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I'm so lost....


DTP7614

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My cousin died mother's day weekend.  We're both only children, so we're more like siblings than anything. I've been calling him my brother since I was old enough to know we were related.

He'd had his problems and had worked through them and was turning his life around.  A friend of his called needing someone to bail him out of jail. D went and on the way was in a single car, fatal accident. We don't know yet what caused it and it doesn't really matter.

I am so lost. From the moment I got the news I've been spinning. I've lost close friends before, that was nothing. I keep trying to just ignore this so I don't have a complete meltdown. I know that's not good, but it's the only way I'm "coping" (or not coping).  I barely made it through the services. I'm trying to be strong for his friends and I'm learning more about him than I ever knew.  That he thought more of me than I ever knew.  He wasn't even 40. We were supossed to have more time. This was supossed to happen when we were old, not now. We were just getting to know each other as adults and it was all ripped away.

I don't know what to do....

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I am so, so sorry for your loss :(

 

When I lost my sister, it was sudden too, just in a blink your world changes and you can't go back.  As I recall, at first I wasn't even realizing that the world had changed... I had just an intense pain that made me crazy.  I had no desire to eat, to talk to anyone, to do anything, I wanted someone to tell me it was all wrong, it was all a mistake.  I still did things and "was strong" but I was truly insane on the inside.

 

I remember walking around like that for quite a while.  And then when I was back at home and supposed to be living again, that's when it fully hit me that I didn't know how to be ok in this world that I was now being forced to live in.

 

There's no easy answer.  There is only just pick your way through life, little by little.  Let the pain come and, when it does relax, let it relax.  Let your mind have the questions it has and don't judge anything you think or feel.  If you have someone close that will let you be a mess, then ask for their support when you feel a real rough patch coming on.  Come in here, like you have, and write about your craziness or your messiness or your love and write to others when they express something you can related to.  If you ever feel you need to, seek out counselling or support groups because there is absolutely every reason for us to want all the help we can get and anyone who has been bereaved - to have a piece of them torn from them - will understand and help you feel like it's ok to be feeling what you're feeling.

 

:(

 

There's no easy answer, there's really only hold on and allow. 

 

What I found with both my dad and my sister, is that eventually I could feel the love for them again without the pain.  And sometimes I could feel the huge amount of pain and recognize the depth of love within that pain so then be in agony and be nurished at the same time.  I eventually found that being true to my grief and grieving process was actually an honouring of my relationship with them, and that helped me to allow my own process without judgement.

 

Please be gentle with yourself right now.  It is very new for you and you are perfectly right to not have any balance.  Just slowly hold onto things and take baby steps... baby steps into this new world, baby steps into your realization and pain, baby steps into allowing the fullness of your grief, into the desperate cry for understanding, the searching... it is all natural but this is a new world and we must be that tender with ourselves.

 

<3

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Hurting sister

My brother committed suicide on May 2nd and my life feels like it has been ripped out from under me. I received a letter in the mail two days later from him (postmarked on the day he killed himself) saying so much I did not know was happening in his life. He didn't want to "bother" me or the family. Apparently his marriage was falling apart, his job was getting the best of him and he wanted to retire early. He was only 50. I miss him SO MUCH!!!! I feel like I have nowhere to turn. I don't want to be sad all of the time because I have a teenage daughter and a husband to take care of. It's just so hard when you hear songs that remind you of them...see pictures...EVERYTHING reminds you of them. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye or I Love You! what do I do????

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Hi Hurting sister,

 

(and still warm wishes to DTP7614)

 

I can't even imagine what you are going through.  As you may have read, I lost my sister suddenly but it wasn't to suicide.  Suicide adds a whole new level of confusion.  The tearing of our soul is bad enough, this must be terrible for you :(

 

When my sister died, it was a year and a half before I started to feel like I was living a real life again.  The first several months were agonizing and nothing was right.  I went to 4 seperate counselling sessions at different points in my journey because I was unable to deal with my emotions and their influence on my life, myself.

 

There really is no easy answer and there are no magic steps.  It is really just a matter of feeling our way forward.  And forward sometimes means to the next moment.  The things that I learned about grieving helped me, somewhat, when my dad died - it doesn't take the pain away, but it helped me to understand that I didn't and couldn't understand anything right away.  That the only help was to allow myself, as best and as gently as I could, to feel my pain.

 

I understand your concern because you have a family and it doesn't feel good to feel like we're not providing happiness for them.  The only thing I can say is to be truthful and honest with them about how you're feeling and not try to pretend everything is all right.  Because it really isn't.  But if you involve them in your steps towards healing, then you can maintain a connection even while you're disconnected.

 

But I do know that it is difficult to do that, because it is difficult for us to allow our own feelings, let alone involve someone else in them.  So when you do, take comfort in it and when you don't, be ok with that too.

 

The biggest problem is we get in our own way of allowing.

 

The pain we feel within all grief always leads to the love that we feel for that person.  The process of grief allows for us to feel the love again without the debilitating pain.  The act of mourning helps the process of grief, allow yourself to mourn this terrible, terrible loss, and don't judge that you want to or need to.  And then, on the moments that you have no pain, be ok with that because the respite is just as normal as the next wave of pain that follows it, however long that takes.

 

You'll have so many questions for a very, very long time, I'm sure.  Just like you shouldn't judge your feelings, don't judge your questions, either.  Both are so very natural.

 

It is a terrible time and it hurts that we all feel so alone when we're going through it - even though, as you have been reading, we all go through it, eventually.  We just need to hold onto each other and the one with the most balance in that second can keep us standing. 

 

See if you can express what you need to your family, they can help you when you need that strength and safety to allow yourself to mourn.

 

<3

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Hurting sister

Heartlight, thank you for responding to my post. It makes it a little easier knowing there are others that are dealing with the loss of a sibling. I think the hardest part is visualizing my brother shooting himself and knowing that he was alone at the end. I sometimes hope that he is here with me and that he can hear what I am saying to him. I find myself clinging to my other brother and telling him I Love Him more. Why is it that we don't say it enough when they are alive? I want another chance to talk to him. I don't know why he didn't feel like he could tell me that he was sad.

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Hi again, Hurting sister.

 

I imagine that the turmoil of your own thoughts is agonizing on top of the terrible shock and loss that you are in the middle of :(  The search for meaning or spiritual truth is very, very common when we lose someone.  When we lost my sister, I read some Elizabeth Kubler Ross.  She writes about sitting with the dying and questioning them right as they're dying.  As a scientist, she asked unambiguous questions, questions that helped many people believe that there is life after death.  One example is a little girl that was in a car accident with her family.  As Kubler Ross questioned her, she started to talk about how her brother Peter was there suddenly for her and that he was helping her.  She was asked about her parents but the little girl had said it was only her brother.  Her brother, Peter, was in the same accident and had died 5 minutes before the little girl started talking about him she she didn't know this.

 

I read many examples that she writes about.  It didn't make me decide on a belief but sometimes experiences like that can help us be ok in our own searching, help us be ok to talk to them outloud or to believe that they're with us.

 

In my experience, this fluxuates because loss hurts, no matter what your belief system.

 

And please don't beat yourself up over not being the love that you feel right now and that you're expressing to your other brother.  We're all like that.  I don't know why we don't do it, but it's human nature so please, at least don't judge yourself for who you were.

 

Be compassionate to yourself in all you think and feel and talk to him if it makes you feel better, absolutely.

 

<3

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