My story is a bit of a long and complicated one, I will try and summarise as best I can.
Early 2023, my mum was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. Not long after we we’re told it’s ‘Incurable’ but there’s treatment options.
My whole world was turned upside down and all I could think about was being there for my mum.
Time went on, and she lived with it. Was positive, went to treatment and most of the time you wouldn’t know she was ill.
Fast forward around 16 months later and she did a 180 in the blink of an eye. The cancer just took hold, and I started spending more and more time in hospital refusing to leave her side.
I’ll never forget that night we were told days. Never been told months or years before then suddenly …days… I’ll never forget my mums calm reaction, her trying to sort out her own hospice. From that night I lived in that hospital. Slept on the floor, cleaned her, dressed her, fed her…. Watched her deteriorate more each day.
Watching my mum every night so she didn’t die alone. Nothing ever prepares you for becoming a carer for your 53-year-old mother at the age of 31.
The things I saw will haunt me forever.
She died 2 weeks after being told ‘days’. I was there every day, other than the day she died. I was too late.
I didn’t do the grieving process well, I pushed it down, pushed it away. I couldn’t face it. I went back to work quick.
While my mum was dying – I had my own health issues going (due to stress and previous medication)
This is where it gets worse. I had a fiancée. After my mum died, I didn’t deal with the grief and focused on my own health worries. Refusing to get any help or come out of the spiral of obsessively checking my own body. Even though I’d been reassured by doctors. I’ve always had bad health anxiety but watching my mum die of course heightened it.
A month after she died, my fiancée tried to break up with me, due to not being able to cope with my spirals and panic attacks. I convinced her to stay and we lasted 18 months.
My grief took hold, some days I was angry at the world, some days I was okay, some days I was happy. It wasn’t all bad.
My fiancée ended things with me 6 weeks or so ago as she was unhappy and had reached her limit. Not only was I surprised by the breakup. I don’t think we were THAT unhappy. Even she said, it wasn’t always bad.
While she said she didn’t care about the grief and wanted to support me, it was the constant negativity, lack of wanting to be happy and lack of wanting to help myself, (which I wasn’t ready to face it) It all steamed from the grief. Before my mum got sick, our relationship was incredible. She felt taken for granted and said to me last week ‘I deserve better’. Clearing my clothes out, saying she hated the person she become during all this. It broke my heart, I knew we were distant but we always said. We will get through it, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
In a panic to get her back- I went to therapy. I’ve since been diagnosed with Prolonged Grief Disorder. But all I’ve done for weeks is to be heartbroken over my relationship and tried to fix it.
I worshiped the ground she walked on; I put her first every day, I did little things each day. Always wanting to make her day better.
And now, since therapy, the reality of just how MESSED UP caring for your cancer ridden mother can be and how it’s something no one understands until they go through it.
I’ve lost so much in such a short space of time and I’m at breaking point. I love my fiancée. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I look back and I tried; I tried every day. Sure, I had my bad days as everyone does. She said she felt like she couldn’t talk to me anymore because my mum was my priority and it consumed my life.
Stuck between wanting to move on and being heartbroken. Because like I said, it wasn’t as awful as its being made out to be. But the trust has been lost. I don’t doubt she was put through it, it was tough for her but even in my depth of grief. I tried and tried to make her life as happy as possible.
Now 18 months later, I’m starting to deal with the grief and trauma of my mums illness, on top of my fiancée dumping me. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to do it.