r/grief

My brother is an alcoholic and it will kill him at this point. October 2025 he received a liver transplant on the exact same day as the 1year anniversary of our Mom’s death.. to give him another chance at life. I feel bad for even agreeing to let the hospital do this procedure because he has done nothing to turn his life around and had even started drinking again while also stealing drugs from my dad’s clinic. I fear he may have terrorized my mother towards the end of her life also, she had pre dementia signs and was scared of him. My Dad no longer wants to make any decisions for him so it is on me now to decide his fate. The grief if unbearable at this point I am not over my Mom passing and now I have to watch my brother die all before 30. I am suffering from brain fog the most/issue with short term memory I just feel I am walking in a daze. I wonder if I should even have children considering my brother killed himself from alcohol and my mother killed herself from having an eating disorder 20+ years. I hope it gets better and am just so sad my brother has done this to himself he may have maximum a few months to live

I was 19 when my father passed from Colon Cancer. Its been almost 8 years. It really hasn't gotten any easier. I cant do another 30 years or more of living without him. Im barley surviving as it is. My life has been hell ever since.

He was my best friend. We did everything together. There was never a moment we were apart for most of my life. He had always been sick and we were raised to know one day we would come home and he wouldn't be there anymore but cancer was unexpected. He was 63.

Right after highschool I had moved to another part of the country to live with my brother and his family to go to school. I did move out on my own after about 3 months. I knew his time was coming, I knew I needed to distance myself to make it easier when it happened. I had watched a lot of people die very young. I had a process of grieving. It wasn't a year since I left when my dad got diagnosed. 9 months later he passed. The Easter after that my brother decided he no longer wanted to be with his wife and essentially told the kids 10 minutes before I came over and then left. Left me to deal with crying kids. No explanation no nothing. Since then he hasn't spoken a word to me, basically off the radar. His wife and kids moved away and then he left, leaving me alone in a foreign place 4 months after my dad's passing. I was alone.

My family has basically forgot I existed. I speak with my mom but we never had a great relationship. She never cared to have kids really not until my dad died now she tries.

Im getting married in August, i am excited but i dont know how ill get through the day without my dad being there. Nobody is coming but my mom and one of my other brothers, not the one who left. Ill have no family attending. I just feel lost. I love my husband. Thats not the issue. Its just already going to be a hard day and being that nobody is there it will just make it that much harder.

These years since my dad died ive just completely lost myself. I feel like im just progressing in a story that died the day he did. I lost my best friend. My husband still has both his parents, his parents have their parents. Everyone my age has their parents. A part of me died that day and I dont know how to get it back.

I just needed to vent. Thanks.

I lost my mom suddenly and unexpectedly in 2022 to a heart attack. I thought my firsts after her death would be the hardest and honestly they were the easiest. Every year further away from her death feels more and more painful.

I am 30 today and I've had so many family members, friends and loved ones wish me a happy 30th. As much as those well wishes fill me with comfort, I feel so deflated not being able to talk to my mom.

I miss her. I just want to curl up in my bed until tomorrow comes and my birthday is over.

my best friend with borderline personality disorder and bipolar killed herself by walking onto the tracks in front of the commuter rail. she didnt die on impact, she died from her injuries.

we were as close as close can be. she died without us ever having a fight with each other or a misunderstanding or disagreement. she told me when we first became friends that suicide was an eventuality for her. i told her i’d never take her for granted. that was in november.

she told me i was the only reason she wont kill herself. when she attempted in march, she wrote me a text. this time, however, she didnt. we facetimed every single fucking day. a couple days before she killed herself she got sexually assaulted. the night before she ended her life, we were on facetime until midnight and were talking about what life would be like when we’re older and grow old together.

its important i also mention we met in a toxic group which we both left around roughly the same time because we both hated how they treated us. she hated how they treated me and how i was being shit talked at a sleepover. this goes to my main worry.

people who she didnt like will be at her funeral. people she GENUINELY hated. her ex boyfriend who called her a crazy psycho mentally ill bitch, her high school “friends” who told her to kill herself… people who claim to be her best friend when they mischaracterize her as this drama obsessed person who is shallow about her appearance. violet used so much humor and a façade to cope.

i don’t know how i can go to this celebration of life knowing there are people there who she would hate to see there. ive written over and over again in my notes app my frustration and anger to try and get it out and it won’t work. i dont know how i can stand to see people who contributed to her depression and ideation at a place to celebrate her life when they actively made it worse.

i love her so much. i miss her. i just wanna see her again and if there is an afterlife, i don’t want her to see these people deceiving her actual friends and family into thinking they were there for her when i know the truth. for reference, she wasn’t close to her family either and slept over my house to escape from everything. her mom threatened to kick her out after she tried to overdose in march when she got back from the mental hospital.

I’ve been grieving for years and it has only gotten worse. Does it get better at any point?

It has been 6 years since dad has passed. I had no one to tell that would understand that he just turned 60. I really didn’t expect it to hit me like this.

My dad died February 19th. Today was one of the worst days I’ve had. It feels like every day gets worse. I don’t understand any of this. I’m lost. I’m numb. I cry every day when I wake up. I’m so heartbroken. I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer and I swear I’ve never gone through something so traumatic. I’m so lonely even when I have so much support. Nobody can feel the deep pain i have. I lost my best friend, my identity. Idk who I am anymore and I feel like life has kept moving and I’m just stuck.

I have been in a long distance relationship that ended in grief last month. All the people who know/knew us both, live far away. So after memorial there, I am by myself now here.

With the long days at hospital and practical things that needed to be arranged after, I did not have much time to process everything for the first two, three weeks.

Many have ask me how I'm doing or how I'm feeling. And sometimes I don't feel like explaining yet again, but also I don't know myself how to articulate my whole range and mix of emotions.

I figure they are worried and see an introvert part of me hiding emotions and not opening up like they expect.

While writing this, I'm starting to feel that maybe it's a good idea to get myself a diary so I can write every day.

It’s about to be 7 months without her this week. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t been taking my meds everyday like I should, or if I’m just at a point in my grief where it’s starting to really feel real and permanent. But it’s been a really hard few days for me. I’ve done so many new things in these 7 months, I’ve seen so much, and I’ve dealt with so much and all I want to do is talk to her about it all like I used to. I still talk to her every day, but obviously it’s not the same.

I want her advice, I want to talk things out with her to help me figure things out, I want to hear about her day, her gardening, the people she cleaned for. Recently I’ve been in a few situations where I’m like… wow, I wish I paid closer attention to what she used to tell me because I can’t remember to save my life. She taught me so much, and I feel like I didn’t retain any of it. I wish I had asked more questions. I wish I had written things down. I thought I had decades left with her until one day I didn’t. She was fine until she wasn’t, and then I had one month with her and it was too late to ask questions and too late to write things down.

Anyways. I love her. And I miss her so fucking much it’s unbearable.

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.

You have cancer.

I say that not because you don’t know, but because it is constantly on my mind. We are the lucky ones, they say. There are tools to fight your cancer. To buy time. But not enough time. There will never be enough time. I know that. But knowing that our time is likely shorter than we thought; shorter than I thought, never leaves me. It is the oddest thing to grieve someone who is still here. Maybe it isn’t just you that I am grieving. It is the us that was supposed to be. After we had completed all our chores and responsibilities. The me that I will never be again. The you that is already different. Not in a bad way, but different, nonetheless.

You are scared. You don’t admit it. You bury it. At least so far. But I can see it. I can feel it. I am afraid too. I am afraid of being without you. I am afraid of you being in pain. I am afraid of trying to explain to our future grandchildren who you really are. I am afraid of them not being able to love you because they don’t really know you. They say that when the one you love dies, the person that you are, dies also, and that you will never be that same version of yourself again. Well, the old me has already died, I fear. And I know that the version which exists as I write this will die again when you do. I’m tired. My body. My mind. My spirit. I’m tired. But I feel so guilty for feeling this way. I wish I were the one with cancer instead of you. I don’t think you know how much I truly wish that were the reality. I am sorry.

I wish I were stronger, but I will do my best to hide what is really happening to me as long as I can. You should also know how grateful I am that you have given me a better life than I ever knew could have existed. I am also grateful that you are fighting like you are. I hope you can keep up that fight for many, many years to come.

But also know that if that fight becomes more than you want to deal with, I will understand when you need to just rest. You are indeed my one true love. You will walk with me every day for the entirety of my life, whether you are physically here or not. I promise to do everything I can to honor the way you would want me to be there for our boys, their future wives, and their future children.

When my day comes, please be the one who greets me in the afterlife. And I hope it is so amazing that time has no meaning there, and that as you take my hand to show me around, you tell me that you have been waiting for me all day.

I miss you.

I love you.

 

I'm still fuming about this, so I'm making a post because I don't know what else to do...

Today I was made aware that my mom's "best friend" wants to read a 3-page text about her friendship with my mom at her funeral.

Now I've lived with my mom, everyday, for over three decades. We were very close and she would tell me everything.

I know for a fact that my mom did not consider this person to be her "best friend." Deep inside, she knew they had nothing in common, but could not bring herself to let go of her, for the simple reason that they had grown up together.

What's more, this "friendship" was exhausting to my mom, because this person would talk talk talk all the time, barely letting my mom get a word in, and ever if she did, it wouldn't be long before she'd interrupt with something that she was suddenly reminded of (and that had to do with herself and not with my mom).

And now, even for her memorial service she won't be able to shut up.

She needs everyone to know how good a friend she was, and how many memories she had with my mom when they were teens, during the good times... all while conveniently skipping the fact that she was never there for my mom when my mom started having health problems.

In fact, as soon as my mom started showing signs of cognitive decline, she immediately ghosted her. Never visited her at all, and already started replacing her with one of my aunts (the only one who could tolerate her as a friend).

I knew she would pull something like this. As soon as I knew that she was coming, I was thinking "there is no way, that she 'absolutely wants to be there' (in her words) just for the sake of quietly paying her respects to my mom without drawing attention to herself. She wants to be there just because it's an opportunity for her to find people to convince that she was close to my mom and such a good friend..."

And sure enough, my prediction was spot on.

I've already decided that I won't be attending my mom's funeral, but if I did, I would have had to step away the moment this person opened her mouth... And even without attending, this still makes me mad.

I did not pay those expensive funeral costs for her to make herself the main character.

What should I do? Should I tell a trusted family member that I'm not okay with this?

On friday i was told my dad had a heart attack while at work. i hadnt even seen him in the morning because he left around 5am, while i was still sleeping. i got called down from my room and i instantly knew what was up when i saw my aunt and uncle there, but my first thought was not my dad. i was worried one of my cousins had passed away or another person- the possibility of it being my dad never even passed my head.

my dad was a healthy man, he went to the gym 2-3 times a week, walked our dog twice everyday and ate healthy. i still dont even understand how it could of happened to him. literally the day before we were talking about a football match his work is holding for charity, which is why it still hasnt even registered. it just doesnt feel real, he was just here and now im never going to see him again.

I have been through grief before, even as soon as this time last year so i know what it feels like and its effects. But because my dads was so out of the blue i am genuinely lost and i dont know what to do, telling myself ill be okay isnt helping and crying makes me hate the situation more. i cant help but see him in everything i do, and think of all the things he will miss. i turned 18 in march, he will never see me get married, pass my exams (which i now cant sit as they start tuesday) or even just see me grow.

overall, i just need help with dealing with this. i miss my dad. i wake up at night and hear sounds, praying and wishing that its him coming home but it never is. i have my mother and my brother alongside me but i still feel so alone. i just wish this was all just a joke.

Very long story short, I am caring for my mother who was just put on hospice for her COPD after an extremely stressful 6 months of moving her from hospital to nursing home, back home, assisted living, back to the nursing home, and then back home all because she is never happy anywhere. She continues to smoke heavily and it is quite clear that is the only thing that has brought her any happiness. She has never had hobbies, doesn’t enjoy ANYTHING (puzzles, new tv shows, shopping, nothing). Every move I would buy her a new batch of nice practical goodies and she literally would give it all away. She has had a long tough life and I understand that but she was a tough mom to me. She has always been either extremely hot or cold with me and honestly I was terrified of her but still respected her as a hard working woman. Now as a mom though, I don’t understand her parenting at all and I hold a lot of resentment. Here we are, her dying because of something she has chosen over me my entire life, cigarettes. This whole ordeal began 2 days after I had my second baby and then two weeks later I was hospitalized for a week. It has been extremely stressful as I’m her primary caregiver along with working full time, in college, having my own family to manage. I feel immense relief that hospice stepped in but I can’t let go of the resentment. Resentment that cigarettes have always been her main priority and that they are the reason she is dying. Resentment that she expects me to drop everything I have going on to tend to her. Resentment that she had a wasted life. My dad passed 3 years ago so I moved her to be closer to me. I hoped she would become more involved but nope. It’s tough, and I just want to know I’m not the only caregiver with these complicated feelings of love for my mother but also burdensome resentment.

In the early morning of Wednesday, I got up like any normal person and went to make some food. My mom came in screaming for my little brother because she was upset and thought he had slept in.

She couldn’t find him anywhere until she went into her own room. Suddenly, I heard her screaming very loudly, saying his name over and over again. My uncle ran to see what happened and he started screaming too, while my mom and uncle ran completely out of the house. I quickly ran into the hallway just as my older brother came out of his room, and we both went together to find out why they were screaming.

We went into my mom's room. It smelled weird. I didn't notice him at first, until I walked to the side a bit and then I saw him.

He was sitting on my mom's bed, face down on a rolling desk. Blood was dripping down his face, his glasses were broken, and he was still in his school uniform. My older brother immediately ran out of the room, but I just stayed there staring. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My very first thought was just, he's asleep. But hearing my mom screaming outside snapped me out of it.

I ran outside, held her, and kept saying, "Oh mom get up, please get up mom." Then I saw her phone and heard the 911 operator on the line. I took the phone from her and I was shaking so hard I couldn't even form a thought, but I told them my brother committed suicide.

My older brother took the phone from me while I ran back inside to grab my own phone.

I was going to run right back out, but for some reason, I ran straight to where my little brother was. When I got to him, I finally started to cry and completely break down. I started saying his name, and then I remembered that my older sister was staying with my dad at the moment and needed to know. I quickly called her and told her everything.

As I was walking out of the room, I saw my older brother's girlfriend coming out of his bedroom, and I told her, "Do not go in here." as I closed the door behind me. I don't know if she decided to peek or not.

I ran back outside, but then I saw my older brother run back in, so I followed him into my mom's room again. He was talking to the operator, who was asking if he thought my younger brother was still alive.

I just stood there staring at my younger brother's corpse while my older brother put his hand on his back. I kept wondering if maybe he really was just sleeping, or if maybe I was dreaming and none of this was real.

What happened after was so weird. Suddenly I was standing outside on the porch, and time felt like it was moving so fast. I was just staring at the ground, unable to think. Family members started arriving, and someone came up to get information from me. I tried to talk as best as I could, but I really couldn't. The officers were just staring at me. I felt so empty. They moved me farther away, and then I saw the ambulance leave without taking my younger brother. That was the exact moment I knew he was dead, and I knew I was never getting him back ever again.

The medical examiner and the crime scene crew came and took his body. I cried and shook, feeling completely useless. I remember wondering if I should bring them his blanket so he wouldn't be cold. My mother was screaming, asking him to forgive her, and kissing my little brother's head. A police officer came over to ask more questions, looked at me, and told my older brother to watch me because I looked like I was in really bad shock.

Once the police left, me, my oldest brother, and the rest of our family ran back into the house. We all went down the hallway into my mom's room, and when the door opened, we saw that they hadn't cleaned up any of the blood. I started crying so loudly, and everyone else was crying too. My older brother had to force me to leave because he didn't want me looking at it anymore. I just cried loudly as I ran away, and everything else became a blur.

A little later, my cousin came out of the house carrying the rolling desk, and I helped her take it outside. Right then, my mom tried to grab a gun to shoot herself in the head. Everyone rushed to stop her, but she begged them and said,

"How can I live after this? It's all my fault! I left the gun!"

I looked down at the table and realized there were pieces of my brother's brain left on the desk. My cousin left me outside, and I just started sobbing, asking "why? why didn't he talk to me?"

A few weeks ago I found out that he had been self harming, and I cried, told him I loved him, and told him to talk to me when he felt sad, but he never did.

Standing by that desk, I started trying to grab his brain pieces because I thought that maybe I could put them back. And before I knew it, my hands were covered in his blood.

I couldn't stop crying. I ran to the front of the house just as my sister pulled up with my aunt and grandmother. As soon as my grandmother got out of the car, I hugged her and just started screaming. I screamed that I saw him, I saw my brother, and that he had blood everywhere.

Afterward, my grandmother took me to her house, and that's where I am now.

It has been two days since my little brother committed suicide, and I am completely stuck. I cannot sleep, and I can’t even try to eat without instantly seeing his corpse and his brain matter. The images just won't leave my head. I have the worst headache of my life, and my eyes burn so badly from crying non stop.

The guilt is absolutely eating me alive. I feel like I was a horrible useless big sister to him, and I know I am going to carry the weight and the guilt of this for the rest of my life, I knew he was suffering and why am I asking "why didn't he talk to me?" when it should have been "why didn't I talk to him?".

I slept for about an hour yesterday and when I woke up I immediately thought everything was a nightmare so I quickly tried to text my little brother just for me to be pulled back to reality quickly.

I am supposed to graduate today, but there will be no celebration. I just feel an overwhelming amount of grief and horror. I am so exhausted, and I just want my baby brother back.