Time is pain

My mam died a year ago. I am 51. I was always close with her, even as an independent adult who lived in her own place with a good career and friends etc she was always my person. 12 yrs ago life changed very fundamentally for me when a condition left me badly disabled and brain damaged me too so once I could leave hospital I returned to my parent’s home to live and they were my primary carers ever since. As much as I lost everything of myself I was content enough because my mam was always there softly aiding every transition through a now disabled life. When she died very suddenly noone could believe,as I couldn’t believe how well I handled it but i had to because as much as l love my dad he isn’t strong. Its like I’ve been in a dream state for a year and only now has grief turned from daily quiet days I hid then gritted my teeth against to something new that i hate. Its like this ever present hole in me now that makes me feel detached from the world. Friends say I can talk to them but I dont because what can they say to make anything better? Nothing. On one hand I feel guilty because I had mam as long as I did and she was my first experience of grief so most others experience grief sooner but on the other hand its not an experience I can bring other experience too and its all consuming. I miss her so much. I hate life without her. I fear life without her.I know I can and so I will cope without her because thats all I can do for her now…but i just see little point or happiness beyond being an aunty to my twin 7 yr old neices. I hate how the whole nature of time shifts when you’re grieving. You don’t look behind because it hurts, you can’t look forward because that scares but living in the moment is a perpetual ache of lonely loss. I have struggled more than I ever have this year.

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Hi Ashley , You describe how I feel exactly. I lost my mam to cancer very suddenly in November and I still find it hard to believe that it’s true. I’m so sorry that you are in this position. I had to move back in with my parents due to stalking but when they retired they moved and I have lived independently (if you can call it that) for 15 years but have extreme agoraphobia, anxiety, panic attacks due to ptsd. My mam was my rock. She understood my situation and accepted my limitations when nobody else does. I miss her beyond anything I could have imagined. I am trapped in my world and very isolated. But reaching out to others on here has helped me enormously. It is a form of therapy as well as real friendship. So you have come to the right place. We all offer our own understanding of your situation. We have all lost our loved ones. I feel so empty, like I’m going through the motions of whatever I am doing. I can’t sleep unless I take tablets. I have a wonderful therapist who helps me but family just try to pressure me into taking tablets because they can’t understand why I am destroyed by mam’s death. Dad didn’t want to hear or see me be upset and I had to sit in the garden. You are lucky in that you have friends who want to be there for you. Accept their kindness for what it is. They won’t understand if they have never suffered losing the most precious person to them in this world. How could they imagine the depths of our despair? I feel that deep ache and overbearing sadness. It hits me and I’m knocked off my feet again. I’m living in a vast emptiness without her. I just don’t know what the point is to wait a lifetime until I can be with her again. I thought I was being quite positive recently but had a meltdown last night which didn’t improve today. Now I feel numb. I dread going to bed because I’m so upset thinking of her but hate waking up to a new day because the reality of her actually being dead hits me like a brick. The things she’ll never experience again, watching her grandchildren and great grandchild grow up. She loved them so dearly. I wish I’d had children just for her to love them. I’m your age and never wanted a conventional life but now I just wish I’d done anything to make her happy. She didn’t get to celebrate her 80th birthday and I couldn’t doing anything myself because I was too upset and couldn’t face being with family. My mam has been the closest person to me in this life, despite relationships. She is the most precious person to me and I didn’t tell her. I was always so distracted by whatever jobs she wanted me to do. I wish I’d just sat down and chatted, listened to her stories over a cup of tea. So many things I regret not doing now. The list keeps growing. It is a form of torture because I know I’d not be concerned about this stuff is life was normal again. I love her more than anything or anybody and would gladly trade places with her. I wanted to crawl in with her at the chapel of rest, holding her purple fingers. I’m so empty without her. She made my world bearable. Everything seems pointless now.
Sorry I haven’t been very comforting. Express whatever you are feeling. There’s no judgment here. Take care. Sending you love xxx

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