Grief and Loss

@Zoe7

Great idea to continue the discussion.

@Arizona @Snowie @Lost9 and all ...

It has taken a long time for me to tease out the issues of grief in my life and the issues around mental illness. Am still a work in progress ... but getting a lot clearer/

@Lost9 I think finding ourselves is the greatest gift we can give ourselves

@Appleblossom It takes time and space for us to grieve and to work out how to go on ...a work in progress yes but having a little clarity is a massive progression already 👍💖

@Dec @Eve7 @Shaz51 @Adge @ShiningStar @Htoo @Poppyfriend543 @CalmingNature @Daisydreamer @Zoe7 @Appleblossom @Lost9 @Snowie @Former-Member (I'm sorry if I have missed anyone)

Hello everyone,

I'm in so much pain and anguish today. I wonder if this has anything to do with turning 50 (I'm turning 50 tomorrow). I wonder if this is connected to grief and loss - like the loss of many years of your life.

Did anyone else experience this when they turned 50?

I wonder if it is also connected to my mother's death. She died 21 years ago from breast cancer. I don't think I have ever grieved her death properly. Two years after she had died a psychiatrist diagnosed me with pathological grief. I think I still have it.

I had a complicated relationship with my mother and I still feel very confused by it. On the one hand I know she loved me, and I felt like she was only one of two people in the world who really knew me and understood me, but on the other hand she was emotionally and psychologically abusive and we had a difficult relationship.

I tried to sort things out with her before she died, and I think she appreciated that, but it wasn't really possible to sort out years of abuse and trauma. I find it hard to have any feelings for her or cry. I'm not even sure if I miss her. I just feel very confused.

Has anyone else had a difficult relationship with a parent who has died?

Hi @Arizona,

I am so sorry you are having another bad day. I hope tomorrow on your Birthday it will be better. It is hard grieving for a family member who has died. At least you tried to mend your relationship while your mother was alive. It would be very traumatic losing her to breast cancer regardless of difficulties with your relationship. My thoughts are with you.

lost9

Hi @Arizona

Yes - my mother died 6.5 years ago after a long and difficult relatioship - I was already in my 70s when she died and it was very difficult - so yes - I understand what you are saying

I had to see a therapist after she died - I am glad I did - for you it was a long time ago and it very well could be the reason you are finding this so difficult atm. And turning 50 wouldn't be easy either - and then perhaps you are affected by menopause too - so it is a bunch of things and - I get it - really hard for you

I had to take time out from the forum and there is a lot I am still catching up on so I don't know much about you yet. I hope you can see a therapist for help with these issues and also - to see your doctor if it's the menopause - there is no shame about that - I got help when I went though and it was worthwhile

Actually - this time of life can be dynamic - if we can get help with events like grief and facing our life-issues it can be so much better - it is so hard with emotional discomfort - and I agree your relationship with your mother has to have made everything so much harder

Dec

@Lost9 Hey

@Arizona

Grief over loss of your life as you would have liked it to be, can be subtle and I found metta .... buddhist loving kindness meditations the best to help me cope with me and my life. Til then I found it easier to have compassion for others than myself. You have a lot of self care practises that you post about, and they are great. I do not know about pathological grief, do your own research on it. I do know that we all grieve in a way unique to our personality and circumstances. I just wonder if you can relax your style a bit to be more accepting of your good and not so good days ...

I lost my mother to lung cancer, and we too had a complicated relationship. I often tried to reach out heal things, but she preferred denial to the end, which left its mark on the shape of my grief for her, a reality checking, in the sense I do not miss her, and have few regrets about my behaviour to her, tho quite a few about her neglect and behaviour to me. In some ways I mothered her .... with all mothers there are long stories .... I also read when I was a young woman which helped.

Hugs @Former-Member ,

The losses you have mentioned are beyond anything I could even imagine. It transcends a BPD "loss".

Without diminishing your pain, grief, loss, I believe the emotional pain you felt is similar to a BPD's "loss". The loss in terms of abandonment for a Borderline is soooooo incredibly painful. When I think of the times people 'rejected' me, it still stabs me in the heart to this day. In a way, this pain is more real to me than when I've lost a lovd one. But @Former-Member , this is my experience. In other words, I cope with the "real" losses better than I cope with the losses in my mind.

Now, @Former-Member , I've never experienced a doubly whammy of abandonment and "real" loss like what you have. So I really can't comment.

Im sorry I've had to put words in inverted commas - I just really don't know how else to describe it.

BPDSurvivor

@BPDSurvivor, here's some pictographs that better describe what I'm trying to say... the similarities re grief and rejection loss feelings. And if MH puts us in a more vulnerable place to cope. Just trying to understand why I'm so different, reactive to life.(a trait of BPD).

EOR💔