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Double Loss of Parents


Just Sad

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So I lost both of my parents in a car crash. I was very close to both of them - some might say too close - but I considered them to be some of my best friends as well. The enormity of this loss is actually inexplicable. It has been just over a year and a half, and while I have very loving family, partner, friends, etc i still feel very alone. I'm functioning quite well, but go in and out of pretty dark moods and sadness. And am very quick to be angry (misdirected) and am hyper critical. I'm trying to give these feelings the space they need, but I'm also afraid of grief taking too big of a chunk of my day to day life. And i don't necessarily trust my feelings or judgement about other things because it all feels clouded by grief. And I find it hard to separate the loss - everything is Mom&Dad tied together ... It's like they are a unit and I cant pull them apart to experience the loss of each one of them as separate individuals. It's really weird. And just hard hard hard. I don't know. Anyway there is so much to say.

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Hi there, Just Sad,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your Mom & Dad :(

 

Please know that to some people, it is beautiful to hear that you were so close to your parents that you considered them your best friends.  Many people do but some of them don't realize it until they lose one or both of them.  You had the opportunity to enjoy that closeness with them so I am very glad for you for that.

 

It's completely understandable, to me, everything you speak about.  Having your parents mixed up in your mind and emotions, having yourself not trusting what you're feeling because everything is mired in this new and awful world, one that, truthfully, we hate with every fiber of our being... even though that can sometimes be unconscious or unthinkable to admit.

 

But I have found, for me, that it is such an amazing and overwhelming truth, the amount of hatred that I had for life was incredible and, at times, it created a deep and profound anger at everything in existence, whether they deserved it or not.  This is not an uncommon reaction: after my sister died, my niece felt an irrational, passionate and almost uncontrollable hatred towards little old ladies, because her mom was never going to be able to be one.

 

Sometimes, knowing that it's natural to feel the way you do really doesn't help, because there can also be a process that goes along with that.  Like allowing yourself to recognize the underlying feelings beneath the anger and the hyper-critical.  I know that you have an idea that it is related, otherwise you wouldn't have included it; but to really stop, when possible, in the moment of feeling the misdirected anger and allow yourself to feel the correct direction, you may find that you start to be able to build a coping mechanism to allow yourself to process that anger in a healthy way.

 

Because it's actually ok and right to be angry.

 

And it's completely natural to feel alone in a room of friends and family.

 

You have lost the people who raised you, who you had such an amazing relationship with that they were your best friends.  When I lost my sister, a piece of me died.  It was the only time in my life that I have ever experienced loneliness.  But what I learned because of a completely unrelated event a year and a half into my despair, was that I had stopped communicating with that piece of me that was set aside for my relationship with her.  It is so easy to feel like you have lost a part of yourself when you lose someone because, for a time, you do.  You completely disconnect with that part of you that you reserved only for them.  Part of the process of grieving is re-learning how to continue to be that person that was only theirs.  It is when we start to reconnect with that part of ourselves, that we start to not be lonely anymore.  And that, dear one, takes as long as it takes.  But sometimes knowing this can be the start of that journey because then we can slowly, gently, bring our relationship with them back into our living life.  It's like, instead of our love for them and their love for us being gone with them, we can reclaim it and bring our love for them and their love for us back into its rightful place in our hearts.  This, to me, is what the process of grief is all about.  It is why mourning is so important, it allows that love to have movement in our here-lives.

 

You say that there is so much to say.  I welcome you to say it.

 

<3

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I lost both of my parents too. My dad passed away in july and then my mom in october. I was very close to them too. I feel your pain. Its truly awful. Im sorry for your loss and am here if you wanna chat. 

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