I'd like to talk about Grief, how do people live day to day with it?
Hi there,
This is my first and possibly only post on Reddit.
I'm not entirely sure how this works, but after having a brief look around it seems Ok to just explain and hopefully receive strong human responses.
Initially I was going to just spit this into Chat GPT, ask it to use references from poetry and literature to show me examples of conversations, or thoughts around Grief. But I also have a serious dislike of AI being used in place of human art or connection so I decided fuck that and here I am.
For a bit of context, I am in my early 30's and I'm a woman. I lost my mother a few years ago and I don't have enough time or words to adequately describe the brutal wound within me that I carry from that loss every day.
I don't believe time heals all, I think its poetic to think so, and I recognise the brain lessens or even hides certain things from us to protect us and it seems over time that we are 'healing' but I don't and never have thought this to be true. I think in order to heal, from trauma or even habitual behaviours inbuilt by our lives and those around us, takes a lot of effort, facing ourselves and being active in changing, or healing, but in this case I want to listen and hear, I'm not here searching to be healed, please even with the best intentions, do not advise therapy, it's not what I need or am here for.
I would like to also note that I have experienced death before, both by losing people I love, and by having my own personal close call.
I would like to give more context about my life, but I am afraid of certain people I know who use reddit discovering this is me. I dislike so much talking about myself or describing who I am, but I feel like I need to say I am not a delicate type of person. Extremely far from it. I want to have a very real conversation without people feeling the need to be gentle.
I have never dealt with anything like this grief, it is an experience that has shaken apart my entire being. I am deeply fascinated, broken and raw in way's I have no where to place within me. Today, just as it was the day she died, is the same pain, the same hollow hole in my chest, I can literally FEEL it. It has a physicality inside of my body and I feel it. If I think of her voice or a memory the emotion is right there below, threatening to cruelly overtake all of me.
I apologise also because this is written so abstractly, I'm trying not to sound like myself. I want to reach people as one human to another who knows this isolation. The grief of grieving someone who hasn't even died yet, then when they've finally passed, the shock and utter despair in knowing once their voice, their laughter, their mind, their heart, filled a space in this world, that they made sound, real sound, they talked for hours and had thoughts and dreams, that they were warm, that the clothes they wore they picked out and were excited to wear as an outer expression of who they were in life, that now, all of that and so much more has been reduced to ashes smaller than a shoe box and a devastating stillness where once was an entire being with real warmth, movement and consciousness.
And then watching the world move on, as fucking cliche as it sounds, watching it all just keep going, cars driving, people honking horns, me, going home and washing dishes just hours after staring in a kind of blankness, realising that she's gone and nothing has changed but EVERYTHING changed. Noticing at first the kindness and gentleness of those few around me, but then slowly, even as soon a month later, people thinking 'I'm over it or at least better'. Feeling crazy and problematic because I wasn't, and I had no one. No one to say that it wasn't getting better, that the pain wasn't fading I am just existing with it tucked inside of me like some blade that shifts with me but never kills me.
That things as always were so bad financially and even worse after with her medical bills, being evicted etc that I never ever got a chance to just stop, and go somewhere quiet to just scream and cry because life was demanding I carry the fuck on, shit needed to be done, I've got a people who depend on me and no one else was doing it so it had to be me.
So I did it quietly, I cried where I could when I could, I think of her and try to remember her well but I break every time. So I can't, it has to be in small doses or it's so overwhelming. The kind of crying where breath is gone, the cries are silent and your chest is so tight from the literal strength of the pain contracting inside.
But here I am, two years later and it's the same. I can't talk to anyone about it, because now it's two years, I 'SHOULD' be 'HEALED' by now right. And I want to emphasise that I'm not looking to be healed here on Reddit - I don't believe this pain is one that heals but rather one I will carry, a sadness I will hold until I pass on to the next great adventure too. But I can't talk about it with people around me, it's either too touchy a subject, they don't know what to say or it's kindness or pity. None of which I want right now, not to dismiss that but I'm here because I want to hear about grief outside of my experience. And in some way learn maybe, what? I don't know, but something in me needs to have a conversation about grief where it isn't 'oh, I'm so sorry'.
So I want to ask others here, what their experience has been with grief? Do you believe you've healed? Is there such a thing? Can I hear some of your stories, how your loved one died, what the loss was like? How are you now? How do you go about your days? Are you able to think of them, and if so, is it happiness, a calmness, still painful? How long has it been for you and is it still the same pain as when it first happened? Anything you can tell me please, in as much detail as you want, I want to hear, I want to talk about Grief with no frustration from others of it being two years and me still feeling the same the day she died. I want to talk about it without hiding from it. I want to understand how others carry their grief, because I have a sadness within me since that day, that is beneath all I do, an under current, ever flowing, with endless depth.