BEREAVEMENTUK SUPPORT FORUM
Bereavement Support Posts => Please Post In This Bereavement Support Posting Room => Topic started by: Joann on March 25, 2016, 03:20:33 PM
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So I am sitting on my lunch break at work yesterday when an advert comes on the TV about the new Motown CD and I thought Mum would like that and then it hits me all over again that she is gone!! Am laid listening to one of her favourite CDs, Dr Hook's Greatest Hits, and I long to laugh with her about the funny songs on there. Music was a big part of Mums world and when the Ventilator was switched off at the Hospital we put her favourite Christian song on repeat and left it playing by her ear. I have not been able to listen to that song yet even though it is a favourite of mine too. I know if I play it I will totally breakdown and I am never in the right place to do that. I do cry with my Sisters but then make myself pull it together to be strong and supportive of them. I can feel something building inside me that wants to drive somewhere on my own, play the song and totally give into my grief. Is this normal? I feel like I am screaming inside with no outlet for it and without this forum where I can be totally honest, I would go mad!!
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Its five years since I lost my husband and there are still a couple of songs I can't listen too and yet many more that have been some comfort.when I got an mp3 I organised playlists one for happy songs one for sad songs,and sometimes I would play the sad ones knowing they would make me cry but needing to cry too.There's nothing wrong with crying and I have known people here before who have gone off somewhere to scream,nothing wrong with that either.I think its important that when you are on a roller coaster like this one of grief you are presented with so many emotions you allow yourself to go along with rather than suppress them.
Its many years since I lost my mum and I was taken by surprise just before Xmas by a Christmas carol.
The songs on my happy list are almost all Motown,so why not by the CD for yourself it might be a way to feel closer too her and if it makes you cry no harm will come of that.
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I've sat in a car and screamed and yelled and I've played music that had me totally in tears. Think it's perfectly normal and made me feel better afterwards.
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Let's all scream together...
I was going through some old videos and in one of them Chris was filming me. She spoke whilst filming and it shook me to the core. I could always pick her voice out even though I don't hear well. Just for a second she was really there with me. Some music tracks take me back to certain moments in our life together but hearing her speak to me again has left me well - I don't know what?
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Thank you everyone.
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Thank you everyone.
Hi R.
Just a little suggestion you may want to try and that's to put a nice avatar on your posts? Maybe a nice one of you and your mum if thats not to painful or choose one from the selection they supply here or whatever. You do it from your Profile/Forum Profile... up to you just a thought. :smiley:
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Thank you will try that.
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I know I have said it before but its a beautiful picture.something about your mums eyes she looks like someone quick to laugh, a tad mischievous and lots of love to give.
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:hug: Thank you Karena, that is my last ever picture taken with my Mum. She loved a laugh and liked to be a bit naughty. But most of all, she had love by the bucket full!! She had 9 children who she loved and she absolutely adored her Grandchildren. You summed her up great!!
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Thank you will try that.
Well done R, it adds such meaning to a post and your avatar speaks volumes. xx
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:hearts:
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:hug: she sounds like an amazing lady.
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She was. She was certainly unique and I miss her dreadfully.
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:hug:
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OMG Cairo,
That's exactly what I have done - screamed in the car. Kept all the windows closed and look around and when nobody is there I just get it out. I also stomp all over the apartment, shaking my fists of screaming into a pillow. I hate doing it but it just gets me and I have to. I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I have heard that anger is a necessary stage in healing and we should never deny ourselves any chance to allow it. I'm starting to feel normal that others are doing it too. Sometimes, we feel so isolated when these things happen. :hearts:
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I try to find an isolated stretch of road then scream and shout. I'm sure it's better to express your emotions than to keep them locked inside you. Haven't had much anger yet but pummelling cushions is supposed to be good for that ...
Unfortunately I had to have our oldest dog put to sleep last week. Now it's just Bonnie, her daughter, and me. We're both pining so I've been taking her to work with me. I don't feel I can scream in the car when she's with me. Poor dog, she has enough to deal with without me scaring her.
Although I fed and often walked our dogs they were definitely George's dogs. Bonnie is missing having a man around, I think. At work she sits under one of the men's desks. I've just been for a drink with some friends and took her. She disappeared over to the other side of the bar and was sitting next to a couple of guys there. We have both to work out how to cope with this new life with only half the 'pack'. It's very hard.
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I'm also glad to read that screaming happens to other people. I'd felt it was borderline madness or hysteria not sure which, certainly indescribable frustration, anger and pain. Now I can feel more normal about it. Thanks
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I've vented my anger on the kitchen worktop a couple of times but I'm giving that up - hurts too much afterwards! Cushion is a far better idea :wink:
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I've not got to the screaming stage yet but it does sound tempting.
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I actually don't know if I can scream I don't think I ever have done .I did spend a while at the bottle bank though,breaking glass safely and legally.But that was more to do with idiots at his bank and the car insurance company,and finding I was going to lose our home rather than actual grief I didn't really have a period of anger but I developed anxiety attacks and depression,which I,m still fighting.sometimes I wish I could scream I,m sure its probably more healthy than bottling stuff up.
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Karena, when I was younger I definitely couldn't scream and I found it very difficult to cry. I couldn't even get angry and lose my temper.
In my late 20s I was deserted by my first husband and left with a young child. It was a terrible time for me. As bad as bereavement really but in a different way. You have to deal with rejection as well as loss.
I thought I had healed but I was on my own for many years and quite lonely, as all my friends were married. I had a couple of relationships but they didn't work out, possibly because I was too afraid of getting hurt again. Eventually, I got quite depressed and a friend suggested I went for counselling. It was one of the best things I ever did.
A lot of things came out to do with my childhood, which wasn't always happy. During the process I gradually got more in touch with my emotions and learned I could cry, and scream, and shout. It was all bottled up inside before and much more painful as a result.
I don't think I would have met and married my husband if I hadn't had this help.
Now I'm a grandmother I see how naturally my little grandchildren express their feelings. As we grow up we have to suppress those natural instincts to fit into society but I think the energy behind a tantrum or screaming fit is still there inside all of us. We have to learn to control our reactions to everyday minor things but if we keep our emotions shut off when something really terrible happens, like the loss of someone we love, I think it can stay inside and harm us.
If you're content not being able to scream, that's fine, but if you feel like a good scream would help then I really urge you to try and, if you can't do it, maybe talking to someone would help you as it did me.
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I can't scream, can shout and be angry maybe but not scream. The only time I found out I could truly scream was on the Tower of Terror, never before have I screamed so high, loud and long.
I guess I haven't had need to scream otherwise xx
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I was alone in the house last night and let go more than I ordinarily would. I got so upset I actually vomited but then something inside me stops totally giving into completely letting go and I dont know why. I too went through my Husband leaving me with a small child and I have never truly come to terms with that and I was devastated when he died 5 years ago. I want to totally let go but I stop myself and I cant get my head around why. I have always been considered the 'strong' one in my family and I feel this is so deep rooted it stops me totally losing it. I keep waiting for the straw to break the camels back. It happened to me 3 years ago that I just snapped and ended up off work. I did go to counselling which was very helpful but nothing prepared me for losing my Mum.
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That was such meaningful post R and in a strange sort of way I can relate to it but in a different way to yours. In all my years plenty of them lol, in my wildest dreams I never knew how extreme sorrow can almost feel like an out of body experience not belonging to this earth it's so powerful an emotion to suffer.
I'm not sure I've found the words to get this across as I want and it may sound crazy which it's not meant to be. I think you've got to maybe have felt what I mean to get it.
My heart goes out to you R and I totally understand your pain and what you are going through.
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Thank you Dave. I understand what you are saying. Didnt want to get out of bed today but have just spoken to my sister to let her know I am feeling a little delicate today and am going to spend the day with my sisters rather than be on my own. Thank you for this forum where I can be very open and honest, I think I would go mad without it!
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Not screaming but a couple of times I felt out of body .
one day I set off walking to work Everything was normal people going down the main street going about their daily business but I felt completely invisible and so far removed that it crossed my mind that it was me who had died,I walked on in a trance like state got down the back street.There is a stone wall and a hill behind it so normally you have to look up the hill to see the top,but it seemed like I was looking at the top and beyond it. like i was suddenly really tall.I just kept walking to work and eventually things went into normal perspective but I thought I really was going mad and at that point of being invisible and wandering if I had died there was no panic I didn't mind I was more curious than anything I think that's why I kept walking to work,to find out if I really was invisible.
Soon after that I was camping with a group of friends as normal, and went for an early morning walk before anyone else was up.This campsite is next to a woodland you walk down a track through the trees and come to the sea.It was a walk we had done before together and I had done the on my own.The the place does have some sort of magic atmosphere about it there is even a stone circle in the woods but the magic was in the beauty of it and the old trees.So anyway I,m walking past this really old tree and an owl swoops down across the path and lands on the tree.It doesn't speak and it doesn't twit two but it communicates to me that the part of my soul that left when Keith died should be with me and it had brought it back.I said I didn't want it because my soul belonged with Keith and the owl flew off.Then I woke up in my campervan in my PJ,s in my sleeping bag so it was all a dream,except when I got up my shoes were outside covered in still wet mud.Now I would have to be totally bonkers to think that conversation with the owl happened but I must have got up and gone for a walk and have no memory of going back to the van,and if it was sleep walking it was the one and only time.To this day I don't know if it was some kind of insanity, I have been back there a few times, but I can't walk past that tree without looking for an owl.
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Thats an incredible story Karena and a hard one to suss the true meaning of all those things that happened to you.
It makes me wonder that because I have heard people say babies have open minds and can see things we can't, whether or not because of the enormity of the physical and mental state bereavement puts our bodies into. Does this lead to having some sort of gateway opened up again and all sorts of strange things can happening we just can't explain?
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It sounds as if you had an out of body experience, Karena. I think those exist.
Your story about the owl is extraordinary. I think sometimes we have to accept things may happen that have no rational explanation. If it made you feel better it must be a good thing, whatever it was.
Hugs xxx
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Science seeks to prove otherwise but then established science is being questioned by quantum science ,so maybe there is more than we think we know.
I wasted an hour and a half in the early hours in the week watching a programme called the beggining and end of the universe.I say wasted,but I learned the names of some scientists and the history of the development of theory's,and the two accepted outcomes of how the universe will end I learned about galaxy's and nebulas and dark matter,but then there is dark energy and no one knows what it is yet the conclusion of the programme was "we simply don't know" I think that is the answer to a lot of questions if truth be known and I don't mind not always having answers.