I lost my reason to live 16 weeks, 5 days and 4 hrs ago, she was 21years old. She was my baby and I am hurting so much I just want to curl up and never wake up to this nightmare again. My other daughter goes out a lot more now, coffee with her friends. I’m left alone.
She came home today asking if I would do the table arrangements for her friend’s wedding. I’m not a florist.
I arrange flowers for my baby’s grave, it’s all I have left that I can do for her. I don’t do this for anyone else, it’s just for her and only her.
How can my other daughter not understand I can’t look to tomorrow never mind 2025? I don’t want to be here in 2025.
I am really struggling with the empty gapping hole that is the shape of my daughter that nothing or no one can ever fill.
I feel sick and I am in pain. I am totally back to those desolate first days, running around panicking because I can no longer see her, hold her, smell her, I just want to be with her and I am terrified because those few people that were there when she died have gone, moved on with their lives, keeping me at arms length so I don’t spoil their Christmas.
Hi @MoBe ,
I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter. It sounds as though things are very tough and you are feeling like you are in a nightmare and some of the early support has faded away. Your flower arranging for your daughter sounds like your peace and a way to be close to her.
It sounds like you’re looking for support and I’m glad that you’ve been able to talk about how you’re feeling here. We know that a lot of people experience suicidal thoughts when they are grieving. We have a video about it here which you might find helpful:
https://griefguide.sueryder.org/support/suicide
There is lots of other support out there, and I would really encourage you to reach out and speak to someone about how you are feeling.
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If these thoughts of suicide become overwhelming, please call 999 or contact your GP for an emergency appointment immediately.
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Samaritans are available 24/7 to talk about anything that you are worried about in confidence. You can call them on 116 123.
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Shout are contactable by text, 24/7. You can text REMEDY to 85258 and talk to them about anything.
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You can also find your local NHS urgent mental health helpline.
Sue Ryder offers an online bereavement counselling service. This is a free service and sessions are held via video chat so you can attend from home. There’s more information about this service here: sueryder.org/counselling.
You can also make an appointment with your GP and ask to be referred to counselling or other support services in your area.
You deserve care and support so please, MoBe, get in touch with one of these services.
Take care,
Alex
MoBe, it really makes me sad knowing how much you are struggling.
Try to think of all the good times you had with your daughter.
It’s not for me to say but counting weeks, days, hours may not be helping. I used to count the weeks but stopped doing it, as it was making me worse.
Minute by minute, deep breaths.
Please contact the details Sue Ryder gave you just so you can talk to them.
I will and anyone will do all we can to help you get through this. Big hug xx
@MoBe I am so sorry for your loss. I lost my 29 year old daughter October last year and it kills me everyday that I can’t hear her voice again, or smell her personal smell, or hug her again. I don’t want to wake up most days but I do because of my other 2 kids and my grandkids. I want nothing more than to be with my daughter again and just be with her. The pain is indescribable and I feel yours along side mine. It’s the worst feeling in the world. The only thing I will say is I have a younger daughter who seems a little inconsiderate at times too. It’s their coping mechanism, it seems cruel, but they are just trying to carry on (the only way they know how) by doing “normal” things…I suggest you tell her no to the floristry, as it’s personal between you and your other daughter. It wouldn’t be ideal as this may trigger you and set you back (and it seems you’re struggling anyway, naturally) I have you in my thoughts and send love x
@Kattbid thank you for your kind words,
I’m so sorry you’re living this nightmare too.
You’re right I am struggling and I am finding it really hard to see a reason to continue. Since Christmas I am on such a sharp decline and even the few things I could do before I am now finding difficult, I feel like I am suffocating in my grief.
I have refused to do the flowers, the one thing I no longer find hard is saying no but not many understand what lies behind the selfishness, even those who have also suffered the loss of a child.
I recently attended a group for bereaved parents, my first visit, a lady who had lost her young son a few years ago invited me for a walk. I politely refused. She has now ceased all contact.
Maybe I’m alone in how I feel but I don’t think so, I can’t visit places where I have been previously with my daughter, I can’t eat the foods my daughter loved or watch the TV shows we viewed together, all music is lost to me now. Clothes, make up, shopping, everything in life that was a pleasure is now a dagger.
And I also need to know I can run from a situation, so asking me to go for a walk with a person I don’t know to a place I was last at was with my daughter is anxiety overload.
I thought another bereaved mother would understand this, I hoped she could cast her mind back to how it was in those early days and understand how absolutely dark, desolate and painfully empty life is.
@MoBe I totally get that! I can no longer visit anywhere my daughter was, liked, loved. I can’t listen to music either, I used to love music and now I struggle if I hear it at all. I struggle with the fact that “friends” think after a while I will be fine. How can I be? I birthed that girl, I watched her grow, taught her all the things that moms do, loved her, held her, breathed for her. And now she’s not here. I tried to reach out at a meeting not so long ago and vowed I will NEVER go back. I know people deal with their grief in different ways and that’s ok, but my life as I knew it is never going to be the same. And if other people can move on a little easier than I can, good for them, but they better not expect me to. I now exist, I don’t live, and I don’t think I ever will. I feel your pain, I feel everything you’ve said in your message. And I totally get what you mean. Love to you x
@Kattbid I’m not the person I was, how can I be? I totally understand what you say about others, I don’t know if it’s true, if it’s not they make me feel it, but no one says her name now, like they’re scared it will set me off, either talking about her or crying. Like I should be at least starting to get over it, it’s the off hand remarks. The “friend of a
friend” did this and it worked for them or “maybe you should try…” the best part is I don’t ask for their advice or even engage in conversation because to be honest why would I? I don’t care about anyone or anything anymore.
If they’re not bringing her back I don’t want to know. Like you, I exist, I breathe because I have to, the pain is unbearable and I want it to stop, I want her here, sitting next to me now, holding my hand, watching
tv.
Sending you a hug @Kattbid xx
Hi have just read your messages and i feel as if i am in the same situation as you…i lost my daughter suddenly on the 8/11/23. My dad also on the 10/11/23. As much as im sad at the loss of my dad he had dementia and i gave up work to look after him for the past year…so i feel as if it was his time to go and be with my mum…but my daughter…36yrs …i cannot deal with it …a have thoughts all the time i cannot carry on…i spend a lot if time on my own my other 3 children have their own lives and don’t want to bother them…i have friends to ring me but i say im ok as im sure they are sick of me crying…i have dogs so i have to get up to feed them or i would not bother getting out of bed…and to be honest they are keeping me here as i dont want them put into a rescue center if i wasn’t here. Which sounds pathetic really…i take the dogs out for a walk but struggling to do anything else…the oain is horrendous and gripping and can not see any light just darkness ahead…i wasnt allowed to see my daughter as she lived in Aberdeen and I live in Hull and it took the funeral directors a month to get her home…but kept telling me still would be home soon or i would of gone to see her in Aberdeen so when she finally got home it was too late to see my baby girl…so i haven’t held her hand stroked her hair or kissed her goodbye…my heart is broken…and im trying to carry on but it is so very hard…
@Michelle3362 I get what you’re saying. I don’t want to wake up each morning. The pain is unbearable, why would I be ok because it’s been “a while”? Why would I be ok anyway! I have 2 other kids, the only reason I’m still here is because I saw the devastation my daughter left behind her. And that’s the only reason. Like you I get out of bed in the morning because I have to, not because I want to. I will never be the same, I will never see anyone or anything in the same way ever again! X
Exactly the pain will never go away
…i wonder why i am still here and my daughter isnt…i lost my brother 15montgs and my sister 6yrs when i was a child .i saw what devastation it did to my mum who never got over the loss of her 2 young children .my siblings and always had the fear that it would happen to me…losing my children but as they got older the fear wasnt as great only for it to happen anyway…what is the point…it should of been me not my beautiful baby girl…xx
@Michelle3362 I know what you mean. And the worst thing is no one understands. Everyone assumes “life will go back to normal”, how does that happen!? How do you carry on, because I won’t be able to. How do I continue? I met a new person the other day and they asked me how many kid I had. Not their fault but it triggered me so bad I couldn’t function at all. My partner had to take me home. I live on maybe 2 to 3 hours sleep a night, and then exist for the rest of the day.
Me too up till all hours watching anything on Netflix but not really watching it. Its just background noise…cant take anything in . I sometimes feel like im going crazy…i forget what to say mid sentence …cant concentrate. Forget what day it
is…as every day roll into one .i dread waking up when i finally sleep just to face another day in this head space. .this consant ache and pain throughout my body. …im lost to be honest…and just put a mask on to everyone as if im all ok …where im screaming inside that im broken. But have to be strong for everyone…as its what is expected…xx
@Michelle3362 your message sounds like I’ve just typed it!! I always prided myself on being very thoughtful and remembering everything, but now I don’t even know what I’m doing, and I also lose myself and train of thought all the time. The TV goes on but I couldn’t tell you what’s on. I used to love reading, I couldn’t open a book if I tried now. I hear you! And I know EXACTLY what you’re saying x
Life is full of what we can’t do now not what we can.
I can’t go there, I can’t see that, I can’t hear this, I can’t look at photo’s, I can’t hear her voice, see her things, go in her room, I can’t bear to lose any part of her, I hold on to her things, ALL her things and all the painful, gut wrenching, sledge hammer to the chest, memories.
I think we live in a twilight world, where we just pass through the lives of others leaving no trace. No one sees us, no one cares, we
don’t care.
I can’t interact with people, I can’t hold a conversation, they’ll say something that sparks a memory and causes me real pain and anguish, I can’t reply, I can’t tell them what I’m thinking, so I say nothing and the talk is done. They don’t try again.
Losing a child is beyond grief.
@MoBe I too can’t look at photos, she sent me a voice note on whatsapp a little while before she left me. I haven’t played it, I can’t imagine how I would react if I did. I hold onto her in everything I do or say, I have conversations, but I don’t tell anyone how I am, what I’m feeling or thinking either. Who cares!? They certainly don’t!! I don’t care about anything anymore. Everything is insignificant to me. And people worry over nothing’s in their lives, I don’t care that you’re not going on holiday this year, I don’t care if you hate your job. I actually don’t care at all. How can I care about the little things that people stress about!? I hate how the people in my life think I’ll be ok soon, how can they even think that!? How will I ever be ok!? I won’t be. “Twilight” is the perfect word for how we are now. I am destroyed. Who am I now? I’m a shell of what I was, I am moving through the minutes, hours, days of a tragic existence. The sick feeling is a constant, and my brain has a fog that will never lift as far as I’m concerned
I’m so deep in the grief at the moment, it’s coming up to the anniversary of my son’s passing and I’m reliving every single horrible moment of those 27 days. I feel guilty because I didn’t push the nurses more, I knew he was struggling but they just popped some Tylenol in his drip and put cool sheets under him to try to bring his temperature down. No one listened to me properly and I trusted them as they deal with heart surgeries all the time but I was wrong. I’ve got so deep in the grief that I’m going way back into our facebook messenger chats and screen shotting every funny, sweet or even upsetting conversation we had, I need to hear his voice in my head as I read them. I have no desire to link with this life at this time, it’s all about him. My heart is truly broken.
My son’s birthday is February and first anniversary of him passing in March, each day is a battle but I am getting there. I have lost friends over the last few months and I don’t care, I have removed them from my life as they are negative in everything and I just don’t need it. I lost my stepson in November so amongst my emotions trying to support my partner as well. I don’t see many people as I think they are idiots when they say how are you…how the f**k do they think I am having lost my son, doing CPR on him and the shock of it all. People seem to think you just move on and get over it,you don’t. My so called best friend, not anymore hasn’t to this day asked me how the inquest went. She can do one .
@MJG others don’t get it, they can’t if they’ve not been there. It’s so painful. The ‘best’ friends I’ve had for years that have disappeared, the ones who’ve helped me through my divorce have gone too and I don’t know why. I let them know that my son had passed and they just blanked me.
I am so sorry they have blanked you, that to me is not friendship at all. I read a saying a while ago friends become strangers, strangers become friends…so very true, I have withdrawn from so many people, it’s easier I find. I enjoy my exercise which keeps me going, but as from people unless they are on this forum I can’t be bothered
I got a message from a “friend” a couple of weeks ago (hadn’t heard from them since the day before my nightmare started) saying “sorry I haven’t been in touch, wanted to give you time to grieve, but I’m sure you’re feeling a little better now” the reply she got from me started with the letter F and ended with F too. Haven’t heard from them since that and I’m glad! How can I feel a little better!!!? Also most of my friends are strangers now and I don’t care. I’m glad because I’ve seen them glancing at me, and looking at me weirdly since my daughter left. They’re probably thinking why hasn’t she stopped crying, or maybe they don’t know what to say to me?? There’s NOTHING you can say that will help me. Am I supposed to “flip a switch” and be ok again, am I supposed to “get over” this after a certain amount of time?? I don’t care if I have ANY friends left. I don’t care that they’ve stopped calling/texting/visiting.