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13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1853

Hi LilyElsa,

The end of a romantic relationship is definitely a difficult and challenging experience to go through. Joining a support group such as this is a great place to help cope with this change. As difficult as it may be, it is important to focus on yourself at this time. Spend more time doing what you love to do - reading, writing etc.. and working towards your degree. Keep your goals in mind and create smaller goals you can work on each day to achieve them. Take one day at a time. You will have good days and bad, but know that we are here for you through them all.

Members, what has helped you cope with loss of a loved one?

Vincenza, Health Educator

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 14

I don't know whether this the right place to post about this, seems to be.

I'm wondering whether anyone can help me out or whether anyone has any advice for the situation I'm in. I have suffered from clinical / biological depression for the past few years and have struggled to cope with it. The only thing that kept me going was my relationship with my recently ex-boyfriend. I invested a lot itno the reltionship because it was the only thing that made me happy. But recently it ended and I found out he likes someone else. Since I live in a student house and cannot move out I am stick in the limbo of wanting to move on but being unable to get any closure. My friends keep telling me he was emotionally abusive and I think they may be right (partciularly as one friend who believes he is studies psychology and councilling), but I don't know how to let go of the things we talked about and planned together; a life, children etc.

I know I need to move on and quickly because otherwise I am going to lose my degree.

I am trying very hard to be positive and so far have not self-harmed but I really have no idea hope to cope with the loss of not just my boyfriend and a very best friend of several years, but also the loss of the children he talked so much about.

If anyone has been through something similar and knows any way of coping with it or has any suggestions, please let me know, 'cause I'm desperate and just don't know what to do. Thanks

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1022

Hey J... thanks so much for coming back to continue this "conversation". You are definitely in a very difficult time and situation in your life. You show such awareness of what is happening (for you and ppl close to you) and how you are feeling and thinking and even what you need to do for yourself... then it seems to me like you just totally disregard all that insight and awareness. And not just disregard it, but stomp on it and tamp it down to invalidate everything you feel and want and need. What purpose does that serve? Sure, I know... this is what high functioning depressives do best... take care of everyone else and disregard ourselves.

You wrote:

i wish i could just push a pause button on my life and just take a break for a while, let myself just be for a while, then get back into the grind after i have had some time...

Can you set aside judging yourself for wanting (needing) that and look for ways to make it happen? Or maybe just start with the idea that it would be OK to take time to just BE... and then watch for ways it might be possible. I am finally learning that when we change our perspective it is amazing what we can suddenly see.

You say you can't take "more" time off, but being a personal caregiver to a dieing loved one is no "time off". It just isn't. There is nothing more difficult, time consuming, emotionally and physically draining. Please, please if you do nothing else, acknowledge that you are worn out and depressed for a very legitimate reason.

One last thought for now... I too spent my life trying to do everything "right". I've finally come to see that there is no one right way to do anything. All of us do the best that we can in the moment. And that is just the way it is. Life presents us with many roads and many alternative routes...

The DC is one route we are fortunate to have found. There are many brave and amazing people here. Hopefully we can encourage each other and be encouraged on our way. Keep coming back. Keep posting. It helps so much to be heard and not judged. Yes?

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6

oh, and I struggle more with other people's grieving rather than them telling me how to grieve. Most people support the notion of everyone grieving in their own way but my issue is the fact that I am bothered by how people are "moving on" and carrying on with life and i feel like i am stuck on the day my father passed away. My sister has no problems posting pictures of my dad or talking about him to others and my mom has photos of him all over the house and i can't handle seeing a photo or even thinking about my dad for longer than a few minutes before i feel like i am going to lose it. sometimes i get scared that if i let myself 'feel it' and think about my dad or my feeling surrounding my grief for too long, i will fall into a deep dark hole of despair and i won't be able to come out of it.

i am also struggling with the fact that i feel like i just want to disappear from my current world, and all the things around me that remind me of my dad and the trauma i experienced surrounding his final days. everything in my city, driving, building etc...remind me of that time, going to the hospital and being with him during his painful final days. I want to run away or not leave my room but i can't. I have to go out into the world every day, and i can't just shut off b/c I just came off of taking a year off from work due to being on disability for depression. So i have to get back out into the world and part of me knows i should be doing this as i know its better than closing the world off but i feel like i can't handle the 'feeling' aspect to all this anymore. i just want relief from feeling the pain every day when i am reminded that he is gone. i feel like i can't enjoy things b/c all i can think about is how i can't share this with my dad b/c he's gone.

i wish i could just push a pause button on my life and just take a break for a while, let myself just be for a while, then get back into the grind after i have had some time. even though its been 6 months since he passed, i feel like it was yesterday.

I have this issue with ALWAYS needing to do the 'right' thing, making sure i don't screw up my life b/c i need to be responsible and don't want to make any wrong decisions. I feel this great pressure to just keep pushing through and getting up and doing what i am supposed to be doing. but i feel like i am just dragging myself through life, forcing myself to do the bare minimum and checking out mentally whenever i can. i can't sleep at night but during the day i am so fatigued i could sleep all day long.

But i feel this pressure and strain b/c i feel like i need to be getting my act together and need to be enjoying this time b/c i floundered last year away and really have been in a fog for the past 2 1/2 years so i feel like i am wasting time and that even though i know i deserve to feel what i need to feel and be this way right now, i feel like i shouldn't be b/c i have wasted so much time already. and i worry that i am passing life by, that i am going to miss out on life, and experiences. i have been putting off grad school for so long and now i feel so unstable that i worry i am not ready for it. i am scared to start new work as i feel so fragile that what if i can't handle it, i am not in a good state, not sleeping not exercising or doing enough self care. i worry that i have lost the loving relationship with my partner who i am separated from right now b/c he and i wore each other out with all this stuff. i worry that i have pushed away my dear friends b/c i don't call them back and i don't want to hang out, i don't want to do anything but be alone and watch mindless sho

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6

Thank you ~m for your empathetic response to my posting. It means a lot to hear from someone else who can relate to how I am feeling and to know that someone can get what I am feeling and that I can be open and honest in a way that I feel i can't with the people I am close to.

I have great difficulty fully sharing this side of my grief and depression with others as I am always worried about freaking people out and causing them to get flustered and concerned about how to react to me and what to do with me. The people who I am close to, all say that I am "so strong" and they think that I am handling things so well but inside I am falling apart and they have no idea. I feel like they have projected this idea of who they think i am (my family especially) and if i for one second show the vulnerable and weak side to me, they freak out and get all nervous and scared for me. My mother especially CANNOT handle seeing me suffer or fall apart. I have had a terrible year, financially struggling and not being able to get full time work in my field so she sees me as being so unstable and she gets all upset and worried and tells me that i need to get my act together (but in a desperate way not a mean way) and this just puts added pressure onto me and makes me feel like i can't share with her what's going on with me. She has her own problems to deal with and is struggling to keep it together on her own so i feel extra pressure to hold it together for her as she is so fragile.

I have always been the "strong one" in my family, the one that held it together and persevered through all the struggles my family endured. But now i feel like i am on my knees but i can't really let my family and friends see this b/c their reaction only causes me more stress.

Anyways, I just wanted to share with you and everyone and say thanks again for responding as it did truly help to make me feel a bit more connected somehow.

Thanks for listening.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 653

Thank you all for sharing your very personal stories and feelings. I'm proud of you for continuting to grieve and feel in the ways that you need to. Everyone is different so it can feel insulting and disrespectful to be judged or criticized for how you are coping and what you are feeling. It takes strength to feel as opposed to shut down and become numb. As that is one of the goals for our program, I see it as good work.

Tiana, Health Educator

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1022

Can anyone else relate to being told by other people how to grieve? Or how you should or shouldn't be feeling?

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1022

Hi J... welcome to the DC forums.

I've been hanging out for a while working through the lessons but not posting anything ... until now. Your story touches my heart. Probably because some of it feels so familiar to me. I totally agree with what Ashley said. There is no "right way" to grieve.

I lost my step-son 4 years ago and people tell me I shouldn't feel so much pain over it still. My father passed this summer and people tell me I should be feeling/expressing more grief. I've given up on family validating my feelings. But do feel it is extremely helpful to have someone, somewhere who does allow you to grieve as you need and not how society proscribes.

My hope, for both of us, is that this will prove to be one of the places where we can honestly share where we are in our grief process (as well as the depression) and not be judged for it one way or the other.

Finally, I just want to say that what you have been dealing with this year is huge... really, truly huge. At times like these (to offer a crude analogy from a horse person) it has been my saving grace to just hunker down and wait for the sh*t to stop falling before I try digging out. It saves all my energy for the basics, like breathing and surviving and ignoring what other people want or expect from me. If they truly want to help me... they can bring a shovel and start lightening the load by digging and not by adding more! Most, especially family, don't want to get themselves dirty in that way which is sad, but also can be good when they finally just leave me be.

Anyway... that's kind of where I am and why your story resonates with me. Welcome & thank you for being willing to share your story with us here at the Depression Center. I think we have come to the right place.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 11214

Hi Girlfriend in a coma,

There is no right way you should feel. Grief is different for everyone and for every different situation. You allow yourself to feel what you feel. Mourning the loss of a loved one is nessesary and even healthy.

What do you think is important about having your family validate your feelings?

Ashley, Health Educator

Here to help :)

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6

Hello,

I joined this discussion group mostly because I am going through an experience I have never gone through before and am having trouble finding people to relate to. So I appreciated finding the topic "Loss" as I wasn't sure where I was going to reach out to, so thank you to everyone before me who has posted.

I just recently lost my father to a long battle with cancer. I feel really conflicted as many people who knew my father and who know me, feel like this was a blessing as he was in a great deal of pain and was suffering with various illnesses for many years. I know he wanted to die at the end and we were all grateful that he went relatively quickly, as many people suffer for much longer with terminal lung cancer.

However, I am not at all comforted by the notion that he he no longer suffering, that this is what he wanted, or that this was his time. I am simply heart sick by the loss of my father, who I had a very complicated and emotionally charged relationship with. Someone who I battled with for many years but who I am so much like, that I actually feel like I lost a piece of myself when he died. I feel like one of the few people in this world I could relate to is gone.

My mom and my sister are not going through what I am going through, they are grieving in very different ways and this is causing me to feel very isolated and misunderstood.

I feel like because it was a father and not a child or a husband or wife, that because he was sick for a long time and older (65) that people feel I should be able to "get over" it or "recover" more quickly because its not like he died suddenly and we didn't get to say our good-bye's. I feel like a person of my age (in my 30's) is expected to be ready to lose a parent, that this is the natural cycle of life and that my overwhelming grief is unusual and not expected. I feel like i can't tell people how severely devastated I feel because of these reasons, that if it were my child and i lost them suddenly, everyone would "get it" but because I knew this day would come and because we are to expect our parents to pass away, it seems abnormal for me to be grieving this way.

Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts.

Thanks.

Reading this thread:

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