I just need somewhere to let it all out...

[Sweeney Todd]

My mother died a month ago. She had bowel cancer 2 years ago which she fought off, only for it then to come back with a vengence, metasticised - spreading to her lungs, spine and kidney. It took 6 weeks from the diagnosis of it's return to it taking her.

 

With my Dad having died 10 years ago, my Mum was my sole parent - someone I spoke with almost every day, someone who had been my rock during my separation/divorce (also 10 years ago), who had shared my joy when I met my new partner 7 years ago and someone who talked about my perfect love story when I married 2 years ago.

 

I have two brothers who were both torn up and struggled to cope when Mum was diagnosed with a recurrence of the cancer in late July and who have found it hard to cope with Mum's loss. I have therefore needed to be the 'strong brother' throughout all of this. The son who had to get firm with the hospital when Mum was being moved from ward to ward during her palliative care, the person who had to push through the transfer to a Care Home and finally, the son who was able to cope with standing up in the church during the funeral service to do a reading (as I had to do at my father's funeral) because my brothers couldn't cope with doing that. I didn't mind doing any of this - it made me feel like I was doing something rather than just watching from the outside - but it meant that I wasn't able to properly grieve.

 

I loved my Mum dearly, but I have been racked with guilt over not liking the person the cancer made her in her final days. I know it was the illness that affected her mind, but in her last days she became intolerant of the staff at the Care Home (being openly rude to them) and she spouted a lot of racist nonsense - I know this wasn't her, but I have struggled to separate the person my Mum really was with the person that saw out her final week.

 

I've managed things, as I always do, by compartmentalising - separating work, wife and kids, and mum into their own little boxes that I can open and close as required.

 

My wife has been brilliant - she really is the love of my life and someone I can share anything with. She understands how my mind works. How I self-manage. And how I needed time to organise my feelings. She's been on hand when I've wobbled and given me space when I've needed it. She's perfect. She can read me so well.

 

And so, a month after the funeral, I feel that I am finally able to cope with a bit more crossover - share more of my inner turmoil with my wife - although I suspect that she already knows everything that I have to say.

 

However, last weekend my wife broke down to me. She's an incredibly intelligent woman - incredibly intelligent with qualifications coming out of her ears. She has lived a very colourful life - including a promiscuous youth - and has, over recent years, been writing a series of short articles on her own history. This process inevitably involves a lot of self analysis. She has always had a strained relationship with her parents - a mother who tried to commit suicide on a couple of occasions when she was a child, a father who decided that his daughter preferred his mother when she was 8 years old and behaved like a kid himself by distancing himself. Last week, whilst retrospectively looking at her life story, she unearthed buried memories and believes that she might have been sexually abused by a family member when she was 7 years old and that her previous history of sexual encounters contains a huge catalogue of an inability to say 'no' due to conflict avoidance, rather than a decision to say 'yes' and that, retrospectively, she feels that she has been violated - not raped in the traditional sense of being held down, but emotionally raped by the fact that sex was not consentually agreed to.

 

My wife keeps telling me that we are here to support each other and that these revelations don't affect her ability to provide support for me. But in my head it does. A part of me is irrationally internally screaming at her - why couldn't she have had these thoughts a year ago, or a year from now. Why are her problems having to eat into my ability to grieve? I know that is unfair and wrong of me.

 

So now I am trying to process everything in a way that my problems are very straight forward. I can cry at times - and that is fine - but my primary concern has to be to my wife because she has so much more going on; essentially rewiring her brain to understand who she is and rewriting her own history. We've arranged for my wife to have counselling and she had her first appointment on Wednesday just gone.

 

But in my head, all the boxes. All the compartments. They are just melting. All rolling into one molten river. And I am struggling to stem the flow.

 

Sorry for this. I just needed somewhere, an escape, where I could put all this down and get it off my chest.

[JeanMihalick]

I'm so sorry for your losses. You have so much going on right now, I'm sure it's hard to breathe or think straight. I understand where you are coming from with your brothers. When my mom passed, it was me that made all the phone calls after the hospital called, me that signed all the forms, made the arrangements and decisions. When the funeral was over, was when I started to grieve. I was so busy in the days between her passing and the funeral that I didn't allow myself time I needed to start grieving. Now that I am it really sucks. I'll be sitting there at work and all of a sudden the tears will start.

Be thankful you have a supportive wife. While I do love my husband, he is not at all supportive. He still has both his parents and is very close with both of them even though they divorced years ago. They are both healthy and much younger thrn my mom as they had hubby in their teens. He seems to think I should be over it by now and move on. I promise I will be so supportive of him, when the time comes.

As for your wife, I know she has much going on and I'm hoping the therapy will be able to help her and you figure everything out. I've gotten good at privately grieving, even in a house full of people. Just do your best to also take care of you.

[KID72]

Very sorry for your loss. Being the oldest sibling really takes a toll. I understand this all too well. I also can relate to your feelings of anger that your wife is cutting into your grief. Mine is too and I feel horrible guilt about it. I am glad I am not the only one. My husband lost his job 2 months after my Dad died. My husband also has a very difficult relationship with his parents. He is now in a deep depression. I worry daily that he may harm himself, as we are now in the midst of a legal battle with his former employer. I have not been able to grieve much at all, as I am busy supporting him both emotionally and financially. I am also trying to be as supportive to my Dear Mother as she struggles with the loss of her true love. And I also try to be there for my younger sister. And I feel like I am being crushed under this weight. I am struggling every second of the day, and nobody sees it. That is how I feel. Like I am so alone and I miss my Dad like crazy. And I have the same irrational anger as you, why now? Why do you have to need me to be the strong one? My grieving once again has to take a back seat. And it pisses me off, but I can't say that to him:( Last week I called home from work and no answer and I freaked, had to drive home from work to check on him. He was out, running an errand. I was mad at him for making me feel that way. How can I handle all of this? I wish I could compartmentalize, but I can't seem to. I plaster a smile on and push through with the constant mantra: This too shall pass. This is a good place to come and vent. I am glad you did. ~Erin

[carolann12345]

No matter how old you are when you lose a parent it is still a traumatic episode in your life. No one understands how bad it is or how difficult it is when a parent dies unless they have suffered a loss themselves.  My Dad died forty years ago when I was seventeen and I miss him every day. My Mom died last June in hospital.  Sadly for the last the last three weeks of her life she needed medical attention that I could not give her.  I gave up work to become her full time carer in 2009 and i still cannot get used to the fact she is no longer around. I had promised my Dad when he was dying that I would look after Mum and I did my very best to do so but there are days that I feel I did not do enough for her.  I have tremendous friends and a terrific partner who are supportive.  I do voluntary work for a local animal charity and am looking to get back into work again. It is odd that some prospective employers look at you blankly when you say your last job was that of a carer.  Although people often wish they could win loads of money on the lottery and yes that would be great when you think of all the help you could give people financially but sadly one thing that you cannot get no matter how much you wish for it and that is to have your parents back alive and well again. Never feel you have to apologise for grieving for someone you have loved and lost. It was a priviledge to have that person or persons in your life for however long or short a time that may have been. Always know that your parents loved you and no one can take that love away ever try and focus on the good times and if you want to cry do so.  They will always be with you. I sometimes listen to Faith Hill's song There You'll Be as it sums up how I feel about my parents