I lost both my parents within 2 years and 3 months. Mum died 4 and a half years ago, from a rare cancer. Dad was 11 years older, but died in a home, from vascular dementia/heart failure. I was very close to my parents. I have 2 brothers, neither had a close relationship with our parents. I have no support from them. Last week, I scaterred Dads ashes, in Somerset. He was evacuated there in the war.
I have since been overwhelmed by a feeling of total loss and isolation
2 Likes
Hi there I signed up to this site specifically to reply to you as your post spoke to me as I am in such a similar position it’s spooky even down to my father being a lot older than my mother like yours. I found my way here as I was feeling so low - I don’t want to live really but don’t actually want to kill myself. I know this is called passive suicidal ideation. I was googling for support and found a link to Sue Ryder.
I know from the first of my parents to die that grief does start to ease but for me that was 2 years.
Now like you I feel totally isolated and alone. I was caring for my Dad alone and I thought I was doing ok but it’s like the shock has worn off now and reality is sinking in and I don’t want this life. I am very isolated and like you have no support from my brother. In some ways the existence of non-suppportive siblings makes it worse I think.
If you were an only child, you’d know it was just you but if there are siblings and they know you are alone and grieving but offer you nothing, as well as the grief for the loss you have the added resentment, upset and grief at that relationship not being what it should be.
I don’t want to live in a world without my parents who like you I was really close to and loved so much and got so much love from them. It is just so devastating to think I’ll never have that love again.
If I’m feeling better and more like I’m coping, I try to focus on how lucky I was to have such lovely parents and such a happy life with them. I know many people are born to abusive, evil or just bad and uncaring parents. so I know I was lucky but the down side is this searing searing pain.
I’m not sure any of this is likely to help you Gabie but I really identified with your post and you are not alone in your grief or your feelings.
I am not really helping myself either. I have very few friends anyway, many disappeared when I was caring but I don’t want to see anyone and being isolated makes the grief much worse.
I can’t imagine ever being truly happy as I was with them again. I understand I could achieve a level of trivial functionality - like in a couple of years when the rawness of grief has subsided to go out for a nice meal or see a funny comedy - but it will just be time filling and not that deep joy and happiness you get with being around those who love you and you love in the way a happy child loves a good parent.
I don’t know what to do either. I am just surviving one day at a time in a very dark state.
to you both, I am in same boat.
I was an only child and I too had the very best mother and father.
it has been since 2016 for me. I was also caring for them with help.
I managed. I know taking my own life would NOT be what they wanted. I never even attempted but the thoughts were there.
And I lost everything - I lost my family in Norway with my Norwegian mother now gone, my ex and I no longer talk and my job laid me off while caring and I never got another.
All I can say for myself is that my friends who are 80 just married. another couple 79 and 83 dating one year. so for myself, still mid-life, I will seek someone too. I do freelance writing and finishing a 2nd book so I use my God given gifts and belong to several social clubs. So I had to move on. Had to.
I attend things, I went to an art gallery opening and a single man was following me around 
And I swim outside. So for what it is worth …
My sincere condolences. 
1 Like
Your reply completely resonates. I have complex PTSD, from service as a medic in the Army, and then being an emergency worker. If it wasn;t for the support of my Mum, I’d never have coped.
I do, do a lot. I work part time, and also practice as an artist. I find Art gives my life meaning.
You’re right about the siblings making it worse. I just don;t understand them. My Mum and Dad, like yours, were very good parents, and good company. I spent a lot more time with my parents, than my siblings, and they are both very resentful about that. Like you, I take a great deal of comfort in a treasury of good memories, but do feel isolated, as I just don’t enjoy anyones company, as much as I did my parents.
My Mums cancer spread to her brain, and Dad got very frail and confused. I found myself both working and looking after them alone, during the covid lockdown.
I think it’s only as Dad is finally laid to rest, and they have a headstone, that my brain has unwound, and the finality of them both being gone, has hit me.
1 Like
Me too for both of these things. I trusted my mother more than anyone and she was like my closest go-to person for advice and care and love. Like you I was trying to work and looking after them in the Covid lockdown.
I think caring for the second one really helped me cope after the death of the first - it was all absorbing and a distraction.
Now it’s all over, its just me alone. It does seem wholly overwhelming. I can’t see a future in which I will be anything other than tolerably existing.
I feel so down especially in the evening. Worse at night.
Hi, I had to reply as 2 things caught my attention. I lost my dad on Sunday. He too had vascular dementia. However he was ok and still at home being dad, he passed away suddenly from a catastrophic bleed on the brain. The second thing is I live I’m Somerset. Suppose 3 things really because I lost my mum also just over 3 years ago. My sister didn’t speak to my dad and kind of feeling the isolation thing myself. Like I’m grieving alone. Dad had a wife who’s also grieving but it’s a different grief I guess. Anyway not really sure what I’m on about. Your post just struck a cord with me.
Nic
@nicnic - sorry for your loss and so recently. You will be in shock you know that. It doesn’t matter if someone had dementia or was old, when it happens it is still a shock especially so suddenly like that. Shock is good though as it is your bodies way of allowing you to get through the worst of it.
I’m so sorry we are all in this situation. It’s so horrific.
1 Like
I wanted to reach out on this chat. I am an only child. I lost my mum 3 years ago tomorrow and my dad at the end of January. I feel a mixture of emotions. It was a lot being the only person in the hospital/hospice to support them to the end and walking out alone once they’d died. I haven’t slept properly since my mum died. At the moment I feel overwhelmed trying to manage clearing my dad’s house alone (he lived 2 hours away) and juggling this with working and looking after my own family. There’s something about losing the second parent which leaves you feeling lost. I’m not close to any of the wider family. Today’s emotion is mainly anger - I feel like a stroppy teenager.It helps to know we aren’t alone/there are other people in a similar situation.
1 Like