Feeling lonely after losing my mum

[KT1987]

Hi all,

I am 32 and lost my mum in May.

I have a wonderful daughter who’s 7 and a partner who tries to be supportive.

I lost my mum following a terminal lung cancer diagnosis, which I thought I was prepared for.

I am really struggling to find any joy in life and find myself wondering what the purpose of life is when I endure this pain every day and have no happiness for myself. I try for my daughter but my heart is broken

[Emz2014]

Sending you a welcome hug 
May isn't that long for the rollercoaster bereavement is, be kind to yourself.  Hope you find support from the forum - it does help to talk

[Sandra61]

Hello and welcome to this site, KT. 

I lost my mum in 2017 and recognise the feelings you describe completely. I think this is a normal reaction to a loss, especially the loss of a mother, who no one can ever replace. I am glad you have a caring family around you, though I know that somehow isn't enough when you are lost in grief. It took me a while and I still struggle to see much light some days, but it has got better in the time that has passed since I lost my mum. It is a complete shock to the system and however well prepared you think you may be, you soon find you are not, because the reality is so much harsher than the anticipation of that reality.

I found it helpful to make an album of my favourite pictures of mum and it might help too, to make a memory jar of any recollections of happier times you spent with her when she was still with you. This might help your daughter too, who no doubt misses her gran as well. The idea of the jar is that you can pull out a piece of paper at random and relive the memory written on it and hopefully smile at the recollection. I also found it helped me a little to have flowers around as they lifted my spirits a little and walking in the park was calming and helped me sit and process everything that had occurred in a peaceful and beautiful environment.

In my experience, you do have to try to find things to help you combat your grief to some extent to stop yourself being dragged down by it. Maybe you could work with your daughter to make a collage of things you both recall about your mum and that might help her as well as you.

Your mum will never truly leave you though, as you will carry your love and memories of her always in your heart and no doubt be able to hear what she would say in your head when you would normally have gone to her for advice or sympathy. Our loved ones stay with us in these ways and we carry them forward with us into our own future, because they helped make us who we are, so she will never truly be gone. She just won't be here in person anymore. You have her legacy though, KT.

Acceptance can be a long time coming and there will be many tears along the way to finding it, but you will get there and it will get better. It has for me, even though that is an on-going process. Sending you an understanding hug.. 

[KT1987]

Thank you both for replying.
The memory jar does seem a good idea and I will do that.
It is a rollercoaster and although people try to be supportively it’s impossible isn’t it.
I wasn’t prepared for the guilt I feel at not being a better daughter, or the unexplained anger and irritability I have some days. It feels like the weight will never lift but I hope, as others have said, it will get easier to bear xx

[Sandra61]

Hello KT,

You are not alone. I don't think anyone is ever prepared for grief. It isn't something anyone ever talks about or helps prepare you for, which makes it even harder to deal with. You end up going into it entirely unprepared. Then you feel isolated, because no one can really understand how you feel about having lost someone so close unless and until they experience it for themselves, and then grief itself changes you, changes your world and changes your future and you have no idea how to adjust to all that, which leaves you in emotional turmoil and finding it hard to cope with everyday life and as well as that, you know this is permanent and getting used to this new unwanted 'normal' - and all that that entails - is the hardest most painful thing ever.

You say all this only happened in May, so I'm afraid you have a long way to go to get anywhere near finding your feet again and can't expect that to happen any time soon. You just have to take it one day at a time, and some days are better than others and you just have to go with it. There are no rules to grief, nor set time-scales. It has taken me all this time to begin to feel better at all and I still don't feel I'm there yet, but it is getting better. It will for you too, but don't expect to ever be the person you were before it happened. I don't think you are ever the same person again as you used to be. How can you be? Your life will never be the same, so how can you expect to be? So you have a new you to try to understand and get to know too.

I think guilt is a common feeling. I also experienced this. I experienced this too after I lost my dad and tried hard to make sure I did everything I could for my mum in the years after that. I didn't want to feel guilty again, but I did. I spent the last six weeks of her life trying to find a way to get her home, but failed and she died in hospital. I had promised her I would get her home somehow, but I know now she was just too ill, but it broke my heart that I couldn't do it and it will always hurt me that the last weeks of her life were so awful. So the guilt was there again anyway. Lots of people mention feeling guilt, but realistically, we all just do our best at the time, but however hard we tried, we will always feel it wasn't enough and we let them down in some way. It isn't really true, but it is how we feel.

I didn't have any anger to speak of, but I suspect yours may stem from having lost her at such a young age, so you may be feeling robbed of the years you feel you should have still had ahead of you to share with her. I think that is perfectly understandable, but life isn't fair and things people don't deserve do happen to them.

I did and do have the irritability. That has not gone away and I don't think it will now. I think it has to do with grief altering your perspective on life. You can suddenly see how people make an issue of what are actually really trivial things. Your priorities change as a result of loss, so that you feel impatient with the people around you who do stress over things that you now recognise are things that really don't matter in light of the things you have been through. As a result, you move your life forward in line with your altered perspective and after a while, I began to feel more at ease with that and feel quite comfortable with it now and just feel sorry for those who can't see it and irritated when it impacts on my life. I don't expect that ever to change now.

As for the weight lifting, that has taken a long time and if I am honest, I think, although it has lifted a little, in part I think it is also that I have just got used to it. Adjusting to this new life is a long and on-going process and we all just have to work our way through that and manage the process as best we can.

This site is a help, as we can all share our experiences and knowing that others have experienced similar feelings helps us feel less isolated and it takes away some of the worry and anxiety we go through when we are trying to deal with it alone. So keep talking to us here KT, it will help and we are here for as long as you need us.   

[Angel22]

Hello KT,
I understand everything you mentioned. I lost my mum in December 2018 after a long illness. I was her carer for many months and even though I knew she was dying it still hit me so hard when she did pass away. I am finding life very empty without her, she was my strength.  I can't seem to find any joy in things, even meeting my grand niece for the first time was hard.

I know life goes on, but it seems harder now mum has gone. I joined this site because no one understands how I'm feeling right now. They all seem to have got over my mum's death. I hope you find the support to get through a very difficult time in your life.

 Angel22.