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Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember15 Oct 2016, 7:10 pm AEDT

Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Creating a space here for us to share our Grief and Loss experiences. All kinds but mostly bereavement.
- Tell us about your loss?
- What 3 things you miss most?
- What would you like to tell friends to say, do or be - to lighten the load?
- What have you learned about loss that you didn't know before?
- Do you have any quotes, links, books, organisations etc, related to loss, that you'd like to pass onto others?
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WHAT IS GRIEF?
GRIEF: The normal process of reacting to a loss. Loss is subjective but usually the loss is: Physical Loss (such as a death), Social Loss (such as divorce), or Occupational Loss (such as a job or an established role & purpose). Emotions distress to Grief & Loss can include anger, guilt, anxiety, confusion, sadness, and despair.

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In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember14 Nov 2016, 11:06 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @greenspace, just tagging you over to this Grief & loss thread Hoping you could rehash (cut & paste)/some of the grief issues you expressed in "coping with christmas " thread. If you want.

Christmas is very hard for me since my youngest child died. Ac ually it was hard before that (pretending everything's 'joyful') but when she died its so not the same that I nearly dread the hype.
On the other hand, it creates a good excuse to try spend Christmas ime with family, if there's any left who actually want to be with you, me. My last 3 Christmas days were A l o n e

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember15 Nov 2016, 8:02 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

A good link for grief

https://www.centerforloss.com

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

PUPContributor15 Nov 2016, 8:16 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

My old guinea pig died. She was seven years and I'm sad. She had so many litters, cute little things. She outlived all the others and now she's gone. Mums crying a lot this week and didn't want to butu her with me yey so we just put her in a shoebox in the outside freezer for now. Feels weird but don't wanna upset mum more. I decorated the box nice & wrapped her in a pretty soft shirt. Its made mW so sad since dad died, guess it reminds me. My brother might come home next week and help bury her. Do you think pets go to heaven?

In response to: Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

AppleblossomSenior Contributor15 Nov 2016, 8:40 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @PUP That is beautiful the way you honoured your pet.

I tend to think of heaven as being the state in which we no longer have to struggle.

@Former-Member I posted that same link on the sane site about a year ago. I keep getting emails about book sales, havent bought one yet, but I sometimes read titles.

I dont think that it would have been as bad for your son, as I think my mother's original pathology when we were ablandoned, played out in a different way after my sister's death, she projected onto me and played centre of attention innocent gracious lady showing off for the 10 grandchildren. she couldnt face any of her stuff with us as a mother... in total denial... sad.

I just read an article which suggests it is a pattern ... "choice of surviving sibling as scapegoat in maternal bereavement"

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1975.tb00367.x/abstract

The case study describes different ages but the mechanism is the same as happened with my mother, sister and re-united brother and I..

You didnt have other children to include or exclude .. there was just your son ... I dont think it applies to you. That doesnt mean it wasnt hard for your boy.

My mother didnt bother to have christmas with me or son when my little sister came back from her 10 years overseas. I thought we had become close (mum & I) but as soon as sister returned she just "dumped" me. She didnt even stand for my right to be included, let alone acknowledge my contributions.

it doesnt make it feel better to understand it in an academic article ... I have already done a lot of the feeling work .. am I intellectualising .. but at least I know it was not just me .. it was a grief defense mechanism.

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember15 Nov 2016, 10:06 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @Appleblossom, that's horrible what your mum did. I like to think I'd never do that. Think I 'get' it a little though because my mother plays us all off on each other. Things will be so different without that destructive influence around. Better I hope. Is your mum still alive?
Did you see I spent Sunday morning with my son? His paternal grandmother died and he needed a lift to visit his dad who isn't well enough to go to be he funeral. I gave him that lift, anything to have time with me. Not only did we have M/T together but he he grabbed flowers and asked me to swing by the cemetery to visit his sister. He got her fav colour flowers, purple. I couldn't get out of the car, besides felt he needed that private time with his lite sister. Be once told me he can't grieve around me. I don't get it, just shrink into myself. But on tbe whole, so proud of his integrity with it all. "passage of life" he once called it. And now honouring his grandma and his sick deaf dad in one. So hard for him. And I'm not the best specimen in town. Just do what I can.
I'll look at this website you posted later Apple, my girls 19th birthday next week. Getting that lost feeling coming on, but glad I I saw her brother this month.
Hope I don't damage him with my own pain, try so hard to stay out of the way. I think he's doing ok. Hope.

Are you OK Apple? See you had time with you son but he's gone back. Empty Nest Syndrome is a form of grief which could be compound ding for you. Be gentle with yourself.

I should be so happy today as had two friends ring and you guys cgatting here, but still feel empty, and sad - not well physically which doesn't help I guess.

Ride the waves.
Thanks for your post, I know you understand.

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember17 Nov 2016, 12:19 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Thanks @Decadian, my girls b'day's a week before your sons, 25th Nov, Tben theres Christmas - a killer, and then the anniversary of her passing - Australia Day. Just start to get over one and there's the build up to the next, back to back, and my living son's B'day somewhere in the middle, Jan, have to push it down, pull myself togetbet for him and Chrissy (in front of people at least). Think I'll boycott Chrissy, love Jesus not commercialism. Her funeral was Feb3, then there's an empty valentines day, my birthday in March - always alone (years now), them mothers day and THEN I can exhale for a few months, through winter and seasonal affective disorder. Seems there's gonna always be something and it frightens me I have only seen the beginning of grief to death. My parents are very frail now. Two bros talk about dying all the time with their paranoid psychosis and drug abuse steeling them away, a cell at a time. My older bro has MS (almost wheelchair stage). A friend at church has S4 terminal breast cancer, both my elderly neighbours does since we moved here... ... Its everywhere. Fortunately not all are a significant part of me or my life, or I couldn't take it, the pain.
I had a friend who took her life at 25, my first friend Lore (neighbour) was hit by a car and died at 5yo (I remember her). A nursing scjool classmate also died on the road, on her way of to work. Sad. Survival guilt - why am I still here?

Sorry, that was a ramble.

Just watched that lovely movie
"Life As A House" quite a message there

.

In response to: Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

DecadianSenior Contributor17 Nov 2016, 1:05 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @Former-Member

I dunno why you're still here but I am as glad to he ll that you are

December and July are months full of landmines and Christmas Trees - I get a run of it at the middle of winter and the end/beginning (Dec and Jan)- there's his b'day and then adoption day on the 16th and Christmas - and both my parents died in Jan - 4 years apart to about a week's difference. Just coming up to Mum's 2nd anniversary

Don't worry about the grief to come - whatever you are imagining it will be quite different - this I know from experience. You've got a lot to carry there - fellow Christian - let a friend lighten the load.

Aw - it's late! - time for bed! As well as having my upper partial relined I had restorative work done on three teeth and a filling in another one - surely that registers as a big day - two trips to the dentist and having hours without any front teeth - ahah ---- no!

Here's a little toothy friend

I'm just glad I had my teeth saved for a while longer

All the best with all these bad dates - it makes you wonder if you are coming or going yeah

Decadian

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember25 Nov 2016, 4:09 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

“The reality is that you grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember25 Nov 2016, 4:20 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

"The reality is that we don't forget, move on, and have closure, but rather we honor, we remember, and incorporate our deceased children and siblings into our lives in a new way. In fact, keeping memories of your loved one alive in your mind and heart is an important part of your healing journey."
~ Harriet Schiff, author of The Bereaved Parent

In response to: Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

LSevenContributor25 Nov 2016, 6:26 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

You can't live here all the time!

i really feel for friends who have to deal with anti-Christmas. I'm keen to support my upbringing of xmas (Christmas)

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