Any self help tips on moving forward after loss., I know I need to move on but no idea where to even start, I’m fed up of feeling angry, hurt, guilty, upset and anything in between.
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Hello @Tay I am sorry that I don’t have any tips because I am not managing that well myself and I have no idea what you have had to deal with either but I can say for my continued (unfortunate) existence the the things that make it harder are
*living other people’s routines instead of yours or what you feel like doing
- too many drugs/drink
- not eating or eating shite
*people trying to convert me to their beliefs and me going along with it because i am desperately lonely/terrified
For me the things that make it more bearable are:
*pets
*trying to do one useful thing each day
*not thinking about the future, when I worry about something add it to my list of worries and then try to distract my brain with something else since I’m not gonna solve it now
*trying to build a new routine, trying to stick to a sleep schedule to retrain my body how to sleep
- trying to eat at least two healthyish meals a day (youre going to fk up your brain chemicals even worse otherwise and make it harder than it needs to be)
- reaching out for help from friends/relatives but if it’s not helpful, no matter how much effort they put in then spend some time alone
*crying when you feel like it (but not with mouth open if doing anything perilous like cutting toenails or cleaning cat poo tray).
*writing my feelings down or telling them to someone who listens (not many do, they rather fix us because it’s also unbearable for them listening to our unbearable lives).
A lot of the things above that help I learned from others on here or my therapist and I am not perfect at those things but working on it…
Also for me in the last two weeks (my husband died 3.5 months ago and it completely broke me, I am surprised I am still alive now) I found making a new routine (or rather trying to live our old routine instead) is helpful. For example when other people were around helping me I didn’t eat foods my husband and I used to eat or drink coffee or sit outside. I started with having the coffee in the morning again and sitting outside, these things made me feel more like me again and that he could just be inside… I am trying to build this routine to make a new routine I can rely on because I felt very disordered these last months. It helps a little.
Good luck, Maybe you can also tell us more about how you feel. Take care of yourself…
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Hi, Tay.
Welcome to this page, where none of us want to be.
I can only tell me about my own experience of grief. My father died when I was 7. I woke up and found my mother sitting at my bedside, she held my hand and gave me a cup of whatever it was that I was drinking at the time, and told me that my father had died. I didn’t believe her at first. Then she gave me breakfast and asked me if I wanted to see my father, which I did.
My mother remained trapped in grief for the rest of her life.
I left home aged 16. Intermittently she’d come to see me. She wanted me to be a doctor.
I decided to make some money, which I did. Then I became a reporter. Eventually I became a writer.
I bought her house from her when I was 40. She died when I was 45, of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Jim, my husband, died 15th of September last year. I was in shock for at least 8 weeks afterwards. That means I was not mentally competent to make any decisions. I did make some decisions, which I have now reviewed and stopped.
Because of what happened to my mother, the first decision I made was not to get trapped in grief. Then Phillip, my stepson, came over to the UK, he arrived the Monday before Jim died on the Tuesday.
& etc… Phill is a lawyer, and he spent a few days with me sorting out Jim’s will, which, because he is a lawyer, took him about half an hour on my computer.
Now I am pursuing our SIPPs, because Hargeaves & Landsdown do not believe that Jim and I are/were married. Now, I mean, sod off. They know that already because Jim & I regularly swapped money between our accounts when we were both alive. I occasionally dabble in the stock market and also the foreign currency market. To be a day trader in either you have to have a special system installed, and also satellite broadband. etc…
Nearly 5 months have passed since Jim died, I am beginning to get over losing him in my arms, when he died of acute cardiac failure. He actually had a brain stem glioma. But, as a medical friend of mine said, who wants to die of acute cardiac failure???
Ergo, I am suing the responsible unit. Why did someone diagnosed with a brain stem glioma by the acute medical admission unit, end up on the acute stroke unit, where over 3 weeks his life leaked away, until he was discharged as terminally ill.
I had a serious form of cancer in 2009, and was at one point told that I had about a year to live, and then used Jim’s company policy to go to an oncologist in Harley Street who I saw last week.
who told me he was struggling to come to terms with Jim’s death also.
I told him my side of the story. He then asked me how Jim died. I told him. I dunno, but I think he might help me deal with the GMC. He is world famous and now in his 70s.
I know I am very lucky. I still have some money left and nearly 20 years of wonderful memories. I will always be Jim’s wife. I am now in my 60s.
But however long I stay on this earth - and I choose to believe in God - I am going to do the best I can to try to be happy. I try to be a kind and generous person, but I am fed up with being taken for granted.
So, although I am sad that you are here, I hope you will find some answers to the questions you are asking.
We are all siblings in grief.
With love, Christie xxx