First time poster here. My mom passed away in June.

[Mattarga]

Hello. I am a first time poster here. My name is Matthew. I came here finally because I feel I need to be in contact with others who have gone through this. Even as I type this, I have tears in my eyes and sorrow in my heart; my mom passed away on Tuesday, June 11th of this year, and I am still having a hard time with this. I will keep my story as brief as I can. 

The night before she passed away, my mom was not feeling great at all. I had just come back from the pharmacy that early evening with her back pain pills. We had a dinner of beans and cornbread that night. We had a little bit of an argument, I had upset her, and she got ready for bed. I kept checking on her all night; she moved around a lot and was on her oxygen as she had been for about a few weeks. 

The next morning, I got up to check on her. She was not moving. I called 911, did chest compressions until the EMTs arrived. They tried resuscitating her for half an hour. But she was gone. I called a female friend and she came as quickly as possible. That day changed everything for me. I literally spent two months at my friend's house; I am an only child and had to deal with everything that had to be done: her cremation, notifying bill people, agencies that handled her money, etc. 

On top of all that, I had to move out of the apartment that mom and I shared together. Strike that. Forced out is more like it. The apartment manager granted me the chance to have an estate sale out of the apartment. Then all of a sudden she was fired, a new person took over, and the sale was shut down. Had to hire an estate sale person to buy everything out. And had to be out by July 1 (and recently, she turned me over to a collection agency for a lousy 238 dollars, all because the estate guy finished up that very morning moving everything out; I paid it, just to get it over with). 

Now up to now. Since mid August I am living in a rented room in a person's basement, and I still grieve her every single day. I feel miserable, lonely, and lost. I have no real family to speak of left. The pain is still so fresh. The worst part of all of this is tomorrow is October 1st. My mom's birthday is October 20th. I am going to have a real hard time with that. Not to mention Thanksgiving and Christmas. My whole world has been upended and I just don't know if the pain will ever go away. I was not prepared for any of it. And the worst part of it, she passed away and I never even got to say I love you one last time or even say goodbye. This all hurts so much.

[KayC]

OMG you have been hit with so much at once!  My heart really goes out to you.  I am so sorry.  Do you have any other relatives or support?

Wow, just too much.  As if all this wasn't enough to deal with, having all the emotions that come ith grief...

Hang in there, stop and breathe, you will get through this.  One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time.  Is there a park or nature trail nearby?  It helps to go there and just breathe, walk.

Keep coming here.  I lost my dad when I was in my 20s, 42 1/2 years ago, my mom ten years ago to dementia and mental illness (life long).  I lost my husband 19 years ago Father's Day.  Aunts, Uncles, cousins, two sisters (one I was her caregiver, 2 1/2 years ago), niece, nephew, so many.  Loss is part of my life.  You never get over it but you can learn to move forward with it, to carry it.  We're never the same as we were before but we carry strong lesson learned through our journey.

Grief Process

This is not a one-size-fits-all, what strikes us one day will be different a few months/years from now, so please save/print this for reference!

I want to share an article I wrote of the things I've found helpful over the years, in the hopes something will be of help to you either now or on down the road.

TIPS TO MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH GRIEF

There's no way to sum up how to go on in a simple easy answer, but I encourage you to read the other threads here, little by little you will learn how to make your way through this.  I do want to give you some pointers though, of some things I've learned on my journey.

• Take one day at a time.  The Bible says each day has enough trouble of its own, I've found that to be true, so don't bite off more than you can chew.  It can be challenging enough just to tackle today.  I tell myself, I only have to get through today.  Then I get up tomorrow and do it all over again.  To think about the "rest of my life" invites anxiety.
• Don't be afraid, grief may not end but it evolves.  The intensity lessens eventually.
• Visit your doctor.  Tell them about your loss, any troubles sleeping, suicidal thoughts, anxiety attacks.  They need to know these things in order to help you through it...this is all part of grief.
• Suicidal thoughts are common in early grief.  If they're reoccurring, call a suicide hotline.  I felt that way early on, but then realized it wasn't that I wanted to die so much as I didn't want to go through what I'd have to face if I lived.  Back to taking a day at a time.  Suicide Hotline - Call 1-800-273-8255 or www.crisis textline.org or US and Canada: text 741741 UK: text 85258 | Ireland: text 50808
• Give yourself permission to smile.  It is not our grief that binds us to them, but our love, and that continues still.
• Try not to isolate too much.  
• There's a balance to reach between taking time to process our grief, and avoiding it...it's good to find that balance for yourself.  We can't keep so busy as to avoid our grief, it has a way of haunting us, finding us, and demanding we pay attention to it!  Some people set aside time every day to grieve.  I didn't have to, it searched and found me!
• Self-care is extremely important, more so than ever.  That person that would have cared for you is gone, now you're it...learn to be your own best friend, your own advocate, practice self-care.  You'll need it more than ever.
• Recognize that your doctor isn't trained in grief, find a professional grief counselor that is.  We need help finding ourselves through this maze of grief, knowing where to start, etc.  They have not only the knowledge, but the resources.
• In time, consider a grief support group.  If your friends have not been through it themselves, they may not understand what you're going through, it helps to find someone somewhere who DOES "get it". 
• Be patient, give yourself time.  There's no hurry or timetable about cleaning out belongings, etc.  They can wait, you can take a year, ten years, or never deal with it.  It's okay, it's what YOU are comfortable with that matters.  
• Know that what we are comfortable with may change from time to time.  That first couple of years I put his pictures up, took them down, up, down, depending on whether it made me feel better or worse.  Finally, they were up to stay.
• Consider a pet.  Not everyone is a pet fan, but I've found that my dog helps immensely.  It's someone to love, someone to come home to, someone happy to see me, someone that gives me a purpose...I have to come home and feed him.  Besides, they're known to relieve stress.  Well maybe not in the puppy stage when they're chewing up everything, but there's older ones to adopt if you don't relish that stage.
• Make yourself get out now and then.  You may not feel interest in anything, things that interested you before seem to feel flat now.  That's normal.  Push yourself out of your comfort zone just a wee bit now and then.  Eating out alone, going to a movie alone or church alone, all of these things are hard to do at first.  You may feel you flunked at it, cried throughout, that's okay, you did it, you tried, and eventually you get a little better at it.  If I waited until I had someone to do things with I'd be stuck at home a lot.
• Keep coming here.  We've been through it and we're all going through this together.
• Look for joy in every day.  It will be hard to find at first, but in practicing this, it will change your focus so you can embrace what IS rather than merely focusing on what ISN'T.  It teaches you to live in the present and appreciate fully.  You have lost your big joy in life, and all other small joys may seem insignificant in comparison, but rather than compare what used to be to what is, learn the ability to appreciate each and every small thing that comes your way...a rainbow, a phone call from a friend, unexpected money, a stranger smiling at you, whatever the small joy, embrace it.  It's an art that takes practice and is life changing if you continue it.
• Eventually consider volunteering.  It helps us when we're outward focused, it's a win/win.

(((hugs)))  Praying for you today.

 

 

[Mattarga]

Thank you for all of what you wrote there, KayC. I  will do my best to do a lot of those, especially the seeking extra help. My closest female friend has been worried about me, so much so she not only called me this morning, but also texted me this afternoon, she must have known somehow that I am in a dark spot right now; so, that being said, I have a Zoom appointment with my psychiatrist on Thursday afternoon and I am going to have a serious talk with him about either upping or adding another medication for depression, and, contacting my local NAMI chapter about grief support, not GriefShare - it offends me that they expect someone to PAY for grief support, I don't like that. Plus it is a video type program with a workbook, I don't like that either. 

[KayC]

Here we have Casa that offers it, income based.  Have you tried griefshare or hospice programs?

[Mattarga]

I will look into the hospice program thing. I was wrong about the GriefShare thing. However, I have missed over half of the topics  in the groups in my areas. There is one that starts on December 2 in my old neighborhood that I moved from, McDonough. I have registered for that one. They are having a "Surviving The Holidays" one day event, I need that, I am going to register for that right away., it is November 4. I will have to put out 7 dollars for the one time event thing and 20 for the one on December 2, I am just going to suck it up and do it anyway.

[KayC]

That's not bad for grief counseling but when I led one it was no charge, it was privately shared here though.  You could try through local churches but it depends on the leader & materials as to how good it is.