I feel like im drowning in grief. I thought it would get a little better by now but it hasnt. We used to talk every day and now nothing. I miss her so fucking much I can hardly breathe sometimes. I feel silly cause im 44 years old and I miss my mom so much it makes me feel like a child. I feel alone in my pain. And I just dont know how to get through this.
My father passed in 2019. It was sudden. He complained about having terrible head aches at the beginning of March, we found out a cancer he was cleared for had come back and he was gone by March 27th.
I've been absolutely devastated ever since. I have genuinely never been the same. The damage it has caused me emotionally is unimaginable. I live a normal life, but I'm just so fragile. It doesn't take anything for me to think of him and start crying. If I hear any rock songs from the 90s' or even before (A genre we both shared.) I almost always start bawling. I love these songs.. but now they're painful to hear.
It's been 7 years. It hasn't gotten any easier for me. I'm in so much emotional pain sometimes I don't know if I can bare it.
I feel bad for my spouse, who always has to deal with it. He does so with compassion, and hasn't ever said anything negative to me about it. But I know the way I let this affect me has to be draining
I was in therapy for a few years. I don't have access to it anymore. When he died I dove into self help heavily, I guess it didn't help. In general, I am more or less always engaging in self help, but again not sure if it ever really helps me. Maybe I just have more of an understanding.. but in the end I feel so at the mercy of my own emotions.
I'm scared that it will always be this way. It feels impossible to cope. It's impossible for me to understand what happened and let it go.
Does anyone have any advice for me?
Sometimes I just want REAL talk. A prefferably young person. Older is fine too- but a frank, honest conversation or story. No unhelpful 'Death is my friend', or 'I found god' kind of stuff or videos by Sadhghuru. If I wanted that, I would look for it.
I've got no problem if someone believes in god and is spiritual but that's really not what I want to hear right now. Especially not when I'm looking on youtube for something that resonates with me or that I can connect with and feel less alone.
I feel especially frustrated with broken record phrases of 'They would want you to move on'/'they would want you to be happy' (implying you're grieving wrong and you 'should be over it by now').
I've heard this from family and I know they mean well, but its' not helpful because of its' implication. Its' kind of repeating hollywood stereotypes of grief, and not centered in reality where your whole life feels meaningless or empty now.
Or the 'grief stages' videos. I think the stages of grief is an outdated model. You don't 'get' over it, like checking a box. You have to live with the burden for the rest of your life, and it feels like you now have a wholllllle life of that ahead of you. Deppressing...
The formal hospital grief procedure videos are also not what I'm looking for.
Maybe it has to do with youtube removing the dislike button so all the filler stuff gets pushed to the first page?
I only found the kind of video I was looking for-- by searching something else- a video of a girl telling the story of losing her mom to ALS (Amytropic Lateral Sclerosis), which is what took my Uncle.
So i used to have a very sharp memory and i would remember mostly everything.
But ever since losing my partner 11 months ago
Ive been noticing that I've forgotten most of my memories yk?
Like that type of "remember when" talks you have with your friends, we were having that type of conversation but most of the things she will tell me I just don't remember that and even if I do i only remember like very little about it and those incidents we were talking about was only from like 1 or 2 yrs ago.
So i get that I don't remember things I did before him or during him but now even after him I don't seem to remember anything? Like i don't remember the day he died where was I or after he died whether i met him or not
Like everything is so confusing
And i for a longest time was feeling guilty because i didn't even get to see his body for the last time
But i now just remember that i did see him I even touched him and cried and all
And I knew what he wore for our first date , where did we meet and all but I don't even remember it now
It's not like I've completely forgotten it as I do get flashbacks of those memories at random moments sometimes
So idk and it's not only his memory that I'm forgetting but it's with everyone including my friends and family..
Is this normal? Well I find this kinda fascinating like how these brains works and all
Although I've no deep knowledge about these topics
I would like to learn more on why it happens
Warning this is long. But I really need help. Thank you
Before anyone says this sounds AI-written, you’re not wrong. I tried for weeks to write this, and every time I try, I either start crying or end up with an incoherent wall of text. So I talked it through with AI for hours to help organize what I’m trying to say. The feelings and the story are mine. I’m just trying to put them into words because I don’t know how to do this anymore.
I’m 25 and my boyfriend was 52. I know the age gap is probably the first thing people notice, but I really hope you’ll read past that because that isn’t what I’m struggling with. He was my first and only boyfriend and the first person I have ever loved like this. I had never felt so safe and genuinely happy with another person in my life. And we just had this instant and undeniable chemistry that I can’t really explain. He was incredibly patient with me, never pressured me, and always let me move at my own pace. He supported me in everything I wanted to do and made me believe in myself. He made me feel loved in a way I had never experienced.
He also had serious health problems. He had been very honest with me about them from the beginning. He even used to joke, although it wasn’t entirely a joke, that he was a “ticking time bomb.” I knew he wasn’t perfectly healthy, but things were looking up in a lot of ways. He monitored his health closely and took extremely good care of himself since his diagnoses. I had even taken him to the hospital earlier this year when he woke up extremely dizzy and we were both scared something serious was happening. He never hid any of this from me. But knowing someone has health problems and believing you’re actually going to lose them are two completely different things.
There were a lot of things happening in his life during his last couple of months that made everything incredibly complicated. He had an ex-wife who had a very difficult relationship with him. There was this private and unconventional type of work he did that I don’t really want to get into publicly. His ex-wife found out about that around late April or May, and she told their kids, who are in their 20s, in a way that was extremely hurtful. They ended up essentially cutting him off. They wouldn’t speak to him, didn’t speak to him on Father’s Day, and had cancelled on an important family gathering because he would be there.
He loved his kids more than anything. Watching him go through that was heartbreaking. He was devastated that they wouldn’t talk to him, and I know it was one of the biggest sources of pain in his life.
Then, about a month later, some things with my friends happened.
I had kept our relationship mostly private because I was scared of being judged for the age difference. I was planning to tell my family this summer, especially because he had just moved closer to me. My friends knew I was seeing someone older, they knew his age, and I told them the details I wanted to share and the ones I thought were important: that he was a good guy, that I was safe with him, and that he treated me really well. I spoke about what he did for a career, what he and I did together, what he was like in general, etc., but they didn’t know everything. At first they were really happy for me or at least that’s what they told me.
Time passes and without me knowing, one of them started a deep search of him online. She found his ex-wife, which, long story short, they all thought she didn’t exist and thought I thought the same, which is my fault. They had every right to believe I was getting fucked over by a guy I really loved.
Once they found her profile, they messaged her and then actually spoke to her on the phone. I only found out a couple days later, after all that had been done. And I felt so upset that it started as one of them doing this deep search then involved our other friends and probably had a group chat going in discussing this while I knew nothing.
From their perspective, I understand why they thought they were protecting me and did what they did. They thought they had discovered something terrible and believed I was being lied to. But instead of coming to me first, they went directly to her. If they had come to me saying, “We found this profile that looks like his ex-wife. Did you know that he was married?” I would have come clean and told them everything, and a lot of the mess could have been avoided.
But everything blew up from there.
The ex told my friends about that unconventional aspect of his job, and I’m sure other things that an ex-wife would say about her ex-husband. I don’t imagine she said anything positive. They were uncomfortable with my relationship with him from that point forward.
I tried my best to tell them I was sorry for lying to them and that I understood why they did what they did. But I was also asking them to recognize that maybe once they found the profile, they should have taken a step back and talked to me before getting involved in this man’s family.
But they didn’t, and they still stand ten toes down on what they did. I admitted a lot of my wrongs, but they couldn’t give me even a little bit of, “You know what, maybe you’re right. Maybe we overstepped and weren’t thinking clearly.”
I know they had good intentions. I know they thought they were protecting me. But I still resent how they handled it.
He and I ended up having some really emotional conversations near the end. I was overwhelmed and scared, and we were trying to figure out what to do and trying to navigate everything happening around us. The last two times I saw him, I was very upset. We were talking about everything, and I was crying a lot. I didn’t want the relationship to end. He didn’t either. But I felt like I had to. I was just so scared and overwhelmed by everything that was happening. I just wanted it all to stop.
And when I was leaving, he looked at me and said, “Please smile.” I gave him this little fake smile that I always used to give him, and he laughed.
I didn’t know that would be the last time I ever saw him.
Two days later, my texts to him started turning green. At first, I tried to convince myself it was his phone. Something similar had happened before. But I knew something was wrong.
I tried everything. I texted his old number. I messaged him on social media. I tried contacting him through every avenue I could think of.
Eventually, I drove to his apartment. I knocked on the door and heard someone moving around inside. A man opened the door who wasn’t him, which made my heart sink. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong door,” even though I knew it was his door.
Then he said, “Are you looking for (his name)?”
I said yes.
It was his brother, and he told me that he had a stroke. I still wanted to believe he was okay. I asked where he was, if he was still in the hospital.
And he told me he had died.
They were inside his apartment packing up his things.That was the worst day of my life. I have cried every single day since.
I’m writing this almost two months later, and I still cry every day, multiple times a day. Sometimes it’s just tears. Sometimes it’s intense sobbing. Sometimes I’m alone and so angry that I hit or slam things. I can be at work and suddenly feel completely overwhelmed by sadness.
I miss him constantly.
I miss going to sleep next to him and waking up next to him. I miss his texts. I miss being able to tell him little things about my day. Those tiny things are what hurt the most sometimes.
Because it’s not like we broke up. He’s gone. I hate knowing he’s not on this planet anymore.
I can reread our entire relationship through our texts. Sometimes that makes me feel close to him, and it’s comforting in the moment. Then I close the messages and realize there will never be another one.
I’m scared that as I heal, I’ll feel more distant from him. I know logically that getting better doesn’t mean forgetting him, but emotionally it sometimes feels like letting go of him, and I don’t want to let go.
I’m also struggling with guilt.
I keep thinking about whether things could have been different. I wonder if I had never told my friends about him, maybe none of this would have happened. I wonder if I had told him more confidently that I was all in with him, maybe he would have felt less stressed. I wonder whether all the stress he was under contributed to what happened to him.
I know I can’t actually know that. But that doesn’t stop my brain from asking those questions over and over.
I’m also so angry. At his ex-wife. At my friends. At myself. At the universe. At the fact that someone I loved so much could be here one day and completely gone the next.
I’ve lost most of my friendships because of everything that happened. One friend has genuinely been there for me, and I’m incredibly grateful for her.
What makes me especially angry about the rest of my friends is the timing of everything. During the weeks when he was alive, after everything happened with his ex-wife, I was completely overwhelmed. I felt like I had so much pressure coming at me from so many people in my life, and I desperately wanted some space to process everything and figure out what I wanted.
But my friends wouldn’t really give me that space. They kept checking in, confronting me, and pushing me, saying they were doing it because they cared about me and were worried about me.
Then he died.
And suddenly I was going through something I never could have imagined, and I actually desperately needed support. Even though I truly don’t think I’d be comfortable expressing my grief to them, given what they have said about him to me in the past, I still need people around me.
They have checked in a little bit, and I don’t want to pretend they completely disappeared or that they don’t care. I can also understand that maybe they genuinely don’t know what to say to someone going through something like this. But it’s still really strange and painful to me. These were people who had been so concerned about me before that they wouldn’t give me space when I specifically asked for it because they said they cared about me so much. And now something absolutely horrible has happened to me, they know how badly I’m struggling, and for the most part it feels like there’s almost no acknowledgment of it.
One of them has checked in a couple of times since, but sometimes it almost feels like everyone is trying to act like nothing happened. I don’t know if that’s because they don’t know what to say, because they’re uncomfortable, or because they think giving me space is what I want. I genuinely don’t know. But after everything that happened before, it’s hard not to feel hurt by it.
I don’t necessarily want to throw those friendships away forever, but I don’t know how to look at them the same way anymore. I can’t understand how there could have been so much urgency to be involved in my life when they thought I needed protecting, but now that I’m grieving someone I loved and am barely functioning, there’s so little of that same concern. When I see their names pop up on my phone, I immediately think about all of this.
I’m in therapy now. I’ve only had a few sessions, and therapy has actually been helpful. I know this isn’t something that gets fixed in a couple of appointments.
My therapist keeps reminding me that I need to keep doing things even when I don’t feel like doing them. Exercise has helped a little. Sometimes I’ll cry the entire way to a run and feel slightly better afterward. I’ve been trying to find hobbies and distractions.
I have moments where I genuinely laugh or enjoy myself, and I don’t feel guilty about those moments. I’m trying.
But I don’t feel normal.
I’m drinking more than I should because sometimes I just desperately want the pain to stop.
So I guess I’m asking people here who have actually lived through this:
How do you survive the first few months after losing a partner?
Is this level of crying and inability to function normal this early on? Did you also feel like you were getting worse instead of getting better?
How did you deal with guilt about the last conversations you had?
How do you stop replaying the last few weeks and wondering what you could have done differently?
Is rereading old texts and looking at pictures healthy, or am I keeping myself stuck?
And how do you eventually accept that they’re gone without feeling like you’re letting them go?
I know I’ll love someone again someday. I know that logically. But right now I’m terrified I’ll never find anything remotely like what I had with him again.
He made me feel safe.
He made me feel loved.
He made me excited about the future.
He used to tell me that I made him feel alive and helped him see a future for himself again.
I just wish I could tell him I loved him one more time.
I don’t want to forget him. I don’t want to stop missing him.
I just want the missing to stop hurting this fucking much.
If you’ve been through something similar, I’d really appreciate hearing what actually helped you. Not necessarily generic advice, but what you actually did when you woke up every morning and the person you loved was still gone.
And if anyone has questions about the more private parts of this, I’m willing to explain more through DMs. I just don’t want to put certain details about him or his family publicly.
I don’t know where else to share this, so this is my way of processing it. I hope it is okay to post this as it is anticipatory grief.
It all started with my first child not walking even at 18 months old. Pediatrician found they had hyperreflexia and clonus, and referred us to neurology. Child had to go through a myriad of tests including a sedated MRI, genetic testing that looked for cerebral palsy mimics, and eventually whole genome sequencing. Basically we were at the dead end of testing, and kiddo was now 2.5yo and still wasn’t making any progress with mobility.
We have always wanted two kids. We wanted to wait a little bit longer to make sure it wasn’t something genetic, or even if it was genetic we wanted to know what gene it was. When repeat genetic testing also came back clean and we didn’t see anything that stood out in kid’s MRI, we decided to proceed with having a second child.
My firstborn had a repeat MRI when I was 26 weeks pregnant with my second. Turns out my little one had lost some of the brain volume. This confirmed our worst doubts - it is something genetic and it is something that gets worse with time, and this is a ticking time b0mb. We were scared our second would have the same condition, but we couldn’t test because we didn’t even know what gene to look for.
We waited with anxiety. My second baby was born seemingly healthy with no complications at labor or as a newborn. But here we are with the baby almost 18mo, and not yet walking. We are reliving it all over again.
My older one is physically disabled, and goes for speech, OT, and PT. My little one is such a happy kid and wants so badly to play and use their body freely, but their body just doesn’t let them - for eg, they try to play legos and their little hands tremor. No matter how much therapy we put in, we cannot beat the disease and it eating away their brain a cell at a time. This is not a childhood anyone imagines or wants for their kids. We are grieving everything - their childhood, their abilities, and eventually we will be grieving them. We get to do this not just once but twice. Parents are supposed to watch their kids learn and grow, not slowly lose ability to move, to talk, to eat, to breathe.
This is a pain of a different kind, and one I don’t wish upon my worst enemies.
I didnt listen to my best friend, later that night he killed himself
This is going to be a hard one to get through for me, and hard to read for a lot of people.
When I was in High School, now 24 going on 25 I had a friend who I called my best, for this thread will call him Chaz but that isnt ofc his real name. As the title suggests, one day during study hall he came up to me seeking advice and help because he was down in the dumps. He said im going to kill myself and asked for advice about his i believe relationship at the time, (the details of that talk i honestly cant remember) however this was during the time that every kid was saying they were also going to kill themselves, i had no reason to believe that he would end going thru with it.
I have for a very long time felt this guilt that I could've helped and saved him, and I honestly still feel that way, I should've done something to help him. But I didnt take his words seriously.
I remember the next day at school when we all got told the news together, we got called to home room for a last minute meeting, the topic... Chaz. The words my teacher then said have been at the surface of my mind for years, no matter how much I try not to think about it, its still there.
Chaz was the most talented person I know/knew, he could pick up any instrument and play it with the eloquence of a master musician. He was in a few bands, made music, super into gaming, which is how we first got to be friends, our mutual love over Zelda! Thats how we connected, I love the arts, partly because of him but my interests were there prior to meeting him, only refined afterwards.
Chaz isnt the only person Ive lost, just like many people im not special in my trauma or anything; but that same year I almost lost my mother due to a botched hysterectomy. She bled out a lot of blood after being discharged from the hospital (side note I hear thats common? But like wtf, im not an expert on female anatomy surgery so you tell me), later that month or sometime after my grand father who i hadn't seen in over 7 years at that point had gotten bone cancer. Quickly after getting diagnosed he passed, we live half the country away in the PNW and couldn't get a plane ride sooner, he ended up dying as we were flying out there and we didnt know until we landed. Later that summer, my and chaz's friend (lets call him Ben) Ben took his own life, he struggled with bad schizophrenia which is said to be rare in teens, but hes in a better place, not to be tormented. (Last one I promise, for now) a week after the news about Ben gets out, underelated, my friend Alex dies in her bathtub after having a seizure...
I dont mean to come off as just trauma dumpy, but again, all this happened with in the same year... my late freshman/early sophomore years. After these events, I shut down. Didn't give a damn about anything, my parents didnt care nor really did anything to check how I was doing, they're in their own world, my dad especially didnt have any sympathy for those who took their own life, which I understand his viewpoint. I think the last thing someone grieving someone who committed suicide would be to belittle them and call them weak.
All this happened in 2017. Later in high school I would over come and be a better person than I was before his passing, i was ready to graduate and go off to college and pursue my dreams of being a teacher and studying in the arts alongside, as a way to keep in touch with Chaz... the world ig had different plans and when I was about to graduate... a little thing called COVID-19 hit... I didnt get a graduation. No ceremony in memorial for the students who passed, no nothing. With the world being shut down, what was I to do? My plan for college seemingly got thrown out the window as I cannot and will not do online school, I need that physical environment to really learn anything.
I dont mean to give my life story here, this is something that ive been struggling for YEARS and only recently am getting into a better mental state. Therapy and meds are helping a lot tho rly I am just now starting them so we will see how it goes.
Should I feel the guilt I have? How do I actually move on from this? While I may have come to some terms its not something I can simply just get over, everyone I tell this story to tells me to grow up, but idk. As to what I expect from this post, just keep it cool. I wanted to put this out there so if you have someone who comes to you, fucking listen to them and hear them out. You may just save their life.
I just lost the love of my life of 33 years and I do not know what to do or where to turn and my own son won’t even ask if I need help and I don’t understand it .im not his problem I understand that but Jesus really?
My mom died four months ago. I keep going away on small trips -- a day or two here and there because I can't stand being home. But then when I go somewhere, I don't want to be there either. Basically I don't want to be in my own head. How do you cope with being with yourself when it feels so terrible?
My ex-boyfriend died back in May. About two months from now he was buried. I live on the other side of the country from him but I was planning a visit to come see him. I keep on thinking of getting a shovel and digging him up and laying with him in the casket and closing it and dying with his body.
I keep on thinking about what his body would look like. Would he still look the same? Even if he didn’t, I would still wanna lay with him until I die. The problem is is I’m actually committed to going through with this plan, even though I know it could get me in a lot of legal trouble. But it is to the point where I don’t care and I just want to lay with him.
I would never do this in a disrespectful way, I just miss him and I need to hold him and I don’t really care what anybody else thinks about it if I get caught. What are your guys thoughts and opinions
More than five years have passed since we lost our 23yr old daughter. It was sudden. It is hard to articulate just how difficult our lives have been since we lost her. Everything and everyone left in our household of three is different, and everything has changed. Losing her was traumatic and we could never have imagined how difficult it would be to continue in a world without her. As I stated, everything is different now. Our world view is different, our family ties and friends are almost non-existent. She died in December 2020 when the Covid Pandemic was in full swing. To make matters worse, she died from complications due to Covid-19, suddenly without any warning. People were social distancing and isolated, which made it more difficult to get the type of support we needed from those whom we needed it from most. We also had to wait 8 months to be able to pay tribute and honor her openly, ceremonially. My daughter had a large list of friends, more than 100 people whom I had to call to give the horrible news of her death. I was unaware that a human heart could endure such intense heartbreak, over and over again until I wondered if I would survive. The hardest person I had to break the news to was her younger sister.
We didn’t get to say goodbye. It was sudden. By the time we reached the hospital, she was gone. Enough said about that part of it.
It felt so odd and surreal, we were in shock and disbelief, and then it was time to leave the hospital without our precious girl.
I cried an ocean of tears during those first few months, with an intense tightness in my chest. After seven months, one of my heart bypass grafts failed and was torn. I was lucky to survive.
Over time, friends and family connections unraveled. This is not uncommon. Nobody is to blame, it is just the unintended consequence of child loss. This meant learning to deal with more loss. It has been a very sad, lonely time for us. We struggle to find purpose and meaning. I was very angry for a long period of time, and very disappointed with family and friends who I had hoped would be more supportive. How could anyone have really known how much we were struggling or what we needed?
The way she died, the pandemic, the political turmoil created by the current regime made things even more difficult. I became more resolute where I stood politically and morally. The experience of intense grief brought about more clarity. I had to rethink my life from the ground up. I retired the following year, which added to the feeling of isolation and loneliness, but I made peace with it. Nowadays, I prefer to spend my time alone, partly because I feel so incredibly broken, and I don’t socialize very well any more. Suffices to say, it is better this way, trust me!
My wife and I grieve together and support each other. It is no wonder why many marriages do not survive this type of loss. At least we have each other: I can’t imagine surviving this alone. I have gotten closer to my other daughter, and I treasure the time we have together.
After more than five years, things are a little less difficult. We are more resilient in some ways, more hardened in other ways. We don’t do well when even little things don’t work out, which is a type of PTSD. Like I tell people now, we are not the same any more. We have a dead daughter, and we are always sad under the surface of whatever facade the rest of the world sees.
My grief is a testament to the love I have for my daughter. I honor her in ways only I am aware, whether through my actions, through pain, or even through whatever joy I may find in life. Yes, I can still experience some joy and happiness. She would want this.
Grief over the loss of an adult child is what I call forever grief. I have experienced other losses of loved ones, and I can only speak from personal experience. These past five years plus some have been pure hell! But I am still here, trying my best to keep living, trying to be the best person I can be. It is a struggle to overcome this feeling of pointlessness. I am struggling to find meaning to all this. I miss her sooooooo much!
My husband of 32 years passed suddenly 3 weeks ago and my friend told me that it was time for me to get over it and that I was a better person than this! Not sure what she means by this! I stay here and grieve alone or go to my daughters. My friend has not been around me or come to see me since the day of his death. No meal, no calls, nothing, then Monday she called and asked me to come over and proceeded to tell me it was time for me to get over it!
My husband and I adopted one of our granddaughters last August who we have had custody of since she was 18 months old and we are navigating this tragedy as best we can. I just have outbursts of crying out of the blue. I can’t help it! I live and miss him.
He was the love of my life, my whole world! We met and dated one month and married after one month and were madly in love with each other for 32 years God gave us! I’m only, devastated and heartbroken! Not sure how to navigate this! I’ve never been here before and the pain is killing me! I don’t understand why she would say these things to me. I’m so lost and confused. I truly don’t think I’ll ever be over it! The pain is unreal.
My dad died when I was three and I had never dreamed about him. Not once. Then the night after I graduated college I had a dream that he was sitting in my room. He looked at me and smiled then hugged me and said “I’m proud of you.”
It felt so real that until I woke up I genuinely thought it was happening. A part of me has always believed that was actually my dad coming to see me during a major moment in my life. But then my logical brain wonders if maybe my mind created exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. 😩😭
I don’t know which explanation I believe more. lol anyone else experience something similar? curious to hear y’alls thoughts
I lost my dad in April. The process was very weird - he was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and passed less than 6 weeks later. So I knew it was coming and we got to be with him and say goodbye but I don’t feel comfort in it.
All of my emotions - my whole life, I seem to be able to logically process and it be ok. But I can’t work through this. Months later I still can’t process how it happened so fast. How he left his house one morning because his oxygen was low and then he never came home. Did he tell his dog bye? There was so many things we didn’t discuss. I feel robbed. If I have to deal with the anticipatory grief as I did, then we were supposed to get time. Talks. Conversations about his wishes. And here I sit feeling like I didn’t really even know him. And the time we had planned was stolen.
And I try to appreciate the time we had. That I was there. That he made the decision to go. I know that some people leave for work and never return. I know some loss is so unexpected that plans just sit as a ticket or suitcase never touched again. But as I think of that to be thankful I just feel more grief for those who do lose loved ones unexpectedly and get an overwhelming fear for whatever the next loss of mine will be.
I try to appreciate that he’s “still here” with us. Other seem to feel him. But I don’t. I don’t feel a connection at all. He’s just gone. I don’t want to return home to see my mother because it brings so much pain. I don’t want to do things that remind me that he’s gone.
So as someone who thought I had such a good handle on my emotions: even as I had to make the last decisions for him, I don’t feel like I have any grasp on this at all. And I thought time would make it better. But now - 4 months later. All I feel is the dark realization that I can’t ever talk to him again. This isn’t just a long time not hearing from him. It’s never going to happen.
I feel so stuck.
My uncle, 65, died today, and I don't know how to deal with it. He was a great person and had great impact on many people' life including mine, and I loved and respected him so much.
A few days ago, he had a heart attack, and since then, he had been on a ventilator. I never believed in God, but that day, I prayed with all my heart. I prayed to God to take some of my years but make my him breathe again, make him well again, and bring him back to us.
But I guess there is no God after all.
They don't understand. That's the actual response I've been told in response to my grief.
And I get that maybe they truly don't. It's not something I could've fully understood until I experienced it myself. The way it's made me question everything. Stop trusting anyone. I am always angry and sad and scared all at the same time.
She was taken. Stolen from life. We don't know who did it or why. And it hurts. It is so deeply painful in a way I don't even have words for. So yes, I get that they maybe don't feel it the way I feel it or understand it or know how to respond to it.
But even if they don't understand it fully, they can try. They can take a minute to realize that my pain is real and valid and that maybe, just maybe, I can't focus on the things they want me to pour my energy into. That those things feel pointless to me right now.
They don't understand my grief and I don't understand their lack of it.
I (27 F) gave birth to my son 4 months ago. Leading up to the birth my uncle would text us constantly asking for updates. When he was born he said he was so excited to meet him. He texted us asking when we would be home from the hospital and the day after we got home he hung himself. This was not a distant, uninvolved uncle. It was my favorite uncle. The one who takes you on vacation and had the house with the pool the whole family would create fun memories around. My whole pregnancy I just talked about how excited I was for those vacations with my son. Now I’m grieving the childhood I thought he would have.
I’ve read so many threads about the grieving process of losing a loved one in this way, and many people have said they were angry but they eventually moved passed it and accepted their loved one’s choice. I’ve always identified as being a deeply empathetic person. I’m the “look at it from their perspective friend”, but this is the first time in my life I’ve felt an unwavering anger, bitterness, and resentfulness like this. The first month was the worst month of my life with my hormones already being all out of whack. I would stare at my son and ask why he wasn’t worth meeting to him. I’m disappointed in and don’t recognize myself when it comes to this topic. In my brain I know I’m wrong and some of the things I’ve called him in my head are unfair. But the only thing that eases the sting is picturing him in front of me and telling him he’s a quitter, he’s missing out, I don’t ever want to talk to you again (even though he made that decision already & fck him for that too). Will I ever move past this phase?
I am a Christian and I personally believe he’s in a better place. I just selfishly want him here. Advice & encouragement is welcome. Not in the mood for criticism.
Everyone is dead. My uncle died in a work related accident when I was 7/8. Then everyone else started dying.
My great aunt overdosed, then my aunt overdosed.
Then my great grandmothers lungs gave out. Two days later, my grandfather hung himself.
My great grandfather died a few years later from old age.
My mom, my great aunt, and my grandmother all died this year from health complications. I am estranged from my father. I have two cousins left, they both have two siblings each, whom I am estranged from. Aside from them, I have my two children and my husband. I'm too young to have watch my entire family die. Being 2 months post partum, and having 3 very recent deaths, one being my mother... I feel like I am going crazy, recounting all of these deaths. Anyone else all alone now?
These are just my close family deaths (we were very tight knit-all grew up in great grandmas house together). I had a boyfriend hang himself when I was 18. I found him. A friend of mine shot himself when I was 16. My husbands father passed away a month before we got together (I had known him for a while before). My close friend died in a motorcycle accident in Nov. 2025.
Who else is fucking cursed?
When you lose someone dear to you, is it an unexpected or unforeseen!
Thats a question I have been looking forward to ask or may be answer! Not too sure.
Recebtly i lost my mother, although I idealised her but she was quite a dynamic person, full of life and loud.
Loud to such an extent, that she would not hear the other person's agony, agony that could have instigated because of her.
Still she lived a very joyful and happy life.
Her presence was very strong, so strong that her absence makes most of sad.
But the question, I often ask those who keep mourning over the demise of their loved ones.
Are we not born with the certainty of suffering the pain of losing our parents.
The day we take our first breathe in this world, this pain of losing our parents becomes a living reality, the only question is that if the time. How sooner or later we will be subjected to it.
Unless we choose to go against the law of nature of leaving before our parents.
Hope this gives someone the strength to overcome the pain that I went through.
"The natural order of life involves parents passing away before their children. If somebody dear to you passes away, it's your choice that you make them the source of misery in your life, or you make them the source of joy. If you value that life, you must cherish them for what beautiful things they were, what they brought to your life.”
Hi I’m hoping someone can give me some advice on this situation…
My friend gave birth a few days ago and lost her baby shortly after. She keeps saying she doesn’t want to talk about it and to expect her to go MIA. However, I don’t want her to feel like I don’t care. How can I support her during this difficult time and how do I know what’s overstepping and what’s not?
Also I’m pregnant…. How long do I wait to tell her? I feel so bad that I have no idea what to do for her