Hello

[AStarToMe]

Evening and hello to everyone.
I really don't know where to start.
Over the past 5 years, I have lost my entire family and I only have my stepdad left.  My grandad, grandma, uncle and my mum.
I'm married with a baby but my husband is controlling and mentally abusive. He doesnt support me whatsoever.  He lost his father this year so it's been a tough one for the both of us.
My mum suddenly died in August and she was my best and only friend.  I told her everything, called her 100 times a day, went everywhere together and now she's gone. It was out the blue and the worst night of my life.  Since then, life has been a blur.
I'm sat here writing this in tears. It's so hard for me but I want to talk about my mum as she was amazing.  I have strong days and I try my best to keep my chin up for my baby.
Anyway, that's my story. I hope I meet some lovely people on here to chat with.
Thank you

[Sandra61]

Hello and welcome to this site. Sending you a welcome and, it seems, a much needed welcome hug. 

I am so sorry to hear that you have been going through so much and have now lost your mum too. Clearly you were very close and this will have hit you very hard.

Losing your mum is one of the worst things that will ever happen to you, especially if your home life presents challenges also and I am not at all surprised to hear that you are struggling. Also, your loss is still very recent and recovering from such a close loss is always going to be hard, but there are lots of people here and on the Facebook page who will be going through the same thing and will understand how you feel. I am one of them. I lost my mum just over two years ago now, so am a little further into this journey than you. It is a difficult process and takes a long time to improve, but it does  get better, very slowly. I am sure you will get some very good advice from our lovely members. All I can advise is that you have to be patient as it doesn't improve quickly. You will have good and bad days, but taking it one day at a time is all you can do.

Be kind to yourself. Try to remember to eat and drink properly, If it helps, perhaps try counselling. Your doctor can refer you for grief counselling. There are also grief support groups in some areas, so perhaps explore that option and see if you have one nearby that you could join. It sounds as if you could do with finding some new friends, as your home life sounds as if it has its own stresses for you.

I have found that grief is something that you have to try to help yourself to recover from and for me that meant little comforts like having flowers around and taking walks in the park where I could sit to try to think about all that had happened and absorb and come to terms with it all. It also helped me to write down how I felt and what I thought about all that had happened. Writing it down did seem to help me get some of it out of my system.

In terms of losing your mum, I have found that loss changed me as a person as well as changing my life and the way I feel about life. It rocks your world and collapses the foundations of your everyday routines, so it is not surprising that it has such a massive impact on you. It is not however, sadly, reversible, so you have to find a way to live with it and accept it. You do slowly find a way forward, but it does take time and perseverance and being kind to yourself. One day at a time is all you can do.

All best wishes to you. 

[AStarToMe]

Thank you so much for your kind words.
You have literally explained everything I am feeling.
The brain is a very strange yet delicate thing. I can be in a zone where I'm ok and not thinking about how sad I feel and then bang, I hit a brick wall.  My mind tends to relay everything what happened that day over and over and I know it's trying to process everything.  I just wish it would happen sooner.
Day by day is how I'm living at the moment and some days I'm so positive.  Those positivity thoughts I long to keep hold of as mum would've wanted me to be happy and enjoy life.
The same goes for me, my life and outlook on life has completely changed.  From the moment it happened, maybe even before in the hospital, my thoughts have changed.
Life is so precious and too short.
Thank you again x

[Sandra61]

Hello again,  I agree. I think it's that you can be thinking about something else entirely or thinking you are doing quite well and then some little thing happens to remind you of your mum or of some aspect of her character or something you remember doing with her and suddenly you are back in the pit of despair and the tears spring back into the eyes or you feel terrible again and then you realise you are not doing quite as well as you thought!

Reliving those last terrible weeks is something I think we all do and the memory of that time does blot out all our better memories for a long time. I think it is the shock of it all that we have not yet managed to deal with. I found it helped to revisit places I had visited with my mum and look at photos of her. It helped me remember the good times I spent with her and it led me to put together an album of favourite photos of her that also helped me remember the better times. You never forget the awful last weeks, but they can be persuaded to move into the background of your mind as you make efforts to bring the better memories to the fore.

I am glad you are having positive days too. It is so easy to let grief drag you down, but like you, my mum would have wanted me to be happy and to enjoy life, so that is what I am trying to do, in her memory now. I joined a class in a subject we both enjoyed and that has really helped me. I met some lovely new friends there and it gives me something to look forward to each week. It gets me out of the house, which I think is important when you are grieving and it forces me to think about something else and to engage with others. It really was my salvation in that first year after I lost my mum. I would recommend that if you can find a way to do it.

You are right about feeling different before your mum passed. I have since learned that grief begins before the person has died because you know it is coming. I remember one day in the hospital when I just had to go outside the ward because I couldn't hold back the tears anymore and didn't want her to see me crying.  I think it was just the pressure of all the horror of those weeks and the fear and dread of knowing I was going to lose her and couldn't do anything to prevent it. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with.

Try to stay positive, but cry when you need to and work on resurrecting those good memories. I know some people create a place they can go to to remember those they have lost and that can help. They might plant up a special spot in the garden with plants their lost loved one liked and put a seat there to go to to think about them or they have a bench placed at a favourite spot with the person's name on it. There are lots of those in the park I go to. Just a thought, in case you think it might help.

Thinking of you. 

[AStarToMe]

Thank you again for your words.
Have a lovely Christmas x

[AStarToMe]

Evening
Just wanted to come on here and get things off my chest.
My husband has been saying that I should talk about my mum and what happened but I'm not ready yet. 
I understand what has happened and I know my mum isn't coming back but he wants to force me to talk about it.
I'm really not comfortable in doing that and I don't want to talk to anyone about it. I do have a chat with my stepdad about it but nobody else.
Am I in the wrong by not talking to my husband about it?
He hasn't supported me at all and today turns round and says I should speak up.
Anyway, sorry for the rant x

[Jill]

Please don't be sorry for sharing your feelings here.  This is the place you can say how you feel.  We will understand.   Just do what comes naturally to you as far as talking is concerned.  Hope this helps a little.

[AStarToMe]

Thank you

[Sandra61]

No, I don't think you are wrong not to want to talk about it. You should only do so when and if you feel ready. I felt the same way after my dad died. THat was a long time ago now and I did find it got easier to talk about him as time passed, but it took years before I felt I could. What I do find is that it is easier to write about how I feel about things. I wrote about what happened when my mum passed away more recently. It did help me get those pent up emotions out of my system a bit and I felt better afterwards, so you might try that. It is easier to write about it, as it is only for you to see and you don't have to engage with anyone else to do it and it helped me, so might be worth a try. All those feelings need some kind of release and that will help you too. Maybe you would find that easier? 

[AStarToMe]

Yes I do find it easier to write about what happened and this is like a weight of my shoulders for a period of time until I'm sad again.
I know what's happened had happened and I know I have to learn to adjust to my life now but I feel rushed and pressured.
Having no friends or family apart from my stepdad is hard but I feel this will make me a stronger person at the end.
Thank you for your advice, I really appreciate it x

[Sandra61]

You are right, grief is not something that can be rushed, although those around us do tend to expect you to be 'over it' within a few months. Often I think this is the reaction of those who have never experienced the loss of someone close and don't understand how massively it affects you. The truth is that you never really get over it and instead you become someone who learns to live with grief. Others expect you to be sad for a while and then go back to normal, but that's not how I have found it works. You never do go back to being who you were before, because loss changes you. It changes how you feel about everything and how you think about life and that person you were before isn't the same anymore and in my experience, you can't switch back. Once it is with you, that sadness is always there in the background, no matter how much you manage to adjust to living with it and sometimes it comes to the fore more than it does at other times, but it never goes away. I suppose it's because love for the person you have lost doesn't go away either, so you never stop missing them.

If anyone is trying to rush you to get over your loss, they just don't understand what grief is like and what you are going through, because you can't be rushed to get over something that will always be with you to some degree and you can't go back to your old 'normal' because you are now living with a new 'normal' that isn't the you that you were before.

As part of my effort to find a way forward, I joined a class to get me out of the house. I have found it is important to find something that makes you go out and forces you to think about something else for a while. Grief is exhausting and it drags you down if you let it, so you have to do something to combat that. It has made me think about something else for a few hours a week. Like you, I didn't have any friends, only work colleagues and that's not the same. The class helped me hugely. I made some new friends there, some of whom have been very supportive and understanding, having been through a loss themselves and it really helped me. I still go. It gives me something to look forward to, it distracts me from my grief for a while, it gets me out of the house and has given me back some interest in life again. It helps that it is something my mum always enjoyed too, but I'm not sure what I would have done without it, so  maybe that's something else you could think about doing. It does help me loads.

Try to have  a good Christmas. I plan to take some flowers to the cemetery tomorrow. I find Christmas Day is one of the busiest at the cemetery. There are flowers everywhere with people wanting to visit their lost loved ones to wish them merry Christmas too! I find it quite heart-warming to see that people still think of their lost loved ones so much at Christmas and want to still include them in their own Christmases.

Wishing you well. Sandra