Luck needed please

thumpingrug

I lost my mum when I was 18, she was 38 and died 4 years after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. I nasty illness that slowly stops the body working but leaves all cognitive function intact.  We watched her fade over those years.   My farther who had mostly worked away from home gave up work  6 months before she died and one month after returned to his job offshore working 2 weeks on the rigs and one week off leaving me to be the main carer for my 12 year old brother.  Two young kids struggling with grief and no support.   It messed with my education, my A level grades where a lot lower than predicted and I didn't feel able to go on to Uni at that point.  The few friends I had at that age could understand what i was going through and backed off, or went to uni and disappeared.  

I wish I had somewhere to express my feelings of loss, loneliness and desperation but I was "required" to put a brave face on and look after my brother. 

That was over 30 years ago, Im nearly 50 now and I still think about her and what might have been every day.   I wish the internet had existed and that I had had the chance to vent to a group like this.  I didn't and I bottled it all up.
 for years.

Ive had a couple of bouts of counselling over the years, the most recent earlier this year and the loss and the way it was (wasn't ) handled by my farther, are reoccurring themes.  The immediate howling pain that comes with loss has long since faded but the scars will remain forever, mostly due to not being able to talk about what happened and how it affected me.

You are not weak or any less a man for pouring your heart out.  I admire you for being so honest and upfront.  Your pain is real and hurts like nothing else, but it will ease with time, maybe not days, probably not even weeks, but it will ease, and you will get through it.

Ive seen the way that you have responded to other people on this forum when they are having a bad time, and its clear that your fundamentally a good bloke.  You are not being melodramatic but you might want to go see your Dr regarding your depression and anxiety and see if there is any short term pharmaceutical assistance that they can provide to get through this period, but you will come out the other side.

TheBlueWolf

I lost my mum just over 4 years ago. I told people but didn't open up, not in the way you have which I think is admirable.

I was already a pretty active alcoholic by then, yet thankfully got through the funeral without drinking and/or making a complete arse of myself. After that I hit self destruct and tried finding solace at the bottom of a bottle. Alcoholics can find pretty much any excuse to get a drink in so I was in my element, for want of a better phrase. I tended to internalize everything back then which carried on the destructive behavior for quite a while. I ended with nowhere to live and lived on the streets for a while.

Long story short I'm sober now and settled in my own place. I've picked up some healthier coping strategies too.

Emp_Fab

@thumpingrug I'm so sorry for what you had to endure.  It makes my situation look like a walk in the park in comparison.  I can't begin to imagine the pain you must have gone through.  Likewise @TheBlueWolf .  I feel like a bit of a whining arse posting my woes on here when so many of you have had it far, far worse.

I very nearly lost my dearest friend last night as well...  I was out walking Pugsley and reading something about coping with grief on my phone when something caught my eye and I looked over to see Pugsley standing in the middle of the road with a van, stopped, facing him.  In my distraction, I'd let his lead extend as he went to cross the road.  Thank God the van driver saw him and stopped.  Lesson learned.  I'd have jumped off a bridge if I'd lost him under those circumstances right now.

This morning I tried as hard as I could to stay asleep.  I didn't want to have to face another day, and had a few drops of brandy and water from a "Rescue Remedy" pipette (it's supposed to be just that anyway) in an attempt to slow my thoughts.  I managed to doze a little, but eventually realised that unless I was going to be able to fall asleep properly, all I was doing was lying there in the dark, thinking and thinking and thinking. I took half a propanolol tablet (left over from when the doc prescribed them for my last bout of panic attacks).

I got up about 11:30 and did my usual sitting in the shower in the foetal position for half an hour.  I had another cry.  Got dressed, came out to the garden, had a cigarette and here I am.  Dog on my lap, typing here.  Mrs Fab came back from the shop and sat with me for a while.  She's doing her best to stop me from descending further into child by being more adult about things.  This translates to being sparing with the cuddles and sympathy as she thinks doing that will just keep me in child mode.  I can understand her logic, but it hurts a bit when she appears to be resistant to my inner child's neediness.   We sat in the garden (sorry, this is turning into a blog ! - I'm just writing my thoughts and stuff) and I found myself saying to her "my mum's dead.... my mum's dead" and bursting into tears again.

I don't know how to move from this place... there is so much that needs to be sorted and I can barely function enough to get out of bed.  Tomorrow it all starts - certificate, find a funeral directors, etc etc.  I can't even think about a funeral, never mind fucking organise one.  I'm the only man in the family, so I think a lot of people are expecting me to do a lot of the work, but I'm also the only one in the family on medication for anxiety and I have the emotional backbone of a teenage girl.  I can't even bring myself to think about going into mum's house, and seeing all her stuff there, without wanting to run to the hills to hide in a cave.

Mrs Fab lost a sister aged 17, her mum aged just 50 and last year, her dad, so she's endured some shit in her life, and she held it together.  I can understand how I must look now to her, falling to pieces like this, and that makes me feel even more inadequate.

bingefeller

Emp, I'm certain that if your mother did fall the nursing staff would have contacted you at home as this is the normal procedure.  As she was over 65 she would have been risk assessed to see if she was at risk of falling.  If she was then, I'm quite sure, they would have put the cot sides up on the bed to prevent her from doing so.  

Drew_TNBD

My sincerest condolences Emp. I don't really know what else to say, it's a fucking shit thing to have to go through and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Remember the good times, and try to see any bad times with a kinder perspective.

Drew_TNBD

And you're not weak for wanting to talk, and you don't need to place your tragedy in any sort of heirarchy. It's important right now that you go through the stages of grief and experience the pain. Don't dull it with booze and don't run away from it.

speshul91

Everything you are going through is normal emp. Grief is a bastard you need to let it run its course. 

I lost my dad when I was 4 to the same thing. Yes it fucking hurts, and it will for quite a while but it DOES get easier over time. 

TheBlueWolf

Emp you're anything *but* a whining arse!

Talking about it, while it may not seem that way now, is a healthy thing to do. Your heads all over the place but that's understandable. Talking about it, trying to make sense of it all, is far more productive than internalizing it all then erupting and doing something stupid. 

Emp_Fab

What I don't get is how can people willingly bring children into this world knowing that, at some point, they're going to have to suffer like this... Not just once, but usually twice.  I'm genuinely glad I never had kids.  I couldn't bear the thought of them grieving so much.

I'm fully aware of the stupidity of that paragraph, I'm just fucked up in the head.

Another random thought... There have been a few times in my life where I've wanted to end it all, and I think the lack of availability of guns is what's stopped me.  I'm pretty certain that I'd have done it years ago if it was as simple as squeezing one finger.

I feel like ending it all now, I can't think of any other quick escape from this pain.  I won't though, because the sight of my sister and my nieces howling with raw animal pain in the relative's room at the hospital will stay with me forever.  I could never put them through that, although, I find I it difficult to imagine anyone grieving to that degree over my passing.

See... that's why having children and families is a bad idea.  Their very existence guilt-trips you into not being free to do with your life as you wish.  You MUST do this, you MUST do that, you MUST endure the pain.

I should have just sailed off into the sunset aged 17, never to be seen or heard from again. Never knowing of anyone's passing, just free from all the pain.  Loneliness would be a small price to pay.

thumpingrug

Hi Emp.   This isn't a pissing contest. Pain is pain and your pain is very very real at the moment.  Im just pointing out that I admire you for getting some of that pain out now while its fresh and at its angriest.

Oh, and loneliness brings its own burdens, you would simply be swopping one for another.   The grass is where your feet are.  Stop looking over the fence.  

Emp_Fab

I've had a really bad day today.  I went out for lunch and felt better for being in the company of other people, then, halfway through my dessert, something clicked and I switched into a trance-like state.  I burst into tears again as we were walking the dog back to the car.  My youngest niece works at the pub and she looked like she'd been crying for days poor kid, and the place was packed so she was having to cope under those circumstances.

We came home, Mrs F had to go to bed as she's hurt her back.  I got a text from an old friend I didn't treat as well as I should have years ago, and it floored me that here he was offering me comfort.  I sat in the shower again for what must have been an hour, then sat on the bedroom floor just staring into space.  I took half a propanolol but that wasn't stopping my mind racing, so I took a quarter of a diazepam and got into bed and cuddled up to pugsley.  I must have dozed off and have just woken up.

I've been dreading Monday, as that is when I have to start trying to deal with the shit... The F word.  I can't bring myself to say it even.  How do normal people manage to organise stuff like that when they are in a state of shock?  Talk about adding to their burden.

grungebob

everyone reacts in a different way and questions why their different, don't apologies. Apart from the night he died I've not cried since my dad past a week ago, I feel guilty that for large parts of the day I'm able to forget and crack on with life. I feel like it seems to everyone that I mustn't have loved him, when I truly did/do. 
Had to arrange the funeral details last Friday and I think that's the only other time I've cried. Now maybe because my mum is relying on me to sort everything that I'm bottling it all up until my responsibilities are over and maybe then I'll fall apart or maybe I'm just heartless I don't know.  I'm grateful for my four month old daughter as she's been a wonderful distraction and it helps to think a part of my dad lives on in her, he got to meet her and asked to kiss her goodbye the day before he died and l no longer know what I'm typing.....

the  point is that I'm trying to make I think is, nobody expects more from you in this situation then you, don't be your harshest critic. Come to terms with your new reality in your own time but also realise that they wouldn't want you to wallow and they would have wanted the best for you always.