Grief And Small Talk Causing Dissociation

[Disk]

My father died recently, and the other day I flew 800 miles to be with my mom and attend the memorial. Though I'm dealing okay with the grief, it is definitely lessening the tolerance I have for other stressful things. Unfortunately, something that really eats away at me is my mother's incessant small talk, plus her insistence on the urgency of running millions of errands. I'm getting better at setting boundaries and putting my foot down, but I had to be present for some of the errands today. Which means that I got literally hours of monologue about grocery prices, gas prices, postage prices, calories, etc. I don't know if grief is making it worse, but she always talks this much and says this little. I declared a couple quiet times when we were driving so I could listen to headphones, but that was about it.

I don't have a driver's license right now and we're out in the country with no public transit and no place to walk to. I am trying to figure out now how I can recover from being drained like this. I am not totally dissociating, but I feel like my concept of my self is getting fuzzy and staticky.

I am already leaning towards going back sooner than anticipated, but I am trying to figure out things I can do in the meantime so I can kind of keep track of myself. Music and drawing help, but I don't know of any meditations or physical exercises or things like that which might help. Any ideas?

 

[KwanYingirl]

You can google yoga poses. Legs up the wall is a good one for grounding as is mountain pose. I have apps on my phone for guided meditation and one called Calm. Do you have Pandora? Can you go for a run around the neighborhood or call old friends in the area to come and rescue you for some R&R? I'm sorry about the passing of your Dad. It may be your Moms way to cope with the grief and the fear of an unknown future to talk incessantly. Nervous chatter. Going home earlier might not be a bad idea either. Good luck and whatever the history you have with your Mom, cut her a little slack cuz she just lost her spouse.

 

[Digz]

Progressive Muscle Relaxation is one I find really good, and you can find videos for that easily on youtube.
Grief could be causing you to dissociate more easily, as could extra stress being placed on you when dealing with your mother. My therapist has talked to me lots about managing everyday stress and other stressors, because when it builds up your mind, may chose to deal with it in that old not-so-useful-nowadays way, dissociation.
So, although it's hard with what you're going through at the moment, your best bet to reduce the dissociation is to deal with and minimise the stress as much as possible. Best way to do that is ways you are already looking into - meditation type stuff, music is good like you said, exercise is also really good.
Hope it helps.