Having a hard time

[Sadmummy101]

Hi I’m new here...I guess I’m just not able to get over the amount of grief and heartache I’ve experienced in the past 3.5 years. heres my story.

so I was expecting my first baby due July 21st 2015...my world seemed pretty perfect I had everything I ever could dream of. Then on the weekend of July 18th-20th 2015 my mum got unwell with a cold...on the 20th of July i had a conversation with her in the morning and I knew in my heart something was wrong. By lunch time she had become unconscious at home and by 7:40pm she was gone. I was highly devastated. She was my best friend. We would talk every day expect for Sunday’s because that’s when we went to go have family lunch with my parents and siblings. Life was never the same. Dad was completely heartbroken and pretty much died that night too.

3 months later in September he had an emergency operation due to bowel cancer and life was a constant battle for just under 3 years for him. It was always one thing after the other the cancer kept spreading and made him slowly deteriorate...last year at the start of July he ended up in palliative care and his body started shutting down. So for the last 3 nights of his life I would go and stay with him every night...the last night I knew something was wrong I was constantly msging my oldest sister who understands medical terminology but more so coz I knew he wasn’t right....eventually that night as I was waiting for my oldest sister to arrive I was pacing up and down outside his room and I heard my father take his last breath...I was sooo heartbroken.

i just feel like life ha just thrown the biggest curve ball... although in the time I have had my 2 girls it’s such a struggle some days...I hate being a grumpy mum...I hate that we are also struggling financially! It just so much stress that keeps building up and I feel like one day I’m going to crack. I just don’t know how to get over this whole slump I’m in.

My heart just feels so broken and so tired 😓

[White_Rose]

Dear Sadmummy

A warm welcome to the forum and very sincere apologies you have not received a reply earlier. It's not much help to say we do try to respond to everyone quickly but sometimes we miss things.

Thank you for telling us about yourself. I am very sorry to learn of your losses. We expect parents to pass away before children but it does not help much when it happens. When my mom dies I cried buckets every day for six months when I got home from work, plus lots of tears at other times. It does take a long time to accept the loss and in general we never forget. It will get easier I promise but right now you are hurting and want comfort.

Having babies is stressful and tiring in any circumstance but combining with your loss I'm not surprised you feel tired and struggling. How are your siblings coping? Do you talk to each other? There can be lots of comfort in sharing memories even if it makes you cry at the same time. Tears can be healing as I know.

One way to help yourself is to keep a journal. I know that sounds like extra work but there is lots of evidence to show this can help you understand and feel better about your parents. Keep your writing in a book or keep a file on your computer, whichever suits you best. Can you write say at least three times a week for a couple of weeks and see how it goes?

Something many people have found helpful is to have a day (or a few hours) to celebrate the lives of your parents. Get the family together with anyone else who cared deeply about your parents. Plan a joint activity, something your parents would like such as planting a tree or shrub, making a small garden in their memory. This sort of thing can help bring you all together and a place where you can sit and remember in the future. Get out the photos and remind yourselves of the good and happy times you had. Laughter is a great healer and you had many such times in the family. It is good to revisit these times and remember how much you cared for each other and how often you laughed.

Get everyone to remember one particular time of importance to them and talk about it. It may seem a bit stilted at first but it can really help your hurt and loss. This is the good part of talking about someone, it eases your grief. Please continue to write in here and talk about your hurt. That also helps and again my apologies for the slow reply.

Mary