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Can't Allow Myself To Think Of Anything Else


ESM

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Anything I do, or anywhere I go, I can't give myself permission to not be thinking of every moment of my Mom in the hospital, or the day she came home, or her final day or two. I just keep reliving every moment of the past 6 weeks on a loop. My whole life I've had anxiety about loosing my Mom. I remember even at 5 years old thinking how would I ever be able to exist when she goes. That anxiety became acute once she hit her 70s. And now that my life long fear has come to pass it is even worse than I imagined.

This post is probably a disjointed mess. It's just that I have no one to talk to and posting hear helps just a little. Reading others going through similar feelings helps a little. It's now 11:00 PM and I dread the thought of getting up tomorrow knowing it will once again be a day I will not be able to be with my mother. Well I've rambled enough. I wish everyone well and some relief and happiness.

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This is exactly what I’m feeling. It doesn’t get easier. All day my mind is consumed with what if’s, everything reminds me of my grandfather. I relive every moment from the day he became sick, to the week in ICU, to the funeral. I battle with my cremation decisión which is never what I truly wanted. I also remember being about 5 years old and thinking how will I someday live without him. I used to pray to God to take me first. Now I pray that he takes me soon. I don’t sleep at night, my mind is on constant replay and I have no idea how to control it. I completely understand you. I don’t have anyone to talk to that understands so I just bottle things up. 

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2 hours ago, Lory said:

This is exactly what I’m feeling. It doesn’t get easier. All day my mind is consumed with what if’s, everything reminds me of my grandfather. I relive every moment from the day he became sick, to the week in ICU, to the funeral. I battle with my cremation decisión which is never what I truly wanted. I also remember being about 5 years old and thinking how will I someday live without him. I used to pray to God to take me first. Now I pray that he takes me soon. I don’t sleep at night, my mind is on constant replay and I have no idea how to control it. I completely understand you. I don’t have anyone to talk to that understands so I just bottle things up. 

So sorry that you're going through the same thing. It's been a little over two weeks for me and the last two days have actually been the worst. The day started off with me having to cancel one of my mom's credit cards and having to utter the phrase my mom passed away along with staring at her death certificate. Needless to say I was even more of a wreck the rest of the day than normal. 

It's difficult to describe to people what it feels like when someone who you've had this kind of attachment to and was pretty much the only person in your life is gone. It's like the only thing that tethered you to this world is no longer here and thus you really shouldn't be here. The whole world kind of feels fake. I feel disoriented, walking around in a sort of daze. The house without her presence just feels like a barren empty box. I only hope at some point it starts to get better for you and me. I wish you the best. Try to be well.

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32 minutes ago, ESM said:

It's difficult to describe to people what it feels like when someone who you've had this kind of attachment to and was pretty much the only person in your life is gone. It's like the only thing that tethered you to this world is no longer here and thus you really shouldn't be here. The whole world kind of feels fake. I feel disoriented, walking around in a sort of daze. The house without her presence just feels like a barren empty box.

It's exactly the same for me after Mom left me 4 months ago - inseparable for 60 years (never married or left home, lost Dad very unexpectedly in 2000, bringing us even closer), now running around frantically in the empty house day and night screaming myself hoarse.  I have also had separation anxiety since around 5, which made the 3 months we weren't allowed to see each other (first in hospital then nursing home) a living hell beyond description.  By some miracle Mom got off the ventilator (from cardiac arrest) when a nurse forgot to put it on and she breathed on her own, allowing her to come home on 2/10/21.  When I had refused to take her off the vent in the hospital, they said she had to get a tracheostomy and feeding tube, which was very uncomfortable and which she hated ("I'm hungry.  I want real food, not that fake food,").  The first thing she said to me at home (I had lost 30 pounds over the 3 months) was "Did you eat?". 

I'm thankful for the 5 months we had at home but it seemed more like 5 weeks.  There were so many heartrending moments, too many to mention here (I keep a book).  One of the worst took place when the home nurses were hurting her and she would cry out "Where''s my son, where's my son?" because they would chase me away. She stopped talking in the last few weeks, and left me when I was trying to care for her on a Saturday when there was no nurse (should have held her hand calmly like the hospice book said - this tortures me to no end).  I also can hardly sleep, dream about Mom and Dad when I do, and wake up every day with the sickening shock of being alone in the empty house.  People don't want to hear me go on and on anymore (why I came here), and it's getting worse by the day, not better as we're told it will.  Thanksgiving holds a special dread because last Thanksgiving the hospital doctor called and told me that everything was shutting down and Mom had only days if not hours left.  I could go on for pages but the panic is coming on as it does more and more each day, so I'd better stop.  Mom was all I had in the world.  May God help all of us.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Anthony

      .   

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2 hours ago, ADM925 said:

It's exactly the same for me after Mom left me 4 months ago - inseparable for 60 years (never married or left home, lost Dad very unexpectedly in 2000, bringing us even closer), now running around frantically in the empty house day and night screaming myself hoarse.  I have also had separation anxiety since around 5, which made the 3 months we weren't allowed to see each other (first in hospital then nursing home) a living hell beyond description.

I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Reading your post was really rather remarkable because it so closely mirrors my experience. Right down to the weight loss. I've lost 21 pounds and my Mom would constantly warn me to eat.

I too have been Inseparable from my mother. I'm 51 years old, I never went away to college and I never moved out. I just always felt I needed to be right there at my mother's side if she ever needed me. I also remember suffering from incredible separation anxiety in kindergarten even. I remember my mom dropping me off at kindergarten and me crying hysterically and even having to run to the bathroom to vomit because of the anxiety of being separated from my mom.

It was pretty much always me and my mother against the world. We were a team. And especially over the last 15 years when I lost contact with all of my friends and my mother had her three bouts of cancer we became even more Inseparable if that was even possible.

Now I find myself in a place where there's no one. I never knew my dad, my brother died of pancreatic cancer back in 1997, I have no other siblings, I have no significant other, and I have no children. And like I said I've lost contact with all my friends over the past 10-15 years. Making matters even more frightening is the fact that the modest rental income and small amount of self-employment I had over the past 10 to 15 years is not going to be there any longer, thus I need to find a job which at this point seems to be an almost impossible task.

Just before posting this the anxiety got so bad that I needed to stand up, pace back and forth and start talking out loud to myself which seems to be the only thing that calms me down even a little bit although not really all that much.

I keep going over every decision I made that I wish I could take back. I wish I had never recommended my mother go to the hospital using 911 because it landed her in the emergency room where I think she picked up a bug which led to what happened. I keep going over why I didn't question the doctor's recommendation that she stay in the hospital for her chemo rather than doing it as an out patient. I question why i wasn't more forceful with the doctors that the medication that she needed should be getting there quicker than what it was. And of course while I'm doing this I'm crying out loud hysterically. It really does feel like I'm going insane.

Well I've gone on long enough. I just hope somehow, someway, you find some semblance of peace as well as myself. I'm so sorry for what you have to go through. I wish the both of us only the best. Thanks for the response.

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I started experiencing anxiety after my mum passed away. There are still so many things and places that reminds me of her. I became so depressed even when it rained it’s amazing how much my life has changed since she died. Sometimes I wonder how to exist in this world without her. 

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