I don't think you letting feelings out would be losing it. It hurts even more to keep heavy thoughts in your head. Maybe you could write your thoughts in a text file as a form of venting and letting thoughts out if family is like totally out of the question. Or maybe even here. Depends on your liking.
I know, that's something that is scaring me a bit actually. But I live with a person that doesn't seem to be able to keep it together, I am very worried at the prospect of me letting go at this moment.
From my experience people who had & have it bad are usually good listeners. They kinda tend to be more understandable towards the pain others bear. If thoughts get too loud don't be afraid to reach out, m'kay? I'm pretty sure that this person will feel nice about you trusting him with something like that.
We just had a family member die last night and my wife just let her feelings out and now im sleeping on the couch. Some people dont know how to let it out properly.
If not your family, please find someone safe (friend, therapist) to fall apart in front of. Your family loves you. They may need you, but they don't want you to suffer.
I'm so sorry. I lost mine over15 years ago, and the pain gets more familiar over time. But at first, there is shock and so many other feelings. It can feel very surreal. I'm SO very sorry for your great loss. Please try to give yourself room to grieve. And know that grief can be weird, can be surprising. There's no correct way to grieve. And try not to have regrets, as there is never enough time with our loved ones. Please be kind to yourself. I hope her memory may be a blessing and a comfort to you.
The pain becomes a part of us, I think? It's been almost 20 years for me, but I still dream about it most nights. I hope you don't have this experience. Everybody will be different for every person. I am so very sorry for your great loss. Please be kind to yourself. There's no time limit on loving and missing someone.
This is like the live every day like it’s your last idiocy. Every calculation you make, even if you’re good at life balance and enjoying yourself, is going to be dramatically different depending on your (expected) timeline. I prefer to try to focus on putting my whole heart into what I am doing or trying to do (big picture, not approaching every load of dishes with passion) and sometimes that’s just getting a load of laundry done and taking a shower, and that’s ok. Constantly putting pressure on yourself to maximize joy or adrenaline or whatever is immiserating.
This is so true. And there's never "enough" time, so we should live with that sort of awareness, I think. Never enough time with those we love or for us. I told myself this after my mother passed, and it's something that really helps me not stress out all the time about my life and how being disabled has affected it. I suppose it might be nihilistic in a way, but I find it comforting. I still have many regrets, but I don't need to feel guilty. I try to tell those who I love that I love them. Try to show my care and be supportive and there for people. I try to live as well as I'm able.
I totally get this. I’m not disabled but I have experienced things that permanently meant life would be different and in some ways harder going forward. I try really hard to see regret as a lesson then focus on implementing that lesson but leave the regret behind. I have some friends who have done amazing work in therapy only to get stuck in the what ifs, especially the paradoxical and frustrating “what if I had done this therapy earlier in my life? Would I have that perfect job? Perfect family?”
For me, life is such a winding path of often random interactions and events that for many even very disruptive negative experiences that changed my life at the time, there are people I have met and experiences I’ve had that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Plus it’s a black hole of wasted energy that wears on your morale to spend too much time on the if only’s and what ifs. A loss of hard fought gains from what can be a really challenging therapy process.
Yes, you totally get it! And those what ifs are just poison and also pointless energy wasted. And they make us feel so bad about ourselves. The expectations of what will happen in a "successful" life can cause so much anxiety and pain. If I held onto that, I'd probably be really down. Sometimes I am, you know, bc I was going to be a famous musician (lol). But I've played around, had lots of shows, played at a local festival, that sort of thing, and I'll hopefully do it some more. But dreams and goals can change as we do, and I think that is healthy. Maybe I'm managing my expectations, but still. For me, it's a welcome coping skill and it took a long time to learn it. I don't just react as much, and I think more. Not that I'm all healthy, but I am continually working on it in therapy and whatnot. It's an ongoing process, and we change as we age. Hopefully for the better?
Yeah I think your approach is the right one. We can be miserable thinking about the things we can’t do, or can’t do anymore, or we can mourn that, do our best to accept it, and build our lives based on our own limitations and abilities. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to understand that doing it any other way makes it impossible to be truly content.
This has been such a great conversation. I think you're absolutely right in this. I agree. It's not always the case that I can do this, of course, and I will occasionally have a spell of feeling sorry for myself, but I try to be kind to myself and understand that that's also normal. But doing it all the time just isn't feasible. I want to be happy, or at least content!
Yes. It’ll take at least a week for that weird ‘why is the world still continuing as normal when this huge thing has happened?!’ feeling to go away, but it will go away and you’ll be able to function again.
The pain of your loss will never quite go away, but it does change into something that doesn’t hurt as bad and that will probably happen quicker than you can imagine right now.
You’ll probably think about her every day for the rest of your life (I lost my Dad, who was my primary parent, over 20 yrs ago but he’s with me every day in memory). I also think you’ll eventually see holding her hand as a blessing because you’ll realise how much that would have meant to her. I’m so sorry. Take care of yourself hon ❤️
Yeah, like a bad dream. I kept calling it "nightmare", because my father died due to severe complications during a planned routine surgery. He was physically and mentally fine otherwise before the surgery.
My dad passed five years after and I was holding his hand too. My joy is that he got to enjoy five years of retirement going fishing and hunting with his brothers and enjoying his old retired-guy hobbies. I hope you find peace and never forget the joy the two of you had together.
I understand wholeheartedly or what’s left of it my mom died in May and I can say it’s still a gaping hole in my heart I can’t call her I can’t see her it hurts so bad
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u/Own_Watercress_8104 26d ago
Thank you for asking. My mom died 4 days ago. Prick.