Hello Bek, so sorry to hear about your mum. Sending you a welcome hug.
You sound a lot like me, minus the dogs and the way your mum died. I too lived with my mum and was her carer for many years. She had a heart condition and died of a cerebral haemorrhage in October 2017 in hospital. It was the worst time of my life and much of how you describe feeling sounds very familiar to me.
The last two years have been very hard indeed, not just because I have been grieving, but also because of all the fall-out that resulted from her passing. I found it all very stressful to cope with on top of my grief, but being almost two years on from where you are now, I can say I have coped well I think and no longer cry every day, and have found things to help me want to get up each day. That has been a journey of discovery and being without mum has been a painful period of adjustment.
I think the worst things in the early days, as you say, are coming home to an empty house and walking into the room to see the chair she always sat in empty. I find it helps to leave a light on, so that the house isn't dark when I get back, though perhaps you already do that for the dogs. I also found it helped a lot in the early months to have flowers about the house. They lifted my spirits somehow, as does walking in the park, where I can sit and try to come to terms with it all and process my thoughts and feelings. I find it calming to sit in the park and have peace and nature around me.
I think we all go through the experience of people not being around once the funeral has come and gone and just leaving us to get on with it. I found it helped to take up a new interest that got me out of the house and gave me something to look forward to each week. I also made some new friends there who have been a great support for me.
I too left everything much as my mum left it in her room. I only really made any major attack on tidying things away in there yesterday, and only then because I have to have the windows repaired in there at the moment and so had to make it accessible for the builders. I still have most of her stuff. I find it hard to sort through her things, but that does get a little easier in time. I find now, I can get rid of some of the things she rarely used or wore. I still can't get rid of anything she wore or used regularly however as they still feel like a link to her and have memories attached to them. That is fine though. You don't need to rush any tasks like that, especially not just because someone else thinks you should. You must take your own time with things and this is still very recent for you, so I would not expect you to be in any way ready to start tackling that task yet.
I am glad you have the dogs. I think they must be a comfort and a help to you. At least they are a link to your mum and another presence in the house and pets are always a help, I think.
This is a long slow and difficult journey Bek and it will take as long as it takes, but don't expect it to get better in weeks. It is more likely to take months or years. I found it got worse before it started to get better and I am still working on coming to terms with it now. If you read the posts on here, you will find it takes most people years to move forward and involves many ups and downs along the way. But that is normal and ok. There is no time limit on how long it takes, but this kind of a loss changes you and changes your world, your outlook on everything and your future and so you can't expect it be over and sorted quickly. I don't think you ever really stop grieving. You just learn to live with the grief somehow and rebuild your world around it. It does get better, but it will never go away. I doubt there will ever be a time when you can say you are over it. I lost my dad more than thirty years ago and I still think of him every day and miss him.
Life does however go on and what we make of it is up to us, but there is no right or wrong way to grieve and no set time it takes to do it. Just be grateful for the wonderful times you spent with your mum. The memories of those times will come back and the bad memories recede a little as time goes on, but what you have to hold on to is the fact that you both had that time together and that she will never be truly gone from you because the memory of her will live on in your heart and your mind and your love for her will never be gone, nor hers for you. You will find a way forward, but give yourself time and be patient with that. It will only happen little by little. Keep talking to us here whenever you wish. There is always someone about to offer some good advice and sympathy. You are not alone.