I saw this on a mental health channel and wanted to share it.
It might help those wishing to be gone.
“Master Procrastinator
if there is nothing after death…then death is pretty boring… you should stick around.
because anything you experience in life (as long as it’s not constant pain) is more entertaining than death.”
Our lives WILL end. furthermore after death, you will no longer have the luxury of dwelling on bittersweet memories. Kissing your puppy, watering your garden, and seeing the sunset will end. Death may just be endless blackness and no cherished thoughts.
I think the difficulty comes when a person feels like they just don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter if death is just blackness as that is a peace that a person currently may not be able to feel. And there is the unbearable pain of loss making life seem impossible to live.
I have this and get bouts of this. I see a long line of unpleasant and painful necessary life stages that I will have to go through without the loved one who would be there to make those challenges worth fighting for. It all seems meaningless and with lockdown, it is a never ending feeling. It is just me in an enclosed room forever and ever it feels like. Nothing is real anymore and no one is there. When they died, they took my life too. I am a shell just existing day-to-day. I can do the things I used to enjoy, I can enjoy them for only so long before the rising feeling of loneliness and fear begin and remind me that there is only ever the empty house to return to, which is also the empty life.
This is a truth that cannot be glossed over. All there can be is hope and a target to aim for. Going for a walk without wanting to cry out to others “how come you get to have your family member when mine is dead? Why?!” is something to aim for or it might be to push them aside in your mind and fight for yourself - to say “I am alive and I will take the life they could not complete and I will live it. This is now my responsibility to their memory and to myself, as they would wish for me”.
This is how I go forward. I made a list of things I would do before I died if I had a choice and combine it with what they would have done if they could have, maybe with me. I then started to “live my best life”. In truth I was living their best life!
I returned to grief when lockdown started as I couldn’t do those things that I had listed previously to live my/their life. The days seem to never end and now I am ill with it all. It will get better. It did before for a time. I have no choice but to plod on forward each dreary day. Even the bright beautiful sunshine reminds me of my loved one, my daughter laughing and playing as a child on the beach and those days that would never end back then 30 years ago when she was small. And how on her deathbed her last words whilst delerious were “I can see the seaside. Can I go to the beach now?”. I said yes and let her go. And then the lights in my life went out and I had no star to guide me any longer.
To anyone feeling like they just want to exit out of their situation, I say that it is not possible or likely to be plausible. We know that it may not work or work badly and affect everyone else with grief as you have been affected (but possibly worse as they blame themselves for the rest of their lives). You have to find another solution and to keep trying. Just keep trying.
A friend of mine lost her sister to breast cancer. They were aged 2 years apart and both had breast cancer at the same time in their late 20’s. She was cured, her sister was not. She could not bear the guilt of surviving. She packed a bag and left for Australia and spent 2 years travelling to all the places her sister had talked about going to. That is how she dealt with it. She came back and could then grieve. It was too much before that. Big feelings often need big responses- think outside the box and find your solution. Try and be bigger than the problem life has presented you with. You will stand up straight one day having climbed that mountain and survived this grief.
Thank you for reading this. This is my struggle too.
I think its possible to have days where you can grieve well, other days not so well.
If the grief is on you then sometimes it can be guided round gently to a positive sort of grief. I can do this sometimes by buying flowers for myself or going to the cemetary. Other days it just is a black hurting in the soul as I feel the shadow of my daughter brush past me as I wake up. I then bitterly miss her and want to step into her world. But I know this is not reality and will pass.
The story never ends. This is another chapter to learn through.
Be kind to yourself and remember the love you shared, that you still share, even if you don’t see them, they loved you so much. Love yourself anyway you can for them xx
I’m so sorry to hear about your loss @TerryLady.
I had a miscarriage years ago and that was bad enough but to lose an offspring who you know and love must be unbearable.
Praying that you find the peace and strength to carry on, as I’m sure your daughter would want you to
Bridget
I do think one might imagine how they would think.
And knowing how much love is among family members for the most part, I do imagine that those who are deceased, if they had a say, would be horrified if the person left behind hurt themselves.
And as they are gone now, if there is a heaven, I do think they would say from on high: please live and enjoy if you can the time you have on Earth.
Because they know more than any, how valuable it is. But also they would be so hurt that those still living were so crushed. I know after my father passed my friend told me how hurt my dad would be if he knew how very badly that I was doing. It is like when you really miserable and that hurts the parents so. But parents are so happy when their child is happy.
And I think that this is universal. So if you can, you might think upon how we owe it to those we lost to live as best we can and how sad they would be if we just tossed it all away.