Losing Mum

[FriendlyGiant]

Hi everyone,

This is my first time to the beyond blue community, and in fact the first time I'm reaching out for support. I'm a little lost where to start, so bear with me if you will.

I'm originally from the UK and moved to Australia just over four years ago with my wife. Last year I had possibly one of the most rewarding / challenging years of my life. Not least including: starting a new business (and hiring / firing employees), the birth of my first child, a dozen or so Interstate trips, a few international trips, moving house and most devastatingly the loss of my mother (that lived in the UK).

Needless to say the roller coaster of these events has worn me down, and had me on my knees for a few months. For the best part, I'm no stranger to adversity and have coped with most of the challenges as best as anyone can / could. However, the loss of my Mother has stayed with me, and I regularly feel the weight of the loss. 

I was able to return to the UK for her funeral, and to help my sister with as much of the 'tidying' as I could (with a 9 month old baby and wife in tow). The relationship with my Sister was very strained (she was Mum's primary carer, as Mum got worse), and she made the situation a lot more difficult at the time than was needed (thankfully this is somewhat resolved now - Oddly her behaviour was her way of coping too I guess). Mum was only 62 when she passed, and I certainly feel like she was stolen from us to soon. I hate not having her in my life to share the joy of my baby growing up and to be the wonderful grandmother I knew she could have been.

I'm not afforded much time to indulge in self-reflection between family & work, but often find myself feeling down, sad and sometimes in tears thinking of Mum. I know that a lot of this is normal giving the loss of such an important person in my life, and that it's certainly not unique, I'm just struggling to find a mechanism to process the loss and to relieve some of the anxiety I think I have.

Having a (now) 16 month baby around to keep me occupied, certainly does a pretty good job at keeping my mind on the positives of life, but (between that and work) it also restricts how & when I can grieve. I'm sad to say I've (verbally) snapped at my wife once or twice when I've been feeling down, and she hasn't been able to see that I was sad (she's not a mind reader, so I certainly don't blame her!).

I know I'm the only one that can pull myself out of grieving, and that it's not necessarily a pain that ever goes all together, but I'm keen to hear other people's advice on how I can navigate this loss and learn to reflect on the positives of Mum's life so I can learn to be positive once more and get back to enjoying life as an otherwise very lucky husband / father with a wonderful little family of my own.

[Neil_1]

Dear FG (I just love shortening names!);

Firstly welcome to Beyond Blue and might I say "Well done" to you for coming here and providing your post to this site.

Secondly, can I just express my sympathies to you for the loss of your Mum.  From what I can read between the lines, it was roughly about 7 months ago, yeah?  Still VERY raw it is FG, so all of what you're experiencing and feeling now is totally ok.

There is no right way or wrong way when dealing with grief.  Every person who has been through it, could possibly tell you a different story for how they dealt with it.

I can see that with the business that you've got, PLUS your wonderful little bundle of joy, that as you quite rightly say, these things can play a big part on the times when you are able to grieve and again, that's ok.

With regard to your wife, I don't know if you've actually sat down and spoken to her in a similar vein to what you've written here - as in to express just HOW you feel in regard to the loss of your Mum.  If you haven't it might well be a very good thing to do that, so she's fully up to speed with where you're at currently.

Normally when people come here, I don't hesitate in suggesting to them that a GP visit would be a good thing to get some professional help, and you know, this might be a good thing for you as well.  You've constructed your message extremely well and I can really sense a strong character underneath, and it may be that you just need a little assistance to help you through this current situation that you're experiencing.  Just to get some words from you know, someone who deals with these kinds of instances on a much more regular basis than we do on here;  as well as they would be heaps more knowledgeable with mechanisms and options to help you progress forward.

Having said that FG, we are always here and are only too happy to provide responses and advice (if possible) back to you.  So with that, I hope this post has helped even in a small way and I would really like to hear back from you as well.

Kind regards

Neil

ps:  give that little bambino of yours an extra big hug.

[geoff]

dear FG, as Neil has mentioned a lot of good help and advice, and I can't forget that he is struggling with a few issues, and Neil I'm so sorry to mention this, and always will, but your determination to help others is remarkable, full stop period.

What I would like to say is that you now have a new bubb, an adorable baby loved of course by you and your wife, so her focus is now on the baby and not your mum or family, maybe she didn't have any time for them as they lived overseas, so the communication was only small, so she can't relate to your sorrow.

I'm sorry that she has passed away at really a young age of 62, and I say this because I will be 60 at the end of this year, and yes I do feel old, but my lovely sons say 'your not old Dad', but to a 20 year old I am.

I know how it feels to lose a parent, especially my dear Mum, because she was a vegetable in a nursing home but before she passed away she opened her eyes at who was there and gave us a small smile, you do see this on the movies and nobody believes that it is real, but I can tell you that this actually did happen.

The only way for you to grieve is through counselling. Geoff.

[FriendlyGiant]

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your kind words, and for taking the time to respond. 

My Mum passed in September last year, so yeah roughly about 7 / 8 months ago. It does indeed still feel pretty raw. 

My relationship with my mother had gotten worse over the last few years, she was suffering with underlying liver issues which we were later told would have affected her behaviour. I loved her dearly, and although I was often subject to a torrent of undeserved verbal abuse (never once retaliating disrespectfully) I think I withdrew from her to protect myself. I think if I had to self-diagnose at this point, there's probably a large part of my sadness that comes from wishing I'd known what was causing her behaviour so I could have helped her more. As opposed to distancing myself from her.

I'm lucky to have a very strong, and emotionally open, relationship with my wife. She knows that I'm struggling but can't often see as to where or when I'm upset (not unreasonably so). I guess that comes down to how I show it, I've likely gotten so used to hiding my hurt that sitting in silence having some self-reflection can quite easily look the same as sitting and flicking through social media! 

I try and tell my wife when I'm feeling down so she knows where I'm at, but I think it's the moment where sadness creeps up on me that catches us both by surprise. I wont let this hurt our relationship, it's this that's made me look for other ways to try and navigate my grief. 

Your most probably quite right, with regard to getting some external, and objective, help. It can be hard to let my wife help me though this when I like to stay strong for her and my baby. I know it's ok to show I'm vulnerable, but it's something subconscious (for me) that stops me I think.

Are there any free, or low cost ways of obtaining grief counselling? Finances are tight to say the least at the moment, so Id struggle to pay.

Once again thanks for replying, just having somebody say "it's ok" much the way my Mum would have done, has been helpful 🙂

PS: Giving the bub plenty of cuddles, when he let's me 😉 

PPS: Thanks for giving, when you yourself have your own battles, sending you positive wishes too and hope that your victories with these come thick and fast 🙂

[FriendlyGiant]

Thanks for your response Geoff.

My wife probably spoke with my mother as often as I did, and if anything was the glue in my maternal relationship (given the difficulties I've mentioned in my response to Neil).

I think its more the case here that my wife (thankfully) hasn't lost a parent and cant relate to the emotions of it. Its often subtleties that can upset me, and I try to not let every one of those be a conversation point. Over time though I think they come back to bite me and I should perhaps have a mechanism to let her know early rather than let it boil over.

My condolences for losing your mother too, its a pain I don't think I'll forget in a hurry. I don't think most people do, but in some form they find a way of replacing  the pain with more positive memories to honour the ones they've lost. I just don't feel I'm quite able to do that yet, and more often feel upset than fond memories.

Thanks for your nod towards counselling too. I've had life coaching in the passed and found it massively helpful, it's a shame that coach is back in the UK otherwise I'd be knocking their door!

Thanks for taking the time to reply 🙂

[Meh___]

Hi FriendlyGiant

I'm only new to this forum myself and so much good advice has been given that I just want to say you really aren't alone. No matter what you say or how you say it there's going to be someone here who can relate.

I lost both my parents in my 20s, five years apart, from cancer. Dad was 57 and Mum died at 58 years. I felt like my world had stopped and I wondered for a really long time what the point was. My partner couldn't understand my grief either, never having lost even a close relative and I also struggled with my brother who was grieving very differently to me and I have, sadly, completely lost contact with him. It's surprising how common difficulties are between siblings when a parent dies but I'm pleased you seem to have made some progress in mending things with your sister.

Here you can say whatever you need to, whenever you need to and there's no recriminations, judgements or expectations. I didn't come here back then but I did stumble upon an online community for people experiencing grief and those conversations quickly became an important part of my (dealing) healing process. 

I hope you can find it within yourself to not force the grieving process to be over in a set amount of time. One day at a time... those happy memories will return but not until your head and heart are ready to embrace them. I admire the honesty of your post and the way you reflect on things and really think you would benefit from some grief counselling. I'm pleased you're considering it and hope you find something suitable - it may just be the thing that helps lift you a little. 

Thank you for sharing your story and I hope you find comfort from sharing with the people here.