Maybe I should not be asking here as my loss is different.
I’m in my sixties, and my spouse-relationship breakdown led to a mental breakdown in which I’ve realised that I have never got over the loss of my childhood all those years ago. My parents, of course, are long dead and I never grieved their loss at the time.
They did their best but they were not ideal parents in that they provided materially but not emotionally. I did not get secure bonding with them and the resulting lonliness, which has now come to the surface, after being surpressed for decades in order to survive, has left me feeling utterly empty, lonely, anxious, panicky, and with all meaning gone.
I’ve had some counselling but the unbearable grief for a good childhood that I never had is hard to tolerate.
It certainly does have an effect on you later in life if you were robbed of a normal childhood…although our childhoods probably nothing alike it certainly can leave a scar… Long term depression, anxieties…
Did your counselling help at all? I was thinking about trying to get some for myself reguarding my childhood.
With your childhood issues, loss of parents and spouse breakdown you’re arguably going to be all over the place…
I can’t think of anything worse then feeling alone…
I hope you manage to find some form of help, support which hopefully enables you too move forward… I’m not one though for positive outlooks, advice or motivation I’m definitely in the doom and gloom category… But best of luck all the same.
Thank you for replying.
Yes I am still having psychotherapy and I am about to try EMDR therapy which is interesting and aims to reduce the strength of traumatic memories when you recall them now. As in PTSD.
Therapy is all very well, but progress is slow. I suppose I came to this sue ryder forum in the hope of contacting other fellow sufferers. Psychotherapy is just you and your therapist!
In a way it is still lonely.
The bereavement, loss, emptiness of never having had a loving, warm parental relationship in childhood, that I have shielded my conscious self from until now, it feels very like losing the closest people to me right now, and it feels unbearable.
It sounds like you have had a similar loss that’s hard to bear.
Hey, your have yo let me know how your EMDR therapy goes, I was reading up about that… Sounds interesting…as yes I guess no therapy works over night everything takes time.