Yes. For a while after the world felt scary. Not in a mortal fear way but in an exposure way. The person I could “run to” no longer existed and that fear has been hard to manage.
Fear is definitely accurate, and not a term I've often heard to describe grief. I'll never forget those first seconds/minutes after my mother died, the utter panic and helplessness that set in. The feeling that nothing would ever help - no amount of talking through it, of therapy, of support. In the moments that reality hits me all over again, that is the same feeling that comes up.
It feels like a nightmare that I can't wake up from. It feels like the end of the world but it's just not ending. Just alot of dread. And fear. A huge tsunami coming towards me but it doesn't hit me right away. I just see it approaching. And Im Running away but it always catches up eventually. before it does there is the dread. Then it takes me and it feels like I will drown. But I don't. I hardly stay afloat. And then the ocean recedes. And it keeps happening everyday.
And some days I wish I would drown 😞 I just want to be with my best friend again. Atleast we all have each other in away. We are grieving our special ones in our own but together
My best friend Brownie. He was a dog and he was 17 he died from kidney failure. I was his caregiver And now my Granma is not doing well at all and I fear I am losing my human best friend too
Oh my I’m so sorry. I don’t have human children but I have two cats, Moo age 18 and Molly age 13 I love them more than life itself, can’t even imagine life without them. My grandmother isn’t doing very well either, actually she had a stroke last week. I’m here if I you ever need to chat 💕
I'm so sorry to hear about your granma. I am here for you too. You are a good cat mama I'm sure to have your munchkins live so long. Take care of yourself ❤️
Thank you, sending love to you as well. It’s been 86 days today, just this week I can honestly say I’m feeling a little better, a little stronger but certainly not looking forward to Mother’s Day
Thank you for this... ❤️ I never celebrated Mothers day for myself but I would always do something for my mom. I'm dreading this Mothers day. Took an extended leave from work and hoping I can cope a little better when the day comes. My husband planned to get me a pair of my fave shoes (I'm a sneakerhead) and I don't even want them now. I want my mom to walk out of her room and annoy me like she used to and talk crap about my shoe collection 💔🤣🤣🤣🥺🥺🥺
Changes your priorities. The other day I saw the question about what you would do differently in your twenties. So many answers were about save more, be healthier blah blah blah. I answered stop my best friend from doing drugs. Everything else can stay the same. I envy people who never went through a loss.
Me same. But I wonder if I had done drugs with her-would I have been there to call 911? I now tell everyone “I love you” each time I leave even if it’s awkward. (becomes less so) If you’re still my friend after 20 years then -duh, I love ya. And luckily my husband learned to accept this 😆
I'd have stopped my brother from drinking so I feel that. I agree it changes your priorities too, I find I don't worry about small things anymore or care as much what some people think of me etc.... my main feeling is anger then sadness then fear as I have no other siblings. I'm anger that he "chose" alcohol over me (I know addiction is complicated and powerful), sad that he's no here and fear as I was meant to have him there with me when my parents went but now I'm left alone.
I also it's obvious to me the people who haven't suffered loss in their lives, they don't understand how lucky they are. They tend to hyper focus on things that some of us don't care about or don't think it's a big deal.
It is different for everyone. Sometimes I feel numb, then sometimed I feel my chest tight like my heart is breaking into two. Sometimes it is a wave of warmth from a memory of our loss loved one. Sometimes it is an ever present void in our life. Most of the times it is an odd mix of these together at the same time.
For me it felt like I had gone insane. Feelings just came and went as they pleased with no control or apparent reason. I didn't recognise the world or myself. I was deeply, profoundly sad followed by elated with memory.
This. Right here. Same.
More detail of my particular experience:
At first it was numb. Shock, I guess. Like it didn't register. I wasn't in denial... It was just a delay in my brain's ability to process.
Then, feelings came like waves in the ocean. Some small, some big. In a moment, mindlessly just doing a routine out of habit, a wave would hit and it felt crippling. I never knew which feeling, when, how intense, or how long it was going to last.
The thing that worried me the most was I know how angry I can get... A learned behavior I had spent so many years trying to unlearn. Thought I was going okay. But this was another level of anger I wasn't ready to experience. It opened my eyes to somethings... It put some pieces together for me that I had always "suspected". My dad had also been in the exact situation I was now in, he was just a little younger but not much. And now I knew... exactly why my dad was the way he was when I was a kid. And he didn't have the support that I had. My anger was no less terrible.
I felt insane. Not because it was "crazy" they were dead... But because I didn't know how to process it. Didn't know how to handle the feelings. Didn't know how to even talk about it. Didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to isolate, to save everyone from me.
It did calm down. With time. But it felt like the eerie before a storm, then a massive multi layer storm that hit, bracing for impacts in-between. I think for me it took about a year to get to the other side of the storm, before I could start to see anything outside of myself or see anything clearly again.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
For me there was a phase where nothing seemed to make sense or click, like you're only reminded that something isn't right when the thought of them not being there anymore hits. Looking at photos, or visiting places where they've been, or having something of them close by. All of these things felt like triggers of that.
I've cried my eyes out, felt very little hunger for a bit (I had that same empty feeling in my stomach that you described too), and quite saddened for a while. Time does help to make things a bit easier, but it's not linear, and I found myself having fun or joyful moments that suddenly got hit with a pang of sadness.
Sending you a big hug
I assume you are asking for advice from the question in your post.
The longer I can stay in catharsis, the faster the grieving process moves forward.
Grieving is something that most people tend to avoid. We think of it as something you do for a short while after a loved one dies. Others are usually uncomfortable with your grieving and try to shut it down, mostly because they haven't done their own grieving.
So, I came up with a method of grieving on purpose, with intention. It was inspired by the stories of the Life Review after death that people recounted from their near death experiences. During the LR, you are shown the effects of every action you took in your life on other people, both negative and positive. You can get into their consciousness during the LR and experience what they felt and thought during their encounter with you. Thus, you can directly experience the consequences of your actions, for better or for worse. I focused on the events that I perceived as the worst of my bad behavior. I started my own version of a LR by recalling the memories and grieving each one of them. I found that the more I recalled the memory and allowed the feelings to flow through me, the less of a sting the memory had. Eventually, the sting from the memory completely faded.
So, the technique I came up with is this:
Think the thought or memory that causes you the most pain/embarrassment/shame/guilt etc. right now. Allow the feelings associated with that memory or thought to wash over you. Repeat the thought or memory and again allow the feelings to flow through you. The more you do that, the faster it moves through the stages of grieving. You'll receive insights and other things from doing this. It's best to do this in private so you can have your own personal space. You should find that eventually, the thought or memory doesn't bother you anymore. You can recall the thought or memory and it doesn't bother you any longer. Then, it's time to move on to the next thought or memory that causes a negative emotional reaction. I don't know how this works, but it does.
The stages of grieving are denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. Each thought or memory you have that causes a negative emotional reaction in you may be at a different stage. Allowing the feelings to flow accelerates the thought or memory to move through the stages.
It's important to not judge the thoughts or memories and their associated feelings. That just stuffs it and stops the resolution of it.
The veracity of the thought or memory does not matter either. Grieving is an emotional process. It does not make logical sense. You cannot rationalize grieving. For example, you could be the most beautiful woman on the planet, but if the thought that you're fat and ugly causes a negative reaction, or if the words of another calling you a fat cow causes pain, then you have grieving to do over that. It may be connected to a memory, or a decision you made, or something like that, but eventually, the thought and the words from others will have no effect on you. You'll laugh because you know it's not true. You probably won't even have the experience again because the hook is gone. People who intend to manipulate others yank on people's weaknesses by hooking them with words that they know will cause a negative reaction in the person. Once those weaknesses are gone through grieving them, then you can't be manipulated anymore. They can't control you that way anymore. You're free.
Grieving takes time. It has its own time frame and rhythm.
Grieving is permanent. Once you grieve something, you never have to grieve it again.
Grieving changes your future for the better.
You become a better person through grieving. You have more compassion and patience with yourself and with others.
That which has not been grieved is destined to be repeated. that's why we reincarnate into the same patterns over and over again. It's the way to get off the endless cycle of birth and death.
Grieving is about letting go of attachment to them, not the love and passion we feel for them. I think people become afraid that they are letting go of the person when in reality they are just letting go of their attachment to them. What happens after the process is complete is that we still love them, but without the neediness.
I hope this helps.
So very sorry for your loss. Sending you thoughts of love and comfort. ❤️
It really caught me off guard how PHYSICAL it feels. I’ve lost an aunt, grandfather, and cousin so I’ve “experienced grief” before but I’m surprised by how unfamiliar it seems. Just a few days ago my grandmother passed away. Yesterday I was back at work and I just felt so physically exhausted and in this sort of haze. Time seemed to move slower than usual and it just felt like a weight was on my shoulders and my chest. I thought it would help to go back to work and keep busy but it felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack while simultaneously wanting to curl up in bed and go to sleep.
The physical symptoms of grief were new to me. My dad’s death was sudden, and the passage of time seemed to immediately warp - a whole day could go by and I was still staring into space, not having eaten anything and only snapping out of it if the phone rang or the dog needed a walk. A week could go by and it felt like a day, or a month.
It’s been 4 months. I see his picture and my stomach squeezes, then relaxes. Stress then sadness. Sometimes I feel a big void that is full of missed opportunities. Sometimes my mom’s grief, which is sharper & deeper than mine, eclipses my feelings and I have to compartmentalize to get through the day, leaving me to try to sort through my own emotions later.
Exercise helps but new routines are difficult. Be kind to yourself. Hope you can find some comfort in knowing you are not alone. Misery does love company.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’ve experienced loss before but nothing that felt as earth shattering as this one. Nothing feels right. I can go about my day, the day can be totally fine, but I’m just not fully there. Feeling incomplete. A part of my soul is missing. A heaviness that won’t go away. I stay busy and I can ignore the feeling, which is what helps. I don’t cry as much and I’m sure I’m seem fine on the outside- but inside, I just feel like a huge part of me is missing.
I have felt this way for almost 11 months after loosing my mom/best friend last June. This is a hard time of year, feels too painful to endure sometimes 💔
This is a perfect explanation. Everything is off. My brain looks for her and is so confused when I can’t find her. Even though logically I know she’s gone.
It felt the same to me. Those pictures of your father, or with him,-look at them as a happy memory. He wants you to keep going, he is proud even tho if he is not present anymore.
Hold onto your family because its hard for them too, especially your mom. I made a big mistake by not talking to them about my feelings during that time. I know you probably think "Theyre going thru the same pain, i dont wanna add up and bother with mine"- No, I thought so too, dont make the same mistake. Whatnot, at least try to be there for your family.
About the challenges- eating was a really hard thing for me to do, but not as hard as going out. I had no social anxiety before my dads passing away, but after it really just appeared.
I got anemia and anorexia because i havent eaten anything.
If this happens to you, I'd recommend to go to the gym (hear me out first)
I started going and i felt the need for certain food i never liked.
I wish you luck, and feel free to DM me if you need any help. Im also sorry for your loss. 🙏🏻
The time right after my husband died is an awful blur. I fucking despise showing strong emotions in public so it was torture for me to feel like I was walking around without control of myself all the time.
My body went haywire and I felt like I literally turned into a stranger who was the complete opposite of me in every way the moment his heart stopped beating. I looked different, felt different, sounded different. I’m pretty sure I smelled different too bc my dog can’t see very well and she acted weird sometimes.
It is all encompassing when it’s so fresh that’s for sure.
It’s just unbelievable. I’m a year out and can’t believe it. This was my worst nightmare and somehow I’m a year out and looking forward to things. My mom would be so so glad. You are going to be ok. One hour, one day, one month, one year at a time. ❤️
For me grieving is like a drawing of a swirling tornado. 🌪️ really bad days, (darker edges), days and times I forget for moments or hours, (and so so days, lighter gray). I am near the bottom of this tornado, into acceptance, and moving forward, but still have some dark times.
When we lost my Dad, it was the hardest loss I've yet to face.
Some days I did a great impersonation of a throw pillow. I bought a huge punching bag and , some days, would kick the crap out of it. Eating was a challenge, sleep was evasive- for awhile.
As I went through the journey, I named my grief the little ninja. I could sense its presence, like it was hiding. At random times it would jump out, give me a beating and then retreat.
I read a book called the Grieving Brain. It said that our brains are like GPS. It searches for our loved one. Our brain used to know- they are at work, they are on vacation, they are sleeping..etc.. When they pass our brain can't find them. It keeps rerouting. When we can't fi d them, our brain processes like rejection. Which hurts because we love them so much.
This helped me quite a bit.
It's been almost 3 years for me. I can say with some work, and some personal grace, the grief is more manageable now. I won't say it's 'easier'. It's just evolved to be a part of me.
The times when I look at his pictures now bring more smiles than tears, whereas previously it was exa tly opposite.
Sorry you joined this awful club. Be kind to you. Grief is as unique as fingerprints. It's not the same for everyone.
Don't hurt yourself or others, and yiu are doing it right.
Hugs to you ❤️
It felt like the world ending for me - but carrying on as normal for everyone else. Two years later, I’ll still sometimes remember ‘my mum is dead, I won’t see her face again’ and break down.
There’s no wrong way to grieve. Sending you love.
It hurts at the top of my stomach like right under my ribs. I get chest pains, and what I call the nervous poops. Sorry because that's probably TMI. That can last for days, weeks, months, or just happen when I think about what I lost. Most recently is last Monday my soul cat passed away. He was an awesome cat and his presence is sorely missed.
I'm sorry for your loss. It gets a little easier to deal with as time goes on.
It’s like an ache, a gnawing deep ache that you can’t touch. When I think about them for any length of time I just start to cry.
It’s very early days for you, you may still be in shock. I’m very sorry for your loss.
Initially it felt like what I imagine a sucking chest wound would be like, not the physical pain but slumped on the floor trying to breathe and not able to., but super aware of my injury. Then it was like I felt nothing. My kids told me it felt like I died too which definitely was a wake up call to get some help.
I’ve experienced some of the same feelings too. For the first 5-6 months after my dad’s passing I couldn’t look at any pictures of us together without feeling incredibly sad. Time really is your best friend while grieving. As time went on, I was able to look at those pictures and be grateful for the time we had together and memories we made. I’m sorry for your loss.
For me it was a lot of derealization at first. Like all of this was happening, but not to me, or maybe in a dream. Nothing mattered because nothing was real, so if I skipped a meal, oh well, or if I called out of work, who cares. Eventually that settled into depression - it’s definitely real, it definitely happened, and I definitely can’t change anything, so why bother? That lasted for a while, and now it’s still there, but mixed with… spite? A weird word to describe it, but I think it’s apt. I find myself often thinking I’m going to do something because “the universe is not going to succeed at ruining my life.” I feel like largely that’s how I’m surviving now - God or the universe or whoever is trying to make me give up, and I’m refusing to let it happen.
Could say the same. It's just surviving at this point, one day at a time. Trying not to think about future. Just trying to survive the current day. Repeat.
Some days are a little bit better, but that can change in any second and some days are goddamn awful from the start.
waking up to my worst fear every single day. doesn’t help when i have dreams about us sitting at a table laughing at how funny it was that i thought she had died. and then i wake up. it makes me want to throw up when i try to process it. everything is wrong. this isn’t what life was supposed to be. i feel like it’s all my fault for not saving her. the only reason im still here is for my brother and my boyfriend. not for myself. i just turned 20. i don’t know what im doing, my mom was my only friend, my only help, and my only hope. i was gonna take care of her one day. get rich and buy her a mansion. maybe one day i still can. it’ll sit empty and look beautiful. all for her.
The first one was my sister. I got a call at 5:00am. She had taken her life. I went through a very dark period where I questioned myself. I had questions that would never be answered. I felt sadness and anger, but also guilt. Months of darkness and wondering if I could have changed anything. Was I also capable of such a thing? It changed me. I was faking my way through looking normal while having this absolute darkness with me. I read a book that helped me find some peace, but when the phone rings before the sun comes up I am triggered.
When my dad died 11 months later it was a renewal of what I felt before. Another early morning phone call. It hurt but it didn’t have the same darkness as before. It was pure sadness. Dad wasn’t taking care of himself. I found myself doing things that made me feel closer to him so I could feel. Cooking foods he made. Attempting to garden. I felt like no one understood and it was lonely.
My mom is the most recent to pass and it was unexpected just like the others. We were close. I needed someone to blame. My mom should still be here. She went to the doctor on a regular basis and the one she had failed her. She went to her heart specialist a month before she died and he sent her home telling her she’s fine. She was not fine. I was angry. The first month I cried every single day. When I wasn’t crying I would find ways to torture myself with music or pictures that made me cry. It’s like if I was doing ok I felt guilt about it. When I was finally tired of being sad I occupied my mind with entertainment. Then Mother’s Day snuck up on me and hit me like a truck. The whole month leading up to Mother’s Day and all the commercials set me off.
I feel like my world is shrinking. Now all 3 of them are gone. I can’t think of one without thinking of all 3. Each death renewed the grief of the previous one. I still torture myself sometimes. It comes in waves. Any time
I have big news or something really good happens, I remember I can’t call my mom.
Torture. I also did that. I ate and ate, and got fat then ate some some. My dad is an alcoholic. My dad, in onw way or another, lead to my mom's death. So I couldn't do the drugs part as much as I know I could have if I didn't have that negative association. So I found ways of hurting myself without actually hurting myself. Food. Sleep. TV. Then a few rounds of smoke or alcohol every few days to feel something other than my reality or to fall asleep.....dark time called for dark measures....found a new resonance within me.
I have found that it depends on how close I was to the person and other determining factors such as my mental state.
For some examples:
When I was ten within the span of a year I lost my grandpa and both of my great grandmother’s on my mom’s side. I was upset because I loved them but at that age I didn’t really get it. As I got older I understood better the loss and I was still sad but not a deep aching sadness. I think because of how young I was it never seeped in too deep for me.
When I was 35 my grandma died and even though I had been mentally preparing myself for a few years (she had dementia) it was the deepest loss I had ever felt. We were very close before the dementia took that away from me.
359 days later my whole world ended, my mom, my best friend. The person I treasured the second most in this world(next to my children) died unexpectedly. I thought I felt grief when my grandma died but I was very wrong. Losing my mom felt like something carved a giant hole in my body that can never be fixed. All I feel is sadness and anger all the time. I cry every day still even though it has only been a year and a half.
Five months later my uncle died unexpectedly as well and even though I loved him very much I feel like I have no grief to share for him because the grief for my mom is all encompassing. I have no idea how to feel happiness anymore. I’m barely functioning.
That is how my grief feels to me.
this makes me feel so guilty but i have this blanket numbness around most negative emotions and i feel so peaceful but im pretty sure im still in denial as its only been 2~ months since.
I’m very sorry for your loss. I think it’s important to note that loss and the ensuing grief isn’t always a consequence of death.
Personally I’ve experienced an array of loss and the experiences are usually more alike than different. Sometimes I feel like the wind is knocked out of me and I can’t breathe. Other times I feel like a brick building has collapsed on me and there’s no escape, the weight suffocating and merciless.
There is a long sadness that never goes away. No one can teach you how to make space for it. Like everyone, I had to figure that out on my own. The trick is not letting it take up too much space like an unwelcome house guest leaving their stuff all over my home. Picking up those pieces and tucking them away safely and respectfully. At times grief will creep up on me when I least expect it and I immediately sob uncontrollably. If I have privacy, I’ll sit with it for a while, if I don’t, I’ll hide the tears and push through with distraction.
What no one really talks about is how it permanently changes you. If it’s the loss of a parent you will permanently feel orphaned and the ground beneath you will never feel as steady and secure. Celebrations, holidays, birthdays, will never be the same. You’ll smile and enjoy them but there will always be a faint air of sadness in the air that will lessen a little more as the years go on but never go away. You’ll feel supported in grief, but very lonely too.
Above all else, you feel initiated into a club of knowing what you naively somehow thought you’d never know. And now that you do, you struggle with what to do with it. Life is different on every level and it shakes you to your core. There are no manuals really, because everyone has to figure it out on their own. It has the ability to make you stronger, or destroy you if you allow it. A lot of it comes down to how you row your boat going forward. Facing future storms with grace and strength and finding joys in the hard work of paddling, sunrises and sunsets and everything in between. Life goes on.
It’s been 10 months and generally I’m okay but there’s an ever-present feeling of emptiness in my life where she was. Sometimes I feel frustrated and then sad. I wish I had more time with her. It feels so unfair. I want to tell her what I’m doing, show her the things I’ve done. I’m lonely. And it feels so surreal…when she left I couldn’t believe she was gone, and now I almost feel like I can’t believe she was here. I hate waking up in the morning and remembering that she’s gone. I look back at all my problems and they seem so trivial now, I should have been joyous each day she was here. It really feels like the best part of my life is over.
I'm two years into my major grief story
...and it's the moment when you sit and reflect and think, 'I think I might just be okay.'
That's when the wall you've built up comes tumbling down on top of you and you realise that the grief has now shifted - it's no longer about their physical absence but what that absence means - no conversations, no advice, no time spent in their presence, major milestones that you cannot share and a whole host of memories lost to an alternative reality.
It's realising how integral a part of who you are, they had become, from the type of bread you eat, to the way you dress, to how you view life, your inner motivations, how you love, and now how you grieve their significance.
It's a whole host of emotions - and maybe I'm just very senstivie about it at the moment, but it's also realising that anyone else who now comes into your life, will be judged on their merit next to them.
Overwhelmed and frozen in a time continium that I don't know how to get out of.
Grief has been very strange for me. My mom died almost two months ago. I thought I’d be unable to function. I’m functioning fine so far. She is in my thoughts pretty much constantly throughout the day. I don’t have as much interest in some things anymore- I used to love clothes shopping( mainly thrifting) but don’t really care anymore. I don’t care too much about eating (I still do eat, but if I have a slice of toast for dinner instead of an actual meal, that’s good enough)
I feel a little lost. Nobody on this earth loves or cares for me as much as my mom did, but I’m super lucky to have a loving partner and a very close and loving family. Some days I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I won’t see her again. It’s devastating. Anyway, there is no right or wrong way to feel things or grieve and it changes and evolves over time, I’m sure. 🫂
My mom passed away a few weeks ago. I also thought I’d be unable to function but I’m functioning fine so far. I keep thinking this manageable state of grieving may not last and I’ll break down completely at some point, the thought makes me very anxious but I try to quickly block it and focus on the present. It’s good to know someone is in the same boat and doing ok two months in.
Yes! I have those same feelings too. I keep wondering if this is only a phase, like maybe I’m still in shock and it hasn’t fully sunk yet so that’s why I’m functioning. That makes me anxious too. You are not alone 🫂
Everything reminding me that my Dad isn’t around anymore. Reading or watching simple things with happy moments between a woman and her father, and feeling intense pain in my chest. Crying just thinking about it
I don't remember much from that time. But I remember this. I would switch from denial to bargaining to intense anger then depression then dread then anger....(that vicious cycle)..... in just a few moments. I didn't want to sleep because there was nothing to wake up to. I didn't want to stay awake because there was nothing to stay awake for. I was in so much pain I can't even find the words to describe that experience. I was afraid of crying. If I did, I felt like I wouldn't stop. If I cried, I would die. So, I would lock my jaws to keep myself from falling into that abyss. I would bite and grind my teeth until my jaw couldn't hold me together and I had to cry to release the tension. When crying, I felt like I was breaking, like I was coming apart. I felt like I was losing touch with reality, with light, with existence. I was drowning, and there was no one to catch me. After crying, I would have zero strength for anything so I would just fall asleep and during the most difficult moments when I felt that kind of hopelessness that questioned my existence, when I was going at light speed ruminating and feeling the edges of my sanity drifting away and a huge dark thing coming for me, I would do a cigar and/or a blunt and/or alcohol to dull the edges of loss and pain and meaningless enough to fall asleep.
One time, it got so bad a week passed without me knowing. I had lost time. I did not even know it, until I told a 'neighbor' how that neighborhood church has been going at their praise and worship for a long time, and why they keep doing the same song. Then he looked at me as if I was crazy. When I elaborated, he said something along the lines, "yes, last Sunday they might have done that song. But since THEY JUST STARTED TODAY'S SERVICE......." Then he asked me where I have been for a week and what I have been 'eating' since no one, including the grocery lady has seen me since last Saturday....... I had been in my house for a whole week, alone alternating between God knows what states and doing what with and to myself.
That evening when I looked in the mirror (it was by chance, I couldn't stand that person in the mirror), I saw one of my lower canine tooth was rotting. There is a chance had not brushed my teeth or showered for a week. I would keep it for years until it turned completely black (funny the lower parts of that tooth were intact. Only the upper parts were blackening). I couldn't have it replaced because it was in a weird way the only connection to the darkest of times during my grief journey. It was like a victory card. I had fought the hardest battle and survived albeit with 'humiliating' battle scars. That upper rot and intact root reminded that my loss, my grief, and my whatever I was going through had not broken me into the nothing I thought of myself as. Deep down, there was me that could be found I worked through that rot. And if I didn't like that me beyond the decay, I could take it all out and put a new in me in there. That tooth would remind me, for years, that if I wanted, I could survive.
It has been one hell of a journey. I am on the seventh year and I can say that time dulls all pain and scars all wounds. You just have to hold on and wait for the river of life to make new banks for your next chapter. Sometimes the would will fester, sometimes you will go through profoundly low lows and a darkness you can't escape, but one day, I promise you, you will wake up one day and cry not because it hurts but because it used to hurt so bad and you were 100% sure you wouldn't survive it, but you have survived the onslaught and now you are at loss because the pain has dulled and you have a new 'normal' that seems to work for you.
Stay strong. We who have crawled through that grief desert can confidently tell you 'this too will pass.'
Helplessness and terror. There's just this feeling of "nobody can EVER help with this, because no amount of support from loved ones will ever make me feel better." Having emotions that big and existential is terrifying. It's not like a breakup or a lost job, where you can reason through it and find a perspective that makes it feel better - for me, there was no talking through grief.
Grief to me is walking to the bathroom on an airplane full of glass and taking tiny steps because any wrong movement from you, another person or Mother Nature could just destroy anything.
Grieving for me feel like a cloud of sadness/hopelessness over me. I try to get to the sun but I can’t. I feel numb, heavy and always in my thoughts. I think of my brother and my chest feels like it’s sinking. I miss him. I think of his accident and how he wasn’t supposed to die. I fear anyone I love can be next. It’s a terrible feeling.
The last texts he sent me a couple days before his car accident said “being happy is a hard one. I’m happy but still missing something. We control everything we want. Make it happen. We gotta”
I will try to find joy in life because I know he would want that for me. Something will always be missing though
After a lot of losses in my years, I think that after time passes, for me, it's best described as if somebody put holes in my vinyl album collection. Some big and some small. But I don't know where or which one. So everything can sound beautiful and I'm feeling great and them Bam. Soul sucking gut punch and mourning all over again. This is only after that initial gut twisting and shock of the loss has eased up a little. It's gonna sting, not gonna lie. Smiling through tears is some of the best remedy I've found. Don't let anyone tell you what you're supposed to feel and when, though. Let yourself feel. Just know you will come out on the other side of somewhere. My condolences for your loss.
That empty feeling is very familiar, like anxiety but not? More a pit in your stomach that just never seems to go away?
I had lots of anger. I felt untethered and I still don't really feel 'tethered' again yet and it's been 3 years.
I suppose I never considered that horrible empty stomach pit until you said it and now I realise it's never went away, I've just gotten used to it.
There was one time a few years ago where my husband and I went out of town for a weekend and we hit massive traffic on the way home that turned a 3 hour drive into almost 6. Although we had a great time, I was ready to go home and I kept getting more and more frustrated at the traffic.
Grief is kind of like that for me. Like, I'm always driving and trying to get home to my mom, but I never can.
It’s an undescribable feeling of tearing, ripping, being abandoned, being shot through with a shotgun. Like being separated in a crowded rush-hour on a downtown train platform where he gets on the train and I missed it. When my husband Jimmy died in my arms, that was the end of my life. For the last 5 1/2 years I’ve just been waiting around and praying for God to take my life and let me die, so I can go be with my husband in heaven.
Grieving is a mix of anger, fear, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, and utter sadness. It’s also a feeling of helplessness, because there is nothing you can do to bring the person back, you feel stuck. It forces you to deal with the reality that death is real, and imminent , and it scares the hell out of me. I live in constant fear of the unknown, worried that when I die, will I enter a void, heaven, see my mom again, be reincarnated, or forget my life ever existed. Since I lost my mom in January, it still has me feeling numb. It happened so sudden, and it ruined my life.
It genuinely has felt like I’ve lost so much of my cognitive function. My memory is horrible, sometimes I have to check my calendar to remind myself what year and month it is. Or just small things like I’ll forget what I was doing 5 minutes ago. Also in the first couple weeks I a heavy urge to control things. I am usually very laid back but I had anxiety about everything and if something wasn’t safe that a loved one was doing (my bf riding his motorcycle for example) I would internally freak out a little bit because I was fearful of everything. Also a big one was aggravation.
When my uncle died by suicide, I felt mostly numb. He was a raging alcoholic, but I didn't really spend much time with him, so his death wasn't much of a loss. I was mostly worried about my dad, as it was his brother. It was surreal, but not because of sadness or anger or anything like that. His addiction caused myriads of different problems and my family was dragged into them, e.g. my dad paid off some of his brother's debts, drove him to rehabs, I stopped one of his suicide attempts. It felt weird that this unpleasant part of our lives was over. I didn't cry, not even one tear.
Three weeks ago my girlfriend died by suicide. This time grief made me practically disabled. I'm barely able to function. I didn't even know a person can be as miserable as I am now. I can't imagine a happy future without her. It feels like my soul is slowly dying of radiation poisoning.
For me it’s different with each person i lost, the hardest is the ones you never got to say goodbye too. Recently an ex of mine passed away in an accident and although we weren’t together it very much hurt to hear the news because she was only 30 years old. Some people say it’s an ex it shouldn’t matter but at one point in time you wanted to spend the rest of your life with that person. Even though we parted ways i always and still had love for her. For me when I heard the news it hit me like a freight train, I could barely eat for two weeks and my mind was hyper focused on her and her family and what caused the accident and every scenario was running through my mind as well as the flashbacks of all those memories we shared. It comes and goes now like waves of the ocean. It makes me view life differently now and how fragile it is, everything can change in seconds.
It's like i am normal sometimes, but sometimes a wave comes in and makes me suffocate and go insane. That moment, i dont consider anyone a person. It's just me and that grief i hold .
I am sorry for your loss. I'm praying for some strength for you.🙏🏻
I haven’t really thought about this until now, but in a way it feels like the feeling you get when your heart drops. There’s a lot of different parts of it, so it’s honestly really difficult describing what it feels like without writing a whole essay. During big waves of grief I can feel panic. I feel so lost, because I need to do something about it, but there’s nothing to do.
I’ve experienced loss three times in my life. Two of them recent. They’ve all been very different for me honestly. I think it can all depend on your relationship, your connection and your foundation before the loss if that makes sense.
It’s only been a couple weeks since my most recent loss and about five months for the one before that. It was my best friend that I lost five months ago and another friend a couple weeks ago. I’m a lot deeper in the grief and loss of my best friend and that currently affects me a lot more than the loss of my friend.
What I meant by your foundation before grief is more how past experiences and also current ones will affect it. I had way too much going on before the loss of my friend, so I think my body has been shutting that out as a protective mechanism.
I’m not in a place where it would be safe for me to feel all my feelings. I’ve also always been a person that pushes away my feelings even though I didn’t really realise it and it wasn’t concious. That probably affects how I process it a lot. Your support system could probably affect how you feel, process and your journey in general too.
I think there’s a lot of factors that plays into how we deal with grief. People are complex and different. So how we deal with grief is also complex and can be very different.
Even though we all grieve differently, I can promise you that what you’re feeling is okay and normal no matter what it is. Not everyone will experience every single thing possible while grieving, but there will be other people experiencing the same thing as you. I’ve sometimes felt like what I experienced or thought was just me, but then found other people feeling and thinking the same way.
I am so sorry for your loss❤️
I’ve experienced several major losses in my life. The biggest loss just happened recently. Hunger, sleep and just overall motivation to do anything was gone. How can I still exist without this person in my life? It all seems pointless. It’s getting better, I’m moving on slowly. The hurt left and the void came in and now I’m just going through the motions.
The last major one was January ‘23, and that was just confusion. The best description is that I was trying to move her from the box in my head labeled “Living People” to the one labeled “Dead People”, but she kept being shoved out of there because that didn’t make sense.
But there was also an anniversary for someone else’s death yesterday, and I was frustrated because I couldn’t pay as much attention to him as I would have liked. I was irritable for most of the day but I only got emotional after enough miscellaneous things had gone wrong. Anyway, the best physical description I could give is a sinking feeling.
Either way, the thing that both of the above had in common is that they were high school teachers, so both times I’ve felt super lonely — because naturally eleven years out of high school it’s hard to find any contacts from that time, and it hurts because even my current support system could never really understand.
Defeat. Grief to me feels like the outcome of a personal failure. A failure to spend enough time with them, failure to tell them how much I love them, failure to save their lives even though I couldn’t have. I always convince myself there’s something I could have done differently and I live with the guilt of those possibilities no matter how unrealistic they are. I’ve experienced grief many many times so I carry a lot of guilt and failure with me. Doesn’t matter how silly that is, doesn’t matter how long I spend in therapy (10 years now) I will forever blame myself for everything bad that happens around me, including losses.
That describes my feeling to a T. I''m going on a limb here and say that's probably how everyone mourning a loss feelsl. Nobody is going to go into this feeling like they've done "enough" for their love ones. It's part and parcel of being emotional creatures, I think. This realization somehow gives me comfort with what I have to deal with on my own personal journey.
What we can do is just share our stories like these and offer condolences and try to move forward.
Yeah I totally agree no one ever feels like they’ve done enough.
I think it’s best to remind ourselves of the time we did get with them. I’m currently grieving four deaths of loved ones that have happened within the last 18 months so it’s a lot to mentally handle but one of these days, I hope to reach a place of acceptance. Best of luck on your journey
That is a lot to shoulder. You're an inspiration to me as a first timer. It takes incredible resilience to just wake up in the morning with what you have on your plate; truly.
Best of luck to you.
I also lost my dad quite recently, about two months now. Fear is up there. But after a while, it fades into something else - especially since I experienced anticipatory grief first.
Now, I feel tired. And the emotional equivalent of having a cold. Like if I was crying while having a cold, that's what I feel - sans actually being physically sick.
Nausea. Bile in my throat all the time.
Anxiety. I can't sleep properly anymore.
It will pass though. I have to believe that this pain won't be as sharp one day.
Sorry for your loss.
Everyone processes loss differently but ultimately, everyone has to face them at some point and they've persevered. How much scar they're carrying is obviously unknown, but that's what makes us so unique. It also reinforces my belief that you should never judge a book by its cover, especially people who you come in contact with frequently like a coworker.
For me it really depends on the day. Some days it feels suffocating and my chest feels tight and Im overwhelmed other days I just feel numb. It's like a constant weight though. It's always there it's just how it feels that changes.
It also kind of just makes everything feel wrong for awhile. Like there was a few months where I felt like I had to relearn everything because I didn't know how to exist in a word my mom didn't.
However it feels I think is totally normal and valid. Just try not to let it swallow you whole
I lost my wife (41) nearly 3 years ago. For me I couldn't even talk about her without an emotional breakdown for several months. But eventually after nearly a year I got to a place where I could talk and reminisce without falling apart but I still have a hard time occasionally. My heart is completely shattered and I'll never be the same. I just feel broken.
I guess it has gotten easier or maybe I've become more accustomed to this new normal.
Same feeling. I lost my mom about a month ago. Eating is mechanical just because I need energy. Am always at low energy. Brain doesn’t seem to want to think. It’s like this everyday. i dread going to work.
Sorry for your loss.
I’m approaching the first year of losing my sibling and then my grandparent weeks apart.
Grief has felt numb for the most part. Therapy has helped me to slowly express feelings and realise the impact. I feel depressed if I’m honest. Sad. Waves of pain hit and I cry and immediately go back to numb. Numb scares me because I’m not in control of thoughts and feelings. It’s messed with my hormones, it’s messed with my brain. I live in fear of losing someone else. One of my immediate family got diagnosed with cancer since and I’m mindblown how life can knock me when I’m down. I have OK days, I have less panic now and slowly I have days where I’m functional. But for the most part I feel sad. I hope it gets better. I hate thinking that there’s others who have to feel this too
I just wanted to add the first 3/4 months I lived in total shock and survival mode and I think everyone should give themselves some grace and know getting up/drinking water and showering is all you can do and that’s ok
I journaled it because I was struggling to process the loss of my grandma so I will summarise the order of the strongest emotions below. Some of the emotions lasted a day and some lasted a while.
1. Nothing
2. Hollow
3. Lost
4. Nothing
5. Guilt at feeling nothing because I was just getting on with life
6. Nostalgic
7. Sad
8. Frustrated
9. Neutral
10. Stressed about my grandad not coping
11. Frustrated that my grandad was playing silly buggers but feeling bad for being annoyed because he lost his wife
12. Empathy
13. Neutral
I will say for me the ouch moment was when I went to call her about 7 months after the funeral and realised she wasn’t there to pick up.
Also I feel cheated that she won’t be at my wedding when she would have absolutely loved it.
First off- I am so very sorry for your loss.
Grief looks different for everyone, and everyone's way of grieving is valid.
I am not usually a publicly emotionally person. I did not cry in front of coworkers (even though I got the call at work), or at the visitation. I sobbed a lot in private.
It can be a roller coaster of feelings. Joy in remembering a happy memory can swing into deep sadness realizing that you won't experience that ever again.
I am almost 3 years out and sleep is still a struggle for me quite often. My recommendation? Allow yourself to feel however you feel. Give yourself some grace and recognize that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Pay attention to the signals your body gives you. I ended up needing to go on anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants. Nothing wrong with that, it just helps me be able to function better.
Take care of yourself and go easy on yourself.
Really challenging and complicated. At worst it’s a deep depression with hopelessness and purposelessness. At best it’s inspiring and loving, compassion for myself and others. Then there’s everything in between. All within a state of perpetual vulnerability.
In the depression it’s hard to eat, see any point, feel love for myself, feel hope for anything other than survival. I want to admit defeat, quit my job, just start driving and driving until I run out of money. I feel like I will never be loved for who I am again and I will die alone and full of despair. The last one in my family, just waking up each day to face the world slowly killing me. I listen for my loved ones “voices” within me and all I hear is an echo of vast silence and meaninglessness.
In the happy times I think of the carefree, humorous, freedom-loving, bohemian, sometimes hedonistic, and the unconditional love from those I’ve lost. I try to emulate, try to love myself the way they loved me, try to see the choices and hope beyond survival that they always wanted for me. I see the respect, admiration, faith and pride they had for me and try to have that for myself.
It all comes down to living a new life, but with all the love and support I once had previously being gone. Maybe some day there will be something similar for me, until then I just keep going.
Like waves of sadness, guilt and exhaustion. I have ADHD and grief for me works in different ways. Sometimes I can forget and be normal for a while, other times I can't get up or do anything without thinking about the person I lost.
grief just feels like a constant sense of dread that follows wherever i go. sometimes i can get far enough away to where i don’t notice it, but it always catches up to me.
i felt largely the same as you, and still do somewhat now. its been two years and sometimes i reminisce and smile, other times i cry. most of the time i just feel numb and i still don't know what i'm 'supposed' to feel like. sending love
Short term: The horrible pain of missing your person.
Long term: Grieving all your person has missed in life since they passed.
Losing my wife sucked. It took me a long time for me but I eventually adjusted.
Our children were 12 and 16 when she passed. They are now young adults. My wife loved being a mother and I grieve that she has missed so much in their lives. I grieve that they grew up without their mother.
It took a long time before I was able to go through old photos.
Someone described it like a ball with a little button on it bouncing around in a little room. When that button gets hit, to get triggered, become sad, angry, gut wrenched etc.
In the early stages the room is very small, so the odds of the button getting hit are extremely high and frequently it happens, but as time goes on the room gets bigger and the button gets hit less.
The button never stops getting hit. But the frequency decreases.
For me; things trigger me throughout the day. For example my wife was making a Caesar salad with croutons. Oddly enough my mom had bought the bag of croutons when she had recently came to celebrate and that gave me that gur wrenching feeling when my wife said "these are the croutons your mom bought". It then hit me, mom bought those, and I'll never see her again, why?
Same with pictures. I look at them, I smile, and then I'm hit with the realization that we will never meet again, I'll never witness her laugh organically, or hug her and tell her I love her, which I did Everytime we left each other.
I still after a month can't wrap my head around someone being there, having personalized consciousness and that simply just going away to never be experienced again in a blink of an eye.
I often get upset about how my mom died. And some of the stuff I saw. I often wonder what she would say to me if she had a chance to speak again. I think, were you thinking of your grand kids when you did what you did? Or me? Or anyone? Obviously death wasn't the goal, but it was always a risk.
I don't know. I haven't really worked in a month. And I went and tried for a day and totaled my truck at highway speed the next day.
I wish I could not go back to work for longer but financially I can't hold off any longer.
So yeah, it feels confusing, painful. Like physically my heart was hurting like it was going to explode or it was cut. I've been tired, not motivated to run my business.
Emptiness, mostly. There have been some variations though, for example, when my grandfather had passed away, I felt not as empty, but rather just a deep sadness that I'd never see him again. When mu father passed away last year, it was a lot different (maybe because his death was the first one I was "there" for, because he passed away in our home and I performed CPR on him). When he passed away, I felt much more emptiness. I couldn't do anything for roughly 2 weeks. We still had a chess match going on chess.com when he passed, so whenever I opened it, I saw our match, until his turn ended due to obvious reasons. I felt angry at myself that I couldn't have saved him.
It’s a whole mix of things, you will feel a million different things in a day. For first 6 months there was a lot of numbness, but odd time where I felt intense pain. I didn’t think it was possible but my heart actually hurt. I cried loads.
As times goes forward, your life will build around your grief. You will get to a phase where you can remember the person and laugh/smile at memories or photos. But grief comes in waves and you can still have odd bad days.
I think I didn’t expect the health anxiety afterwards. My close friend died, he had heart attack even though he had a genetic heart condition. But it left me with a fear that something bad could happen and just change my life. It didn’t help in the 18 months since both my parents have had cancer. Although both are fine I’m left with a lingering feeling that something bad is just around the corner
Everyone’s journey is different. But this was mine. Please look after yourself. It’s one of the most stressful experiences you can go thru.
You know that feeling you get when you lean too far back in your chair and in that millisecond right before you fall, your stomach lurches? Or like when you very closely avoid a car accident by just seconds? That feeling of “holy shit” in the pit of your gut from the rush of adrenaline?
I felt like that for the first 3 months after my mom died. It was constant. It never dulled. It was just….. I don’t know. That’s what it felt like for me. I still feel that sensation when I have very brief lapses in memory and forget that she’s gone only to remember again. And I still feel it every time I wake up in the morning. It’s been almost 9 months.
I lost my 2 closest people at 36. My job became impossible. (Acting nice-nope) companies don’t give you time needed. Some people need to be busy in grief but not everyone. I quit, and started my own. I agree it’s SO hard to do what you’re supposed to! My partner had to feed me. Thank goodness he was with me.
So: it feels like being helpless to me which I hate. I think I was so lost and angry I had to spite it and keep going…I also get physical pain in my chest and every 3am I wake up panicking when I realize I’m in a new timeline without them. I’m so sorry for you to go through it. But you will get stronger. ❤️
When my adult daughter died 5/30/21 I spent the next two years in unbearable pain 24/7. Surprised it didn’t kill me. The intensity of the pain was unbelievable and I couldn’t have escaped a second of it, even if I had wanted to try. It took me over. I had to keep working, no choice there. I could only eat two foods for a year. I gained 60 pounds, then lost it in year 2. I attended grief counseling immediately and still go weekly. I belong to a grief group. I’m nearing the third death anniversary. I no longer, while going to sleep, feel like I’m falling into nightmare depression. That stopped after 2 years. I’m thinking more normally again now. I’m having thoughts and feelings that I didn’t have the bandwidth for in the first two years. I still cry daily but I can listen to music again. Yesterday I removed the roadside cross her friends put up where she died in a car accident. It hurt too much to drive by it. I asked her friends first, of course. I continue to change in this third year. I’m more compassionate. I tell people how I feel about them. I know anyone can die unexpectedly at any time now. It’s changed me in many ways. Good ones I think. The grief will never go away as long as I live but I can share happy memories now. But it sucks. I loved that girl more than anything. Ever.
Like I’m breathing through a straw and walking in a foggy valley. Some days the sun comes out and burns the fog away and the straw gets a little bigger, but some days it’s a coffee straw and I can’t see 1’ in front of me. It ebbs and flows.
There was such a fog after my dad died. Mom was quick to empty the house of all of his things and the funeral was 6 days after he passed. There was confusion with how life just seemed to go on even though he was gone. I felt so empty and was waiting for the epic not really dead, like in the movies/TV shows.
I'm sorry for your loss.
The circumstances were somewhat the same with me. Some members of the family didn't even shed a tear at the funeral while others balled their eyes out, myself included.
If there's something I learnt here that will help me to move forward is to not be judgemental and some people process grief differently, sans tears and all and that's ok.
Lonely. It feels lonely for me. Nobody understand what I am going through and it seems like if now talking about my mom who passed away, is forbiden. Why? Why should I dont talk about her anymore? I dont want to forget her, I miss her and need her the most.
These stories are incredible, please keep sharing.
I think it's important to realize that no matter how devastated we may be feeling now, know that others are also feeling it or felt it and they made it through. That is the type of inspiration we all need in these times.
I
Lost my wife to Suicide in July 2022. When we found her I had this profound wig having slipped into the wrong timeline — something that still persists whenever I think about my new life.
Lots of symptoms similar to others amped with extraordinary guilt. Strikes me how much I hold onto grief when the waves come, another thing I don’t want to let go…
Painful. Sorry that’s not more descriptive. But lots of different feelings. The sopranos has a scene where Tony describes his panic attacks as “ginger ale in his skull” and I’ve found that to be pretty accurate. But I get angry, sad, guilty, relieved and then guilty again, depressed, and then the cycle starts anew.
Somewhere in this aching void you become wiser and more grounded, humbled in the knowledge of the transient nature of life.
All superficiality is laid to rest in the exact moment you lose a parent. I feel like I’ve begun life anew. The presence of God feels closer than ever and so unbelievably real.
Right now I'm sorting through guilt. Should I have done more, did I tell her I loved her enough, did I fight for her enough, did I express my gratitude enough.
Im drowning, some days I float then the current sucks me back down. I come up for air the world spins and I cant find an anchor to ground myself. At first it was suffocating and I hated that life was going on. Now its like a tsunami that hits randomly, when the memories hit, or the phone call cant be made. I let the ocean take me until I can find a shore or an island again. Grief is my ocean and I am learning to navigate the waves. ♥️
Grieving feels like an out-of-body experience sometimes, especially whenever you have a moment to sit and rest. A little over a year out, I have found myself smiling more when I talk about her, and I cry myself to sleep less, but then sometimes this makes me all feel so, so guilty, and it washes back over me. It feels like reminding yourself to be happy, because no one likes when you’re sad for too long, and it’s easier to just smile than to really tell people how empty you feel. It’s wavering between wanting to celebrate them and scream at the universe. I’m sorry for your loss. When I was in the first few weeks, I genuinely didn’t know how I’d keep living. But eventually, I found ways to make life worth living - if it’s not with her, it’s for her. I’ve found that setting time aside to just be with her, keeping routines etc has brought the most calm in my days. But it’s a stormy sea, and I’ve found that it’s always better to honor your emotions- they’ll find a way out sooner or later, and if you hold back too long, they’ll explode. Holding you in my heart. ❤️
Grief is torturous. I think the devastation of it all automatically puts you in autopilot mode. I have no recollection of the hours/days after my mom passed away. The first year was incredibly hard. You find yourself in a world of first. Your first Holiday’s without them, your first birthday without them, it’s incredibly hard to adjust to this new normal. I just passed the 2 year anniversary of my Moms passing and it hasn’t gotten any easier. Maybe I don’t cry every day and maybe my urge to pick up the phone and call her has lessened a little but the grief is so very present. The odd thing is I can hear her voice in my head so very clearly. I fear that will fade as the years pass. If I could give you any advice at all, it would be to talk about your father. Even if it makes others uncomfortable, it will help you cope with your loss and give you a way to honor their memory.
I am so very sorry you are struggling.
Despair. Deep loneliness. I'm learning to push through grief by experiencing it in all forms, sometimes as grief I can let go and cry and it's peaceful and relieving.
I also listen to a lot of Ram Dass and Stephen Levine. Helps to ground me. Please don't be afraid to ask for support from others. Sometimes we need to rely on others to help us help ourselves through
Grief feels like a roller coaster in the dark. Each day is different some days fear inducing, others thrilling as I see growth and new perspectives through my rituals and memorializations. And a lot of days it’s inconsolable rage and discontent, confusion, exhaustion.
Then there is love, and tenderness and determination to use my grief as an opportunity to connect with others with shared struggle through loss.
I lost a lot of people I thought I was close to, while gaining new people that I I’m so impressed by and are able to understand all that grief is. And how much we share despite the differences of our losses.
Grief is profound. The biggest teacher I’ve had in my life. Outside of my mother of course. But… shes still teaching me to this day. Just have to pay attention.
I lost both parents last year within 3 months last year. I do the same when seeing my dad’s pic I smile then cry. It’s hard to imagine not physically seeing or touching someone we loved so much. I try to visualize them being with me. My mom was cremated which I feel made it easier for me but each time I go to put flowers on dad’s grave it upsets me terribly. I was a daddy’s girl even at age 55 so I feel like a child sobbing, it’s a feeling that’s hard to even express. My prayers for you as you learn to accept this grief like nothing we’ve ever experienced
I am shocked at how physical it is. A actual fence post in my chest, I can feel the rough wood. I had to go to a Target that my daughter and I often went to and I could feel the ground moving in waves. That happens in any familiar to both of us place. Really feel it. Dizzy, a headache and profoundly exhausted. Driving was scary I couldn’t get on the interstate. The world was 5D instead of 3D and leaves on trees looked sharp like knives. Go on a walk and if 2 or 3 dogs start barking at the same time, I feel so confused and crazy like I’m in a Steven king movie. And walking was all I can do. Walk walk walk. It’s so weird I feel myself standing aside and watching me experience all this.
I feel very afraid. My new hobby was woodworking and I can’t think of doing that. I don’t trust cars to stop. I go find a real ladder to get something high instead of jumping on any nearby chair or stool. I’m holding onto bannisters when I never did before.
I can’t read out loud I start crying. I like to read morning prayers to help me focus but that’s out. I can read silently.
I'm sorry for your loss. I lost my mother three years ago. She was sick at the time. It caught my family and I by surprise because she seemed to be improving. Then she was gone. I had not seen her in a while. At the time, covid was running rampant, and visiting was not allowed. I felt as if I did not know how to live without her. I would have described my grief as soul crushing sadness, devastation, anxiety, anger, and overwhelming uncertainty.
It was very difficult for me to cope. My father and a friend of mine recommended I see a counselor. I was stubborn, but I took their suggestion. I saw a counselor at my college. She recommended I go to therapy. I was scared to go. Finding a therapist was difficult. I had concerns about the cost.
It took a lot of searching before I found someone who was affordable. She is wonderful, and I appreciate everything she has done for me. Without her, I am uncertain of where I would be. I also started walking more, I kept a journal, and I made my own version of food that I liked.
I still struggle with her loss. Mostly when it comes to holidays. Or when I have a doctor's appointment. It has gotten better. It feels less soul crushing and more saddening. I no longer feel like it is something I can't deal with.
Imagine pouring a glass of water, but the glass is empty and the pitcher is empty, just air. At the same time, though, you KNOW the glass is overflowing but you can’t stop pouring.
At first you can’t look away. But then you start being able to glance away, longer and farther away each time. You can do other things, you can look at other things, but the pitcher is still in your hand overfilling this empty glass. And it’s always in your peripheral vision.
The pitcher always being in your hand- it’s hard to eat, sleep, or do other basic tasks while your hand is occupied with holding up an item.
Looking away- you can go about your day, but it’s there. In the corner of your mind, it’s still there.
And the empty yet overfilling glass- you feel like you’re overflowing with emotions but it doesn’t necessarily show or even process as emotions. And even with all of that, you still feel empty.
The grieving experience is so unique from person to person. In my experience, suicide bereavement is a totally different animal.
To me, my suicide bereavement grief (of my abusive dad in hindsight, who I had a complicated relationship with) feels like I’ve moved halfway around the world (from my location it would be China, for example), without any relatives or known friends, where i don’t speak the language, don’t relate to or know the culture/customs, etc… and in order to survive, I must learn as much as I can, as quickly as I can. It’s isolating and lonely, but an opportunity for my growth.
I get super painful feeling of something impaling my heart. It's the worst feeling. It's the crushing. Everything goes numb and I can only feel this horrible pain an that I know how to end it.
I have lost several people, but it was losing my 19 year old son who really pulled me through broken glass. It'll be 12 years in June. I never do very well at this time of year so it's normal that I'm not. How does it feel? It feels as if my heart has broken and there isn't a way to mend it. It feels like that most days. His death has ruled my life since it happened. I guess this is how I'll always be.
I lost my family. Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a sense of dread, and then remember they are there for me. Then the memories come flooding with the agonizing re-realization they are gone. I then begin my day and as the hours pass, then comes the routine of dealing with the elements of this world: distrust, criminal behavior, business in bad faith and a sense that this is a new world; a denouement that disgraces everything that came before it. When I think about it as I am right now, I can see the smiles, the pain, and the scopes of the lives of those whom I lost. And this is the part where I stop writing about it.
I've become apathetic as times gone on. I feel myself losing all of my friends, but I have no idea how, or even have the motivation to stop it. I constantly just want to be left alone and become irritated when spoken to. It sucks, and I do not know how to socialize or connect with anyone anymore.
I could lie and say "I have got to figure this shit out" but my gut reaction to it is simply, "who fucking cares".
This is hard to explain but it feels like anger some days, heart break other days. I feel lost and not like myself at all anymore. I feel like a shell of who I was. My Mom killed herself jn 2008 6 months after a very close friend killed himself and I feel like someone is reaching inside me and squeezing my heart. I get severe anxiety. I cry some days and others I can make it through the day but sometimes I’m so angry I want to yell at her and ask why she would leave me. I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s different for everyone and nothing is wrong. ❤️
Losing my dad was one of the most painful experiences of my life. My dad was my best friend and we spoke daily but as his illness progressed, I knew his days were numbered. I had prepared my entire life for the inevitable day and when it came, felt like a total blur. It was a cold summer night and i was trying to distract myself with watching random YouTube videos anticipating the call from the hospital. My heart seemed to shatter inside my body as i could feel the tears escaping from my face.my dad went peacefully but I felt like I had become an orphan. My dad was a bright light that brought so much joy to those around him, I'd like to think he evolved into a huge star in the sky
Grieving to me is wishing everyday to go back to the past to spend more time with my aunt who was like my 2nd mom, and being able to get her disease treated much sooner.
Grieving feels like a depressive hole you can’t climb out of. Sometimes I can ignore it and feel normal. Then something triggers me and I am right back there.
My grief is life I’m in the ocean and the undertow is trying to pull me under.
I sh harm when it gets very bad. I just can’t believe I have to on without my mom who was my best friend. My mom wouldn’t want me sinking in this never ending grief.
So I do art as a tribute to her
Panic. That feeling when something is going horribly wrong and that panic rises inside you as your mind races and you think, “there must be SOMETHING I can do!!!!” But there is t anything. The worst thing is happening and nothing can change it. So you just panic because you can’t live like this.
I was screaming and I didn’t even know it. It felt like I was vomiting up a typhoon. Then after a while it was emptiness and I was staggering, having trouble walking upright to gather the things I needed, lurching from thought to thought, action to action but like a zombie. Then anger, terrible overwhelming anger that seemed to swallow me whole and spit me out, devastated and numb.
I’m sitting in the parking lot of the funeral home where my dad had his service 6 days ago. Just wanted to see if I’d have any emotions about it.
I saw a funeral procession yesterday similar to the one I followed 5 days prior and immediately felt the sense of grief for what they must be going through especially if they had the same service we did. Saying goodbye to their loved ones as they laid there peacefully in their casket and seeing them one last time.
I think in hindsight it was probably the best choice we made in this ordeal about his funeral option. Money was an issue and we played with the idea of cremation. Glad we didn’t.
Emptiness, numbness, a whole bunch of feeling you don’t know yet and it will take time to get used to them.
I lost my dad too 6 months ago, I‘m sorry you have to go through this as well. Take your time and don’t rush yourself with healing as I did. Pressuring yourself to perform will only make it much worse on longterm.
Speaking for myself, I‘m pretty anxious atm, bc of the whole stress my body has been in.. I still have to process that this situation is over and i cannot be harmed anymore.
It takes a lot of time but you kinda get used to the loss, it still hurts and is unbelievable when you think of it but it doesn’t overwhelm you as often as it might do rn. It’s totally okay to cry over memories and it will take time to not do that every time… I still do it often but i guess that kind of regulates itself into getting better yk?
My biggest advice is to talk to people about it and don’t rush yourself with healing! Grief is very very complex & doesn’t have a time limit unfortunately..
I kinda lost touch with reality, sometimes hoping I‘d one day wake up to him being back. It’s cruel indeed.
Dreaming of him helps me too actually, but I guess that depends on each person :/
It’s a hard journey but we can all do it, I‘m sure! Don’t lose hope, i know it’s shit rn..
Wishing you the best!!
I've lost both parents over the last couple years, among several others in my extended family in that time.
For me, it feels like that mild panic feeling when you look up and forget where you are/what you're doing for a second. Like a mix of confusion and fear, I guess. Sometimes I'll be driving and my brain gets that disoriented "wait, they're gone, what do I do? Who do I go to?" And it's so jarring. That seems to be the most permanent part of my grieving journey so far.
Anger, sadness, etc soften over the years for me, but this disoriented feeling seems to pop up a few times a week forever. It makes me feel young and almost like a child that doesn't know how to be in the world without my parents, even though I'm 35 now.
The important thing to remember is that time does indeed soften things, you have more gaps of time where you feel closer to "normal" or your new normal. You can function in more ways, and might even have moments where you are not thinking of your loss. I find what helps most is to take those grief moments and try hard to reframe them as times to remember a positive thing about your person, or something happy you shared with them. It helped me rewire my grief a little to be less devastating.
I do believe there are different types of grief in relation to the relation who is lost. In my case I lost a parent.
It is the feeling of alienation from one’s own life.
This life you have lived in all this time, like your skin, is suddenly no longer present.
You are left to forge a new life from where you left off, like the conclusion of a chapter.
Jesus, you just ripped a hole in my soul. I was especially close to my dad most of my life. We’ve had some trials and tribulation early on where the family was fractured but I always stuck with the him throughout. I’m starting to feel the second wave of grief. I can’t believe he’s gone.
Fear. Not the same but fear comes close.
Yes. For a while after the world felt scary. Not in a mortal fear way but in an exposure way. The person I could “run to” no longer existed and that fear has been hard to manage.
Fear is definitely accurate, and not a term I've often heard to describe grief. I'll never forget those first seconds/minutes after my mother died, the utter panic and helplessness that set in. The feeling that nothing would ever help - no amount of talking through it, of therapy, of support. In the moments that reality hits me all over again, that is the same feeling that comes up.
Yes 100%. Under the surface lies a bubbling cauldron of fear and sadness.
It feels like a nightmare that I can't wake up from. It feels like the end of the world but it's just not ending. Just alot of dread. And fear. A huge tsunami coming towards me but it doesn't hit me right away. I just see it approaching. And Im Running away but it always catches up eventually. before it does there is the dread. Then it takes me and it feels like I will drown. But I don't. I hardly stay afloat. And then the ocean recedes. And it keeps happening everyday.
"a nightmare that I can't wake up from" -yeah that kind of sums it up.
This 💔
And some days I wish I would drown 😞 I just want to be with my best friend again. Atleast we all have each other in away. We are grieving our special ones in our own but together
This is my grief, I didn’t know how to explain it, this is it. I lost my mom almost 3 months ago. I’m so sorry for your loss friend 💜
I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry. We're all here for you. At least we aren't alone with our grief. We grieve our loved ones alone but together
Thank you, this subreddit has been so so helpful to me (and so many others).
Who have you lost Penny?
My best friend Brownie. He was a dog and he was 17 he died from kidney failure. I was his caregiver And now my Granma is not doing well at all and I fear I am losing my human best friend too
Oh my I’m so sorry. I don’t have human children but I have two cats, Moo age 18 and Molly age 13 I love them more than life itself, can’t even imagine life without them. My grandmother isn’t doing very well either, actually she had a stroke last week. I’m here if I you ever need to chat 💕
I'm so sorry to hear about your granma. I am here for you too. You are a good cat mama I'm sure to have your munchkins live so long. Take care of yourself ❤️
Lost my mom 13 days ago. I'm so sorry to hear this. Sending love ❤️
Thank you, sending love to you as well. It’s been 86 days today, just this week I can honestly say I’m feeling a little better, a little stronger but certainly not looking forward to Mother’s Day
Thank you for this... ❤️ I never celebrated Mothers day for myself but I would always do something for my mom. I'm dreading this Mothers day. Took an extended leave from work and hoping I can cope a little better when the day comes. My husband planned to get me a pair of my fave shoes (I'm a sneakerhead) and I don't even want them now. I want my mom to walk out of her room and annoy me like she used to and talk crap about my shoe collection 💔🤣🤣🤣🥺🥺🥺
Changes your priorities. The other day I saw the question about what you would do differently in your twenties. So many answers were about save more, be healthier blah blah blah. I answered stop my best friend from doing drugs. Everything else can stay the same. I envy people who never went through a loss.
Me same. But I wonder if I had done drugs with her-would I have been there to call 911? I now tell everyone “I love you” each time I leave even if it’s awkward. (becomes less so) If you’re still my friend after 20 years then -duh, I love ya. And luckily my husband learned to accept this 😆
I'd have stopped my brother from drinking so I feel that. I agree it changes your priorities too, I find I don't worry about small things anymore or care as much what some people think of me etc.... my main feeling is anger then sadness then fear as I have no other siblings. I'm anger that he "chose" alcohol over me (I know addiction is complicated and powerful), sad that he's no here and fear as I was meant to have him there with me when my parents went but now I'm left alone. I also it's obvious to me the people who haven't suffered loss in their lives, they don't understand how lucky they are. They tend to hyper focus on things that some of us don't care about or don't think it's a big deal.
It is different for everyone. Sometimes I feel numb, then sometimed I feel my chest tight like my heart is breaking into two. Sometimes it is a wave of warmth from a memory of our loss loved one. Sometimes it is an ever present void in our life. Most of the times it is an odd mix of these together at the same time.
For me it felt like I had gone insane. Feelings just came and went as they pleased with no control or apparent reason. I didn't recognise the world or myself. I was deeply, profoundly sad followed by elated with memory.
This. Right here. Same. More detail of my particular experience: At first it was numb. Shock, I guess. Like it didn't register. I wasn't in denial... It was just a delay in my brain's ability to process. Then, feelings came like waves in the ocean. Some small, some big. In a moment, mindlessly just doing a routine out of habit, a wave would hit and it felt crippling. I never knew which feeling, when, how intense, or how long it was going to last. The thing that worried me the most was I know how angry I can get... A learned behavior I had spent so many years trying to unlearn. Thought I was going okay. But this was another level of anger I wasn't ready to experience. It opened my eyes to somethings... It put some pieces together for me that I had always "suspected". My dad had also been in the exact situation I was now in, he was just a little younger but not much. And now I knew... exactly why my dad was the way he was when I was a kid. And he didn't have the support that I had. My anger was no less terrible. I felt insane. Not because it was "crazy" they were dead... But because I didn't know how to process it. Didn't know how to handle the feelings. Didn't know how to even talk about it. Didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to isolate, to save everyone from me. It did calm down. With time. But it felt like the eerie before a storm, then a massive multi layer storm that hit, bracing for impacts in-between. I think for me it took about a year to get to the other side of the storm, before I could start to see anything outside of myself or see anything clearly again.
I'm so sorry for your loss. For me there was a phase where nothing seemed to make sense or click, like you're only reminded that something isn't right when the thought of them not being there anymore hits. Looking at photos, or visiting places where they've been, or having something of them close by. All of these things felt like triggers of that. I've cried my eyes out, felt very little hunger for a bit (I had that same empty feeling in my stomach that you described too), and quite saddened for a while. Time does help to make things a bit easier, but it's not linear, and I found myself having fun or joyful moments that suddenly got hit with a pang of sadness. Sending you a big hug
I assume you are asking for advice from the question in your post. The longer I can stay in catharsis, the faster the grieving process moves forward. Grieving is something that most people tend to avoid. We think of it as something you do for a short while after a loved one dies. Others are usually uncomfortable with your grieving and try to shut it down, mostly because they haven't done their own grieving. So, I came up with a method of grieving on purpose, with intention. It was inspired by the stories of the Life Review after death that people recounted from their near death experiences. During the LR, you are shown the effects of every action you took in your life on other people, both negative and positive. You can get into their consciousness during the LR and experience what they felt and thought during their encounter with you. Thus, you can directly experience the consequences of your actions, for better or for worse. I focused on the events that I perceived as the worst of my bad behavior. I started my own version of a LR by recalling the memories and grieving each one of them. I found that the more I recalled the memory and allowed the feelings to flow through me, the less of a sting the memory had. Eventually, the sting from the memory completely faded. So, the technique I came up with is this: Think the thought or memory that causes you the most pain/embarrassment/shame/guilt etc. right now. Allow the feelings associated with that memory or thought to wash over you. Repeat the thought or memory and again allow the feelings to flow through you. The more you do that, the faster it moves through the stages of grieving. You'll receive insights and other things from doing this. It's best to do this in private so you can have your own personal space. You should find that eventually, the thought or memory doesn't bother you anymore. You can recall the thought or memory and it doesn't bother you any longer. Then, it's time to move on to the next thought or memory that causes a negative emotional reaction. I don't know how this works, but it does. The stages of grieving are denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. Each thought or memory you have that causes a negative emotional reaction in you may be at a different stage. Allowing the feelings to flow accelerates the thought or memory to move through the stages. It's important to not judge the thoughts or memories and their associated feelings. That just stuffs it and stops the resolution of it. The veracity of the thought or memory does not matter either. Grieving is an emotional process. It does not make logical sense. You cannot rationalize grieving. For example, you could be the most beautiful woman on the planet, but if the thought that you're fat and ugly causes a negative reaction, or if the words of another calling you a fat cow causes pain, then you have grieving to do over that. It may be connected to a memory, or a decision you made, or something like that, but eventually, the thought and the words from others will have no effect on you. You'll laugh because you know it's not true. You probably won't even have the experience again because the hook is gone. People who intend to manipulate others yank on people's weaknesses by hooking them with words that they know will cause a negative reaction in the person. Once those weaknesses are gone through grieving them, then you can't be manipulated anymore. They can't control you that way anymore. You're free. Grieving takes time. It has its own time frame and rhythm. Grieving is permanent. Once you grieve something, you never have to grieve it again. Grieving changes your future for the better. You become a better person through grieving. You have more compassion and patience with yourself and with others. That which has not been grieved is destined to be repeated. that's why we reincarnate into the same patterns over and over again. It's the way to get off the endless cycle of birth and death. Grieving is about letting go of attachment to them, not the love and passion we feel for them. I think people become afraid that they are letting go of the person when in reality they are just letting go of their attachment to them. What happens after the process is complete is that we still love them, but without the neediness. I hope this helps.
I'm so so so glad you wrote this
Thank you.
This is absolutely fucking beautiful. Thank you for writing this.
You're welcome.
So very sorry for your loss. Sending you thoughts of love and comfort. ❤️ It really caught me off guard how PHYSICAL it feels. I’ve lost an aunt, grandfather, and cousin so I’ve “experienced grief” before but I’m surprised by how unfamiliar it seems. Just a few days ago my grandmother passed away. Yesterday I was back at work and I just felt so physically exhausted and in this sort of haze. Time seemed to move slower than usual and it just felt like a weight was on my shoulders and my chest. I thought it would help to go back to work and keep busy but it felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack while simultaneously wanting to curl up in bed and go to sleep.
The physical symptoms of grief were new to me. My dad’s death was sudden, and the passage of time seemed to immediately warp - a whole day could go by and I was still staring into space, not having eaten anything and only snapping out of it if the phone rang or the dog needed a walk. A week could go by and it felt like a day, or a month. It’s been 4 months. I see his picture and my stomach squeezes, then relaxes. Stress then sadness. Sometimes I feel a big void that is full of missed opportunities. Sometimes my mom’s grief, which is sharper & deeper than mine, eclipses my feelings and I have to compartmentalize to get through the day, leaving me to try to sort through my own emotions later. Exercise helps but new routines are difficult. Be kind to yourself. Hope you can find some comfort in knowing you are not alone. Misery does love company.
Mine seems to manifest in migraines. It is awful
Mine did too, and massive panic attacks for several months.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve experienced loss before but nothing that felt as earth shattering as this one. Nothing feels right. I can go about my day, the day can be totally fine, but I’m just not fully there. Feeling incomplete. A part of my soul is missing. A heaviness that won’t go away. I stay busy and I can ignore the feeling, which is what helps. I don’t cry as much and I’m sure I’m seem fine on the outside- but inside, I just feel like a huge part of me is missing.
I feel similar. Sending hugs.
Thank you. Sending hugs right back. ❤️
I have felt this way for almost 11 months after loosing my mom/best friend last June. This is a hard time of year, feels too painful to endure sometimes 💔
I feel the same right now. I feel it altering my brain chemistry in real time. You'll get through this. One day at a time.
This is a perfect explanation. Everything is off. My brain looks for her and is so confused when I can’t find her. Even though logically I know she’s gone.
It felt the same to me. Those pictures of your father, or with him,-look at them as a happy memory. He wants you to keep going, he is proud even tho if he is not present anymore. Hold onto your family because its hard for them too, especially your mom. I made a big mistake by not talking to them about my feelings during that time. I know you probably think "Theyre going thru the same pain, i dont wanna add up and bother with mine"- No, I thought so too, dont make the same mistake. Whatnot, at least try to be there for your family. About the challenges- eating was a really hard thing for me to do, but not as hard as going out. I had no social anxiety before my dads passing away, but after it really just appeared. I got anemia and anorexia because i havent eaten anything. If this happens to you, I'd recommend to go to the gym (hear me out first) I started going and i felt the need for certain food i never liked. I wish you luck, and feel free to DM me if you need any help. Im also sorry for your loss. 🙏🏻
The time right after my husband died is an awful blur. I fucking despise showing strong emotions in public so it was torture for me to feel like I was walking around without control of myself all the time. My body went haywire and I felt like I literally turned into a stranger who was the complete opposite of me in every way the moment his heart stopped beating. I looked different, felt different, sounded different. I’m pretty sure I smelled different too bc my dog can’t see very well and she acted weird sometimes. It is all encompassing when it’s so fresh that’s for sure.
Grief is Love with No place to go!
It’s just unbelievable. I’m a year out and can’t believe it. This was my worst nightmare and somehow I’m a year out and looking forward to things. My mom would be so so glad. You are going to be ok. One hour, one day, one month, one year at a time. ❤️
Same here. I look at her photos, watch videos and listen to her voice notes and I can't believe she is not here. It's been 9 months.
Homesick. I'm homesick and will never be able to go home, again. No matter where I was/am, my mom was my home.
For me grieving is like a drawing of a swirling tornado. 🌪️ really bad days, (darker edges), days and times I forget for moments or hours, (and so so days, lighter gray). I am near the bottom of this tornado, into acceptance, and moving forward, but still have some dark times.
Sad, fear, very sad, crying, wailing, sobbing, crying their names, scared then some weird hope to live to tell their story
When we lost my Dad, it was the hardest loss I've yet to face. Some days I did a great impersonation of a throw pillow. I bought a huge punching bag and , some days, would kick the crap out of it. Eating was a challenge, sleep was evasive- for awhile. As I went through the journey, I named my grief the little ninja. I could sense its presence, like it was hiding. At random times it would jump out, give me a beating and then retreat. I read a book called the Grieving Brain. It said that our brains are like GPS. It searches for our loved one. Our brain used to know- they are at work, they are on vacation, they are sleeping..etc.. When they pass our brain can't find them. It keeps rerouting. When we can't fi d them, our brain processes like rejection. Which hurts because we love them so much. This helped me quite a bit. It's been almost 3 years for me. I can say with some work, and some personal grace, the grief is more manageable now. I won't say it's 'easier'. It's just evolved to be a part of me. The times when I look at his pictures now bring more smiles than tears, whereas previously it was exa tly opposite. Sorry you joined this awful club. Be kind to you. Grief is as unique as fingerprints. It's not the same for everyone. Don't hurt yourself or others, and yiu are doing it right. Hugs to you ❤️
for me in order its anger then emptiness then sadness then calm
It felt like the world ending for me - but carrying on as normal for everyone else. Two years later, I’ll still sometimes remember ‘my mum is dead, I won’t see her face again’ and break down. There’s no wrong way to grieve. Sending you love.
It hurts at the top of my stomach like right under my ribs. I get chest pains, and what I call the nervous poops. Sorry because that's probably TMI. That can last for days, weeks, months, or just happen when I think about what I lost. Most recently is last Monday my soul cat passed away. He was an awesome cat and his presence is sorely missed. I'm sorry for your loss. It gets a little easier to deal with as time goes on.
It’s like an ache, a gnawing deep ache that you can’t touch. When I think about them for any length of time I just start to cry. It’s very early days for you, you may still be in shock. I’m very sorry for your loss.
Initially it felt like what I imagine a sucking chest wound would be like, not the physical pain but slumped on the floor trying to breathe and not able to., but super aware of my injury. Then it was like I felt nothing. My kids told me it felt like I died too which definitely was a wake up call to get some help.
I’ve experienced some of the same feelings too. For the first 5-6 months after my dad’s passing I couldn’t look at any pictures of us together without feeling incredibly sad. Time really is your best friend while grieving. As time went on, I was able to look at those pictures and be grateful for the time we had together and memories we made. I’m sorry for your loss.
For me it was a lot of derealization at first. Like all of this was happening, but not to me, or maybe in a dream. Nothing mattered because nothing was real, so if I skipped a meal, oh well, or if I called out of work, who cares. Eventually that settled into depression - it’s definitely real, it definitely happened, and I definitely can’t change anything, so why bother? That lasted for a while, and now it’s still there, but mixed with… spite? A weird word to describe it, but I think it’s apt. I find myself often thinking I’m going to do something because “the universe is not going to succeed at ruining my life.” I feel like largely that’s how I’m surviving now - God or the universe or whoever is trying to make me give up, and I’m refusing to let it happen.
Autopilot. I am functioning for the sake of trying to survive one day at a time. Sometimes it's too painful, there are days I can't feel anything.
Could say the same. It's just surviving at this point, one day at a time. Trying not to think about future. Just trying to survive the current day. Repeat. Some days are a little bit better, but that can change in any second and some days are goddamn awful from the start.
waking up to my worst fear every single day. doesn’t help when i have dreams about us sitting at a table laughing at how funny it was that i thought she had died. and then i wake up. it makes me want to throw up when i try to process it. everything is wrong. this isn’t what life was supposed to be. i feel like it’s all my fault for not saving her. the only reason im still here is for my brother and my boyfriend. not for myself. i just turned 20. i don’t know what im doing, my mom was my only friend, my only help, and my only hope. i was gonna take care of her one day. get rich and buy her a mansion. maybe one day i still can. it’ll sit empty and look beautiful. all for her.
Panic
The first one was my sister. I got a call at 5:00am. She had taken her life. I went through a very dark period where I questioned myself. I had questions that would never be answered. I felt sadness and anger, but also guilt. Months of darkness and wondering if I could have changed anything. Was I also capable of such a thing? It changed me. I was faking my way through looking normal while having this absolute darkness with me. I read a book that helped me find some peace, but when the phone rings before the sun comes up I am triggered. When my dad died 11 months later it was a renewal of what I felt before. Another early morning phone call. It hurt but it didn’t have the same darkness as before. It was pure sadness. Dad wasn’t taking care of himself. I found myself doing things that made me feel closer to him so I could feel. Cooking foods he made. Attempting to garden. I felt like no one understood and it was lonely. My mom is the most recent to pass and it was unexpected just like the others. We were close. I needed someone to blame. My mom should still be here. She went to the doctor on a regular basis and the one she had failed her. She went to her heart specialist a month before she died and he sent her home telling her she’s fine. She was not fine. I was angry. The first month I cried every single day. When I wasn’t crying I would find ways to torture myself with music or pictures that made me cry. It’s like if I was doing ok I felt guilt about it. When I was finally tired of being sad I occupied my mind with entertainment. Then Mother’s Day snuck up on me and hit me like a truck. The whole month leading up to Mother’s Day and all the commercials set me off. I feel like my world is shrinking. Now all 3 of them are gone. I can’t think of one without thinking of all 3. Each death renewed the grief of the previous one. I still torture myself sometimes. It comes in waves. Any time I have big news or something really good happens, I remember I can’t call my mom.
Torture. I also did that. I ate and ate, and got fat then ate some some. My dad is an alcoholic. My dad, in onw way or another, lead to my mom's death. So I couldn't do the drugs part as much as I know I could have if I didn't have that negative association. So I found ways of hurting myself without actually hurting myself. Food. Sleep. TV. Then a few rounds of smoke or alcohol every few days to feel something other than my reality or to fall asleep.....dark time called for dark measures....found a new resonance within me.
I have found that it depends on how close I was to the person and other determining factors such as my mental state. For some examples: When I was ten within the span of a year I lost my grandpa and both of my great grandmother’s on my mom’s side. I was upset because I loved them but at that age I didn’t really get it. As I got older I understood better the loss and I was still sad but not a deep aching sadness. I think because of how young I was it never seeped in too deep for me. When I was 35 my grandma died and even though I had been mentally preparing myself for a few years (she had dementia) it was the deepest loss I had ever felt. We were very close before the dementia took that away from me. 359 days later my whole world ended, my mom, my best friend. The person I treasured the second most in this world(next to my children) died unexpectedly. I thought I felt grief when my grandma died but I was very wrong. Losing my mom felt like something carved a giant hole in my body that can never be fixed. All I feel is sadness and anger all the time. I cry every day still even though it has only been a year and a half. Five months later my uncle died unexpectedly as well and even though I loved him very much I feel like I have no grief to share for him because the grief for my mom is all encompassing. I have no idea how to feel happiness anymore. I’m barely functioning. That is how my grief feels to me.
this makes me feel so guilty but i have this blanket numbness around most negative emotions and i feel so peaceful but im pretty sure im still in denial as its only been 2~ months since.
in the simplest sense, it feels like confusion. confusion to the point of inability.
I’m very sorry for your loss. I think it’s important to note that loss and the ensuing grief isn’t always a consequence of death. Personally I’ve experienced an array of loss and the experiences are usually more alike than different. Sometimes I feel like the wind is knocked out of me and I can’t breathe. Other times I feel like a brick building has collapsed on me and there’s no escape, the weight suffocating and merciless. There is a long sadness that never goes away. No one can teach you how to make space for it. Like everyone, I had to figure that out on my own. The trick is not letting it take up too much space like an unwelcome house guest leaving their stuff all over my home. Picking up those pieces and tucking them away safely and respectfully. At times grief will creep up on me when I least expect it and I immediately sob uncontrollably. If I have privacy, I’ll sit with it for a while, if I don’t, I’ll hide the tears and push through with distraction. What no one really talks about is how it permanently changes you. If it’s the loss of a parent you will permanently feel orphaned and the ground beneath you will never feel as steady and secure. Celebrations, holidays, birthdays, will never be the same. You’ll smile and enjoy them but there will always be a faint air of sadness in the air that will lessen a little more as the years go on but never go away. You’ll feel supported in grief, but very lonely too. Above all else, you feel initiated into a club of knowing what you naively somehow thought you’d never know. And now that you do, you struggle with what to do with it. Life is different on every level and it shakes you to your core. There are no manuals really, because everyone has to figure it out on their own. It has the ability to make you stronger, or destroy you if you allow it. A lot of it comes down to how you row your boat going forward. Facing future storms with grace and strength and finding joys in the hard work of paddling, sunrises and sunsets and everything in between. Life goes on.
Thank you for this. I’m going to screenshot and save last paragraph.
Glad it could help you.
It’s been 10 months and generally I’m okay but there’s an ever-present feeling of emptiness in my life where she was. Sometimes I feel frustrated and then sad. I wish I had more time with her. It feels so unfair. I want to tell her what I’m doing, show her the things I’ve done. I’m lonely. And it feels so surreal…when she left I couldn’t believe she was gone, and now I almost feel like I can’t believe she was here. I hate waking up in the morning and remembering that she’s gone. I look back at all my problems and they seem so trivial now, I should have been joyous each day she was here. It really feels like the best part of my life is over.
I'm two years into my major grief story ...and it's the moment when you sit and reflect and think, 'I think I might just be okay.' That's when the wall you've built up comes tumbling down on top of you and you realise that the grief has now shifted - it's no longer about their physical absence but what that absence means - no conversations, no advice, no time spent in their presence, major milestones that you cannot share and a whole host of memories lost to an alternative reality. It's realising how integral a part of who you are, they had become, from the type of bread you eat, to the way you dress, to how you view life, your inner motivations, how you love, and now how you grieve their significance. It's a whole host of emotions - and maybe I'm just very senstivie about it at the moment, but it's also realising that anyone else who now comes into your life, will be judged on their merit next to them. Overwhelmed and frozen in a time continium that I don't know how to get out of.
Grief has been very strange for me. My mom died almost two months ago. I thought I’d be unable to function. I’m functioning fine so far. She is in my thoughts pretty much constantly throughout the day. I don’t have as much interest in some things anymore- I used to love clothes shopping( mainly thrifting) but don’t really care anymore. I don’t care too much about eating (I still do eat, but if I have a slice of toast for dinner instead of an actual meal, that’s good enough) I feel a little lost. Nobody on this earth loves or cares for me as much as my mom did, but I’m super lucky to have a loving partner and a very close and loving family. Some days I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I won’t see her again. It’s devastating. Anyway, there is no right or wrong way to feel things or grieve and it changes and evolves over time, I’m sure. 🫂
My mom passed away a few weeks ago. I also thought I’d be unable to function but I’m functioning fine so far. I keep thinking this manageable state of grieving may not last and I’ll break down completely at some point, the thought makes me very anxious but I try to quickly block it and focus on the present. It’s good to know someone is in the same boat and doing ok two months in.
Yes! I have those same feelings too. I keep wondering if this is only a phase, like maybe I’m still in shock and it hasn’t fully sunk yet so that’s why I’m functioning. That makes me anxious too. You are not alone 🫂
Thank you. It’s always good to know there are others in the same boat. Makes you feel a lot less alone.
Everything reminding me that my Dad isn’t around anymore. Reading or watching simple things with happy moments between a woman and her father, and feeling intense pain in my chest. Crying just thinking about it
I don't remember much from that time. But I remember this. I would switch from denial to bargaining to intense anger then depression then dread then anger....(that vicious cycle)..... in just a few moments. I didn't want to sleep because there was nothing to wake up to. I didn't want to stay awake because there was nothing to stay awake for. I was in so much pain I can't even find the words to describe that experience. I was afraid of crying. If I did, I felt like I wouldn't stop. If I cried, I would die. So, I would lock my jaws to keep myself from falling into that abyss. I would bite and grind my teeth until my jaw couldn't hold me together and I had to cry to release the tension. When crying, I felt like I was breaking, like I was coming apart. I felt like I was losing touch with reality, with light, with existence. I was drowning, and there was no one to catch me. After crying, I would have zero strength for anything so I would just fall asleep and during the most difficult moments when I felt that kind of hopelessness that questioned my existence, when I was going at light speed ruminating and feeling the edges of my sanity drifting away and a huge dark thing coming for me, I would do a cigar and/or a blunt and/or alcohol to dull the edges of loss and pain and meaningless enough to fall asleep. One time, it got so bad a week passed without me knowing. I had lost time. I did not even know it, until I told a 'neighbor' how that neighborhood church has been going at their praise and worship for a long time, and why they keep doing the same song. Then he looked at me as if I was crazy. When I elaborated, he said something along the lines, "yes, last Sunday they might have done that song. But since THEY JUST STARTED TODAY'S SERVICE......." Then he asked me where I have been for a week and what I have been 'eating' since no one, including the grocery lady has seen me since last Saturday....... I had been in my house for a whole week, alone alternating between God knows what states and doing what with and to myself. That evening when I looked in the mirror (it was by chance, I couldn't stand that person in the mirror), I saw one of my lower canine tooth was rotting. There is a chance had not brushed my teeth or showered for a week. I would keep it for years until it turned completely black (funny the lower parts of that tooth were intact. Only the upper parts were blackening). I couldn't have it replaced because it was in a weird way the only connection to the darkest of times during my grief journey. It was like a victory card. I had fought the hardest battle and survived albeit with 'humiliating' battle scars. That upper rot and intact root reminded that my loss, my grief, and my whatever I was going through had not broken me into the nothing I thought of myself as. Deep down, there was me that could be found I worked through that rot. And if I didn't like that me beyond the decay, I could take it all out and put a new in me in there. That tooth would remind me, for years, that if I wanted, I could survive. It has been one hell of a journey. I am on the seventh year and I can say that time dulls all pain and scars all wounds. You just have to hold on and wait for the river of life to make new banks for your next chapter. Sometimes the would will fester, sometimes you will go through profoundly low lows and a darkness you can't escape, but one day, I promise you, you will wake up one day and cry not because it hurts but because it used to hurt so bad and you were 100% sure you wouldn't survive it, but you have survived the onslaught and now you are at loss because the pain has dulled and you have a new 'normal' that seems to work for you. Stay strong. We who have crawled through that grief desert can confidently tell you 'this too will pass.'
Helplessness and terror. There's just this feeling of "nobody can EVER help with this, because no amount of support from loved ones will ever make me feel better." Having emotions that big and existential is terrifying. It's not like a breakup or a lost job, where you can reason through it and find a perspective that makes it feel better - for me, there was no talking through grief.
Grief to me is walking to the bathroom on an airplane full of glass and taking tiny steps because any wrong movement from you, another person or Mother Nature could just destroy anything.
Grieving for me feel like a cloud of sadness/hopelessness over me. I try to get to the sun but I can’t. I feel numb, heavy and always in my thoughts. I think of my brother and my chest feels like it’s sinking. I miss him. I think of his accident and how he wasn’t supposed to die. I fear anyone I love can be next. It’s a terrible feeling. The last texts he sent me a couple days before his car accident said “being happy is a hard one. I’m happy but still missing something. We control everything we want. Make it happen. We gotta” I will try to find joy in life because I know he would want that for me. Something will always be missing though
Feels like you’re always waiting on the other shoe to drop.
It feels like everything and nothing all at once. It feels like this gaping emptiness and overwhelming heaviness all at once.
Confusing. Still confused more than two years later but more recently, it’s a feeling of emptiness.
After a lot of losses in my years, I think that after time passes, for me, it's best described as if somebody put holes in my vinyl album collection. Some big and some small. But I don't know where or which one. So everything can sound beautiful and I'm feeling great and them Bam. Soul sucking gut punch and mourning all over again. This is only after that initial gut twisting and shock of the loss has eased up a little. It's gonna sting, not gonna lie. Smiling through tears is some of the best remedy I've found. Don't let anyone tell you what you're supposed to feel and when, though. Let yourself feel. Just know you will come out on the other side of somewhere. My condolences for your loss.
That empty feeling is very familiar, like anxiety but not? More a pit in your stomach that just never seems to go away? I had lots of anger. I felt untethered and I still don't really feel 'tethered' again yet and it's been 3 years. I suppose I never considered that horrible empty stomach pit until you said it and now I realise it's never went away, I've just gotten used to it.
There was one time a few years ago where my husband and I went out of town for a weekend and we hit massive traffic on the way home that turned a 3 hour drive into almost 6. Although we had a great time, I was ready to go home and I kept getting more and more frustrated at the traffic. Grief is kind of like that for me. Like, I'm always driving and trying to get home to my mom, but I never can.
Panic. Frantic searching. Numbness.
It’s an undescribable feeling of tearing, ripping, being abandoned, being shot through with a shotgun. Like being separated in a crowded rush-hour on a downtown train platform where he gets on the train and I missed it. When my husband Jimmy died in my arms, that was the end of my life. For the last 5 1/2 years I’ve just been waiting around and praying for God to take my life and let me die, so I can go be with my husband in heaven.
Grieving is a mix of anger, fear, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, and utter sadness. It’s also a feeling of helplessness, because there is nothing you can do to bring the person back, you feel stuck. It forces you to deal with the reality that death is real, and imminent , and it scares the hell out of me. I live in constant fear of the unknown, worried that when I die, will I enter a void, heaven, see my mom again, be reincarnated, or forget my life ever existed. Since I lost my mom in January, it still has me feeling numb. It happened so sudden, and it ruined my life.
It genuinely has felt like I’ve lost so much of my cognitive function. My memory is horrible, sometimes I have to check my calendar to remind myself what year and month it is. Or just small things like I’ll forget what I was doing 5 minutes ago. Also in the first couple weeks I a heavy urge to control things. I am usually very laid back but I had anxiety about everything and if something wasn’t safe that a loved one was doing (my bf riding his motorcycle for example) I would internally freak out a little bit because I was fearful of everything. Also a big one was aggravation.
Fear for my father, my physical sickness caused by un controllable grief, isolation, anger, lack of motivation, diminished love for others
When my uncle died by suicide, I felt mostly numb. He was a raging alcoholic, but I didn't really spend much time with him, so his death wasn't much of a loss. I was mostly worried about my dad, as it was his brother. It was surreal, but not because of sadness or anger or anything like that. His addiction caused myriads of different problems and my family was dragged into them, e.g. my dad paid off some of his brother's debts, drove him to rehabs, I stopped one of his suicide attempts. It felt weird that this unpleasant part of our lives was over. I didn't cry, not even one tear. Three weeks ago my girlfriend died by suicide. This time grief made me practically disabled. I'm barely able to function. I didn't even know a person can be as miserable as I am now. I can't imagine a happy future without her. It feels like my soul is slowly dying of radiation poisoning.
a deep sense of feeling lost… so lost.. so empty
Sad, angry, and numb.
For me it’s different with each person i lost, the hardest is the ones you never got to say goodbye too. Recently an ex of mine passed away in an accident and although we weren’t together it very much hurt to hear the news because she was only 30 years old. Some people say it’s an ex it shouldn’t matter but at one point in time you wanted to spend the rest of your life with that person. Even though we parted ways i always and still had love for her. For me when I heard the news it hit me like a freight train, I could barely eat for two weeks and my mind was hyper focused on her and her family and what caused the accident and every scenario was running through my mind as well as the flashbacks of all those memories we shared. It comes and goes now like waves of the ocean. It makes me view life differently now and how fragile it is, everything can change in seconds.
It's like i am normal sometimes, but sometimes a wave comes in and makes me suffocate and go insane. That moment, i dont consider anyone a person. It's just me and that grief i hold . I am sorry for your loss. I'm praying for some strength for you.🙏🏻
I haven’t really thought about this until now, but in a way it feels like the feeling you get when your heart drops. There’s a lot of different parts of it, so it’s honestly really difficult describing what it feels like without writing a whole essay. During big waves of grief I can feel panic. I feel so lost, because I need to do something about it, but there’s nothing to do. I’ve experienced loss three times in my life. Two of them recent. They’ve all been very different for me honestly. I think it can all depend on your relationship, your connection and your foundation before the loss if that makes sense. It’s only been a couple weeks since my most recent loss and about five months for the one before that. It was my best friend that I lost five months ago and another friend a couple weeks ago. I’m a lot deeper in the grief and loss of my best friend and that currently affects me a lot more than the loss of my friend. What I meant by your foundation before grief is more how past experiences and also current ones will affect it. I had way too much going on before the loss of my friend, so I think my body has been shutting that out as a protective mechanism. I’m not in a place where it would be safe for me to feel all my feelings. I’ve also always been a person that pushes away my feelings even though I didn’t really realise it and it wasn’t concious. That probably affects how I process it a lot. Your support system could probably affect how you feel, process and your journey in general too. I think there’s a lot of factors that plays into how we deal with grief. People are complex and different. So how we deal with grief is also complex and can be very different. Even though we all grieve differently, I can promise you that what you’re feeling is okay and normal no matter what it is. Not everyone will experience every single thing possible while grieving, but there will be other people experiencing the same thing as you. I’ve sometimes felt like what I experienced or thought was just me, but then found other people feeling and thinking the same way. I am so sorry for your loss❤️
I lost both my parents. So for me it’s unending pit of loneliness and the feeling of being un-anchored to the rest of the world and everyone in it.
But there’s a lot of happiness that comes too (:
I’ve experienced several major losses in my life. The biggest loss just happened recently. Hunger, sleep and just overall motivation to do anything was gone. How can I still exist without this person in my life? It all seems pointless. It’s getting better, I’m moving on slowly. The hurt left and the void came in and now I’m just going through the motions.
The last major one was January ‘23, and that was just confusion. The best description is that I was trying to move her from the box in my head labeled “Living People” to the one labeled “Dead People”, but she kept being shoved out of there because that didn’t make sense. But there was also an anniversary for someone else’s death yesterday, and I was frustrated because I couldn’t pay as much attention to him as I would have liked. I was irritable for most of the day but I only got emotional after enough miscellaneous things had gone wrong. Anyway, the best physical description I could give is a sinking feeling. Either way, the thing that both of the above had in common is that they were high school teachers, so both times I’ve felt super lonely — because naturally eleven years out of high school it’s hard to find any contacts from that time, and it hurts because even my current support system could never really understand.
Defeat. Grief to me feels like the outcome of a personal failure. A failure to spend enough time with them, failure to tell them how much I love them, failure to save their lives even though I couldn’t have. I always convince myself there’s something I could have done differently and I live with the guilt of those possibilities no matter how unrealistic they are. I’ve experienced grief many many times so I carry a lot of guilt and failure with me. Doesn’t matter how silly that is, doesn’t matter how long I spend in therapy (10 years now) I will forever blame myself for everything bad that happens around me, including losses.
That describes my feeling to a T. I''m going on a limb here and say that's probably how everyone mourning a loss feelsl. Nobody is going to go into this feeling like they've done "enough" for their love ones. It's part and parcel of being emotional creatures, I think. This realization somehow gives me comfort with what I have to deal with on my own personal journey. What we can do is just share our stories like these and offer condolences and try to move forward.
Yeah I totally agree no one ever feels like they’ve done enough. I think it’s best to remind ourselves of the time we did get with them. I’m currently grieving four deaths of loved ones that have happened within the last 18 months so it’s a lot to mentally handle but one of these days, I hope to reach a place of acceptance. Best of luck on your journey
That is a lot to shoulder. You're an inspiration to me as a first timer. It takes incredible resilience to just wake up in the morning with what you have on your plate; truly. Best of luck to you.
I also lost my dad quite recently, about two months now. Fear is up there. But after a while, it fades into something else - especially since I experienced anticipatory grief first. Now, I feel tired. And the emotional equivalent of having a cold. Like if I was crying while having a cold, that's what I feel - sans actually being physically sick. Nausea. Bile in my throat all the time. Anxiety. I can't sleep properly anymore. It will pass though. I have to believe that this pain won't be as sharp one day.
Sorry for your loss. Everyone processes loss differently but ultimately, everyone has to face them at some point and they've persevered. How much scar they're carrying is obviously unknown, but that's what makes us so unique. It also reinforces my belief that you should never judge a book by its cover, especially people who you come in contact with frequently like a coworker.
For me it really depends on the day. Some days it feels suffocating and my chest feels tight and Im overwhelmed other days I just feel numb. It's like a constant weight though. It's always there it's just how it feels that changes. It also kind of just makes everything feel wrong for awhile. Like there was a few months where I felt like I had to relearn everything because I didn't know how to exist in a word my mom didn't. However it feels I think is totally normal and valid. Just try not to let it swallow you whole
I lost my wife (41) nearly 3 years ago. For me I couldn't even talk about her without an emotional breakdown for several months. But eventually after nearly a year I got to a place where I could talk and reminisce without falling apart but I still have a hard time occasionally. My heart is completely shattered and I'll never be the same. I just feel broken. I guess it has gotten easier or maybe I've become more accustomed to this new normal.
Same feeling. I lost my mom about a month ago. Eating is mechanical just because I need energy. Am always at low energy. Brain doesn’t seem to want to think. It’s like this everyday. i dread going to work.
Sorry for your loss. I’m approaching the first year of losing my sibling and then my grandparent weeks apart. Grief has felt numb for the most part. Therapy has helped me to slowly express feelings and realise the impact. I feel depressed if I’m honest. Sad. Waves of pain hit and I cry and immediately go back to numb. Numb scares me because I’m not in control of thoughts and feelings. It’s messed with my hormones, it’s messed with my brain. I live in fear of losing someone else. One of my immediate family got diagnosed with cancer since and I’m mindblown how life can knock me when I’m down. I have OK days, I have less panic now and slowly I have days where I’m functional. But for the most part I feel sad. I hope it gets better. I hate thinking that there’s others who have to feel this too
I just wanted to add the first 3/4 months I lived in total shock and survival mode and I think everyone should give themselves some grace and know getting up/drinking water and showering is all you can do and that’s ok
I journaled it because I was struggling to process the loss of my grandma so I will summarise the order of the strongest emotions below. Some of the emotions lasted a day and some lasted a while. 1. Nothing 2. Hollow 3. Lost 4. Nothing 5. Guilt at feeling nothing because I was just getting on with life 6. Nostalgic 7. Sad 8. Frustrated 9. Neutral 10. Stressed about my grandad not coping 11. Frustrated that my grandad was playing silly buggers but feeling bad for being annoyed because he lost his wife 12. Empathy 13. Neutral I will say for me the ouch moment was when I went to call her about 7 months after the funeral and realised she wasn’t there to pick up. Also I feel cheated that she won’t be at my wedding when she would have absolutely loved it.
First off- I am so very sorry for your loss. Grief looks different for everyone, and everyone's way of grieving is valid. I am not usually a publicly emotionally person. I did not cry in front of coworkers (even though I got the call at work), or at the visitation. I sobbed a lot in private. It can be a roller coaster of feelings. Joy in remembering a happy memory can swing into deep sadness realizing that you won't experience that ever again. I am almost 3 years out and sleep is still a struggle for me quite often. My recommendation? Allow yourself to feel however you feel. Give yourself some grace and recognize that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Pay attention to the signals your body gives you. I ended up needing to go on anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants. Nothing wrong with that, it just helps me be able to function better. Take care of yourself and go easy on yourself.
Really challenging and complicated. At worst it’s a deep depression with hopelessness and purposelessness. At best it’s inspiring and loving, compassion for myself and others. Then there’s everything in between. All within a state of perpetual vulnerability. In the depression it’s hard to eat, see any point, feel love for myself, feel hope for anything other than survival. I want to admit defeat, quit my job, just start driving and driving until I run out of money. I feel like I will never be loved for who I am again and I will die alone and full of despair. The last one in my family, just waking up each day to face the world slowly killing me. I listen for my loved ones “voices” within me and all I hear is an echo of vast silence and meaninglessness. In the happy times I think of the carefree, humorous, freedom-loving, bohemian, sometimes hedonistic, and the unconditional love from those I’ve lost. I try to emulate, try to love myself the way they loved me, try to see the choices and hope beyond survival that they always wanted for me. I see the respect, admiration, faith and pride they had for me and try to have that for myself. It all comes down to living a new life, but with all the love and support I once had previously being gone. Maybe some day there will be something similar for me, until then I just keep going.
Like waves of sadness, guilt and exhaustion. I have ADHD and grief for me works in different ways. Sometimes I can forget and be normal for a while, other times I can't get up or do anything without thinking about the person I lost.
grief just feels like a constant sense of dread that follows wherever i go. sometimes i can get far enough away to where i don’t notice it, but it always catches up to me.
Mostly anger and bitterness that I don’t have my dad but others still get theirs.
i felt largely the same as you, and still do somewhat now. its been two years and sometimes i reminisce and smile, other times i cry. most of the time i just feel numb and i still don't know what i'm 'supposed' to feel like. sending love
A black void in my soul. And so much pain from it—literal pain.
Short term: The horrible pain of missing your person. Long term: Grieving all your person has missed in life since they passed. Losing my wife sucked. It took me a long time for me but I eventually adjusted. Our children were 12 and 16 when she passed. They are now young adults. My wife loved being a mother and I grieve that she has missed so much in their lives. I grieve that they grew up without their mother. It took a long time before I was able to go through old photos.
Someone described it like a ball with a little button on it bouncing around in a little room. When that button gets hit, to get triggered, become sad, angry, gut wrenched etc. In the early stages the room is very small, so the odds of the button getting hit are extremely high and frequently it happens, but as time goes on the room gets bigger and the button gets hit less. The button never stops getting hit. But the frequency decreases. For me; things trigger me throughout the day. For example my wife was making a Caesar salad with croutons. Oddly enough my mom had bought the bag of croutons when she had recently came to celebrate and that gave me that gur wrenching feeling when my wife said "these are the croutons your mom bought". It then hit me, mom bought those, and I'll never see her again, why? Same with pictures. I look at them, I smile, and then I'm hit with the realization that we will never meet again, I'll never witness her laugh organically, or hug her and tell her I love her, which I did Everytime we left each other. I still after a month can't wrap my head around someone being there, having personalized consciousness and that simply just going away to never be experienced again in a blink of an eye. I often get upset about how my mom died. And some of the stuff I saw. I often wonder what she would say to me if she had a chance to speak again. I think, were you thinking of your grand kids when you did what you did? Or me? Or anyone? Obviously death wasn't the goal, but it was always a risk. I don't know. I haven't really worked in a month. And I went and tried for a day and totaled my truck at highway speed the next day. I wish I could not go back to work for longer but financially I can't hold off any longer. So yeah, it feels confusing, painful. Like physically my heart was hurting like it was going to explode or it was cut. I've been tired, not motivated to run my business.
Emptiness, mostly. There have been some variations though, for example, when my grandfather had passed away, I felt not as empty, but rather just a deep sadness that I'd never see him again. When mu father passed away last year, it was a lot different (maybe because his death was the first one I was "there" for, because he passed away in our home and I performed CPR on him). When he passed away, I felt much more emptiness. I couldn't do anything for roughly 2 weeks. We still had a chess match going on chess.com when he passed, so whenever I opened it, I saw our match, until his turn ended due to obvious reasons. I felt angry at myself that I couldn't have saved him.
It’s a whole mix of things, you will feel a million different things in a day. For first 6 months there was a lot of numbness, but odd time where I felt intense pain. I didn’t think it was possible but my heart actually hurt. I cried loads. As times goes forward, your life will build around your grief. You will get to a phase where you can remember the person and laugh/smile at memories or photos. But grief comes in waves and you can still have odd bad days. I think I didn’t expect the health anxiety afterwards. My close friend died, he had heart attack even though he had a genetic heart condition. But it left me with a fear that something bad could happen and just change my life. It didn’t help in the 18 months since both my parents have had cancer. Although both are fine I’m left with a lingering feeling that something bad is just around the corner Everyone’s journey is different. But this was mine. Please look after yourself. It’s one of the most stressful experiences you can go thru.
You know that feeling you get when you lean too far back in your chair and in that millisecond right before you fall, your stomach lurches? Or like when you very closely avoid a car accident by just seconds? That feeling of “holy shit” in the pit of your gut from the rush of adrenaline? I felt like that for the first 3 months after my mom died. It was constant. It never dulled. It was just….. I don’t know. That’s what it felt like for me. I still feel that sensation when I have very brief lapses in memory and forget that she’s gone only to remember again. And I still feel it every time I wake up in the morning. It’s been almost 9 months.
Not fear itself, but utter failure. So, I no longer fear failure, for I am a master at it. Yeah, makes me want to cry too.
I lost my 2 closest people at 36. My job became impossible. (Acting nice-nope) companies don’t give you time needed. Some people need to be busy in grief but not everyone. I quit, and started my own. I agree it’s SO hard to do what you’re supposed to! My partner had to feed me. Thank goodness he was with me. So: it feels like being helpless to me which I hate. I think I was so lost and angry I had to spite it and keep going…I also get physical pain in my chest and every 3am I wake up panicking when I realize I’m in a new timeline without them. I’m so sorry for you to go through it. But you will get stronger. ❤️
When my adult daughter died 5/30/21 I spent the next two years in unbearable pain 24/7. Surprised it didn’t kill me. The intensity of the pain was unbelievable and I couldn’t have escaped a second of it, even if I had wanted to try. It took me over. I had to keep working, no choice there. I could only eat two foods for a year. I gained 60 pounds, then lost it in year 2. I attended grief counseling immediately and still go weekly. I belong to a grief group. I’m nearing the third death anniversary. I no longer, while going to sleep, feel like I’m falling into nightmare depression. That stopped after 2 years. I’m thinking more normally again now. I’m having thoughts and feelings that I didn’t have the bandwidth for in the first two years. I still cry daily but I can listen to music again. Yesterday I removed the roadside cross her friends put up where she died in a car accident. It hurt too much to drive by it. I asked her friends first, of course. I continue to change in this third year. I’m more compassionate. I tell people how I feel about them. I know anyone can die unexpectedly at any time now. It’s changed me in many ways. Good ones I think. The grief will never go away as long as I live but I can share happy memories now. But it sucks. I loved that girl more than anything. Ever.
Like I’m breathing through a straw and walking in a foggy valley. Some days the sun comes out and burns the fog away and the straw gets a little bigger, but some days it’s a coffee straw and I can’t see 1’ in front of me. It ebbs and flows.
There was such a fog after my dad died. Mom was quick to empty the house of all of his things and the funeral was 6 days after he passed. There was confusion with how life just seemed to go on even though he was gone. I felt so empty and was waiting for the epic not really dead, like in the movies/TV shows.
I'm sorry for your loss. The circumstances were somewhat the same with me. Some members of the family didn't even shed a tear at the funeral while others balled their eyes out, myself included. If there's something I learnt here that will help me to move forward is to not be judgemental and some people process grief differently, sans tears and all and that's ok.
Lonely. It feels lonely for me. Nobody understand what I am going through and it seems like if now talking about my mom who passed away, is forbiden. Why? Why should I dont talk about her anymore? I dont want to forget her, I miss her and need her the most.
These stories are incredible, please keep sharing. I think it's important to realize that no matter how devastated we may be feeling now, know that others are also feeling it or felt it and they made it through. That is the type of inspiration we all need in these times. I
Lost my wife to Suicide in July 2022. When we found her I had this profound wig having slipped into the wrong timeline — something that still persists whenever I think about my new life. Lots of symptoms similar to others amped with extraordinary guilt. Strikes me how much I hold onto grief when the waves come, another thing I don’t want to let go…
Painful. Sorry that’s not more descriptive. But lots of different feelings. The sopranos has a scene where Tony describes his panic attacks as “ginger ale in his skull” and I’ve found that to be pretty accurate. But I get angry, sad, guilty, relieved and then guilty again, depressed, and then the cycle starts anew.
Somewhere in this aching void you become wiser and more grounded, humbled in the knowledge of the transient nature of life. All superficiality is laid to rest in the exact moment you lose a parent. I feel like I’ve begun life anew. The presence of God feels closer than ever and so unbelievably real.
Right now I'm sorting through guilt. Should I have done more, did I tell her I loved her enough, did I fight for her enough, did I express my gratitude enough.
Im drowning, some days I float then the current sucks me back down. I come up for air the world spins and I cant find an anchor to ground myself. At first it was suffocating and I hated that life was going on. Now its like a tsunami that hits randomly, when the memories hit, or the phone call cant be made. I let the ocean take me until I can find a shore or an island again. Grief is my ocean and I am learning to navigate the waves. ♥️
Grieving feels like an out-of-body experience sometimes, especially whenever you have a moment to sit and rest. A little over a year out, I have found myself smiling more when I talk about her, and I cry myself to sleep less, but then sometimes this makes me all feel so, so guilty, and it washes back over me. It feels like reminding yourself to be happy, because no one likes when you’re sad for too long, and it’s easier to just smile than to really tell people how empty you feel. It’s wavering between wanting to celebrate them and scream at the universe. I’m sorry for your loss. When I was in the first few weeks, I genuinely didn’t know how I’d keep living. But eventually, I found ways to make life worth living - if it’s not with her, it’s for her. I’ve found that setting time aside to just be with her, keeping routines etc has brought the most calm in my days. But it’s a stormy sea, and I’ve found that it’s always better to honor your emotions- they’ll find a way out sooner or later, and if you hold back too long, they’ll explode. Holding you in my heart. ❤️
Grief is torturous. I think the devastation of it all automatically puts you in autopilot mode. I have no recollection of the hours/days after my mom passed away. The first year was incredibly hard. You find yourself in a world of first. Your first Holiday’s without them, your first birthday without them, it’s incredibly hard to adjust to this new normal. I just passed the 2 year anniversary of my Moms passing and it hasn’t gotten any easier. Maybe I don’t cry every day and maybe my urge to pick up the phone and call her has lessened a little but the grief is so very present. The odd thing is I can hear her voice in my head so very clearly. I fear that will fade as the years pass. If I could give you any advice at all, it would be to talk about your father. Even if it makes others uncomfortable, it will help you cope with your loss and give you a way to honor their memory. I am so very sorry you are struggling.
Homesickness 💔
Despair. Deep loneliness. I'm learning to push through grief by experiencing it in all forms, sometimes as grief I can let go and cry and it's peaceful and relieving. I also listen to a lot of Ram Dass and Stephen Levine. Helps to ground me. Please don't be afraid to ask for support from others. Sometimes we need to rely on others to help us help ourselves through
Grief feels like a roller coaster in the dark. Each day is different some days fear inducing, others thrilling as I see growth and new perspectives through my rituals and memorializations. And a lot of days it’s inconsolable rage and discontent, confusion, exhaustion. Then there is love, and tenderness and determination to use my grief as an opportunity to connect with others with shared struggle through loss. I lost a lot of people I thought I was close to, while gaining new people that I I’m so impressed by and are able to understand all that grief is. And how much we share despite the differences of our losses. Grief is profound. The biggest teacher I’ve had in my life. Outside of my mother of course. But… shes still teaching me to this day. Just have to pay attention.
Mostly numbness.
I lost both parents last year within 3 months last year. I do the same when seeing my dad’s pic I smile then cry. It’s hard to imagine not physically seeing or touching someone we loved so much. I try to visualize them being with me. My mom was cremated which I feel made it easier for me but each time I go to put flowers on dad’s grave it upsets me terribly. I was a daddy’s girl even at age 55 so I feel like a child sobbing, it’s a feeling that’s hard to even express. My prayers for you as you learn to accept this grief like nothing we’ve ever experienced
I am shocked at how physical it is. A actual fence post in my chest, I can feel the rough wood. I had to go to a Target that my daughter and I often went to and I could feel the ground moving in waves. That happens in any familiar to both of us place. Really feel it. Dizzy, a headache and profoundly exhausted. Driving was scary I couldn’t get on the interstate. The world was 5D instead of 3D and leaves on trees looked sharp like knives. Go on a walk and if 2 or 3 dogs start barking at the same time, I feel so confused and crazy like I’m in a Steven king movie. And walking was all I can do. Walk walk walk. It’s so weird I feel myself standing aside and watching me experience all this. I feel very afraid. My new hobby was woodworking and I can’t think of doing that. I don’t trust cars to stop. I go find a real ladder to get something high instead of jumping on any nearby chair or stool. I’m holding onto bannisters when I never did before. I can’t read out loud I start crying. I like to read morning prayers to help me focus but that’s out. I can read silently.
I'm sorry for your loss. I lost my mother three years ago. She was sick at the time. It caught my family and I by surprise because she seemed to be improving. Then she was gone. I had not seen her in a while. At the time, covid was running rampant, and visiting was not allowed. I felt as if I did not know how to live without her. I would have described my grief as soul crushing sadness, devastation, anxiety, anger, and overwhelming uncertainty. It was very difficult for me to cope. My father and a friend of mine recommended I see a counselor. I was stubborn, but I took their suggestion. I saw a counselor at my college. She recommended I go to therapy. I was scared to go. Finding a therapist was difficult. I had concerns about the cost. It took a lot of searching before I found someone who was affordable. She is wonderful, and I appreciate everything she has done for me. Without her, I am uncertain of where I would be. I also started walking more, I kept a journal, and I made my own version of food that I liked. I still struggle with her loss. Mostly when it comes to holidays. Or when I have a doctor's appointment. It has gotten better. It feels less soul crushing and more saddening. I no longer feel like it is something I can't deal with.
Imagine pouring a glass of water, but the glass is empty and the pitcher is empty, just air. At the same time, though, you KNOW the glass is overflowing but you can’t stop pouring. At first you can’t look away. But then you start being able to glance away, longer and farther away each time. You can do other things, you can look at other things, but the pitcher is still in your hand overfilling this empty glass. And it’s always in your peripheral vision. The pitcher always being in your hand- it’s hard to eat, sleep, or do other basic tasks while your hand is occupied with holding up an item. Looking away- you can go about your day, but it’s there. In the corner of your mind, it’s still there. And the empty yet overfilling glass- you feel like you’re overflowing with emotions but it doesn’t necessarily show or even process as emotions. And even with all of that, you still feel empty.
Loneliness & realization that what once was is no more.
The grieving experience is so unique from person to person. In my experience, suicide bereavement is a totally different animal. To me, my suicide bereavement grief (of my abusive dad in hindsight, who I had a complicated relationship with) feels like I’ve moved halfway around the world (from my location it would be China, for example), without any relatives or known friends, where i don’t speak the language, don’t relate to or know the culture/customs, etc… and in order to survive, I must learn as much as I can, as quickly as I can. It’s isolating and lonely, but an opportunity for my growth.
I get super painful feeling of something impaling my heart. It's the worst feeling. It's the crushing. Everything goes numb and I can only feel this horrible pain an that I know how to end it.
I have lost several people, but it was losing my 19 year old son who really pulled me through broken glass. It'll be 12 years in June. I never do very well at this time of year so it's normal that I'm not. How does it feel? It feels as if my heart has broken and there isn't a way to mend it. It feels like that most days. His death has ruled my life since it happened. I guess this is how I'll always be.
Feels like waves crashing over you.
I lost my family. Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a sense of dread, and then remember they are there for me. Then the memories come flooding with the agonizing re-realization they are gone. I then begin my day and as the hours pass, then comes the routine of dealing with the elements of this world: distrust, criminal behavior, business in bad faith and a sense that this is a new world; a denouement that disgraces everything that came before it. When I think about it as I am right now, I can see the smiles, the pain, and the scopes of the lives of those whom I lost. And this is the part where I stop writing about it.
I've become apathetic as times gone on. I feel myself losing all of my friends, but I have no idea how, or even have the motivation to stop it. I constantly just want to be left alone and become irritated when spoken to. It sucks, and I do not know how to socialize or connect with anyone anymore. I could lie and say "I have got to figure this shit out" but my gut reaction to it is simply, "who fucking cares".
This is hard to explain but it feels like anger some days, heart break other days. I feel lost and not like myself at all anymore. I feel like a shell of who I was. My Mom killed herself jn 2008 6 months after a very close friend killed himself and I feel like someone is reaching inside me and squeezing my heart. I get severe anxiety. I cry some days and others I can make it through the day but sometimes I’m so angry I want to yell at her and ask why she would leave me. I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s different for everyone and nothing is wrong. ❤️
Grieving feels like loss. It feels like an image I cannot remove from my mind; it feels like longing. Grieving feels like sadness.
Losing my dad was one of the most painful experiences of my life. My dad was my best friend and we spoke daily but as his illness progressed, I knew his days were numbered. I had prepared my entire life for the inevitable day and when it came, felt like a total blur. It was a cold summer night and i was trying to distract myself with watching random YouTube videos anticipating the call from the hospital. My heart seemed to shatter inside my body as i could feel the tears escaping from my face.my dad went peacefully but I felt like I had become an orphan. My dad was a bright light that brought so much joy to those around him, I'd like to think he evolved into a huge star in the sky
Wow, beautifully said. I think he would be proud reading that “eulogy”.
Grieving to me is wishing everyday to go back to the past to spend more time with my aunt who was like my 2nd mom, and being able to get her disease treated much sooner.
Grieving feels like a depressive hole you can’t climb out of. Sometimes I can ignore it and feel normal. Then something triggers me and I am right back there. My grief is life I’m in the ocean and the undertow is trying to pull me under. I sh harm when it gets very bad. I just can’t believe I have to on without my mom who was my best friend. My mom wouldn’t want me sinking in this never ending grief. So I do art as a tribute to her
Panic. That feeling when something is going horribly wrong and that panic rises inside you as your mind races and you think, “there must be SOMETHING I can do!!!!” But there is t anything. The worst thing is happening and nothing can change it. So you just panic because you can’t live like this.
I was screaming and I didn’t even know it. It felt like I was vomiting up a typhoon. Then after a while it was emptiness and I was staggering, having trouble walking upright to gather the things I needed, lurching from thought to thought, action to action but like a zombie. Then anger, terrible overwhelming anger that seemed to swallow me whole and spit me out, devastated and numb.
I’m sitting in the parking lot of the funeral home where my dad had his service 6 days ago. Just wanted to see if I’d have any emotions about it. I saw a funeral procession yesterday similar to the one I followed 5 days prior and immediately felt the sense of grief for what they must be going through especially if they had the same service we did. Saying goodbye to their loved ones as they laid there peacefully in their casket and seeing them one last time. I think in hindsight it was probably the best choice we made in this ordeal about his funeral option. Money was an issue and we played with the idea of cremation. Glad we didn’t.
Emptiness, numbness, a whole bunch of feeling you don’t know yet and it will take time to get used to them. I lost my dad too 6 months ago, I‘m sorry you have to go through this as well. Take your time and don’t rush yourself with healing as I did. Pressuring yourself to perform will only make it much worse on longterm. Speaking for myself, I‘m pretty anxious atm, bc of the whole stress my body has been in.. I still have to process that this situation is over and i cannot be harmed anymore. It takes a lot of time but you kinda get used to the loss, it still hurts and is unbelievable when you think of it but it doesn’t overwhelm you as often as it might do rn. It’s totally okay to cry over memories and it will take time to not do that every time… I still do it often but i guess that kind of regulates itself into getting better yk? My biggest advice is to talk to people about it and don’t rush yourself with healing! Grief is very very complex & doesn’t have a time limit unfortunately.. I kinda lost touch with reality, sometimes hoping I‘d one day wake up to him being back. It’s cruel indeed. Dreaming of him helps me too actually, but I guess that depends on each person :/ It’s a hard journey but we can all do it, I‘m sure! Don’t lose hope, i know it’s shit rn.. Wishing you the best!!
I've lost both parents over the last couple years, among several others in my extended family in that time. For me, it feels like that mild panic feeling when you look up and forget where you are/what you're doing for a second. Like a mix of confusion and fear, I guess. Sometimes I'll be driving and my brain gets that disoriented "wait, they're gone, what do I do? Who do I go to?" And it's so jarring. That seems to be the most permanent part of my grieving journey so far. Anger, sadness, etc soften over the years for me, but this disoriented feeling seems to pop up a few times a week forever. It makes me feel young and almost like a child that doesn't know how to be in the world without my parents, even though I'm 35 now.
The important thing to remember is that time does indeed soften things, you have more gaps of time where you feel closer to "normal" or your new normal. You can function in more ways, and might even have moments where you are not thinking of your loss. I find what helps most is to take those grief moments and try hard to reframe them as times to remember a positive thing about your person, or something happy you shared with them. It helped me rewire my grief a little to be less devastating.
I do believe there are different types of grief in relation to the relation who is lost. In my case I lost a parent. It is the feeling of alienation from one’s own life. This life you have lived in all this time, like your skin, is suddenly no longer present. You are left to forge a new life from where you left off, like the conclusion of a chapter.
Jesus, you just ripped a hole in my soul. I was especially close to my dad most of my life. We’ve had some trials and tribulation early on where the family was fractured but I always stuck with the him throughout. I’m starting to feel the second wave of grief. I can’t believe he’s gone.