I’ll have lost my dad 6 months ago on the 22nd. I am no further forward (if anything I feel worse) since it happened. It was a horrific and traumatic death (fire) that I sadly witnessed.
Ive saught help from a couple of places (Dr, mental health nurse, Cruse) and have been signed off work since the end of september (i initially returned to work 2 days after the funeral) - I think i was actually in shock til mid October.
I just dont know how to move forward. I now have terrible anxiety and am still dealing with a lot of my dads estate - we have contractors starting the house rebuild in jan so there has never been a chance to not be dealing with something to do with his death. We are also still awaiting the fire report so I dont even know what happened yet.
How on earth do you start moving on from something like this? I cant feel like this forever. I’ll need to return to work at some point, i need to not wake up in the morning and dread getting up. I just have no idea what to do. Professionals have said not to be so hard on myself and give myself time (im a fixer in life so this is so hard to deal with because i cant find a way to fix it). Im sure people think I need to get a grip by now (maybe a little bit of me feels like that deep inside too).
Im just so lost about what to do and how to start to heal. Just now it feel like I’ll never know how to do it. I have been thru traumatic deaths before - my daughters dad and two other family members have taken their own lives over the past 11 years which was horrendous, but i survived those, so its not like ive not known how to deal with loss before but this is just so very different. I didnt even think it was possible to feel this awful.
maybe the first step in healing is to find the courage to accept the change. change is never painful but our resistance to it causes pain. in hamlet’s soliloquy there’s a passage which addresses this, ‘… they rather bear the ills they have, than fly to others they know not of …’. death and the impending changes that surround it makes cowards of us all. my heart goes out to you.
Hi, those professionals are right. You can’t hurry the grief process and a traumatic death involves shock that is brutal and heartbreaking. You need time for things to shift and settle, a phase of adjustment. This is something you can’t fix sadly. I feel similarly after the sudden death of my Mum back in January. Her estate is still not settled because the sale of her house fell through after 7 months in a chain, which means I still have to stress about checking on it regularly. In addition the DWP are taking ages to decide if she was entitled for the pension credit that she received in the last 5 years of her life. All of this adds to the pain of grief so it has been a difficult year. I just keep hoping for better days eventually so that I can move forward and treasure my memories properly. Take care xx
Hi @KR74 , my heart truly goes out to you. I lost my dad 7 weeks ago and it’s been a living nightmare. I went to a very dark place and became so frightened of what my future (or lack of it) looked like. There is absolutely no time limit on grief, you grieve for as long as you need to, forever if need be, but what im so glad i quickly realised in those very dark times is that you absolutely have to drag yourself kicking and screaming out of the dark. There is no right way to do it, and it certainly is not easy, not even remotely…but you have to. I went back to work 4 days after losing my Dad to cancer, it was very traumatic, I stayed with him to the end through everything, i was in shock. After his funeral i lost it, i fell to my knees and couldn’t get back up. After 4 weeks of pain, and darkness I just couldn’t allow myself to waste such a precious gift that is life. Right now it won’t feel precious to you what so ever, but to those who no longer have it, it certainly is a gift. I forced myself through severe anxiety to get in my car at 8am one morning and drive to work. I wanted to turn around so many times, tried to pull over a few times, but pushed harder than i ever have before, and got through those doors…best thing i could have done for myself. Once that first day was over, it all got a little bit easier from there which gave me the boost i needed to start working towards a brighter future. Go for a walk somewhere totally random and get a bit lost, the adrenaline will feel good. Excercise…or just simply stick a stupid song on you’ve never heard before and shake and flap and spin and get a sweat on, do it every day as part of a routine, even through the tears, trust me it’ll feel better and easier each day. Drive or bus somewhere random, get a coffee and go home again. All these things distract the mind and remind us that life is for the living and our loved ones would never want us to be wasting the time we have. Every time i smile or laugh now it’s tinged with sadness and longing for the life dad never got to have, and the time we missed out on together, but i smile and laugh for him, i get up in the morning for him, and i push forward in honour of him and how he raised me to keep going. I have very bad days, i will maybe forever, but for every bad day i have, i know i can make myself have 10 good ones. Be brave, be strong, try those little coping mechanisms that helped me, or make your own that suit you. You absolutely got this, i know you do, you just have to convince youself now xxx
