when i was alone. Towards the end she became very ill with pneumonia and asked for no treatment just to be made comfortable and had had enough which i understood because she had gone through so much chemotherapy radiotherapy electro chemotherapy kryotherapy and endured 8 hour operation she tried everything so i would not be on my own. That was her only concern that she was leaving me and how would i cope without her. I am just truly heartbroken and prey for the day when i can start to live again i too am just existing and dont want this life but i know i have to carry on for the children they cant lose anymore.
Take care janet
Carol x
Morning Carol
Your partner sounds like an amazing women, and she must have been devoted to you to have worried about you even when she was so ill. When I think about my mum and about my son I know they would want us to carry on because if I had passed away that is what I would have wanted. I have begged and prayed to change places with my boy so that he could live on but I am still here and he is not and the reality of this is like a big knife that has been plunged into my heart and is slowly turned everyday, I know I will eventually learn to live with the pain but for now it is just all I can manage to get through each day. You are right when you say that we carry on for the children, my other two children have seen so much pain and suffering over the past 14 months that even when I thought I could not go on there was no way I would inflect any more pain on them.
I feel like I am living someone else’s life, everything seems wrong or out of place, this is not how my life was meant to be but as I go on this painful journey I have realised that so many people are going on it to, and they really do understand.
I have found it helps to write a letter to my son everyday and have found that writing about my feelings helps. Being creative in some way which expresses emotions is good. I don’t know about you but I find that I get so tired too, grief and emotions really does this I know, remember to be kind to yourself, only do the things that help,
Take care
Janet
Thanks Janet
You are so right this is not the life we should be living -it’s just not fair and i hate it. I have started writing things down lists in a book all the unnormal things got to 49 and gave up. Today trying to grasp onto what is normal but not an easy list to write at the moment. Also writing things that i really hate at the moment like seeing 2 people together really gets me and i have become quite intolerant of a lot of things which isnt like me at all. I am just doing doing what i want to do at the moment and if people dont like it then i feel like screaming at them and saying “lets see how you cope with losing the love of your life and feel your world has just fallen apart”
If someone ever dares to tell me to pull yourself together or anything so stupid i swear to God will not be respondible for my actions just feeling really angry today and irritated by everything.
Is it normal to want to punch people in the face ? Just cant understand where this anger is coming from
Take care
Carol x
Dear Carol
The anger is completely normal but no one warns you about it. I had a day not long after my Son had passed away when I was on the way to my mums grave and a man in the car next to us was driving very iratically and it was I could do to stop my self getting out of the car and smashing his car up he had annoyed me so much. I like you am usually a calm person but at the moment you will find your filter is turned right down [thats what we call it in our home} You will say what you think, speak your mind whether people like it or not and you won’t suffer fools easily either.
I cannot stand when people get upset about trivial things, you just want to shout at them and tell them what is really important. People say stupid things without thinking, they say things that they think will be comforting but some of it is just down right stupid. The phrase “time is a healer” is of course a load of rubbish, time does not help you get over such a loss, you learn to live with it but you don’t get over it.
Do not be hard on yourself, you are right to be angry, life is horrible at the moment. Tomorrow you may feel different again, I find that at any given moment I can swing from emotion to emotion quite often with no trigger, it just happens.
the only emotions that I cannot find is joy or happiness, life with little hope is hard to do but we do it for them, for the beautiful people we have lost, one day at a time is all we can do.
Take Care
Janet
Hi Janet
It does help knowing this anger is normal but i really dont like it because so unlike me as a person. My emotions can change within minutes but crying is the most common. I was referred for grief counselling amd someone phoned to assess me over the phone asking me did i want to kill myself how would i do it and when i told her no she then wanted to know what was stopping me also was i pregnant which being 52 and my parner was female stupid question. Then she said i wasnt suitable as they do not support anyone who has had a bereavement in last 3 months so basically all a waste of time needless to say angry yesterday plus upset too
Hope your day better than mine
Carol x
Hi Carol.
I am so sorry to hear about your experience with the counselling, our Sons girlfriend has been offered counselling through her doctors but had to wait ages to see them, only sees someone once a fortnight and has had it cancelled twice in in 3 weeks. We were offered help via a local charity, who although not officially counsellors have all suffered from one or more bereavements so they talk to you from their own personal experience. My husband spoke to someone for 4 sessions ans then thought he had achieved all he could through it were as I was blessed enough to be visit by a truly lovely lady who has continued to visit me at home for around an hour every week.
Asking you if you are suisidal is common but usually does not effect your eligibility for counselling. Let’s be honest that all of us have thought it would be easier not to be here at point in this journey but that is not the same as actually taking your own life. My Son would be absolutely furious for me even thinking about it, but life is hard without them, everyday is a struggle but we carry on for the others that are left behind with us.
I have found it essential to talk to others who are grieving too, only they understand, I find it hard to pretend sometimes, to look ok for the kids when really I would like to curl up, but we all grieve in different ways. I grieve differently to my husband, who likes to keep himself active, my kids are trying to rebuild their lives but I think it is going to be a long time till the pain of my boys loss leaves me, or I learn to deal with it and function properly.
It is early days for us both. I do not like the weekends much, we always had a roast dinner together on Sunday, all of us round the table, a tradition that is almost impossible to do now. I know I am going to have to change so many things about my life and I hate it.
I hope that you manage to be ok today.
Take care of yourself
Janet
Hi janet
Not had good couple of days keep finding things i did not expect. Cleaned out kitchen cupboards (something to keep busy ) and found the light bulbs had been sorted into which rooms they were for by her and received text as a reminder for MOT which she had set up for me. She had also set up agreements for all electric appliances so i wouldnt have to worry about anything at home. I was trying to cope with things I know like clothes but didnt expect for these things i didnt know about.
I honestly feel like my heart has broken and I will never feel happy again. I know she is saying to me stop crying and be happy but just impossible when you loved someone so much.
I have not been angry just so sad and cant believe where the tears come from.
I have appointment with counsellor tomorrow which i know will be no miracle cure because there isnt one but hoping it will help me
Take care carol x
Dear Carol.
I do hope that you got on ok at your counselling and that you found it helpful, I have counselling every week and although I find it very emotional, I do fiend it helpful to be able to talk totally freely about my boy and who I am feeling. It is strange how almost everything reminds you of the loved one you have lost. I feel pain even when I see other people with their children, I feel jealousy as they have all their children and I do not have all of mine and who unfair that is. My heart breaks when I think about him and all the things we did together as a family. This heartbreak is so physical, I feel it completely insid of me, a sharp pain that starts inside and goes all over me. Grief is not just emotional but physical too and I do not think other realise how this grief cannot be ignored as it just takes over and there is nothing you can do.
Some times I think I will never be happy again but apparently, according to those who are a bit further along in their grief, I will, but not for a while and I think it will probably be the same for you. I have heard that the more a person is loved the more they are grieved, if this is the case then your partner and my son are love completely and totally and this love will never die.
Take care
Love
Janet
Hi Janet
Today was very hard and difficult just going through the last 5 weeks and remembering seeing her after she died she was so cold and I kept putting the blanket on her to try and keep her warm for longer.
Everything I am feeling is normal and the counsellor would not expect anything different as it is still only 5 weeks, 6 on Friday at 9.15pm a time I dread now. She has told me about a bereavement group and will speak to person who does this tomorrow hopefully i can attend and it is every other friday and on next week. It is run by cruse bereavement counsellor so will hear tomorrow if i can go next week i told her about this site and said this is the only thing that helps and makes me feel not alone in this nightmare.
I am truly thankful to every single person who posts on here they all have helped me beyond words.
Take care Janet
Carol x
Hi Carol
It was great to hear from you again. I think any help you can get is good, we cannot do this alone and I have found that talking to people who are grieving too is so helpful as you know that they truely understand. Our grief is so new, I wish I could tell you that the pain goes away as time goes on, but just after 3 months since by beautiful son passed away, the pain has not demished but everyday I grit my teeth and try to deal with it. The first few weeks are a bit of a blur now, which may not be a bad thing as they are full of such pain, You do not miss them any less but I am hoping for the day when I can think of my son and smile rather than cry, this will be a good day. I was slicening to a podcast which was a lady who had lost her husband and a child in an accident and she said that she got to a point were she realised that she did not have to feel guilty about laughing or feeling any joy as that is what they would want for her. I look forward to this day also.
Let me know how all your groups go
Take care
Janet
I lost my big sister last august 3rd pain is still unreal …lost my dad 10 years ago augist 2nd just lozt my father in law august 7th this year grief is unreal i really hate august …grief is killing me
I’m so sorry for all the losses you’ve endured, @Mollieanne15.
I’m sure someone will be along to offer their support. You might already be familiar with our other Online Bereavement Support services, but if not, you can find out more about our Online Counselling service, our Grief Coach text support service, and our Grief Guide self-help tools by visiting the link.
Take care - keep reaching out,
Seaneen