I don't know how to live without my mom

[Q26QRO]

My mom passed 6 months ago and I'm heartbroken. I don't know what to do I feel so alone. We were super close. I don't have much friends she was the only person I really talked to about my life. I spend most days not doing anything because it hurts too much just to do simple things without her. It just feels like the end all be all for me.  

[reader]

Dear Q26QRO,

I'm so sorry for your loss. Please know we are here if you need to talk. It is deeply painful losing the most important person in your life. The first year is especially raw and difficult and so hard to see a future.

Be kind to yourself and do as much as you can. Even if it's having a hot shower and going for a short walk. Do a little bit. I know it doesn't feel like it now but there is hope and the pain will lessen. My counsellor told me it takes on average of 18 months.

Maybe consider getting some additional supports in the community or through church. 

Thinking of you.

[Taylor22]

I’m so sorry for your loss, I’ve been going through something similar. It’ll be almost a year since my mom’s sudden and unexpected passing and I feel just as lost as I did the day she passed away. It sounds so cliche, but my mom was truly my best friend. We did everything together and now life without her just seems so empty. I have a hard time doing anything because I don’t want to accept the fact that she’s not here with me. Simple errands in the car seem empty because she was always the one who went with me. I also don’t have many friends and I’m not very close to the ones that I have, my mom was my world. 

Please know that you’re not alone, if you need to talk I’m here to listen 

[ADM925]

On 2/7/2022 at 6:30 AM, Q26QRO said:

My mom passed 6 months ago and I'm heartbroken. I don't know what to do I feel so alone. We were super close. I don't have much friends she was the only person I really talked to about my life. I spend most days not doing anything because it hurts too much just to do simple things without her. It just feels like the end all be all for me.  

I could have written this, just change it to 6 months + 3 weeks and it is getting worse every second.  Being forced to go out and do things with people I'm uncomfortable with makes me panic before, during, and especially after even more than being alone in the empty house does (and that is a constant panic).  I hardly slept in 40 hours because of 16 flashbacks that shocked me awake over and over.  And I'm very tired of being told 'this is life, just deal with it and move on'.  It is hard to move on alone and without my sole consolation and refuge in the world.  I never left home and was very close to both parents; now the future is nothing but a bleak horror to me.

On 2/7/2022 at 8:48 PM, Taylor22 said:

I feel just as lost as I did the day she passed away. It sounds so cliche, but my mom was truly my best friend. We did everything together and now life without her just seems so empty. I have a hard time doing anything because I don’t want to accept the fact that she’s not here with me.  I also don’t have many friends and I’m not very close to the ones that I have, my mom was my world. 

I have many nightmares and then wake up into a worse one.  If there is a Hell it must feel like this.  Never felt I'd reach a point where the thought of taking myself out would carry with it a sense of relief it but that is how bad the heartbreak, loneliness, shock, and painful recollections are (even the good ones hurt).  And it gets worse with time.  The thought of going on for years or even decades without my mom there to be with and help me is paralyzing, while the world trundles along as if nothing happened when my world has ended.  I was never at ease in this place to begin with and Mom was my sole refuge from it.  It's hard to express or even process how frightening this is and time is no help at all, just the opposite.            

[ESM]

1 hour ago, ADM925 said:

If there is a Hell it must feel like this.  Never felt I'd reach a point where the thought of taking myself out would carry with it a sense of relief it but that is how bad the heartbreak, loneliness, shock, and painful recollections are (even the good ones hurt). 

I'm so sorry to hear it's still this bad for you. I wish I could say things have gotten a bit better for myself, but quite the contrary they've been getting progressively worse. It is beyond exhausting to be totally subsumed in hopelessness and darkness 24 hours per day. It's at the point now where it's not just the emotional hell that's destroying me, but I feel as if I'm a physically beginning to deteriorate as well. Everything perpetually aches me, and I feel an otherworldly level of fatigue constantly. But even with the physical discomfort, it's still the psychological and emotional hell that is my everyday existence that is truly savaging me. My mom has now been gone for just over 3 months. It was just her birthday and I visited the cemetery. I honestly can't conjure the words to adequately convey the surreall level of horror I experienced standing at the place of my mother's burial. Things have been getting worse since that day if that's even possible at this point. I honestly can't find anything to take solace in. I hope things get a little better for you. Try to be well.

[ADM925]

12 hours ago, ESM said:

It is beyond exhausting to be totally subsumed in hopelessness and darkness 24 hours per day.

I understand and because of this identical issue I'd been sleeping excessively at very irregular hours until the frequency of the flashbacks made that impossible.  Now I can barely sleep at all.

12 hours ago, ESM said:

It's at the point now where it's not just the emotional hell that's destroying me, but I feel as if I'm a physically beginning to deteriorate as well. 

For me it's digestive issues (and who knows what else) because of my unhealthy diet (fast food, pizza, sweets).  I took enormous pride in the healthful, economical, tasty meals I prepared for Mom and myself - high-protein with lots of broiled or baked fish and chicken, fresh salads, vegetables and bean dishes, a nice dessert and coffee.  How we relished those meals!  And then the nightmare began.  There are no words to describe the trauma  and devastating heartbreak of seeing and hearing your hungry, thirsty mother pleading for real food and water and being denied them because of her tracheostomy - of having to walk away and hide from her in order to choke something down as quickly as possible in another room.  I can no longer bear to cook, and eat little more than once a day.  And one person I tried to explain this horror to said "just don't think about it".

12 hours ago, ESM said:

But even with the physical discomfort, it's still the psychological and emotional hell that is my everyday existence that is truly savaging me. My mom has now been gone for just over 3 months. It was just her birthday and I visited the cemetery. I honestly can't conjure the words to adequately convey the surreal level of horror I experienced standing at the place of my mother's burial. Things have been getting worse since that day if that's even possible at this point.

I can only try to imagine how annihilating this must be and how it will never cease to devastate you.  Even without such an experience I feel unable to face everyday existence.  The unrelenting terror is especially paralyzing at morning, when the anguish of being unable to get back to where I need to be hits hardest.  And the unavoidable company of others makes it worse.  I feel alone and out-of-place.  Heartrending childhood memories that I desperately need to share with my mother will come at me.  As I've said over and over, Mom was the only person on Earth I felt truly safe and comfortable with, my only source of serenity, happiness, peace, and relief from pain.  Without her those essentials for human survival are completely gone and replaced by their opposites.  Sorry to have gone on and on again.  I wish you the best in this terrible struggle, and thank you again for your kind words.            

[Q26QRO]

Guys,

I'm sorry you guys are going through it like this. I truly feel your pain. I have dreams sometimes that cause me to jump out of my sleep. I go to local restaurants and I can't even sit at the same table that my mom and I usually sit. I too eat bad food that causing flair ups. I quit my job and run my side  business into the ground. It feels like I have no reason to carry on. The simple reasons I do carry on is because she told me too. As if she knew she was gonna die. People are like you need to find something to do but I don't want to find something to do. Every single thing is meaningless without her. I can't see a future without her.

I'm trying my best. I am so sorry you guys have to loss your best friend too. 

I'm not perfect but I'm willing to listen to you guys.

 

[ADM925]

10 hours ago, Q26QRO said:

I have dreams sometimes that cause me to jump out of my sleep.

The dreams I have are either heart-breakers where my mom is well again and back with me, or nightmares of running around screaming in a great panic while trying to find her in a  huge, distorted building (I never find her).  In one dream Mom called me from her room across the hall and when I ran in she was perfectly alright, laughing and smiling and wondering why I was crying.  It seemed so real I thought I had moved on in my sleep to join her and my father who was also in the room (either that or that the world had ended) until I woke up with a sickening shock alone in the empty house like always.   

10 hours ago, Q26QRO said:

It feels like I have no reason to carry on. The simple reasons I do carry on is because she told me too.

We tried to talk about what would happen if one of us left the other (I'm 60) but emotions got the better of us and we never got very far.

10 hours ago, Q26QRO said:

People are like you need to find something to do but I don't want to find something to do. Every single thing is meaningless without her. I can't see a future without her.

That is exactly what I feel also.  I've now been forced back into my old part-time employment at the church Mom and I worked at for 25 years and attended for 33, to take over for the Music Director (a close friend of ours for 20 years) who passed away from the Covid on 1/6.  It is brutal going back there without Mom and I shake so much I barely get through it.  I'm also very uncomfortable and fear being around people because I'm in an isolated state of shock and terror from being without my only loved one in the world, with no one else to turn to.  All the people I know at least have somebody to hold on to in times of trouble and sadness.  And it's not getting better with time, it's always worse and I feel more alone and scared and detached from their lives and world every day.

10 hours ago, Q26QRO said:

I'm trying my best. I am so sorry you guys have to loss your best friend too. 

I'm not perfect but I'm willing to listen to you guys.

It is very greatly appreciated because I at least know no one personally who can truly understand what people like us are going through, the horror of being left alone in a harsh world without the center of our lives.  This miserable day has seemed the length of 2 or 3 and the next nightmare is only hours away.  Thanks for your kind thoughts and words and know we are always here to listen as well.        

[Q26QRO]

Hey ADM925,

You can try this Avrora app to sleep. I tried it, it works better than sleeping pills. I use to use sleeping pills but that thing dangerous. It made me sleep for 24 hours once. The feeling after I wake was horrible. I suggest this app instead. When it comes on to seeing people happy and with their families it does hurt me too but I've come to realized that some people have gone through what we have gone through already. For instance I think about my own mother. Her best friend before I was born was her sister. She and her sister did everything together they were even pregnant at the same time. Her sister died when I was a baby. My mom talked about her everyday even though I never met her. I also think about the fact that I don't know my great grandparents or grandfather because they passed before I was born. My Grandma had to live life without her parents and husband. As her children got older 4 of them died in total before she passed. I try to draw strength sometimes from them, because they were strong enough to deal with all those pain. I must can get some strength from that and use it as an example to carry on. If you look at everyone closely they are grieving in someway. If they are missing  a parent or grandparents. You will realize that they lost a loved one. They might not have lost a mom that's a bestie but man does it still hurts. I had a not so close friends who cried when my mom passed because they missed their mom so much. I never knew they lost their mom. I can just imagine how they probably felt seeing me and my mom relationship. Me and my big mouth talk constantly of my parents. I'm just 27, I assumed that I would have my mom for much longer. I realized that young or old I would probably feel the same way I feel now. People still say better days will come or things happen for a reason. I can't see any reason why this could possibly happen. I'm gonna write my mom a letter and take a trip to a restaurant that's close by a beach.im gonna pray and read the letter there. I forgive her and myself. I remember in one of my dreams she called and beg me to forgive her for not being here. I will reply with a letter. I hope that does something for me. My mom would have been 50 this year. I'm dreading her birthday and mother's day because she made huge plans for years about this year. Sigh

I hope one day life will start feeling real again and I don't feel the need to curl up in bed no more. 

Last time I felt okay was when I clean up the entire house and wipe the floors. I open all the windows and burn white sage in the house. The place felt calm and I feel like the child that use to run in and out the house. I felt so productive and like I was heavenly hugged. My mom loved a clean house.

I'm gonna do that today and get my vehicle ready to take that trip. I don't know when I'm going but I just want to have a working car when I decide to move.

I feel like I'm texting caring friends when I message here. 

ADM925, I hope you are okay today and get a nice meal. I will pray for you and your mom.

I never usually pray everyday because I know my mom prays for me. Now have to pray for myself. In my prayer I pray for her too.So she gets first dips in the heaven milk pool lol.  

 

 

 

 

[ADM925]

Thank you for the suggestion of the sleep app.  I will look into it instead of pills, which I am afraid of.

You make very good points about how we all suffer losses.  I understand that and how much misery there is in this world.  It is being alone with the worst possible loss I can have that terrifies me.  Only Mom or Dad could get me through this.  When Dad passed shockingly in 2000, Mom and I clung to and supported each other and survived for 21 years.  I am not a strong independent person like some others in my family who've lived alone for decades.  Also have no partner or children or siblings, like many of us here.  It was just Mom, Dad, and me until 2000.

Separation anxiety runs in the family and since 5 years old I have had it very badly.  When Mom went into the ICU on a ventilator from cardiac arrest on 11/7/20, they let me visit her 4 hours a day for 27 days.  It was the start of 3 months of waiting by the phone because they don't call back or return messages.  On Thanksgiving they told me her gut shut down and she had only days if not hours left.  But she pulled through.  On 12/2 they cut off visiting with one day's notice so on 12/3 I visited her for what could have been the last time and had to walk out of the room.  They wanted me to take her off the ventilator and when I refused they said she'd have to have a tracheostomy and feeding tube and go into a nursing home.  They sent her there on 12/15 and told me she could never come home because she'd never get off the ventilator.  For the next 5 weeks I saw my mom only on Skype for 10 minutes every other day, which was a horror because she was absolutely miserable, being roughed up by the nurses or tormented by her attendants and bursting into tears and flailing her fists at them.  At my age I didn't think I was going to survive seeing this. 

On 1/20/21, the one and only time I had to leave the house for food, I missed a call from the nursing home with the message "Call back right away, it's about your mother."  It took 4 1/2 hours to reach someone.  They said Mom had been.sent to the local hospital with pneumonia and for a transfusion.  I again thought it was the end.  Then a nurse made a mistake and  forgot to turn on the ventilator, and Mom breathed on her own.  They got her off the vent in 10 days and said she could now come home.  I saw her in the hospital for the first time in over 2 nightmarish months on 2/5.  She looked shocked, like she couldn't believe she was seeing me.  They told me she was coming home the next day.  It was like a miracle had happened, I couldn't believe it...  

When I got home there was a message from the hospital about a paperwork problem.  Then they called again and said the insurance company wouldn't cover the cost of the home-care equipment for the tracheostomy, so I asked what does that mean?  "She can't come home.  Choose another nursing facility."  I was nearly hysterical using online chat for the next 5 days trying to get the insurance people to change their minds.  By what to me seemed another intervention from God, Mom came home on 2/10/21, but with a horrific Stage 4 pressure ulcer wound on her lower back.  We had 5 more months + 1 week together before I lost her on 7/17, and it's been a living hell ever since.  Some people I know say that if your mom reached an advanced age, losing her should somehow be less devastating and easier to accept.  That is not necessarily true.

Sorry to go on so long but last night's sleep terrors were so frequent and bad that it felt like I was going to die, and it's left me very agitated today.  I don't understand what is happening to me; it is like being in Hell itself.  Maybe some people just can't survive without each other.  I have always been withdrawn and even reclusive at times, but Mom accepted me unconditionally and was my sole comfort.  I believe I'll see her again but can't bear the separation and the thought of a future without the only person who could keep me from becoming completely unhinged.   Best wishes in your struggle and please keep Mom and me in your prayers.        .

[Lost45]

On 2/7/2022 at 11:30 AM, Q26QRO said:

My mom passed 6 months ago and I'm heartbroken. I don't know what to do I feel so alone. We were super close. I don't have much friends she was the only person I really talked to about my life. I spend most days not doing anything because it hurts too much just to do simple things without her. It just feels like the end all be all for me.  

Really sorry your going through this. I totally relate to it feeling like the end. I lost my mom 9 weeks ago and it's not getting easier, each day I feel more alone and isolated and drifting more and more away from the world.

On 2/8/2022 at 6:23 PM, ADM925 said:

There are no words to describe the trauma  and devastating heartbreak of seeing and hearing your hungry, thirsty mother pleading for real food and water and being denied them because of her tracheostomy - of having to walk away and hide from her in order to choke something down as quickly as possible in another room.  I can no longer bear to cook, and eat little more than once a day.  And one person I tried to explain this horror to said "just don't think about it".        

I could have written that. I had to endure the last 2 years of my mother pleading for food and I could not give her anything solid. The guilt I felt then and now of having to eat food in a rush in another room so she did not see is unbearable at the time and now. All while watching her loose weight and become more and more frail. How does a person even get over that? I have had similar responses from people with the "just don't think about it" and "your mom would not want you to be sad" comments. I know people are meaning well. 

I pray everyone finds the strength to keep going each day. All the best to you all.

[ADM925]

11 hours ago, Lost45 said:

I totally relate to it feeling like the end. I lost my mom 9 weeks ago and it's not getting easier, each day I feel more alone and isolated and drifting more and more away from the world.

The same for me and it's nearly 7 brutal months.  Is being with people supposed to help?   It doesn't for me, it makes the nightmare even more surreal and unbearable.  Each time I wake from my poor sleep, it is with an unutterable feeling of shock, grief, panic, and dread of the coming day and the rest of my life.  It's worse yet if I know I'll have to deal with people as I do later today.  I have no idea how to survive without my sole source of serenity, peace, and security in this world.  Without Mom there is no comfort whatsoever.  Being alone in the house is very oppressive; driving alone to be with others is even more so, and returning only to repeat the process is the worst of all.  

11 hours ago, Lost45 said:

All while watching her lose weight and become more and more frail. How does a person even get over that?

Mom was away from home for 3 months in hospitals and a nursing home on a feeding tube (no visiting).  The degree of physical pain, fear, and loneliness she must have suffered while being kept apart from her only son will haunt me forever and only gets worse with time.  The mind dwells endlessly on the hourly horrors she must have endured while surrounded only by strangers.  

11 hours ago, Lost45 said:

I have had similar responses from people with the "just don't think about it" and "your mom would not want you to be sad" comments. I know people are meaning well. 

Last night it was "She wouldn't want you to be sad" and I didn't know how to respond, still don't.  I feel very guilty but only my mom could take away this level of anguish.  Best wishes.         

 

    .

[Lost45]

7 hours ago, ADM925 said:

The same for me and it's nearly 7 brutal months.  Is being with people supposed to help?   It doesn't for me, it makes the nightmare even more surreal and unbearable.  Each time I wake from my poor sleep, it is with an unutterable feeling of shock, grief, panic, and dread of the coming day and the rest of my life.  It's worse yet if I know I'll have to deal with people as I do later today.  I have no idea how to survive without my sole source of serenity, peace, and security in this world.  Without Mom there is no comfort whatsoever.  Being alone in the house is very oppressive; driving alone to be with others is even more so, and returning only to repeat the process is the worst of all.

 

I can hardly imagine even another 9 weeks like this, let alone 7 months. Barely sleeping as fall asleep from utter exhaustion for an hour or so. Then come horrific nightmares followed by waking drenched in sweat, heart racing, disorientation, overwhelming panic and the terrible realization and shock that mom is not here. In the moments between waking and sleeping I hear her moaning and how she was breathing the last week before she died in my arms. Has anyone had any experience with taking sleeping meds? Best to avoid them?

Being with and meeting people is supposed to help, at least 90% of people tell me that. Interesting you say it doesn't help you as that's exactly how I find it. All it seems to do is highlight the whole ordeal just with the added strain of being around people. Maybe it sounds amusing to some but I literally feel I have just dropped in to an episode of the Twighlight Zone or living nightmarish hell.

Me and mom coped together with my fathers death 30 years as we had each other and now the only person who could help me through this is gone. Hours before she died here at home the nurse and doctor visited and told me I need to tell mom I will be OK without her. I told them that would be a lie and mom would know that as I was her comfort in the world and she mine. Still I somehow choked out those words and mom faintly gasped "sorry" and a tear rolled down her cheek. Breaks me heart even to recall, but she knew how it would be for me without her.

The Doctor who used to visit regular said a couple of years ago mom is only willing herself to keep alive for me. Enduring such horrific pain daily just so we could stay together a bit longer.

I do apologize for going on there a bit. All the best.

 

[ESM]

1 hour ago, Lost45 said:

Maybe it sounds amusing to some but I literally feel I have just dropped in to an episode of the Twighlight Zone or living nightmarish hell.

Yes, exactly. It's really something you can't convey to anyone else unless they're actually experiencing it themselves. And similar to what you said, one of the things that haunts me is that the only thing that could have given my mother some solace in her passing was knowing that I would be okay without her. Yet I know that she knew that wasn't true. And it breaks my heart that she had to leave this planet without having the comfort of at least knowing I would be okay.

[Missingnymom]

I have lost my mom 1 year ago and right now im in a deep place of missing her voice her hugs her kisses her lovebm its so hard being without ger LIFE IS NOT FAIR. I have tears literally rolling down my eyes. Its so hard, I feel like moms should be off limits.

[ADM925]

12 hours ago, Lost45 said:

Barely sleeping as fall asleep from utter exhaustion for an hour or so. Then come horrific nightmares followed by waking drenched in sweat, heart racing, disorientation, overwhelming panic and the terrible realization and shock that mom is not here.

Exactly why I am here and not in the torture chamber at 3:30 AM.  But it only means less time before the dreaded morning light.  I'm afraid of the sleep meds because of some kind of sinus condition from which I'll suddenly wake up unable to breathe.  I'd fly into Mom's room and hold on to her in a massive panic gasping for air until finally able to breathe normally.  Now there's an extreme mortal terror of this happening without her to run to.

12 hours ago, Lost45 said:

Being with and meeting people is supposed to help, at least 90% of people tell me that. Interesting you say it doesn't help you as that's exactly how I find it. All it seems to do is highlight the whole ordeal just with the added strain of being around people. Maybe it sounds amusing to some but I literally feel I have just dropped in to an episode of the Twilight Zone or living nightmarish hell.

Interesting that Twilight Zone would be mentioned because right before coming here I had been revisiting "A Stop at Willoughby", since earlier at the meeting I wanted desperately to get away as soon as possible.  They kept throwing one thing after another at me and like Gart Williams I only wanted to escape from that and from the rest of my life.   

12 hours ago, Lost45 said:

Hours before she died here at home the nurse and doctor visited and told me I need to tell mom I will be OK without her. I told them that would be a lie and mom would know that as I was her comfort in the world and she mine. Still I somehow choked out those words and mom faintly gasped "sorry" and a tear rolled down her cheek. Breaks me heart even to recall, but she knew how it would be for me without her.

What a terribly heartbreaking ordeal, how did you survive it at all.  It's unbearable just to read it.  Even though Mom never told me herself (we couldn't bear to talk about it) I knew from friends that she was very worried about leaving me without her.  We tried to discuss the unspeakable, unthinkable horror a few times but one or both of us would break down right away.  Someone said to me afterwards "I think you were both in denial".  I suppose so and I guess I knew that too, but it was still very hurtful to hear once it was too late to do anything (it might have helped but who knows). 

Now I am in  a very bad claustrophobic panic because of the strain of having to be with people for the next 3 days (the supposed 'cure') at a place Mom and I attended together for 33 years.  It's a frantic, hopeless, always-increasing desperation that only my mother's presence could fix.  I feel that it will end only with the end of my life, and how do I face that without Mom?  Thanks again for reading and best wishes as always.               

 

 

 

 

[ADM925]

12 hours ago, Lost45 said:

The Doctor who used to visit regular said a couple of years ago mom is only willing herself to keep alive for me. Enduring such horrific pain daily just so we could stay together a bit longer.

The hospital doctors, nurses, and other attendants were at me with a vengeance for 5 weeks to remove the ventilator and allow morphine to be administered ("It will make her blood pressure drop and she won't do well.")  They kept reminding me that she has "permanent irreversible brain injury".  But Mom was a fighter and did make it home for 5 months (very difficult and heartbreaking but at least we were together).  

11 hours ago, ESM said:

One of the things that haunts me is that the only thing that could have given my mother some solace in her passing was knowing that I would be okay without her. Yet I know that she knew that wasn't true. And it breaks my heart that she had to leave this planet without having the comfort of at least knowing I would be okay.

I once tried to confront the horror of one of us leaving the other by showing Mom the very heartrending poem "When tomorrow starts without me", which my family has used for their loved ones many times.  She looked terribly stricken and hurt and immediately set it aside (neither one of us could get past the title).  I deeply regret having done that, and her pained expression haunts me all the time.  The people I know and have to deal with, who are tired of my grieving, don't know about heartbreaks like this and keep insisting that I am "on the road to recovery", when nothing could be further from the truth.  There isn't a person or a place in the world that I wouldn't avoid if I could, not one that doesn't make me feel anguished and distraught (what used to be happy places for us like church or restaurants are the most painful of all).  The contrast between this horror and the calming, healing, soothing, uplifting presence of my mother's unconditional love makes being alive more oppressive and unbearable with each day.  It's really the difference between heaven and hell.  Best to all of us in somehow getting through each day (to what end I don't know).          

[ADM925]

3 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

I have lost my mom 1 year ago and right now im in a deep place of missing her voice her hugs her kisses her lovebm its so hard being without her LIFE IS NOT FAIR. I have tears literally rolling down my eyes. Its so hard, I feel like moms should be off limits.

Welcome, you will find many here suffering with the same unbearable agony and despair that seems only to get worse with time.  And our friends and acquaintances sometimes don't understand the level of heartbreak we are going through.  Right now I'm starting to panic because I'm afraid to sleep, it's almost daybreak and that means the start of another seemingly endless day alone in Hell for me without my sole source of peace, consolation, and refuge in this world.  I hope sharing your thoughts here can at least help for a little while.  .    .

[Missingnymom]

Its so hard wirhout the one person that was the sense of peace its literally loosing your vest friend. I can feel your hurt and ain the endless sleepless nights staying up unti 4 and 5 in the morning. Its like walking round with everyone yet one in hell. This is my first time ever letting it out I am a person who keeps my feelings in. I am greatful to at least share with someone the pain.

[ADM925]

3 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

Its so hard without the one person that was the sense of peace its literally losing your best friend

This is exactly it, I could never have said it any better - how do we live without such a person, the center of our world?  No living beings human or animal can live without peace and love.  And we have to live without our only and greatest source of peace and love.  Very frightening and makes life more difficult to face and more painful the longer it goes on. 

3 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

I can feel your hurt and in the endless sleepless nights staying up until 4 and 5 in the morning. Its like walking round with everyone yet one in hell.

When sleep finally comes from exhaustion the nightmares are all about running through hundreds of strangers screaming for Mom who I can't find.  Or trying to call her on the phone at her work and can't get through.  Then waking up alone to begin the day of going up and down the stairs from one empty, silent room to another, a terrible feeling of being in Hell itself.  And thinking that now would be our breakfast time, or lunch time, now I'll cook dinner for us and later we'll relax and watch some train rides, very peaceful, serene, and enjoyable.  Afterwards we would look forward to having a restful night without dread of the next morning as I always have now.  It's harder and harder to live each day, with intrusions from the telephone and doorbell  reminding me of waiting in great fear by the phone during the 3 months we were separated by the hospitals and nursing home. 

3 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

This is my first time ever letting it out I am a person who keeps my feelings in. I am grateful to at least share with someone the pain.

That is why I come here too.  People I know are tired of hearing it but if they ask they are going to get the truth, that it's worse every day.  How can the worst nightmare of your life since 5 years old get better when it never ends?  I know I repeat myself but being with people without my mother is unbearable, makes me feel very trapped and wanting to get out of the world.  They think I should be past it by now (7 months).  And I have terrible, brutal guilt and regret over any mistakes I made while caring for Mom, which along with the ongoing separation is maybe the worst feeling of all (it's hard to say what's worst, it might be the recollection of all the suffering and misery she went through for 8 1/2 months).  Not good to say so but it feels like only the end of life itself could stop this nightmare.  I haven't known a moment's peace, not a moment free from horror whether awake or asleep, for the last 15 months, most of it alone in the empty house.  Now I'm trying (and failing) to fight the massive panic of the coming weekend and recollections of the two strangers who came here that night to take my mother away from me when I'd never been apart from her in my life.  Sorry I go on so long and thanks for your kind words, and for what it's worth, best to you also.       

[Missingnymom]

I use to talk to my mom all day everyday on my lunch break, after work, after my workout class. ALL DAY EVERYDAY its so unbearable not to see her name pop up on the phone her face. You can't have regret you have to know you did everything you could. My mom passed on our home while on hospice it broke ne down everyday. I use to have pain in ny stomach at night now I have headaches anxietycant sleep. You dont have to apologize for grieving I feel the sane way. Life without our moms is horrible its a missing piece of a puzzle and you just cant find the piece. They say with tine it gets easier I dont see that at all 

[Lost45]

13 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

Its so hard wirhout the one person that was the sense of peace its literally loosing your vest friend. I can feel your hurt and ain the endless sleepless nights staying up unti 4 and 5 in the morning. Its like walking round with everyone yet one in hell. This is my first time ever letting it out I am a person who keeps my feelings in. I am greatful to at least share with someone the pain.

Welcome and so sorry you are experiencing this. I would not wish this pain on my worst enemy. I am the same as you with finding it very hard to open up about this utter despair and agony. At least here can share thoughts without the almost impatient and dismissive attitude of acquaintances who feel should be getting over it now. I can feel people almost rolling their eyes when they ask how I am and if feeling better? Then I reply no it is actually progressively worse each day.

23 hours ago, ESM said:

One of the things that haunts me is that the only thing that could have given my mother some solace in her passing was knowing that I would be okay without her. Yet I know that she knew that wasn't true. And it breaks my heart that she had to leave this planet without having the comfort of at least knowing I would be okay.

Exactly as you said no one understands that unless experienced it themselves. I have tried to convey it to people and while the response has been kind to a point you know they have no clue really. Never really tried to discuss what would be if/when one of us passed. It was just an unspoken understanding that it was to painful to even approach as a topic of conversation.

11 hours ago, ADM925 said:

Then waking up alone to begin the day of going up and down the stairs from one empty, silent room to another, a terrible feeling of being in Hell itself.  And thinking that now would be our breakfast time, or lunch time, now I'll cook dinner for us and later we'll relax and watch some train rides, very peaceful, serene, and enjoyable.

That is why I come here too.  People I know are tired of hearing it but if they ask they are going to get the truth, that it's worse every day.  How can the worst nightmare of your life since 5 years old get better when it never ends?  I know I repeat myself but being with people without my mother is unbearable, makes me feel very trapped and wanting to get out of the world.  They think I should be past it by now (7 months).  And I have terrible, brutal guilt and regret over any mistakes I made while caring for Mom, which along with the ongoing separation is maybe the worst feeling of all (it's hard to say what's worst, it might be the recollection of all the suffering and misery she went through for 8 1/2 months).  Not good to say so but it feels like only the end of life itself could stop this nightmare.  I haven't known a moment's peace, not a moment free from horror whether awake or asleep, for the last 15 months, most of it alone in the empty house.  Now I'm trying (and failing) to fight the massive panic of the coming weekend and recollections of the two strangers who came here that night to take my mother away from me when I'd never been apart from her in my life.  Sorry I go on so long and thanks for your kind words, and for what it's worth, best to you also.       

Terrible ordeal I can not imagine going on 7 more weeks let alone 7 months + rest of my life like this. With lack of sleep and only sleep from exhaustion then recurring nightmares my imagination went down the road of wondering if I was the one who in fact had died and was now in hell. I spent the day with a good kind friend of my moms as allegedly it is supposed to help and just felt more despair, more anxiety and guilt then if I was on my own? I must be missing something? with everyone saying being around people helps.

Totally understand the guilt aspect surrounding care, and mistakes etc. Many a time I have ended up on my knees in her room sobbing uncontrollably asking her to forgive me and that I am sorry if I did anything wrong or caused her pain in any way. I have been asked by people do I feel suicidal and I said not in the sense of want to take my own life. Just a overwhelming feeling of not wanting to exist anymore is the closest way I can describe it.

 

 

[Lost45]

56 minutes ago, Missingnymom said:

Life without our moms is horrible its a missing piece of a puzzle and you just cant find the piece. They say with tine it gets easier I dont see that at all 

Perfect description you gave there. It is why I fear this is not recoverable as that piece is gone and time just underlines and highlights how important it is. Sigh.

[Lost now]

My mom passed away unexpectedly 2 weeks ago. She was only 58. No health issues and she was fit. In one moment my life changed. I've not left the bed ever since. My mom is my best friend. I don't know how to live without her. I wish my death almost every second of the day. I'm only 31. I need my mumma. Its so unfair. We had so many plans for this year. I can't live without her. I don't like to eat and drink water anymore because I feel guilty of enjoying my life when she was robbed of that chance. No one in my family has died so young. I don't know what to do. I want to go to my mom.

[Lindsaydawn]

This sounds a lot like me I was 31 when I lost my mom 2 years ago.  I have to be honest the feeling never goes away I feel that same guilt I still don’t enjoy any food or anything I really try to too but it’s important to also have support I don’t have it but if you have anyone to reach out to for emotional support not really to always rely on them but from time to time someone to talk to or go see is important especially if you want to talk about her or how your feeling is super important while grieving.  Always be around supportive people never be around someone who finds you as a burden because of how your feeling during your grief.  Some people just don’t understand and can be unkind those aren’t your people.  There is nothing wrong with grieving it’s definitely natural

[Lost now]

49 minutes ago, Lindsaydawn said:

This sounds a lot like me I was 31 when I lost my mom 2 years ago.  I have to be honest the feeling never goes away I feel that same guilt I still don’t enjoy any food or anything I really try to too but it’s important to also have support I don’t have it but if you have anyone to reach out to for emotional support not really to always rely on them but from time to time someone to talk to or go see is important especially if you want to talk about her or how your feeling is super important while grieving.  Always be around supportive people never be around someone who finds you as a burden because of how your feeling during your grief.  Some people just don’t understand and can be unkind those aren’t your people.  There is nothing wrong with grieving it’s definitely natural

I'm so sorry for your loss. I don't think I will ever be ok. I don't know how I will get back to working. I have my older sister who is helping me cope and also my boyfriend who is taking care of me. But no one can be mumma. I'm so lost. I have thought about ending my life but I don't have the courage to do it. My dad is heartbroken and I can't give him another tragedy. 

But I want death to come naturally to me right at this instance. I don't know if there is an afterlife. But I hope there is and when I die my mom comes to get me.

[Q26QRO]

Lost Now,

 

That's exactly how I feel too. What's this world without my mom. I called my mom all the time too. It hurts without her, I'm currently in her room laying down. It doesn't even feel like she's gone most times, it feels like she's overseas or something. When I go on the road and  see something I would call her and tell her  what I'm see, she would usually turn it into a joke. I don't have no one to call because they won't get our inside jokes.

 

The only reason I continue in this evil world is because of my dad and siblings. 

 

Everything is meaningless. What's the point of doing anything. 

 

I use a sleeping app to sleep at nights.

 

My life just doesn't feel real.

 

Heard my dad say he wished he lost everything in life and him and my mom stand alone in the streets because they know if they could achieve it once they can achieve it again. That's so true. 

 

Nothing matters without her. Geez 

 

I keep wondering if reincarnation is real. What if she gets reincarnated before I die will that mean I will never see her again. That's it, all I have was 27 years.

 

 

[ADM925]

On 2/12/2022 at 1:56 AM, Missingnymom said:

Life without our moms is horrible its a missing piece of a puzzle and you just cant find the piece. They say with tine it gets easier I dont see that at all 

 

On 2/12/2022 at 2:58 AM, Lost45 said:

Perfect description you gave there. It is why I fear this is not recoverable as that piece is gone and time just underlines and highlights how important it is. Sigh.

And our peace is gone with it.  Bombarded with advice only to feel more and more that it is irrecoverable because only Mom could fix it.  There is no one else I love or am even comfortable with.  And the longer the separation goes on the lengthier the days become.  The problem with being told "get on with your life" is that caring for my suddenly widowed Mom was my life for the last 21 years (wouldn't have had it any other way as we loved and protected each other).  Without her my life is an empty miserable horror and that is what they are telling me to get on with.  .  

On 2/12/2022 at 2:15 AM, Lost45 said:

At least here can share thoughts without the almost impatient and dismissive attitude of acquaintances who feel should be getting over it now. I can feel people almost rolling their eyes when they ask how I am and if feeling better? Then I reply no it is actually progressively worse each day.

Exactly what happens to me and why I fear their company.  If they ask I will have to answer honestly.

On 2/12/2022 at 2:15 AM, Lost45 said:

With lack of sleep and only sleep from exhaustion then recurring nightmares my imagination went down the road of wondering if I was the one who in fact had died and was now in hell.

Beginning to dread sleep almost phobically.  I've noticed that as time progresses the dreams are becoming more frequent, vivid, and prolonged, especially when I'm back with Mom and she's vibrant and healthy again.  Waking from these heart-breakers is devastating because they seem so real. 

On 2/12/2022 at 2:15 AM, Lost45 said:

Totally understand the guilt aspect surrounding care, and mistakes etc. Many a time I have ended up on my knees in her room sobbing uncontrollably asking her to forgive me and that I am sorry if I did anything wrong or caused her pain in any way. I have been asked by people do I feel suicidal and I said not in the sense of want to take my own life. Just a overwhelming feeling of not wanting to exist anymore is the closest way I can describe it.

I wish I could somehow just vanish from this place that is the equivalent of Hell.  But if anything could push me over the edge it would be the the errors in judgement I made during Mom's care at home, most of all the one that brought about our last moments together.  When Mom's breathing pattern changed I should have been holding her hand and remaining calm as the hospice manual instructed, but instead I panicked and tried to change her pressure ulcer bandage.  It was then that her heart gave out, and it was not peaceful.  I will never forgive myself for this horrific blunder - very traumatic, haunts and tortures me all the time.          

[ADM925]

On 2/12/2022 at 12:32 PM, Q26QRO said:

Lost Now,

That's exactly how I feel too. What's this world without my mom. I called my mom all the time too. It hurts without her, I'm currently in her room laying down. It doesn't even feel like she's gone most times, it feels like she's overseas or something.

Everything is meaningless. What's the point of doing anything. 

My life just doesn't feel real.

Nothing matters without her. Geez 

 

I am feeling all of this too and what is worse is that somehow almost overnight the days have started to seem longer and longer, like each day will never end.  I'm up only 12 hours after a sleepless night and it feels 3 times that at least.  I know it is because of going too long without seeing Mom, hugging her, having conversations, hearing her saying "I love you, honey."  All things for which the memory alone is not enough.   

[Dannette]

I’m new to this group but I feel just like you. My mom passed away January 4 I watched her take her last breath. She was my everything. My best friend she helped me raise my kids. We did everything together. It just feels like I’m in some nightmare that I can’t wake up from. I barely sleep all I do is cry. I listen to her voicemails on my phone just so I can hear her voice. My world has ended I do nothing now I would call her for everything. There is no meaning to life without my mom. It just don’t seem real and I just don’t know how I’m going to live life with out her. 

[Lost45]

On 2/12/2022 at 7:43 PM, ADM925 said:

The problem with being told "get on with your life" is that caring for my suddenly widowed Mom was my life for the last 21 years (wouldn't have had it any other way as we loved and protected each other).  Without her my life is an empty miserable horror and that is what they are telling me to get on with.  .  

     

Exactly, I am starting to come to the conclusion this is not recoverable at least for me. Getting so very tired of people telling me it takes time and will be ok and don't give up. They usually say this while off home to their family. So off I go back to an emtpy house. I don't know anymore. Can't sleep or rest, plagued with constant nightmares and panic attacks how am I supposed to go on like this for the rest of my life. Then on top of it have to sell the house and move soon.

On 2/12/2022 at 7:43 PM, ADM925 said:

I wish I could somehow just vanish from this place that is the equivalent of Hell.  But if anything could push me over the edge it would be the the errors in judgement I made during Mom's care at home, most of all the one that brought about our last moments together.  When Mom's breathing pattern changed I should have been holding her hand and remaining calm as the hospice manual instructed, but instead I panicked and tried to change her pressure ulcer bandage.  It was then that her heart gave out, and it was not peaceful.  I will never forgive myself for this horrific blunder - very traumatic, haunts and tortures me all the time.          

What you said there is remarkably similar to me a did the same when Mom's breathing changed and started to moan. I should have left her alone but tried to help and now plagued with guilt. As you said well it is torture. Nothing else can describe it.

[ADM925]

1 hour ago, Dannette said:

She was my everything. My best friend she helped me raise my kids. We did everything together. It just feels like I’m in some nightmare that I can’t wake up from. I barely sleep all I do is cry. I listen to her voicemails on my phone just so I can hear her voice.

Welcome to "the best place nobody wants to be at".  You will certainly find empathy here.  I wish I had some constructive advice to give as well but after 7 months I am more lost and terrified than ever without Mom my sole refuge in the world.  Somehow it's become more shocking and unreal with time.  I feel like I'm outside of life and the world, don't belong here anymore, and it's very frightening.  I have 4 short videos (each under a minute) of my mom and I watch them over and over.

2 hours ago, Dannette said:

My world has ended I do nothing now I would call her for everything. There is no meaning to life without my mom. It just don’t seem real and I just don’t know how I’m going to live life with out her. 

I had to spend hours with many people today (the so-called "cure") and barely got through it.  It is during the times I feel trapped with people that the memories of the worst horrors and heartbreaks of Mom's 8 1/2 month ordeal come at me the hardest, causing a massive panic.  But the only place I can run to is the now-empty house where we lived for 39 years, where I pace the floors in shock and horror that my sane, peaceful world has ended and been replaced with a living Hell.  I've been doing vocabulary quizzes all night because I'm afraid to sleep and it's nearly 6 AM.  And with the hated sunrise another day starts without Mom.  I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take.  Maybe that's how the nightmare will finally end.    . 

[ADM925]

15 hours ago, Lost45 said:

I am starting to come to the conclusion this is not recoverable at least for me. Getting so very tired of people telling me it takes time and will be ok and don't give up. They usually say this while off home to their family. So off I go back to an empty house.

They now have a grief counselor leaving messages and I'm very afraid that dealing with him might create even more panic.

15 hours ago, Lost45 said:

What you said there is remarkably similar to me a did the same when Mom's breathing changed and started to moan. I should have left her alone but tried to help and now plagued with guilt.

Maybe people in extraordinarily emotionally difficult positions need the medical professionals involved to step up the help at critical times.  The hospice nurse who visited the day before I lost Mom said she was pale and her fingers didn't look right.  Couldn't she have alerted me to a possible change in breathing based on those signs, and cautioned me against doing anything strenuous?  Err on the side of caution.  Or maybe I should have known based on Mom's breathing not to do what I did without having to be told.  That haunts and torments me viciously.  I brought about my own beloved mother's last moments, our last moments together.  She shook the guard-rail in distress and her heart gave out.  Yes people will say "it was her time" anyway but it still shouldn't have happened the way it did.  I'll relive this agony forever and there is no way to describe how devastating it is except to say it could drive a person to end his own life. 

Now it is 6:35 AM; I haven't even tried to sleep and it's daylight already.  Misery like this could only be cured by my mom, so I don't know what to think or say anymore except that each day is more lonely and difficult without her than the last.  

2/14/22, my first Valentine's Day without you.  Happy Valentine's Day Mom, my Forever Valentine    

[Missingnymom]

To be very honest they say time heals all wounds but not this one at all. The common saying it gets easier over time LIES its like one day your almost okay and then BOOM you have a breakdown. I think to myself my mom and dad passed how could that be at 35 theres no way and then currently im going through a trust battle with my family which still reminds me my mom is gone. I get so angry sometimes I question GOD why woukd you take my Vest Friend my sense of peace I dont know sometimes I feel so lost.

[ADM925]

5 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

To be very honest they say time heals all wounds but not this one at all. The common saying it gets easier over time LIES

It is 7 months today, it is worse than ever, like being buried alive alone in hell.  I dreamed of Mom and Dad last night, we were holding our cat who wanted to go outside.  It was so happy and seemed so real, then I woke up with a shock alone in the cold empty house and began to panic like always.  These dreams happen all the time, even if happy they break the heart and remind me of how alone I am without my family.  The thought of this going on and on is too much, I can't take it anymore, I will never survive it.  And I have nightmares of when Mom was so sick for 8 1/2 months and I couldn't see her for 3 months, all the details of her suffering and torment, for 3 months not allowed to be with her son. 

5 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

I get so angry sometimes I question GOD why would you take my Best Friend my sense of peace

The panic is going for 7 hours and these were my exact screamed words.  I have no one in the world to turn to for peace love and comfort, not one.  Only Mom could stop this despair, hopelessness, and agony.  And no place anywhere gives peace without her, not home alone or the church we attended together for 33 years, even though they tell me it does and that I am getting better and better.  I have to go there alone tonight and the weekend and it is brutal, a heartbreaking nightmare to be there without her.  And to come back to the empty house without her.  I am getting physically ill from having to get ready to go there now.  How can this go on, I can't bear it another day or even hours more. 

[ESM]

9 hours ago, ADM925 said:

It is 7 months today, it is worse than ever, like being buried alive alone in hell. 

That's precisely how I feel. It's now a little over 3 months for me  and just like you, it continues to get worse. I also questioned how much longer I can continue on like this. Tonight, I actually went out to eat with my stepdad and my mom's two dearest friends. Every other time we all had gone out to eat my mom would simply always be present. It was surreal and horrific sitting there without my mom beside me. Throughout the restaurant there was conversation, laughter, blaring music, sports on big screen TVs, and while I was sitting in the middle of it I felt like I really wasn't there, or didn't really belong there. The whole experience was just nightmarish. I know I sound like a broken record, but I hope some way, somehow, everyone on this board can find the impetus to go on and find just a bit of peace at some point. Try to be well everyone.

[ADM925]

18 minutes ago, ESM said:

It was surreal and horrific sitting there without my mom beside me. Throughout the restaurant there was conversation, laughter, blaring music, sports on big screen TVs, and while I was sitting in the middle of it I felt like I really wasn't there, or didn't really belong there. The whole experience was just nightmarish

I had a nearly identical experience tonight, felt frighteningly disconnected and barely said a word unless addressed (told them in advance I'd be poor company after some especially bad nights).  I hadn't eaten all day (the only reason I went at all) and still could hardly get anything down. 

It is as though Fate, the Cosmos, or what-have-you has taken its revenge on Mom and me for enjoying our meals so much over the years, whether in restaurants or at home.   When after being harangued for 5 weeks by the hospital doctors and palliative care nurses I still refused to allow them to give my mother morphine and take her off the ventilator, they said there was no other option but a tracheostomy and feeding tube.  When Mom did come home (against all their predictions), she was hungry and thirsty, pleading for food and water, and was allowed nothing.  The guilt and trauma from this horror will never go away, and are renewed each time I'm forced to consume something in order to keep from starving.  Best wishes to everyone in facing the coming days with our hearts permanently ripped out.         

[Lost45]

16 hours ago, Missingnymom said:

To be very honest they say time heals all wounds but not this one at all. The common saying it gets easier over time LIES

11 hours ago, ADM925 said:

It is 7 months today, it is worse than ever, like being buried alive alone in hell.

1 hour ago, ESM said:

It's now a little over 3 months for me  and just like you, it continues to get worse. I also questioned how much longer I can continue on like this.

Just to say this also my experience just over 2 months now without mom, no family and rarely see anyone from day to day now. As each day passes the realization of will never see her or the rest of my family again hits like a physical blow. No idea how long can go on like this....All the best to everyone here.

[ADM925]

1 hour ago, Lost45 said:

As each day passes the realization of will never see her . . . hits like a physical blow.

As part of the supposed 'healing process' some friends of ours have been urging me to schedule a Celebration of Life or Memorial Service "to say goodbye to Mom".  Those words truly did hit like a gut-punch, a ton of bricks.  I guess I'm still in denial and think I'm going to wake up from this nightmare.

Another said "life is short, we'll all be gone soon enough"; maybe true but never before has time dragged so miserably as it does now, or suffering seemed so manifold and prolonged.  Too many heartbreaking moments and images that keep repeating, no end to separation and no relief ever, only gets worse with greater panic all the time.

[Traz]

As I am reading through these posts, I feel parts of myself in them. I've suffered panic and anxiety my entire life and have been to dark places where I felt I would never be able to find a way out. 

I can deeply appreciate and empathize with those of you who really didnt have opportunities to form a network of close relationships outside of your parent. My heart truly goes out to you as I can only imagine the all-consuming terror of being left alone without the one person who was literally there for you from birth. 

I've read studies on grief and the people who have the most difficult time are those without a strong support network of friends, extended family etc.. I can't offer any advice that you haven't already heard, but I would encourage some type of therapy with a professional who deals specifically with complex grief. Better Help is one of the more affordable options, I think. 

Sometimes you feel like you were just put on this earth to suffer. In my own recovery, I am finding that I have to have a purpose in order to be able to continue on. I realize for some of you this will feel impossible, if you have never stepped outside your comfort zone and your world was narrow regarding outside relationships. That could feel like jumping off a cliff. I felt like after I lost my mom, I didnt know who or what I was without her. 

So, I am pledging to myself that the best way to honour my mom is to live this life I've got left, with purpose. I'm going to find one because I know her mother's heart would be shattered to see me wither and die. Many of you are recently bereaved and I understand your agony is still acute. It's taken me almost 2 1/2 years to even contemplate my own life.

Courage XO