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When will this be real?


MomsGirl

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Hi everyone-

Is it just me...or is the other shoe never going to drop? My mom has been gone almost six months, and I feel like I'm just living my life, going along and raising my kids like I have to...and STILL pushing away the reality of life as it is now. Every time I imagine the REST OF MY LIFE without my mom, I just can't face it. I know the truth and finality of it in my head, but it's so hard to accept. I can't BELIEVE that I can't pick up the phone and call her, that I will never see her again.

I took my baby boy to his two-month checkup and as I was driving out of the parking lot I actually picked up my cell phone to call my mom and report all the fun stats - how much he'd grown, how brilliant and advanced the doctor said he was..all that stuff that I would tell my mom after one of my kids' checkups.

I can't put my emotions into words, they are so messed up. I feel like everything's just stuffed in a little box inside of me and once in a while I let a little leak out, but for the most part I just put off the true pain. At the beginning I was numb, then after the funeral I had nightmares and cried when I would even talk about my mom, and now I'm in this state of suspended animation. I also find myself obsessing over all the things we could have done differently for my mom, all the things I think the doctor did wrong, all the timing of everything, etc.

Am I crazy? I feel like I'm perched on the edge of a cliff sometimes, especially when I lay down to go to sleep at night...the pain is so hard to face, and I'm so angry...

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((((Michele))))

You're not crazy at all! I'm so sorry to read the pain you are having now.....I wish I could take it away and cast it to the horizon for you.......

The anger, the "suspended animation" feeling -- this is normal sweetie, but so, so hard to even say that that's the normal we have in the grieving process.

If you're not already, I'd really encourage you to find a grief support group near you as well as venting here......it can help take the edge off the rollercoaster of emotions going on when they're really raw like this....especially to work through that you never did anything wrong for your mom.

Somehow it's like words on a screen can't quite make it better sometimes....helps, but local personal contact might be a plus too.

Many warm hugs and prayers coming your way,

Linda

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Your feelings are perfectly normal, in my opinion. It will get better - on top of your loss, you are experiencing the adjustment of the post partum phase, and the realization that your Mom isn't here to share that very beautiful baby with you. This is a lot at one time. I didn't lose my Mom until I was 45, and I still reacted much as you are describing. I think you're doing fine. Sending prayers!

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Michele--I want to give you a good thought-out response.... Mostly I want to say--so many days it's still not real to ME yet and we're almost 18 months out....

I will try to get back to this thread, but if I don't make it.... Know you are normal. Know that it hurts and you function and somehow that is weird.... And know that so many of us here understand all of that, and have walked similar steps.

(((((hugs)))) to you.

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Michele

Your post pretty much describes how I feel and where I have been at ever since my Mum died nearly 18 months ago.

It's very hard to accept the enormity of such a loss. I know that most of the time I don't really let my mind settle too much on the thoughts that I won't see Mum ever again, mostly because they really are too hard to make sense of. It's just too big a thing to be able to digest and make sense of. But, when I have those moments of clarity where I do acknolwedge this fact, it's like a tidal wave of heartache and it's awful. Alot of the time it also feels so ridiculous that this has happened.

I also have visited many feelings of wondering if we did all we could to help Mum. These are such agonising thoughts, aren't they? I don't know if we ever really come to terms with all of these disturbing thoughts but I hope with time I find a way to make a bit more peace with them.

I wish I had some advice to help you, but I honestly don't as I feel just like you do. But know that you're not alone, we are also grieving with you.

Jana

xxx

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Michelle,

If you're crazy, then there are a lot of us in the same boat. I feel the exact same way, and it's been less than 2 months since I lost my sister.

I read someone suggesting a grief support group. I'm planning to join one next week in hopes that it will help get me through this sadness. Perhaps you might give it a try too.

It would be really nice to hear from those who have had success with any type of grief support group. Prayers are with you, MIchelle. Ellie (Sis)

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Michele--It took me a long time to even have time to feel the pain. Like you I had a lot going on right after Mom died.... I think that can.... take you away from the ability to process what happened. My had been out to sea and back and out and back up until Mom died. He then deployed for 6 months a month after. I had been splitting time between WA and IL and our apartment was in storage.....

So life quickly became just about surviving the deployment and surviving without Mom and surviving the feelings of living in a house with my Dad who was already dating.

It wasn't until my husband came home, and... a few other people that we loved had passed away and we had been able to be friends to them in that process (Some better than others), that the feeling really started to come. And then for a month or two it came, and came and came....

And now it's back to waves of remembering. Where.... I go about my day and I (yes I still do this) reach for the phone to tell Mom something. Or I think of a recipe I need her help on and don't realize until my brain has gone through the process of, "Get it from Mom" before I realize she's dead. Or I look at her picture and think it represents a living person instead of being one of my visual links to what I used to have.

I still haven't felt it all. I AM still grieving. And I still don't believe it 18 months later a good portion of the time. Like you the thing that hurts the most for me isn't that I've gotten through 18 months without seeing my Mom.... It's that I have from now until the end of my own life to see my Mom again. THAT is what gets me.

(You posted to me once that you are a comiserator--see... I am too).

I don't mean to talk about ME. But what I am saying is.... It takes a long time. When I hit the six month mark a year ago, I thought I'd really been at the grieving game a while, and that I should have made some process. At 18 months my feeling is that six months was still the very beginning.... and 18 months.... well I don't know what stage it REALLY is for me at least.

I get the disconnect and how disturbing it is and how nonsensical it seems and how it can kick you in the gut at all the wrong times. And all I can say to encourage you is be gentle with yourself. I think grief is a life-long process. I think we learn to function in it.... I am sure that when Carolyn starts driving, I will reach for the phone to call my Mom.... and remember again that I'm still a griever.

Maybe that meant something. Maybe it didn't. Anyway.... That's what I Watned tosay when I first read this.

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YOU ARE NOT CRAZY. I am so sorry to chime in late, but what you are feeling...so many of us have or are feeling. It has been a year for me and I still reach for the phone all the time....I have good days and some days that are unbearable. It will get easier for you, I promise. I can't say it gets better, it just gets different.

I really didn't start facing the reality of being momless until my mom was gone about five-six months and then it hit me camck in the face. I think I had so much adrenaline going before that...and I am sure you do as well.

Thank God for your beautiful baby and know that it will get "different."

Love,

Holly

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