Losing my grandmother and realizing I never grieved properly before.

[Niz]

I've lost a number of family members and a few friends over the years. But back in December my grandmother went into the hospital with a ruptured ulcer. I had already been in a dark state due to my work conditions (I've since left that job). After several other complications she ended up in hospice and past away in March. We didn't always have a great relationship, hardly ever actually. She was verbally abusive, mentally and emotionally, and occasionally physically. She supported my uncle who was, for my own sanities sake, a horrid criminal who belongs in jail for a laundry list of reasons. But I did love her. And still don she was a staple in my life for my entire life. I had finally gotten out of her house and away from her and then she got sick. I have since let go on my regrets, my anger, and given myself and her much needed forgiveness for things that can't be changed. During her final days she was very out of it. In constant pain, and succumbing to dementia. She didn't remember the things she did to me. But she did remember that she loved me. She remembered doting on me when I was a baby. She remembered how happy she was that I was engaged and had graduated high school and all of the big important things. In a way it didn't feel fair that she got the happy memories and I got the rest. But I can see now that she got the happy ones to remind me of them and show me that while she wasn't perfect, she was my grandmother and acted like it when it was the most important. 

However, mixed in with the grief of loosing her, I've felt the resurfacing of grief I never dealt with, from losing her wife, loosing 2 childhood best friends, and many more along the way, I grieved for the moment and then suppressed it in order to "continue living" but truth be told, I feel like I've been on auto pilot. I haven't cried since her funeral. I may get a tear out here and there. But I can feel the physical chest pain of tears not cried. I've gone to the urgent care and the ER due to being riddled with anxiety of dying. I am, for all intensive purpose, healthy. But I always feel the pending doom. And having a small social circle, along with loosing so many important people, it's only shrank. On top of facing financial struggles and now medical bills due to my paranoia. I struggle to sleep, I'm finally recovering from some of the anxiety, but barely sleeping has ramped up my anxieties. I want to focus on facing my grief instead of burying it beneath responsibilities and consequences of taking time for myself in the busy life I lead. I have tried journaling, therapy, meditation, yoga, brown noise, white noise, nature walks, reading, audios, they all help some here and there but not consistently I almost feel I need to find a way to feel the emotions I've been avoiding. 

[reader]

Dear Niz,

I'm sorry for your loss. Please know there is no right way or wrong way to grieve. Each person's grief journey will be different. It sounds like you are doing what you can to get through each day. I think that's all any of us can do. Baby steps. I know it feels like sometimes nothing is working but I hope time will be the greatest healer. My thoughts and prayers are with you.