When I lost my mom, I remember feeling very sad. When I lost my dad I was a little sad, but I mostly felt like everything was pointless. I'm very thankful that my friends put up with my sarcastic remarks. When people say their thoughts or feelings, it can be seen as a personal attack or as if that is definitely how the person speaking will always and forever feel. My friends and I know that things might sound hurtful, but it's okay to get it out and we don't judge words. (We don't judge at all, but our jokes, as with anyone's jokes, can make anyone think otherwise.) Actions do speak louder than words so I might say I hate everyone for having parents, though I don't mean it but it's on my mind and my friends know I don't actually mean it. If I were to take vengeful action on people with parents then I am speaking louder without saying anything. I wouldn't do that, it's just an example.
How do we keep going after losing someone we care so deeply for? We just do. Grieving is different for everyone so I can only speak from what I have been through, but my goal is to let others know there is no wrong way to grieve. When someone judges the way another is grieving or not grieving or not outwardly grieving, it's probably because they want to see what they feel the situation deserves or what the person that died deserves. They need a reminder that they can't force grief and emotions and others need to know that that is part of their personal grieving process, to see or want to see someone who has died become realized again maybe as if they are still here but to feel like the person isn't forgotten is one way to grieve.
If anger is one of the steps in the grieving process, it will show in different ways. Anger at God for letting them die, anger at others for not feeling more sad, anger can come out on friends for doing too much or too little...there are many ways anger will appear. These are not things I felt or feel, they are examples to help remind anyone that something might happen from anger. To know a few different ways may help lessen the impact of the unexpected words or action(s) so hopefully whatever happens from anger will hurt less or not at all.
Some people might not feel grief, they might feel relief..I felt relief when my mom died since I knew what she went through, but she wouldn't share with anyone else so only I and maybe her best friend knew the breadth of what she dealt with in her last year. I also felt extremely sad to lose her because I understood her better and hoped I could include her in more of my life and help her find happiness.
Some people might feel grief, but it's not something heavy that they carry around or show so it won't be obvious.
Some show their grief for a few days, weeks or even years. The longer it goes on, the more obvious it is that they need help moving on, but it's still not wrong. When weighed down with a negative emotion, anger, depression, etc, we have a harder time processing thoughts. We don't "see" things as clearly as we do when we are happy. That means that someone going through their grieving process "longer than they should" is having trouble processing their thoughts...thoughts of daily chores, what's important to take care of, what can wait, it's harder to remember to get outside for fresh air, sun and/or for a walk and to get away from the current norm, which might be staring at the wall wondering why they don't have an interest in anything.
The friends you have will have a chance to get closer to you by helping with whatever you need help with. Some acquaintances might become good friends, too. So many of us don't want help, but we enjoy helping others. I learned in the last year or two that people need a chance to help us to feel like they can trust us, to feel a deeper connection within the friendship. We all have varying degrees of trust and letting people help us can help move us away from a fear of trusting others. Trust issues might be from a fear of being judged as a bad person or from a fear of being tricked or to possibly have personal belongings stolen.
Personally, I'm a fan of facing my fears so I was out and about doing a little shopping and window shopping even though I couldn't feel happy. I found a pair of pants that I wouldn't have known existed if I didn't go. I love flowey wide leg pants. They can be worn around the house or to a nice restaurant where the waiter pours wine for you.
While I was grieving, I couldn't care less that I wasn't doing anything. I didn't care about doing nothing, I didn't care about messiness accumulating, I didn't care about ideas of doing or not doing chores, it all felt pointless. After a few days I made myself do things even though they felt pointless and I didn't like doing them. What it taught me is to get things done whenever I can to lessen the impact, to make tomorrow's work easier. It feels good to get things done. Actually, for me it feels good to have them done. As one person with a house, there as way too much work to do. It becomes overwhelming. With my dad's death I did nearly nothing for a little over a week. Why do dishes. It's pointless. I can just throw them away (I didn't do this, it's placed here as an example, but I'm not even sure it's what I thought...I didn't know what I was going to do or when I would start doing anything). Why vacuum. What does it matter if cat hair is cleaned up now. I'll have to do it again later. Laundry? It can be folded later. Whatever. Or not. Who cares. I am used to having a huge list of stuff to take care of. I haven't seen the list get any smaller and it's been around for years. I know I need help, but I've been made to feel like I'm a bad person to ask for help. I'm working hard to get over that feeling. I was actually actively in the process several times this year to not feel like a bad person for needing help and each time, something terrible happened. I won't give up. I will either have one or two people move in with me and let them know I can't do everything that needs to be done whenever it needs to be done or I will move in with someone else and make sure they know that I have times I can't get simple things done.
I didn't spend much time at home the week after my dad died, which helped me to not sit in my house looking at everything that needs to be cleaned or worked on and watching it all pile up because I couldn't find a reason to do any of it. When mom died, I was depressed for three months. I ate a 2nd dinner to sleep. I couldn't fall asleep if I didn't eat again. I just cried. For hours. This time, when my dad died I didn't eat much at all and I slept just fine. It helped me tremendously to be around kids because they want to be happy so they play and laugh and they made me smile which helped me eat a little bit. It might have helped when mom died to play with children, but circumstances were different. There weren't kids of the age I was around this time, the age where they want to engage in play and learning and pay attention to what adults do so they can try it and we can make fun of anything and they don't feel bad since they don't know what's "right" or "wrong"...it's different in every household. My friends also didn't know what to do because losing a parent can feel so sobering and something we should go through when we are much older, not in our early 20s. Another thing that helped was to know that I wasn't the only one and that we lose our parents at any age. One family I know of lost their parents in a plane crash and the two sisters took care of their slightly younger brother. They were teenagers at the time. I've seen them since in passing, and of course they are fine. With death, or in or from death, we learn and grow and possibly feel more compassion for others, or we feel less hope and trust and we kind of disconnect with life -either our life or the state of the world. I think most people don't do the latter. If we didn't get back into the swing of things, we would have a much different world.
So I am doing better. I would say it was a quick recovery, but that might put a connotation of "bad" if someone takes longer to move on from a loved one's death. Compared to when my mom died, I grieved quicker. There are probably things I will continue to learn, but I am done feeling sad and I'm done missing his presence...until Thanksgiving or Christmas when I remember what it could be like to have my own family when I see other families gathered together, but I prefer to see the fact that many people still have a family and parents to rely on. That kind of support group can't be matched when you know each other so well, but at the same time and for those that don't have family it might help to know that sometimes those closest to you or who you feel a close bond with can be the most toxic for your health and well being. When we think we know everything about someone, we might hold them to the idea we have of them. So there's the good side of having a family, a close structure of support and the good side of not having a family and having friends as the support structure.
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