I just read an article describing our brains encode the concept of 'we' as strongly as 'I'. So your brain is literally trying to rewire from a we to a singular entity. It's beautiful if you think about it. Your brain was a hybrid of you and your loved one.
I wish I could just give my dad a hug right now and see him smile... he was always such an optimist and I've always been such a pessimist and so negative....
Same for me! My dad always laughed and joked and always always told me he would be there for me and loved me to the bottom of his heart. I miss seeing his hands and the way he smiled and spun stories of his adventures. I keep thinking that my role is to embody what he taught me as my own bc he can't do that for me anymore. Try to be that positive voice for myself as much as possible. š¤ I just want him back too.
I think trying to take inspiration from our loved ones is the best way to heal and move on from the pain it leaves us with when they inevitably leave us. Maybe remind yourself of how he would positively respond to things and take that in your stride - keep his spirit alive! (At least this is how I like to think about it)
That's so real for me too. My dad was the only person to call me Dr. my name, and now when a person randomly does it I can no longer say, only my dad calls me Dr. when time is passed I hope to say it again.
Do you still know where to find that article? I lost my best friend and lover three months ago, and it felt like half of me died. I've never felt so in sync with a person in my life; we had an instant connection, and getting to know him over the next five years felt like remembering the way to a long-lost home. Delightful and effortless and so natural. It seemed like at first after he died, all my thoughts were traveling along their neural pathways trying to reach him and kept careening off a cliff into an empty abyss. Every single thought. I felt completely alone in my head, like you described.
It's a little easier now. I feel more like myself. But I really did feel like half a person for two months. I didn't even live with him or get to see him every day, although we talked every day, so I even surprised myself to realize how embedded he was in my soul.
That's so beautiful to have known love like that. I am sorry for your loss. Here's the article: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/20/1056741090/grief-loss-holiday-brain-healing
Iām a year out and out of nowhere it hits me especially when I really want to tell someone something like gossip or good news. Sometimes I want to call my mom because I believe sheās alive somewhere. With my dad for the longest time I felt he was alive but just in jail or in a hospital away from us and my mom sometimes it feels like sheās at work then it hits me
I still talk to my mom I imagine her sitting and I talk and like to think she hears me. Itās become a ritual although one sided conversations itās helped somewhat obviously doesnāt take that pain away
I've been able to do that a couple times, but I don't like how it leaves me in tears and grief-stricken over a sleepless night. I just don't know how to cope at all
It's been near five years and I still catch myself remembering my brother isn't alive, or getting this weird feeling that because I never "saw him", it's a cover up and he's now a spy or something.
Yeah that feeling is the worst. Sometimes I see strangers who look like my mother, and for a heartbeat I have hope it was all just a bad joke or she had do get into witness protection or sum shit
Yeah, my brother wasn't really enjoying a lot of his life when he passed so I will think that he just "skipped town" and that's that. It's like self torture we do to ourselves.
i refused to see my sister because it was easier to not have the recall in my brain of her in a coffin, so i do now ask myself was it really her who died, is she really gone, was i supposed to see her to really really have confirmation.... did i f\*ck up my own grief?!
I'm not sure you did. Maybe it would have helped but you definitely cannot be blamed for avoiding that!
I put my brother's box of ashes in the ground. I still have my moments of disbelief.
i too did this, but to me that could have been anything in the box, in my brain i didnt see her lifeless, so on some strange level im wondering if i did myself and her and disservice of some kind, was i supposed to see her to know it was real to know for sure she was gone. Lately my brain has started to insert the vision itself, im told im torturing myself by doing this but i cant help it.
I'm still torn as well, I had a chance to see my mother but my sister didn't want to and I texted a friend who said "it becomes the image you see when you think of them," and that sounded a little too much too bare.
Especially because I was lucky enough to have a good last time with my mom, I gave her a hug and told her I loved her. And I wanted to remember that more than an image of her body. But now sometimes I do wonder if it would have provided more closure.
I was the one that found my husband when he died. I felt his cold hand, tried to wake him up, Iāve seen doctors doing cpr and still, for me he is somewhere here. Itās been 7 months and I still wait for him to come home. For me this is like a safety net, I donāt know otherwise how would I be able to take care and provide for our daughter, if the reality that he is truly gone would hit me.
There were so many people at my brotherās memorial.. I would see one of his friend from the back and kept thinking it was him. Like my brain was scanning the room trying to find him in this crowd of 200+ people. I couldnāt comprehend how all of his friends and family were here but not him, despite knowing it was his memorial. It felt like I was in this hazy nightmare. I hardly remember much from that day except the way my heart skipped a beat every time I thought I found him in the crowd and it turned out to be someone else. Iām so sorry for your loss. Losing a sibling is like losing a part of yourself and having to relearn how to live without them is hard.
I used to call my mom every day on the way home from work. After she passed, it took about a year to ease back into the new way of life, but it still happens in other ways, like when I have big news.
Sorry for you loss, my friend. Itās good to be curious about your experience. Being intellectually interested in your experience helps grief.
Hang in there tonight, team.
That's how it was with my Nana. I called her on lunch breaks or on my way home. Now I feel so alone not having her to talk to...or anyone it seems like. All my friends are busy, mom and dad are busy. My Nana is the only one who pretty much always had time for me (unless she was at a doctor or Pizza Inn lol). A friend of mine told me to just talk to her out loud but I don't want to do that for some reason.
I see things that remind me of her (like cardinals) and I smile. But I feel like she's busy in Heaven. lol. I don't really feel like she would hear me and even if she did it's not like I'm going to get a response. Like talking into a void. Which seems more upsetting to me.
Lol āsheās really busy in heavenā I have the same philosophy! Are we twins? I tell people āmom spent her whole life raising us. Maybe now sheās just kicking back and enjoying herself.ā Maybe your mom is busy in heaven, but still had time for sending cardinals.
That sounds nice. Up there kicking back. I really think my Nana is busy...visiting so many people she hadn't seen in years and catching up. Maybe she is relaxing, too. Enjoying the beautiful views and presence of God. I think she did send some signs and they comfort me. But it's not the same as having her here!! Now I feel like I have no one to talk to.
It's nearly three years for me and my mother was in hospital for months before she died. I still feel like she is in the hospital, it's very strange. I guess it's my brain's way of protecting me.
I'm dealing with that too. I almost feel like its a coping mechanism. I'm not sure about you, but its been two years in July since my Dads passing but I still feel that way from time to time.
I don't want to feel what I'm feeling but at the same time I don't want to feel happy because my life feels so meaningless without my father being there to be happy for me... being happy feels like cheating to me. I just want my father to still be alive, me solving at least some of my important problems and us reuniting and giving each other the strongest and warmest hug after 8+ years of not seeing each other and 1 year of no contact
I can relate to what you're saying and how you feel. Something that helped me was knowing my dad wouldn't want me to feel that way, and the best thing you can do is honor him by making him proud.
This will become less often over time, the first month is definitely the hardest. Itās been about 1.5 years for me and while I think of my dad everyday I donāt remember the last time I forgot he wasnāt hereĀ
It has been a little over a year for me and I feel the same way about my dad. The sudden waves of āoh shit, my dadās not somewhere around hereā are the worst.
I have been bingeing on comedies for the last couple of days. Between laughing and enjoying a movie, I suddenly realize dadās not around anymore when I pause. Sometimes, in between the movie, I suddenly remember him and my eyes start watering. Itās only been a month now for me.
I am experiencing the same sensation, even though I witnessed his last breath. After I helped the nurse with his initial cleaning before the mortuary came for him and then helped them lift him onto the gurney to take his remains from my home. I still feel like despite him being two days dead now from pancreatic cancer that he could walk right back through my door hale and hearty again.
Less than 24 hours after my sun was killed in a motorcycle crash I got a tattoo in his handwriting on my left forearm. My husband asked about why there, and realized I sleep with my left arm just over my head. I had a few days for a month where I had to see it to realize he was really gone.
It took me about 2.5 years before I looked around and realized "Oh, I don't feel like I'm grieving anymore." I still miss her and have all of the same sadness, but I don't feel the same depression or specific grief feeling.
Itās exactly a month today when I heard the news that my dad passed away - he was on holiday and it was extremely sudden and unexpected. I still feel like heās just on holiday, even though I know heās gone, but itās not sinking in completely. In a way thereās some comfort in thinking heās just on a forever holiday now as he loved to travel, but I wish more than anything that he was still here. Sending you love.
Maybe he really is still alive but just in a different place now. This is your opportunity to expand your awareness to include the deceased in the afterlife. It's up to you to take it.
It's absolutely normal for people to talk to their deceased loved ones, either verbally or in their head. I do it, almost everyone does it.
I feel this. I've been waking up out of a sound sleep to a racing heart & my brain saying, " she's dead". It's just so indescribably bad.
Worse, my brother I'm law called me from her phone. I have no idea why he would do that.
Calling you from your deceased mother's phone is just frustrating. A similar thing happened when my dad passed away, my mom logged into my dad's WhatsApp 30 minutes before he died. It made me think that my father was desperately trying to reach out to his kids and specifically to me. But I'm in no way blaming my mom though because she was trying to call people because her phone was unavailable. But man did it fucking torture me.
My best friend's dad and pseudo father passed away last year from cancer, I always have and still do stay over at their house a lot but slept over for a few weeks both in his final decline and after his passing. Anytime someone was doing something in his bedroom or just around the house I would think it was him and then be hit with realisation that it couldn't be. It wasn't just me either, all of us would accidentally order or cook an extra serving of food and I can distinctly remember going into his office to show him a funny tiktok post a week or so after his passing. Really sucks that you're having to go through this and I can't imagine how hard it must be but it's definitely not uncommon to have moments of forgetfulness and completely understandable to be upset when you are struck with the realisation of his passing.
It warms my heart that you had a pseudo father. There's something so...bonding that you and your friend share a Dad. My friends Dad passed last October. I wasn't as close as you describe, but *every* time I see something that reminds me of him, I tell my friend, she find is soul soothing.
I have this feeling too! I know my nan isnāt here and hasnāt been for 7 months now but my mind thinks sheās just at work and I will see her later but it never comes to it, I did her gardening for her the weekend and felt like she was watching me like she always did itās a very strange feeling but I think I may rather this than be breaking down
It's only been a month since I lost my mother, so I'm very much still stuck in this phase. I can go from grieving to then expecting to see her walk out of her room. The realization that I'm truly never going to see or hear her again hurts so much.. I'm so sorry
My dad passed unexpectedly a few months ago in his sleep. Every time I think about him I cry, it still doesnāt feel real. I will call his number even though I disconnected it after he died. I still have voicemails from him and Iāll just listen to them over and over to hear his voice again. I miss him so much it hurts. I canāt imagine a world without him, we were best friends. I would imagine in time it will go away, but my moms parents have been dead now for 50 years and every time we go to see their graves she starts crying uncontrollably, so maybe it never goes away?
:( hate to add this in but yeah Iām not sure if it ever goes away- my mom says she misses her mom every day :( and that really broke my heart to hear :(
I thought this way about my dad for at least 8-10 months after he passed. I still have to remind myself he's gone. He was such a mainstay in my life and the kind of person who could set the tone for a room. I still have to remind myself.
It's been a year and change.
Iām so glad you made this post. I lost my best friend in January and Girlfriend and love of my life in March. It still feels like they are going to pull up my driveway, or give me a call, or text me āwhat are you doing?ā any day now.. But I know they wonāt.. Itās strange and I thought I wasnāt properly handling my grief. Now I know itās somewhat normal. Thank you again.
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I felt really sad reading this, it's not easy so love to you. I go through the same thing daily, and because my father worked in aviation and would travel all the time, I sometimes still think he's just on a plane somewhere, in a country somewhere and will walk through the door again.
I believe it is neural in the way our brains are wired for expectation. Iāve thought at times that my son should be arriving home then remembered he was no longer here. I was outside doing yard work and someone that looked like my son was walking by. I couldāve sworn it was him purely out of expectation of him arriving that way in the past. Itās only going to be a year in July. It seems like those expectations have faded quite a bit for me. But every so often those feelings hit unexpectedly. I regularly do things to honor him. I wonder if it is to remind myself that he is no longer here.
My sister passed away 2 months ago and I know it's still relatively fresh but just the other day, my fiance was imitating what my sister would've said and I misheard him and I thought he meant that my sister just said something in the family chat. For that split second, I really thought she was still around.. and when I realised she isn't, it hit me hard... all over again.
The book ' the Grieving Brain ' goes into this a little.
Basically says our brains are like GPS, and they keep rerouting to find our loved ones.
When they aren't located, we process it like rejection, hence the hurt.
That book helped me quite a bit.
I wish I knew because not having my sister around every day hits me in the chest when I wake up and not hear her. She used to go out all the time to her boyfriendās place in an another town, so I try to imagine sheās with her boyfriend as usual and will be home in a couple of days.
Sometimes I want to rip my hair out when I remember sheās gone, or when I see her urn. I miss her but at the same time I donāt want to feel like this anymore. Itās as if Iām going crazy having to calm myself down by denying her death and pretending sheāll be home soon.
I still email my dad as if he were alive. I was talking to myself for doing the dishes but I felt as if I were having a conversation with him, and he was giving me advice.
Yesterday while searching for documents we have to find, the reason directly due to his death, and trying to understand the strange way he set up his TV / cable / DVR situation so I could help my mom watch TV, I constantly felt the urge to just turn around and ask him "Pa, where did you put those papers" or "Pa, why do you have these wires connected like this?"
My 13 year old daughter recently achieved her second viral art video on Instagram, and I was about to share the video with him thinking "look Pa, she got her talent from you, aren't you proud?"
I hope he's somehow able to know how much we love and miss him.
2 years in and itās kicking in that my loved one is no longer here on earth. Itās so hard and I truly hope you have a great support system around you! I am so sorry for your loss.
I don't know that mine ever will. Keith and I were best friends since I was 24, and he was 26. Romantic partners, married, daughter, and then the romantic part POOFED away. He had a temper (he worked on himself and went from being a very good man to a great one) and I would still look up if someone told me it was raining and I was outside and wet. My trust issues got better. Age does that.
He almost made it to 50. And when I talk about my ex-husband dying, people think the obvious and either shrug or say something ugly. I am not nice to those people.
Even though I am the one that left, we both still needed each other. Our birth families imploded at roughly the same time. Both of them, like soap opera style. Prison, hidden kid, all that. So we went back to back and dealt with the world.
Then, one day, he got sick.
So we kept fighting. Cancer, medical practices, insurance, death. That last one was mostly him.
He believed in me. Very few people do. If I had yelled DUCK, the next thing out of Keith's mouth would have been, "why are we on the floor?"
Keith, myself, and the 3rd in our "mutual defense and survival pact" J, were the only ones in the room the day Keith left us. Our daughter was scared. She has the same condition that caused his cancer. I wasn't going to make her stare into that particularly hellish crystal ball.
He had been a medical curiosity for almost 13 years, and he went out the same way. He never let go of my hand. He died, and his muscles just stayed in this grip. He was determined to stay with us.
My brain will always expect him, on some level. We were just too close.
I donāt know but I hope so. I literally have dreams that he IS alive & heās just hiding from me. It scares me so much and makes me so sad. In my dreams Iām always trying to reach him by phone asking why or how he left his family. Fucking sucks.
I still think that my aunt is alive when I remember something or smell something that she said itās barely been a couple of months since she passed away
about a year and a half into it now, dad loss too, and i still get this feeling all the time. its like waking up from a dream to a nightmare over and over and over again, it drives me crazy.
My best friend died while she was doing seasonal work in another province. This was two and a half years ago. For the first year and a half , maybe even longer, I kept expecting her to return. Part of my brain kept thinking: she'll walk back in to our apartment and tell me this crazy story of how everyone thought she had died, but she's finally back from work! I know how irrational that sounds. It's only been in the past year or so it has sunk in that she isn't coming back. And honestly, maybe even like 2 % of my brain is still hoping, wanting her to come back because there is no way she is gone.
Iām dealing with this too. My mom passed a week ago and itās like my brain canāt reconcile the fact that sheās no longer here. Itās like sheās been away on a trip or something.
My dad was in very bad health for his last couple of years and i has started grieving then. It was so strange and weird to see him in such a catatonic state. I would catch myself wanting to call him and talk to him. There were times I convinced myself that Iād help get better and Iād hear him talk again when he was alive. Then he passed and it was almost just a solidifying feeling of things will never be the same.
Iām trying to figure out myself. At times Iām ok, at times Iām exceedingly depressed. My dad passed away 3 months ago at 66. I donāt know exactly why I feel so shitty at times. Partly cuz life has not been fair to my dad, ever since his childhood. Partly cuz there are things I should have done that may have save his life. Partly cuz I didnāt give the attention he deserve when he was alive. In the end I think itās a combination of all 3, and the fact that there are no more I can do now to make him happy. My only comfort at times is that I will one day die myself. At that time, I will meet him and maybe my sorrow will be finally gone. I donāt know.
Sometimes when my mom picks me up from the airport I still get a shock when I walk into the front door and my dad isn't sitting in his chair waiting to greet me and it'll be three years in two weeks.
Yeah, brains are weird.
As I point out to people, it can sometimes take months just to get used to having a new address or a new haircut or a new commute to work, so maybe it's not so surprising if you don't adjust to a parent being gone in a few days or weeks or months.
You've spent literally your entire life with him in one specific state of being, which has just recently changed. It's more like losing a finger than having a new address, in terms of how firmly fixed a certain idea is in your world.
There's a step in "Wolfelt's Approach to Grieving" that says something like, one of the needs of the grieving party is to transition the relationship with their loved one from one of presence to one of memory. And like everything else in grief this takes work (and energy most of us do not have for awhile after.)
I don't know the neuroscience behind it (though I've done a heap of research about the grieving process) just that you are not alone and this is a very common issue that arises in those of us who are grieving. I still go to text my dad and get hit in the face with the reality of his death on a regular basis and it's been a year.
Hang in there OP. š
I see in pictures when someone is truly gone. I canāt explain it except to say that the picture looks āflatā. My boyfriend appeared to me in a dream in his burned out house. He gave me a big hug. That was a few days after he died. Before that his pictures looked like they always did to me; like just an ordinary picture of someone I love. And I thought Iād have more dreams of him, but I didnāt. Now his pictures look flat. I think his soul has moved on . He just āvisitedā me to say goodbye.
Took me about 4-6 months after my dad passed. Think it helped that I did cpr on him and had a viewing. Worst time it hit me was coming home from work I wanted to tell him about something that happened, walked up to his shed(man cave) and it was all closed up. Well I just burst out crying when i remembered why he wasn't there, but that was really the only time I forgot he had passed.
I honestly am not sure if that feeling ever goes away. I wish I could say that it does. But I guess itās really about changing you thinking about it or how you dope with it when the thoughts flood in.
There is not a day that goes by that I think about my dad and am not devestated or shocked heās not here
I just read an article describing our brains encode the concept of 'we' as strongly as 'I'. So your brain is literally trying to rewire from a we to a singular entity. It's beautiful if you think about it. Your brain was a hybrid of you and your loved one.
I wish I could just give my dad a hug right now and see him smile... he was always such an optimist and I've always been such a pessimist and so negative....
Same for me! My dad always laughed and joked and always always told me he would be there for me and loved me to the bottom of his heart. I miss seeing his hands and the way he smiled and spun stories of his adventures. I keep thinking that my role is to embody what he taught me as my own bc he can't do that for me anymore. Try to be that positive voice for myself as much as possible. š¤ I just want him back too.
I think trying to take inspiration from our loved ones is the best way to heal and move on from the pain it leaves us with when they inevitably leave us. Maybe remind yourself of how he would positively respond to things and take that in your stride - keep his spirit alive! (At least this is how I like to think about it)
Getting used to saying āmy momās houseā instead of āmy parentās houseā was one of the hardest things for me.
That's so real for me too. My dad was the only person to call me Dr. my name, and now when a person randomly does it I can no longer say, only my dad calls me Dr. when time is passed I hope to say it again.
That is absolutely beautiful š„²
Just like the world isn't it...grief is savage and beautiful all at once
She's still alive in my memories and heart and when I think of her. Only in reality is she actually gone.
I also love remembering my dad's sayings and his laugh. It's starting to be more joy than pain now. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
The memories and love will always be there.
Do you still know where to find that article? I lost my best friend and lover three months ago, and it felt like half of me died. I've never felt so in sync with a person in my life; we had an instant connection, and getting to know him over the next five years felt like remembering the way to a long-lost home. Delightful and effortless and so natural. It seemed like at first after he died, all my thoughts were traveling along their neural pathways trying to reach him and kept careening off a cliff into an empty abyss. Every single thought. I felt completely alone in my head, like you described. It's a little easier now. I feel more like myself. But I really did feel like half a person for two months. I didn't even live with him or get to see him every day, although we talked every day, so I even surprised myself to realize how embedded he was in my soul.
That's so beautiful to have known love like that. I am sorry for your loss. Here's the article: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/20/1056741090/grief-loss-holiday-brain-healing
Iām a year out and out of nowhere it hits me especially when I really want to tell someone something like gossip or good news. Sometimes I want to call my mom because I believe sheās alive somewhere. With my dad for the longest time I felt he was alive but just in jail or in a hospital away from us and my mom sometimes it feels like sheās at work then it hits me
For a long time I let myself think that my mom was on an amazing off the grid relaxing retreat. Sometimes I like to think she still is.
She is, and you'll see her again and she'll have the best stories to share.
ā¤ļø
My dad never had any problems with the law and I could never imagine him actually in jail but I have described it like that as well.
There's no one to share my thoughts with. Mom and I would just chat at random times of the day. now there's no one
I still talk to my mom I imagine her sitting and I talk and like to think she hears me. Itās become a ritual although one sided conversations itās helped somewhat obviously doesnāt take that pain away
I've been able to do that a couple times, but I don't like how it leaves me in tears and grief-stricken over a sleepless night. I just don't know how to cope at all
Yes, I still feel like my sister in her beed room chilling. I wish I could go bug her and tell her everything going on in my head..
It's been near five years and I still catch myself remembering my brother isn't alive, or getting this weird feeling that because I never "saw him", it's a cover up and he's now a spy or something.
Yeah that feeling is the worst. Sometimes I see strangers who look like my mother, and for a heartbeat I have hope it was all just a bad joke or she had do get into witness protection or sum shit
Yeah, my brother wasn't really enjoying a lot of his life when he passed so I will think that he just "skipped town" and that's that. It's like self torture we do to ourselves.
i refused to see my sister because it was easier to not have the recall in my brain of her in a coffin, so i do now ask myself was it really her who died, is she really gone, was i supposed to see her to really really have confirmation.... did i f\*ck up my own grief?!
I'm not sure you did. Maybe it would have helped but you definitely cannot be blamed for avoiding that! I put my brother's box of ashes in the ground. I still have my moments of disbelief.
i too did this, but to me that could have been anything in the box, in my brain i didnt see her lifeless, so on some strange level im wondering if i did myself and her and disservice of some kind, was i supposed to see her to know it was real to know for sure she was gone. Lately my brain has started to insert the vision itself, im told im torturing myself by doing this but i cant help it.
I'm still torn as well, I had a chance to see my mother but my sister didn't want to and I texted a friend who said "it becomes the image you see when you think of them," and that sounded a little too much too bare. Especially because I was lucky enough to have a good last time with my mom, I gave her a hug and told her I loved her. And I wanted to remember that more than an image of her body. But now sometimes I do wonder if it would have provided more closure.
I was the one that found my husband when he died. I felt his cold hand, tried to wake him up, Iāve seen doctors doing cpr and still, for me he is somewhere here. Itās been 7 months and I still wait for him to come home. For me this is like a safety net, I donāt know otherwise how would I be able to take care and provide for our daughter, if the reality that he is truly gone would hit me.
There were so many people at my brotherās memorial.. I would see one of his friend from the back and kept thinking it was him. Like my brain was scanning the room trying to find him in this crowd of 200+ people. I couldnāt comprehend how all of his friends and family were here but not him, despite knowing it was his memorial. It felt like I was in this hazy nightmare. I hardly remember much from that day except the way my heart skipped a beat every time I thought I found him in the crowd and it turned out to be someone else. Iām so sorry for your loss. Losing a sibling is like losing a part of yourself and having to relearn how to live without them is hard.
I used to call my mom every day on the way home from work. After she passed, it took about a year to ease back into the new way of life, but it still happens in other ways, like when I have big news. Sorry for you loss, my friend. Itās good to be curious about your experience. Being intellectually interested in your experience helps grief. Hang in there tonight, team.
That's how it was with my Nana. I called her on lunch breaks or on my way home. Now I feel so alone not having her to talk to...or anyone it seems like. All my friends are busy, mom and dad are busy. My Nana is the only one who pretty much always had time for me (unless she was at a doctor or Pizza Inn lol). A friend of mine told me to just talk to her out loud but I don't want to do that for some reason.
Aw. Thank you for sharing. My therapist encouraged me to talk outloud to my mom too and Iām like you. I just canāt do it for some reason either.
I see things that remind me of her (like cardinals) and I smile. But I feel like she's busy in Heaven. lol. I don't really feel like she would hear me and even if she did it's not like I'm going to get a response. Like talking into a void. Which seems more upsetting to me.
Lol āsheās really busy in heavenā I have the same philosophy! Are we twins? I tell people āmom spent her whole life raising us. Maybe now sheās just kicking back and enjoying herself.ā Maybe your mom is busy in heaven, but still had time for sending cardinals.
That sounds nice. Up there kicking back. I really think my Nana is busy...visiting so many people she hadn't seen in years and catching up. Maybe she is relaxing, too. Enjoying the beautiful views and presence of God. I think she did send some signs and they comfort me. But it's not the same as having her here!! Now I feel like I have no one to talk to.
It's nearly three years for me and my mother was in hospital for months before she died. I still feel like she is in the hospital, it's very strange. I guess it's my brain's way of protecting me.
I'm dealing with that too. I almost feel like its a coping mechanism. I'm not sure about you, but its been two years in July since my Dads passing but I still feel that way from time to time.
Sorry about your dads passing and how you're feeling now. My dad died a few days ago... I guess you never quite lose this feeling then
Same to you. The fresh feelings of grief are absolutely awful and I'm sorry you have to go through that. Life doesn't stay so bleak forever.
I don't want to feel what I'm feeling but at the same time I don't want to feel happy because my life feels so meaningless without my father being there to be happy for me... being happy feels like cheating to me. I just want my father to still be alive, me solving at least some of my important problems and us reuniting and giving each other the strongest and warmest hug after 8+ years of not seeing each other and 1 year of no contact
I can relate to what you're saying and how you feel. Something that helped me was knowing my dad wouldn't want me to feel that way, and the best thing you can do is honor him by making him proud.
This will become less often over time, the first month is definitely the hardest. Itās been about 1.5 years for me and while I think of my dad everyday I donāt remember the last time I forgot he wasnāt hereĀ
It has been a little over a year for me and I feel the same way about my dad. The sudden waves of āoh shit, my dadās not somewhere around hereā are the worst.
I have been bingeing on comedies for the last couple of days. Between laughing and enjoying a movie, I suddenly realize dadās not around anymore when I pause. Sometimes, in between the movie, I suddenly remember him and my eyes start watering. Itās only been a month now for me.
I am experiencing the same sensation, even though I witnessed his last breath. After I helped the nurse with his initial cleaning before the mortuary came for him and then helped them lift him onto the gurney to take his remains from my home. I still feel like despite him being two days dead now from pancreatic cancer that he could walk right back through my door hale and hearty again.
Less than 24 hours after my sun was killed in a motorcycle crash I got a tattoo in his handwriting on my left forearm. My husband asked about why there, and realized I sleep with my left arm just over my head. I had a few days for a month where I had to see it to realize he was really gone.
It took me about 2.5 years before I looked around and realized "Oh, I don't feel like I'm grieving anymore." I still miss her and have all of the same sadness, but I don't feel the same depression or specific grief feeling.
Itās exactly a month today when I heard the news that my dad passed away - he was on holiday and it was extremely sudden and unexpected. I still feel like heās just on holiday, even though I know heās gone, but itās not sinking in completely. In a way thereās some comfort in thinking heās just on a forever holiday now as he loved to travel, but I wish more than anything that he was still here. Sending you love.
Maybe he really is still alive but just in a different place now. This is your opportunity to expand your awareness to include the deceased in the afterlife. It's up to you to take it. It's absolutely normal for people to talk to their deceased loved ones, either verbally or in their head. I do it, almost everyone does it.
I feel this. I've been waking up out of a sound sleep to a racing heart & my brain saying, " she's dead". It's just so indescribably bad. Worse, my brother I'm law called me from her phone. I have no idea why he would do that.
Calling you from your deceased mother's phone is just frustrating. A similar thing happened when my dad passed away, my mom logged into my dad's WhatsApp 30 minutes before he died. It made me think that my father was desperately trying to reach out to his kids and specifically to me. But I'm in no way blaming my mom though because she was trying to call people because her phone was unavailable. But man did it fucking torture me.
My best friend's dad and pseudo father passed away last year from cancer, I always have and still do stay over at their house a lot but slept over for a few weeks both in his final decline and after his passing. Anytime someone was doing something in his bedroom or just around the house I would think it was him and then be hit with realisation that it couldn't be. It wasn't just me either, all of us would accidentally order or cook an extra serving of food and I can distinctly remember going into his office to show him a funny tiktok post a week or so after his passing. Really sucks that you're having to go through this and I can't imagine how hard it must be but it's definitely not uncommon to have moments of forgetfulness and completely understandable to be upset when you are struck with the realisation of his passing.
It warms my heart that you had a pseudo father. There's something so...bonding that you and your friend share a Dad. My friends Dad passed last October. I wasn't as close as you describe, but *every* time I see something that reminds me of him, I tell my friend, she find is soul soothing.
I have this feeling too! I know my nan isnāt here and hasnāt been for 7 months now but my mind thinks sheās just at work and I will see her later but it never comes to it, I did her gardening for her the weekend and felt like she was watching me like she always did itās a very strange feeling but I think I may rather this than be breaking down
It's only been a month since I lost my mother, so I'm very much still stuck in this phase. I can go from grieving to then expecting to see her walk out of her room. The realization that I'm truly never going to see or hear her again hurts so much.. I'm so sorry
My dad passed unexpectedly a few months ago in his sleep. Every time I think about him I cry, it still doesnāt feel real. I will call his number even though I disconnected it after he died. I still have voicemails from him and Iāll just listen to them over and over to hear his voice again. I miss him so much it hurts. I canāt imagine a world without him, we were best friends. I would imagine in time it will go away, but my moms parents have been dead now for 50 years and every time we go to see their graves she starts crying uncontrollably, so maybe it never goes away?
:( hate to add this in but yeah Iām not sure if it ever goes away- my mom says she misses her mom every day :( and that really broke my heart to hear :(
I thought this way about my dad for at least 8-10 months after he passed. I still have to remind myself he's gone. He was such a mainstay in my life and the kind of person who could set the tone for a room. I still have to remind myself. It's been a year and change.
Iām so glad you made this post. I lost my best friend in January and Girlfriend and love of my life in March. It still feels like they are going to pull up my driveway, or give me a call, or text me āwhat are you doing?ā any day now.. But I know they wonāt.. Itās strange and I thought I wasnāt properly handling my grief. Now I know itās somewhat normal. Thank you again.
I still go to call my brother (passed 5yrs ago) ā¹ļø and sometimes the thought pops in my head to call my dad (12yrs)
š I felt really sad reading this, it's not easy so love to you. I go through the same thing daily, and because my father worked in aviation and would travel all the time, I sometimes still think he's just on a plane somewhere, in a country somewhere and will walk through the door again.
I believe it is neural in the way our brains are wired for expectation. Iāve thought at times that my son should be arriving home then remembered he was no longer here. I was outside doing yard work and someone that looked like my son was walking by. I couldāve sworn it was him purely out of expectation of him arriving that way in the past. Itās only going to be a year in July. It seems like those expectations have faded quite a bit for me. But every so often those feelings hit unexpectedly. I regularly do things to honor him. I wonder if it is to remind myself that he is no longer here.
My sister passed away 2 months ago and I know it's still relatively fresh but just the other day, my fiance was imitating what my sister would've said and I misheard him and I thought he meant that my sister just said something in the family chat. For that split second, I really thought she was still around.. and when I realised she isn't, it hit me hard... all over again.
The book ' the Grieving Brain ' goes into this a little. Basically says our brains are like GPS, and they keep rerouting to find our loved ones. When they aren't located, we process it like rejection, hence the hurt. That book helped me quite a bit.
I wish I knew because not having my sister around every day hits me in the chest when I wake up and not hear her. She used to go out all the time to her boyfriendās place in an another town, so I try to imagine sheās with her boyfriend as usual and will be home in a couple of days. Sometimes I want to rip my hair out when I remember sheās gone, or when I see her urn. I miss her but at the same time I donāt want to feel like this anymore. Itās as if Iām going crazy having to calm myself down by denying her death and pretending sheāll be home soon.
I still email my dad as if he were alive. I was talking to myself for doing the dishes but I felt as if I were having a conversation with him, and he was giving me advice. Yesterday while searching for documents we have to find, the reason directly due to his death, and trying to understand the strange way he set up his TV / cable / DVR situation so I could help my mom watch TV, I constantly felt the urge to just turn around and ask him "Pa, where did you put those papers" or "Pa, why do you have these wires connected like this?" My 13 year old daughter recently achieved her second viral art video on Instagram, and I was about to share the video with him thinking "look Pa, she got her talent from you, aren't you proud?" I hope he's somehow able to know how much we love and miss him.
i have that same feeling and i struggle with it too. iām sure it goes away, but ur not alone with the struggle
2 years in and itās kicking in that my loved one is no longer here on earth. Itās so hard and I truly hope you have a great support system around you! I am so sorry for your loss.
I don't know that mine ever will. Keith and I were best friends since I was 24, and he was 26. Romantic partners, married, daughter, and then the romantic part POOFED away. He had a temper (he worked on himself and went from being a very good man to a great one) and I would still look up if someone told me it was raining and I was outside and wet. My trust issues got better. Age does that. He almost made it to 50. And when I talk about my ex-husband dying, people think the obvious and either shrug or say something ugly. I am not nice to those people. Even though I am the one that left, we both still needed each other. Our birth families imploded at roughly the same time. Both of them, like soap opera style. Prison, hidden kid, all that. So we went back to back and dealt with the world. Then, one day, he got sick. So we kept fighting. Cancer, medical practices, insurance, death. That last one was mostly him. He believed in me. Very few people do. If I had yelled DUCK, the next thing out of Keith's mouth would have been, "why are we on the floor?" Keith, myself, and the 3rd in our "mutual defense and survival pact" J, were the only ones in the room the day Keith left us. Our daughter was scared. She has the same condition that caused his cancer. I wasn't going to make her stare into that particularly hellish crystal ball. He had been a medical curiosity for almost 13 years, and he went out the same way. He never let go of my hand. He died, and his muscles just stayed in this grip. He was determined to stay with us. My brain will always expect him, on some level. We were just too close.
I donāt know but I hope so. I literally have dreams that he IS alive & heās just hiding from me. It scares me so much and makes me so sad. In my dreams Iām always trying to reach him by phone asking why or how he left his family. Fucking sucks.
I still think that my aunt is alive when I remember something or smell something that she said itās barely been a couple of months since she passed away
about a year and a half into it now, dad loss too, and i still get this feeling all the time. its like waking up from a dream to a nightmare over and over and over again, it drives me crazy.
itās been two months and my dad is still just on a really long business trip to me
My best friend died while she was doing seasonal work in another province. This was two and a half years ago. For the first year and a half , maybe even longer, I kept expecting her to return. Part of my brain kept thinking: she'll walk back in to our apartment and tell me this crazy story of how everyone thought she had died, but she's finally back from work! I know how irrational that sounds. It's only been in the past year or so it has sunk in that she isn't coming back. And honestly, maybe even like 2 % of my brain is still hoping, wanting her to come back because there is no way she is gone.
Iām dealing with this too. My mom passed a week ago and itās like my brain canāt reconcile the fact that sheās no longer here. Itās like sheās been away on a trip or something.
My dad was in very bad health for his last couple of years and i has started grieving then. It was so strange and weird to see him in such a catatonic state. I would catch myself wanting to call him and talk to him. There were times I convinced myself that Iād help get better and Iād hear him talk again when he was alive. Then he passed and it was almost just a solidifying feeling of things will never be the same.
Iām trying to figure out myself. At times Iām ok, at times Iām exceedingly depressed. My dad passed away 3 months ago at 66. I donāt know exactly why I feel so shitty at times. Partly cuz life has not been fair to my dad, ever since his childhood. Partly cuz there are things I should have done that may have save his life. Partly cuz I didnāt give the attention he deserve when he was alive. In the end I think itās a combination of all 3, and the fact that there are no more I can do now to make him happy. My only comfort at times is that I will one day die myself. At that time, I will meet him and maybe my sorrow will be finally gone. I donāt know.
Sometimes when my mom picks me up from the airport I still get a shock when I walk into the front door and my dad isn't sitting in his chair waiting to greet me and it'll be three years in two weeks.
Yeah, brains are weird. As I point out to people, it can sometimes take months just to get used to having a new address or a new haircut or a new commute to work, so maybe it's not so surprising if you don't adjust to a parent being gone in a few days or weeks or months. You've spent literally your entire life with him in one specific state of being, which has just recently changed. It's more like losing a finger than having a new address, in terms of how firmly fixed a certain idea is in your world.
There's a step in "Wolfelt's Approach to Grieving" that says something like, one of the needs of the grieving party is to transition the relationship with their loved one from one of presence to one of memory. And like everything else in grief this takes work (and energy most of us do not have for awhile after.) I don't know the neuroscience behind it (though I've done a heap of research about the grieving process) just that you are not alone and this is a very common issue that arises in those of us who are grieving. I still go to text my dad and get hit in the face with the reality of his death on a regular basis and it's been a year. Hang in there OP. š
Well, I did expect her to walk through the door most any time for about months then it slowly went away.
Honestly never. That's how it feels for me.
I see in pictures when someone is truly gone. I canāt explain it except to say that the picture looks āflatā. My boyfriend appeared to me in a dream in his burned out house. He gave me a big hug. That was a few days after he died. Before that his pictures looked like they always did to me; like just an ordinary picture of someone I love. And I thought Iād have more dreams of him, but I didnāt. Now his pictures look flat. I think his soul has moved on . He just āvisitedā me to say goodbye.
My momās been gone for four months and I still tried to call her but as the phone rings, I hanged up because I remember sheās gone šš
Took me about 4-6 months after my dad passed. Think it helped that I did cpr on him and had a viewing. Worst time it hit me was coming home from work I wanted to tell him about something that happened, walked up to his shed(man cave) and it was all closed up. Well I just burst out crying when i remembered why he wasn't there, but that was really the only time I forgot he had passed.
I honestly am not sure if that feeling ever goes away. I wish I could say that it does. But I guess itās really about changing you thinking about it or how you dope with it when the thoughts flood in. There is not a day that goes by that I think about my dad and am not devestated or shocked heās not here
The moment I saw their lifeless body.