My mum’s husband passed away earlier this year. He was a positive person in my life and the closest thing I ever had to a father figure. He had been in good health it seemed but obviously something was bubbling underneath the surface for a while. He was dead within two months of diagnosis. I spent as much time as I could with him in the hospital for his last few weeks and I know how comforted he was by my presence. It was incredibly difficult to watch his suffering and it was exacerbated by my mother’s inability to see anyone else’s needs in any situation. Everything from his potential future care plan and discussion about care at home to my need to still log in to work for a few hours were all labelled as selfish by her. In the end the hospital staff were dealing with me and clearly stated they would call me before they would call her because it’s hard to hide that level of irrational behaviour in challenging times I suppose. I don’t want to turn this in to an essay but it’s hard not to and I’m struggling to find a space for all my emotions. It’s triggered all my old hurt and trauma and I’m coming to the full realisation that my childhood was abusive. I already knew it was from the physical abuse but I don’t think I ever really fully understood the depth of the emotional abuse carried out by my family. Not only am I grieving the loss of one of the most important people I had in my life, I’m also grieving a lost childhood and how that has repeatedly shown up in my life and led me to relive old familiar patterns of poor treatment in most of my relationships and friendships. I know things will improve and it’s my responsibility to work on that now. I’m an incredibly resilient and strong person probably because I’ve never really been able to rely on anyone. I’ve built a successful life for myself because of that but feel very isolated at present. Some days are tougher than others and I struggle to be around old groups of friends or people that knew me before he died. It’s like I’m a different person now. On a positive note it has diminished my desire for people pleasing because I just don’t have the energy to care for anyone other than myself right now . Although, I went to the other extreme and cut out people who were having a negative impact on my life or were really tone deaf to my grief in moments when I really needed their support. I say cut out but I actually just stopped meeting their needs and there was little contact after that. I appreciate this is a long post but it’s only scratching the surface so if you have read all of it thank you. It has helped me to write it out here and maybe something resonates with you. I’d love to chat about your loss, what grief taught you about yourself and anything that helped you in the months after your loss.

Posted by Jamcakes at 2024-10-16 09:40:39 UTC