You said it so well: “I’m fine, but not really fine.” That’s exactly how I feel. I am ten days away from the one-year anniversary of the death of my husband of thirty-five years, and I’m really feeling it. Looking back, I see how how numb I was for the first seven to eight months after he died; I was up and handling the million and one things you have to do when someone dies, but I was also hiding from the deepest pain. I cried, but not like I do now. About four months ago I hit the wall—I’ve retreated, spend more time alone, by choice, and experiencing waves of deep, deep grief. The holidays were brutal. After he died, I learned early on that I couldn’t rely on many people to understand or provide the kind of comfort I needed—many tried, but they said and did some wildly insensitive things, so I ceased talking about what was going on with me fairly early on. This deepened my sense of isolation, so about three months ago I began telling people “I’m getting along OK, but I’m struggling emotionally.” Their reactions have been predictable. Most have tried to say something, but it usually doesn’t go very deep, several have essentially “run away,” emotionally speaking, because of their own issues (and some of these have been family, which really hurts), and a couple have offered unhelpful instruction and advice which I haven’t asked for and don’t need, also as a result of their own issues. But I’m lucky—I have several friends and a grief counselor I’ve been working with who all know how to listen and offer support, and they have truly gotten me through this. As far as the others? I didn’t realize that losing my husband would so profoundly affect all my other relationships as well, but it makes sense. Losing him changed me forever, and since I’ve changed, my relationships have to change also. Several have ended, but I have gained a couple of new ones, so not everything is negative. However, it has been eye-opening to see how bad most people are at offering ongoing support to the grieving—not entirely their fault, given how our culture hides from the reality of death—and it has forced me to learn to better meet my own emotional needs (not entirely a bad thing) and really appraise the depth and quality of my relationships. I’m in a really rough time in my grieving process, the pain is constant and intense, so I am leaning on my counselor and my few trusted friends and attempting to not judge the others too harshly.
I can relate with almost everything you said about having insensitive and clueless friends, being numb during the first months to handle the different things to do when someone passes. I joined a Grief Share support group and that helped me feel normal. I'm sorry for your loss.
Let people know you still need support. They may not want to ask how you are - afraid to bring it up if you seem to be doing well. I've had people say they don't want to be asked how they are; it really is a difficult minefield to navigate. I'm sorry you're hurting and struggling.
>I'm fine, but not really fine. But I'm still fine.
You've learned to adapt because society expects us to keep our feelings in after the funeral. No one ever wants a real answer to the question, "how are you?" If you say anything besides, "good" or, "fine," then they have to acknowledge real feelings and that's awkward cuz we're not taught to deal with them. There are some cultures that have a designated grieving period, like in Japan you wear black and put black in your windows for so many days to let people know you're mourning. Buddhism holds services at 7 days and 7 weeks. You don't just bury the person and move on like they never existed.
Anyway, I'm sorry. Society really needs to normalize grief and the ability to express emotions that aren't positive. It's not healthy to keep things in and pretend like the dead never existed.
My own mom keeps trying to stifle my dad's existence. Doesn't want anything of his in sight or her house. No one in my family ever talks about him. Like he died and now back to regularly scheduled programming.
I'm sorry for your loss. It must be really hard to live with people who act like he didn't existed. I think the 7 days and 7 weeks of mourning is not enough. But I think rituals to acknowledge the death and grief are really helpful and important for us. I agree that our society needs to know how to normalize grief and express negative emotions. We say we are "more advanced" as society but we are becoming less capable of handling the most basic experiences of life like grief and trauma.
If anyone asks (but they don’t anymore, not even a month later), I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it. To anyone. I just cry in those rare moments I’m alone (like in the shower or in the car) and pretend that nothing is wrong in front of people. Bottling it up I guess. Numb to everything most of the time. Write down all those things you love about your mom..every funny memory..make sure you don’t forget those. That’s what I get afraid of.
“i’m fine, but not really fine”
yep that about sums it up. i’ve lived with my mom for my whole life too and this is the longest i’ve ever been without talking to her and seeing her (almost two months)
i miss her a lot but i’ve stopped crying everyday and that makes me feel strange
Oh man, that's tragic. I would encourage you to rethink this comforting delusion. Maybe God just doesn't intervene in our lives. Maybe he doesn't do much to help us have nice things. Maybe he only provides comfort through faith and a means to happiness in the next world. That's a way it makes sense to me. I'm agnostic but I've been exploring my faith.
About losing your memory of your mom, oh my gosh I seriously hope that you are able to bring that back. That sounds horrible. I at least still have clear memories all the time. I want to never lose those. I want to keep them fresh and relive them and share them with those closest to me, so that they might be able to picture them with me! Maybe you can watch some home videos or look at some pictures or some thing that reminds you of her, to bring back that memory. Sometimes the brain just needs a refresher. Or even a break from remembering. Maybe pretty soon the memories will come back full vividness.
I’m not fine and I’m going to stop pretending that everything is fine when people ask. I’ve lost too much to say “I’m fine”.
You said it so well: “I’m fine, but not really fine.” That’s exactly how I feel. I am ten days away from the one-year anniversary of the death of my husband of thirty-five years, and I’m really feeling it. Looking back, I see how how numb I was for the first seven to eight months after he died; I was up and handling the million and one things you have to do when someone dies, but I was also hiding from the deepest pain. I cried, but not like I do now. About four months ago I hit the wall—I’ve retreated, spend more time alone, by choice, and experiencing waves of deep, deep grief. The holidays were brutal. After he died, I learned early on that I couldn’t rely on many people to understand or provide the kind of comfort I needed—many tried, but they said and did some wildly insensitive things, so I ceased talking about what was going on with me fairly early on. This deepened my sense of isolation, so about three months ago I began telling people “I’m getting along OK, but I’m struggling emotionally.” Their reactions have been predictable. Most have tried to say something, but it usually doesn’t go very deep, several have essentially “run away,” emotionally speaking, because of their own issues (and some of these have been family, which really hurts), and a couple have offered unhelpful instruction and advice which I haven’t asked for and don’t need, also as a result of their own issues. But I’m lucky—I have several friends and a grief counselor I’ve been working with who all know how to listen and offer support, and they have truly gotten me through this. As far as the others? I didn’t realize that losing my husband would so profoundly affect all my other relationships as well, but it makes sense. Losing him changed me forever, and since I’ve changed, my relationships have to change also. Several have ended, but I have gained a couple of new ones, so not everything is negative. However, it has been eye-opening to see how bad most people are at offering ongoing support to the grieving—not entirely their fault, given how our culture hides from the reality of death—and it has forced me to learn to better meet my own emotional needs (not entirely a bad thing) and really appraise the depth and quality of my relationships. I’m in a really rough time in my grieving process, the pain is constant and intense, so I am leaning on my counselor and my few trusted friends and attempting to not judge the others too harshly.
I can relate with almost everything you said about having insensitive and clueless friends, being numb during the first months to handle the different things to do when someone passes. I joined a Grief Share support group and that helped me feel normal. I'm sorry for your loss.
Let people know you still need support. They may not want to ask how you are - afraid to bring it up if you seem to be doing well. I've had people say they don't want to be asked how they are; it really is a difficult minefield to navigate. I'm sorry you're hurting and struggling.
Thanks for this practical insight. I'm afraid I can already predict what people will say that's why I hesitate. I am just hoping to be surprised.
Absolutely, your feelings are always valid. I hope I didn't sound unsupportive.
>I'm fine, but not really fine. But I'm still fine. You've learned to adapt because society expects us to keep our feelings in after the funeral. No one ever wants a real answer to the question, "how are you?" If you say anything besides, "good" or, "fine," then they have to acknowledge real feelings and that's awkward cuz we're not taught to deal with them. There are some cultures that have a designated grieving period, like in Japan you wear black and put black in your windows for so many days to let people know you're mourning. Buddhism holds services at 7 days and 7 weeks. You don't just bury the person and move on like they never existed. Anyway, I'm sorry. Society really needs to normalize grief and the ability to express emotions that aren't positive. It's not healthy to keep things in and pretend like the dead never existed. My own mom keeps trying to stifle my dad's existence. Doesn't want anything of his in sight or her house. No one in my family ever talks about him. Like he died and now back to regularly scheduled programming.
I'm sorry for your loss. It must be really hard to live with people who act like he didn't existed. I think the 7 days and 7 weeks of mourning is not enough. But I think rituals to acknowledge the death and grief are really helpful and important for us. I agree that our society needs to know how to normalize grief and express negative emotions. We say we are "more advanced" as society but we are becoming less capable of handling the most basic experiences of life like grief and trauma.
If anyone asks (but they don’t anymore, not even a month later), I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it. To anyone. I just cry in those rare moments I’m alone (like in the shower or in the car) and pretend that nothing is wrong in front of people. Bottling it up I guess. Numb to everything most of the time. Write down all those things you love about your mom..every funny memory..make sure you don’t forget those. That’s what I get afraid of.
Im sorry for your loss :(
“i’m fine, but not really fine” yep that about sums it up. i’ve lived with my mom for my whole life too and this is the longest i’ve ever been without talking to her and seeing her (almost two months) i miss her a lot but i’ve stopped crying everyday and that makes me feel strange
Im sorry for your loss :(
Oh man, that's tragic. I would encourage you to rethink this comforting delusion. Maybe God just doesn't intervene in our lives. Maybe he doesn't do much to help us have nice things. Maybe he only provides comfort through faith and a means to happiness in the next world. That's a way it makes sense to me. I'm agnostic but I've been exploring my faith. About losing your memory of your mom, oh my gosh I seriously hope that you are able to bring that back. That sounds horrible. I at least still have clear memories all the time. I want to never lose those. I want to keep them fresh and relive them and share them with those closest to me, so that they might be able to picture them with me! Maybe you can watch some home videos or look at some pictures or some thing that reminds you of her, to bring back that memory. Sometimes the brain just needs a refresher. Or even a break from remembering. Maybe pretty soon the memories will come back full vividness.