Death makes the past stand out and become more prominent, in my life at least. And that makes life harder still. When they are alive, you can mend and make repairs to breaks and conflict in the relationship and mend situations and problems to feel good about things. But when they die, all of those opportunities die with them and you are left with the past firmly in place, can’t do a thing to make things better and are forced to live with whatever consequences you end up with.
and getting older means more of the past than future though I am not quite there yet, with still some future to behold. but I have a firmly created past now with things I cannot fix and must sit with. “make your bed you lie in it,” sort of thing.
there is no solution but I sit here every early morning thinking, thinking, thinking and wishing so much to have done things differently. it is painful.
Hi @berit
I know what you mean about the finality to it, but I’ve found my own way to be at peace with that, last year, for the first time, I visited my mom’s grave, & talked to her, saying all the things I wanted to say, I’ll admit I know it was a very one-sided conversation, but it felt therapeutic, I could unload about all the issues between us, about how I was feeling, & thoughts about the future, I told her about my boyfriend, who she never got to meet, & to say sorry without any worry of her interrupting me or arguing back. I know this may not work for everyone, but for me it did make me feel better.
Sorry to hear your feeling so bad, sending thoughts of positivity, I hope you find peace.
Totally agree with you, I never expected grief to be like that, it was almost like grief opened the doors up on every negative experience I had been through in my life and feeling the pain of all those bad things on top of my grief, it was horrific in the first months, I felt suffocated and completely overwhelmed but two and a half years on and I have more or less learned to box those feelings away, I guess I do anything I can to not dwell on those feelings and emotions then I can cope with it. Thank you for sharing, I wish you well x
I’ve found that the only way to stop these regrets continuously coming back to haunt us, is to forgive. Other people did things which hurt us as well, so it’s best to work towards forgiving them, and forgiving ourselves.
You are quite right @berit . Good habits are learned by constant repetition until it becomes natural
I tried to keep a few good thoughts and memories which I pulled out like a rabbit out of a hat, whenever I caught myself with negative thoughts in my mind.
Always smile, and it makes things easier.