I lost my little sister at the age of 30 on 2nd Feb this year. She had a very short illness and she passed within 5 days of being told she was pallative, it was all so quick.
I cant cope with it at all, and put it in a box but it hots me like a bus out of the blue, but my mum isn’t coping at all and has made herself really ill. I try to support her and I try to be around her as much as I can, but I really struggle going to my mums as my sisters memories are all there as that’s where she lived, inc her ashes. Am I being selfish by not supporting and spending more time with my mum? Is there anything I can do other than go to mums more often? I feel like I’ve abandoned my mum but I’m trying deal with the loss myself and I cant cope with mums loss as well. Thank u
Hi Vicky, please be kind to yourself in this very difficult time. Difficult as it might be, you aren’t WHOLELY responsible for your Mum’s grief as well as your own. Accept there has to be a balance between your and her needs. When I was grieving all I needed from others was that I knew they cared, not by being here. In fact if people were here too long, I wished they would leave me to cope on my own, getting over grief is something that just has to be faced on a personal level, nobody can do it for us. Having company doesn’t help a lot, it didn’t for me anyway, unless they just sit and listen to my thoughts and feelings, and make me a cup of coffee.
I used to really appreciate phone calls, encouraging me to talk about it.
So can you find a balance? Telephone calls from time to time, to replace some visits. Trips out for lunch or shopping. Can others help in similar fashion? Is she mobile enough to visit you?
And no, you aren’t being selfish, you need to heal as well!
Look for a balance.
Good luck
Thank u so much for your response, hearing from an outsiders perspective and someone that has experienced grief helps.
She is mobile yes and I have expressed to her that she can come see me anytime she wants, she has much more time than I do, I work 7 days a week but she does not.
I do pop by on her when I’m working locally but I struggle to talk to her about the loss as she only sees it from her perspective. I havent yet been able to find someone who I can sit and talk about my sister too, but then I don’t think Ive tried as I don’t feel able to talk about her most of the time. I’ve always been one to internalise everything.
I really appreciate your response and send u much healing and strength in your journey 
Glad to have helped. I bet you’ve got thoughts, memories, regrets etc etc going around in your head. They need to come out don’t they!
One thing I’ve often said on here is that we can’t control our emotions unless we control the thoughts that cause them, and being aware of the thoughts is the first step forward. If I ever spotted myself thinking and upsetting myself I made a positive effort to stop them or think them through until I realised most of them weren’t even true, and replaced them with happy memories of times shared . I kept a few happy thoughts at the ready, such as the day she accepted our first date, the first day she told me she loved me, the best days holiday we ever had, the days we fetched a puppy home etc etc. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to smile again.
As an add-on, I had a course of hypnotherapy to stop me regurgitating thoughts I didnt want. That helped a huge amount.
Be selfish.
One of the most helpful things I did was after about a month after Penny died, I sat down and decided how I wanted my “new” life to be. So I wrote it down, so I moved towards this by taking real actions, and after 5 months I’m there!!! Of course it’s not like it was (it will never be) but it’s good in a different way.
Have you looked for a bereavement group locally, so you can talk and cry with sympathetic people?
Greif really does have an end, if you work on it in a positive way.
I love how u have been able to work through all this and make changes to your life. I feel stuck, I feel like I havent moved on since the day she died. I realised the other day that it’s her birthday nxt month which means she has passed 9 months and I haven’t even started really grieving, I still can’t talk about her or think about her. I did apply to Cruse for bereavement counselling but then I cancelled my application as I thought I would deal with it myself. I’ll def look into bereavement groups locally. The trouble is I work all day everyday and all the groups I have seen so far are day time. But I’ll keep searching and I may send out some email to local charities to see if I can get signposted anywhere.
Thank u so much
One month into my bereavement, I was sat outside a coffee bar in Bakewell feeling a little emotional, and struck up a conversation with a lady of similar age. She told me that she had lived alone for 20years and loved it!
She also told me to write down there and then how I wanted my new life to be, or what I wanted to do but couldn’t when I was married.
I wrote down I wanted a frugal-ish life in the same house, simple, kind and uncluttered. No stress allowed, go on an exotic cruise, and to chat to people outside coffee bars, and go to the outer Hebrides.
So I’ve thrown lots away, made lots of savings, do relaxation exercises, had loads of coffee and carrot cake outside cafes, rescued hedgehogs, and just come back from an expedition to the Hebrides. The exotic cruise will have to wait!
My life isn’t as like it was, but it’s still good and worth having.
We need a plan, because without one, very little happens,
That lady outside the coffee bar is now a friend, and we meet for an occasional lunch.