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I feel like my mother was only a dream


Anne1962

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Does anyone else in this forum ever get this horrible feeling that the life of your loved one was just a figment of your imagination, a dream? That maybe they never even really existed? I struggle with this a lot, 5 months after my mom's death, and it tears me up inside. I'm 55, my mom was 80 when she died, so I feel as though I should be handling this better. I go days without thinking of her, then it hits me all over again and I'm swept up in grief fro what she went through and guilt for not thinking of her. The rest of the time I feel as though there's nothing solid about her life to hold onto now---it's all just pale memories that might as well be imaginary. I hate this feeling.Am I losing it?

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StruggleBus

Hi, I felt the same way. Like everything I had lived with my mother had never really happened and that I never really was that happy and naive. My mother died four weeks ago and everything before that seems so far away. I think it's because this pain we're feeling envelops us so thoroughly that anything else doesn't feel real. 

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I'm still struggling to believe my dad is gone.  I'm in my early 40's and my dad was early 70's.  We lived a few hours apart, so its been easy for me to be busy with work and forget about it, until it hits me.  Like you, I feel like I should be handling it better but I feel like a little girl who lost her daddy.  I'm not ready to live without him.  

 

As for the memories, have you thought about getting a journal and writing everything you can remember about your mom?  I read this recommendation online so one doesn't forget.  Write how she looked.  What she loved to do and all her favorite things.  Even write down stories you remember about her.

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Losing a parent is an almost impossible concept to grasp.  I lost my mom over 4 months ago and the more time passes, the less real her last weeks feel.  Her entire last year had been a nightmare, and although those memories are still vivid, they feel so fake.  I don't think feeling like your mom's life was a dream is that far off.  Grieving bombs us with extreme and difficult and confusing emotions that is all too surreal to absorb.  For the longest time I felt my life during those first months was the dream.  Time passed but it could have been one hour or one week, it all felt the same.  So, no, you're not going crazy.  You may feel like it, but that's completely normal.

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sadandlost

Hello everyone, 

I think that feeling that you're loosing it or going mad I've come to realize from all the posts I've seen here is normal.  Before I came on this site I felt like I was going mad.  Now I know many of you feel this. Grief is like madness.  It's irrational at times and a bottomless pit of sadness and often anger.  Anger at others for getting on with life and ignoring you.  Sometimes i think no one knows I'm quietly going mad, that I stay up really late and get up late.  I live alone so no one sees me.  I live in another country from where I was born and grew up.  I'm a stranger here and I feel completely lost.  No one knows.  So when I feel I'm going mad I realize all of you who lost your mothers feel the same too.

sending love

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sadandlost

Dear Anne1962,

Im the same age as you and my mother was 82 when she died few months ago.  I know now it doesn't matter how old you are, you suddenly become a child again when your mother dies and know that nothing will ever be the same again.  You will never have the love of your mother again and that's devastating.  I don't know how one is supposed to come to terms with that?  I think the magnitude of the relationship perhaps determines the loss?  I don't think we are meant to get over it.  I think we are just meant to get used to it.  Like walking with a bad limp or something?

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Dear Anne,

My deepest sympathies and condolences on the passing of your beloved mom. I'm so sorry for you loss.

Please know that everything you are thinking and feeling is normal and natural. You are not crazy. Its all grief. Grief takes a terrible toll on our minds and bodies. I feel the same way that I can't remember my dad anymore. Its almost 9 months and I still cannot come to terms with what happened. No matter how old we are losing a parent is one of the hardest moments in life that we all have to endure.

Thinking of you. Sending you all my thoughts and prayers.

 

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@sadandlost when my mom passed (last Feb) a few people who had gone through it told me the sadness never goes away, that you just gradually have longer periods of thinking about it.  One of my mom's best friends said time doesn't heal the pain, we just get better at not thinking about it, while her other best friend admitted nothing will ever be the same.  Then my friend's mom parroted both those remarks, making me believe it must be true for 3 woman who hadn't met to confide this in me during separate private conversations.  I greatly appreciated them being so candid about this, b/c it prepared me for the endlessness of grief, but in a way that reassured me that how I feel now or 10 years from now is perfectly normal.  It also reassured me that my mom will always be that important to me while overall it won't always be this horrible. 

My greatest fear is forgetting something about my mom.  Her voice or laugh, her facial expressions or how she would respond to this or that, memories and conversations.  So as painful as it is, there's some relief in thinking maybe the grief will help to hold onto all that.  I'd rather be desperately sad at times than lose any of that.  Especially now that I'm not always sad all of the time.  I don't know if it's the best thing to take away from that or not, but in a way it keeps my mom close.

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sadandlost

Dear the girl,

thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.  Sometimes I think when am I going to be in that place where I accept and get used to the loss?  Sadness is normal I know.  But when you are crippled by sadness, you just want it to be eased.  There are hours when I'm distracted and I'm ok but every day I cry at some point.  The layers to the grief keep showing themselves.  It's like hello here is another layer, a different one.  Then another.  I feel needy.  Like a child again and wish someone could look after me but there is no one so I'm alone with the relentless pain.  I talk to my mum everyday and I wish she could reply just once.  Magical thinking.  Grief makes you insane.

what has helped me or bring a little comfort is, when I came back from packing up my mums things, I took a lot of photographs from the past.  Happy times of us together.  Childhood pictures.  Adult pictures.  Trips together and put them all in a photo album.  I like looking at it and can remember each moment.  You will never forget things about your mom if you have pictures.  Sometimes i feel sad that she's gone when I look at the pictures but mostly I smile at the moments we share.  If you can bare it, i recommend making a book for yourself, all your memories together.  

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