My brother, my dad & now my beautiful sister. Years of grief!

[Tasha82]

Hi there,

I have just become a member here at BB in hope that I may find some help dealing with my feelings of having lost my closest family members.

The trauma of loss begun when I was 25. I lost my brother in a car accident 9 years ago. I lost my father to a heart attack 5 years ago. Now just last October I lost my sister to suicide. It seems she took her life on the anniversary of our brothers passing. I am just broken!

The first time I am using the work suicide is just now in this forum. I have not been able say it allowed yet to people. Denial, I don't know?!? I was my sisters 'carer'. She has suffered mental illness for many years but over the last year she has been so well & I simply did not see this coming. Again I am broken. She has 3 children, two daughters in their 20's & my nephew who has just turned 15. Although my sister loved each & every one of her kids, it was my nephew she worried about the most. I have taken him under my wing & have him most weekends now. We talk a lot about his mum, my sister & our loss however it is still just so difficult for us both. I feel a debt to my sisiter to make sure he & her girls are ok, all while I am trying to deal with my own grief. It's so hard!

The loss of my sister is raw. I am not healed from the grief of losing Dad & my brother, & now my sister. How do I go on missing them all? I feel so sad & I cry every day when I am on my own. I have nightmares, most recently about my sister as I had to formerly identify her after I called the police worried about her that day. I go to work everyday & put on a brave face. I feel if I didn't do that, depression would set in. I am being brave for the kids & for my mum however now it's getting harder. I feel so sad that I have lost my beautiful sister this way. Although my grief for my brother & my dad still pains me, the way I lost them I have accepted was out of my control. My sisters death I have not accepted, at all. I feel so sad that she was in such a dark place & I was not by her side to pull her through in this most recent darkest moment. I was always there for her through her hard times & despite having suffered mental illness on & off I never once thought her to be suicidle. How nieave of me! It would have taken one phone call from me that day to her to know how she was feeling, it could have changed everything.

I am sorry this post is a little all over the place, my head is all over the place. I needed to vent, so thank you for listening.

Tasha

[White_Rose]

Dear Tasha

Hello and welcome to Beyond Blue. I am so very sorry that you are enduring this dreadful grief and loss of so many family members. I know that grief and although each person feels their grief differently we all know we are all hurting. I have lost my parents and one older sister and I cried buckets. Still do some days. So what can you do about this?

First of all, many congratulations on taking care of your nephew. He is at a tricky age going through puberty and having his emotions turned upside down simply because of his hormones, plus grieving for his mom. You are doing the right thing by talking about your family losses. Talking about those who have passed away can help us to let them go, so to speak. We remember the good times we had, the family jokes we shared, the idiosyncrasies of everyone. It helps to ease the pain a little.

We know they will not return and every time you remember that, the hurt starts again. Time will ease the pain as it seems to be doing for your father and brother, but as you also know, it will be a while before it passes. I am saying this, not to cause you further pain, but to reassure you you will get back on your feet, you will remember them with a smile and give thanks for their lives.

No one in their senses will tell you that you will forget them, it's not true, but it will get better. A friend of mine lost her son and was told by another friend. "You will never forget (them) but the times between remembering will get longer". And this very true. My mom died 16 years ago and I still miss her but usually with a smile as I am reminded of one of her sayings. My daughter used one of my mom's saying once and started to laugh. I'm getting just like grandma she said. These are the sort of memories that you will treasure and which will help move on.

Please do not try and be brave. The amount of energy you use doing this is enormous and it would be better used to help you mourn and help both your nephew and mom. You are feeling guilty about your sister and believe you failed her when she was in need. This is really not true. We all have these feelings, if only I had..... This was your sister's choice however much you deny it. I'm not being insensitive. Your sister's death was not your fault. I think much of your grief is coming from this feeling of guilt.

Have you talked to your GP about this? Ask him/her to refer you to a grief counsellor. Out of word limit, will write later.

Mary

[geoff]

hello Tasha, all of this must be so terrible for you to have to cope with, I can only say how deeply sorry I am for you to have to struggle through all of this, because it's such an enormous amount of sorrow for anybody to have to cope with, I just hope that you are still checking your post, to see whether or not anyone has replied back to you, because that's what I want to do, because you need so much support.
My deepest sympathy and condolences to you. L Geoff. x

[quirkywords]

Tasha

What a lot of grief you have had to cope with.

It is wonderful you are looking out for your nephew that will really help him and you.

I agree with White Rose that grief counselling can help. I had a friend who was not coping with the death of her husband and it a while but the grief counselling helped.

One thing someone told me was that there is no right way to grieve / People grieve in their own ways.

Thinking of you .

Please let us know how you are.

Quirkywords