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Grief & loss - may be triggering

AdgeSenior Contributor25 May 2017, 10:42 pm AEST

Grief & loss - may be triggering

@ lapses
Early last year 2016 my Dad died after a long painful illness (cancer), which he had been fighting for 6 years.

He survived that long only because of continuous treatments, otherwise he would have been gone in 6 months (they said).

My relationship with him had been somewhat distant at times - due my living in a different state from my entire family for the past 22 years.

Also due to my tumultuous upbringing & family background - which is why I could not stay in the city where I grew up, & chose to live here (3000 kilometres away) instead.

Also wanting to start anew 22 years ago, with needs for greater independence.

Yet those hopes to start a family of my own have never been realized. My marriage ended abruptly, & took my cherished plans & hopes for the future with it.

Then I was confronted with the memories of my SA only 3 months after the end of my marriage - which again turned my life upside-down. My gender identity was shaken, & I no longer felt secure with the sense of identity that I once had.

Followed by a severe health emergency - with 2 emergency bowel surgeries, a stoma & bag for 6 months.

Then a 3rd major bowel surgery to try to put things back together. I almost died twice in hospital they told me.

My siblings & I had found Dad to be emotionally distant & scary right into our adult lives - yet in the last few years we found him to be a kind, intelligent & very caring man. So it was so much harder to lose him.

Due to the stress of having to find a new job, having complex PTSD, & not coping well with the conditions of this occupation (carer) - I've been unable to effectively come to terms with my grief & loss.

It seems that my grief has been largely on hold for the past 14 months since Dad died. I don't feel in touch with it, despite my best efforts to.

I see a psychologist, yet we've been unable to do grief work, or help me to come to terms with the loss of my Dad.

I've remembered very little about him in the past year, which makes it harder - as I have so few memories to draw upon.

Adge

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In response to: Grief & loss - may be triggering

AppleblossomSenior Contributor15 Mar 2018, 3:35 pm AEDT

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Really hope you get that job @Adge it would be a lot calmer without having to manage aggressive clients, who might also be bigger than you and a struggle with back.

I have just read through first dozen pages of your thread. It was good for me to just watch you and others mainly @Former-Member talk about grief. Grief still is not well handled or handled in comparmentalised manner, its a new field really and should get more attention than lists of criteria in the DSM ... IMHO!

When you posted here in July last year I was trying to concentrate on other things than grief so avoided this thread when I realised you were getting support, but before I knew it things catapulted out of control.

So thank you. I learned ideas and about you and about me, as I grapple with the level of my grief and common responses.

I really like when you spoke about the disability workers who are quiet and those who just fill up space.

I have been in positions like @Former-Member where I am talking out loud and emotionally inhabiting a past intense experience. That sharing helped me today ... just quiet smile .. ah ah ... thats grief. It comes when it wants. I have struggled to maintain composure while son is in house which made it even more difficult to manage his school refusal and contantly being here ... as I still did not have time to process things ...

I am a March bub too... end of the month.

As well as tulips I also feel a connection to the celtic thistle ... a weed .. or ..

Really nice getting to know you. @Adge

In response to: Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

AdgeSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 7:00 pm AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Mum has had the money from the sale of Dad’s house for about a week now (since settlement).

They were separated & did not live together for the last 8 years of Dad's life - so Dad's estate should have gone directly to his children (us), not to Mum.

Mum promised us one quarter of the estate amount each (for over 6 months), then decided to break her promise a few weeks ago.

She is still playing a spring me along with fishhooks game.

No sign of any of the promised amount.

It’s causing me enormous stress.

I don’t know how to move past this, or how to overcome the ill-feeling & resentment caused by Mum dishonouring (breaking) her promise.

Dad’s positive legacy has been trodden-on, & smeared in the mud.

Adge

In response to: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Faith-and-HopeSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 7:06 pm AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Feeling for you @Adge .....

I hope she has some guilt feelings in there as leverage to do the right thing by you all ......

In response to: Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

AdgeSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 7:54 pm AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Thank you @Faith-and-Hope I appreciate your kind thoughts.

I don't know why I'm feeling so stuck & preoccupied with feeling betrayed & abandoned.

I just can't seem to let it go...

Adge

In response to: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Unknown userMember11 Apr 2018, 8:10 am AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

@Adge,
"feeling betrayed & abandoned" and with your history & current circumstances, will most certainly generate intense painful emotions. Of cause you're obcessing & agitated about it, especially that its your very mother.

Mothers are not supposed to hurt us - i imagine this incident has snowballed picking up many hurts she's inflicted in you, bumping into a woeld of pain maybe, all blown up out of proportion perhaps, on the inside - its never logical, so of cause you're feelings are out of proportion too, its the nature of cPTSD. 😞 So hard Adge.

Is not fair & i feel for you.

The only way i can have peace with such issues is to 'let it go' - you have to make it not matter.

Don't give them your energy), We have to not let it matter to us. With spirit and every cell in your body. Try be an observer to it all- say "that's interesting" & get back to living.

Pay pray pray about it - the Lord's will be done... Maybe Pray the Holy Spirit change minds, but then leave it with God, We must trust that whatever happens - God will work it for good for you, because we ARE loved by someone. When i sit & talk with the Lord, the rest don't matter so much (must do it more myself lol)

Hugzz ❤❤❤

In response to: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Unknown userMember11 Apr 2018, 8:22 am AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Having said all that @Adge, its ok to be true to self and allow time to work through the anger. Get it out Adge.
I find with my cPTSD that our anger frightwns us the most so we pretend its not there. But it is & its generating much energy that need to be released, physically. That may be why you're aggitated? Can you go wood chopping or jogging or a hard swim or something @Adge?
What will be will be
Guess its a grief thing. Give yourself time?
Then maybe self care in a hot tub with a glass of wine

You matter. xox

In response to: Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Faith-and-HopeSenior Contributor11 Apr 2018, 10:22 am AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

I think you feel stuck because you have been blind-sided by something you would never have done to anybody else ..... and betrayed because it was someone of flesh and blood who is closely related to you.

@Adge, I was treated abismally by someone close to me for the first few years after I married ..... in fact, firstly by a girlfriend just before I married ..... and these were behaviours I had never experienced before, other than by a cranky sales clerk or somebody ..... power games and emotional abuse / betrayal were completely new to my world, and I was devestated.

I slowly developed a new set of skills to try to shield myself, and then to create broader boundaries so my life was not so restricted by what amounted to their choice of behaviour.

Its so painful and horrible ..... I feel for you.

Are you seeking free legal advice ? You may have answered this already. Perhaps a letter from a legal representative asking her to give you what you are rightfully owed, on official looking documentation, is a good start.

In response to: Grief & loss - may be triggering

AdgeSenior Contributor11 Apr 2018, 2:13 pm AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Thanks @Former-Member
Thanks @Faith-and-Hope
I'm at work.
Yes anger does frighten me even my own.
I went for vigorous long walk with my client, that helps.
I'm sorry to hear that you were badly mistreated & manipulated Faith & Hope - my ex mother in law did that to me a lot.
Yes I did to let go so that Mum & some people don't hold such power over me.
I tried to get subsidised legal representation - none was available. So I gave up for the moment.
Adge

In response to: Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

AppleblossomSenior Contributor11 Apr 2018, 2:17 pm AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Uncertainty about finances and the sense of betrayal are hard to shake. Stringing you along makes it harder to heal and work through the grief.

Give her another week maybe, and talk about it with your siblings ... Maybe there are fees to be paid .. but it should not take long now.

In response to: Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

AdgeSenior Contributor11 Apr 2018, 5:42 pm AEST

Re: Grief & loss - may be triggering

Yes, snowballed is right @Former-Member

It cannot be just this let-down (promise broken) - I think it has dug up a long list of abandonment experiences & feelings.

Yes Blindsided sounds like it @Faith-and-HopeI'm sure you would not have expected such bad treatment from a friend.

I never see these things coming, even though I should know Mum's track-record of broken promises & being unreliable...

Thanks @Appleblossom I let myself be strung along (I wish I didn't).

Because I wanted to believe that people (especially) Mum would be honourable & faithful (for once).

Thanks for all your kind & thoughtful responses.

Poor Dad, Mum's behaviour is surely not what he wanted or expected (I don't know).

Adge

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