Can somebody please reply to my blog and talk to me about her, and this weird lack of grief. Yesterday was a teary day but I'm really worried that my grief is gonna come and smack me in the face.
FormerMember
Hi
Yes i can relate to what you are saying. I felt numb when my mum died, felt nothing. I thought i should feel the stab of grief but i did not. I thought that i should have totally fallen apart and to start with i didn't. That made me feel guilty and crap like i did not care. I did care and it did hit me. It kind of comes in waves where you feeling totally emotionalyou feel the pain in the pit on your stomach then the next day-few hours you think you can cope again. It is really strange because from my experience you kind of end up all over the place. I don't think there is any set pattern for grief. It may well smack you in the face but you also get back up from the smack and keep going.
I think it is really early days for you and your at the start of your journey. The grief will come, sorry no you are probally experiencing it now. The cut off detached feeling may be part of the shock..please dont put more pressure on self to how you should be feeling. I did that but i dont think it helps. How you are feeling does not reflect how you felt about your mum..
Please keep talking to peolpe.This site is great, although saying that the changes dont make it easy to use at present. I would like to keep updated about how you are coping. If i loose your thread it because of the site changes, so sorry in advance if i do.
I'm so sorry about your mother; it's terrible to have to watch someone you love get more and more sick and frail, and then when you lose them your emotions are all over the place.
The thing about grief is, it doesn't come with a timetable, and there are no rules, no right or wrong way to react. Aside from all else, you're in shock, and will be for some time to come. So you may be weirdly numb at one moment, then sobbing your heart out the next. It might indeed jump up and smack you in the face; it might even be a good, cathartic thing if it did. But that might never happen; it might happen unexpectedly, out of the blue, months from now.
Either way - as I said, there is no right or wrong, everyone reacts differently and in their own way. No-one is judging you on the way you react (or if they are, they're not worth you taking the time to worry about them).
The only thing that really helps is time. The loss of a loved one never really stops hurting, so I find, but after a while it becomes a part of you. You carry on, and you cope, because that's what we do.
I started a blog yesterday about grief because I feel exactly the way you do.
I plan to document the stages of grief I go through so it might help people realise there is no normal when it comes to loss.
I lost my mum a few weeks ago and when we found out she was ill and when she passed away and up until the funeral I cried, felt sad and did all the things considered 'normal' since then nothing.
I also as I think you may do from your post almost feel guilty for not greiving enough like I didn't care or something but I don't think that is it at all, I think maybe my mind is protecting me and letting me deal with things gradually.
You mention your mum in your post - but do you have any other family you could talk too? It took me a while to admit it to one sibling but was relived when they felt the same where I did - made me feel less guilty.
If you want to talk any further send me a pm or reply on here
Hello everybody, thankyou for taking the time to reply and not thinking I'm some sort of attention seeking crazy person. I am 30 and have no siblings, but I have my dad and husband. I got married in July and my mum helped me plan every minute detail over the last few years. She was released from the hospice overnight so she could attend and she looked beautiful. She was so brave and I was so proud of her. She was only 61. She had been ill for a long time but doctors were treating her for a peptic ulcer. She had vivid memories of accompanying her own mum to that tube down the throat procedure, and as a result refused to go herself so we didn't know it was cancer till it was too late. She had breast cancer 5 years ago and beat it, but if only someone had suggested the slightest possibility of it being cancer, she would have gone. She referred to herself as a 'stupid woman' for not going but after that, she was so accepting. She was amazing. I didn't know how poorly she was till my hen do in May. In June she was diagnosed and then died this month. She was actually getting by on Morrisons own paracetamol for months. How amazing is that?
Maybe it is my brain protecting me, but I think I started grieving as soon as she was diagnosed and was so much worse then than I am now. I just don't know. What I do know is that my love for her has increased a million fold, and I didn't think I could love her more than I wholeheartedly did.
My dad died in May, he was 58 and I was the same as you, I didn't cry much at first. I cried as he was dying because it was not an easy passing and it was distressing but after that I don't think I cried until the funeral. It's very very early days for you, only 3 weeks on and you might well still be in the 'shocked and numb' stage. I felt numb for ages and I was concerned, like you, that this meant I didn't care. It didn't, it really didn't, the numbness is just the mind's way of getting you through the initial hurdle and it does wear off. It's hard when it does, the grief is raw and thinking about my dad, the way he died and the 8 weeks between diagnosis and death felt like picking a scab. I also had some really odd dreams involving him and in all of them, he had the cancer. Now the initial raw pain is still there a bit but has dulled slightly and been replaced with waves of grief, set off by odd things like changing the card details on his Oyster card from his to mine, his favourite song coming on the radio, Bury FC football results on the TV, little things. Grief affects everyone differently and you might not react the same way I did but don't for a moment berate yourself and think you're odd for not being a screaming sobbing mess right now, believe me you'll have your moments in the future and the grief will come when your mind decides you're ready to handle it and lets it through. What you're experiencing is completely normal and doesn't in any way reflect on your love for your mum or the fantastic person she clearly was.
All the best and if I can be of any help, even if it's just someone to rant at, please feel free to get in touch, love Vikki x
