Where To Start....

[Blackjack]

I don't quite know where to start with this. It's my second attempt at trying to write it. I gave up last night...

I feel I am in a total mess and dont know how to move forwards.

On top of the long standing stuff I have going on, 10 days ago my father was rushed into hospital with a very severe lung infection and twice during the next 7 days we were told to expect him to pass away. I totally adore my dad and the news of this just destroyed me. At the end of the 7 days he made a slight improvement and the hospital sent him back to his care home. Since he has been back there he has been sleeping constantly, has lost all movement in his lower body and is not talking. He is a very ill man but we have no idea how long he does or does not have left. He has dropped from about 160 to 120lbs since just before Xmas. I am distraught at the moment I really am but we can only wait and see what happens. It is like living through a nightmare, waiting for the phone to ring with the news that he had left us.

It has really hit me that I am never again going to have a conversation with my beloved dad. He was a very intelligent man and knew so much but all of that has gone. I will never be able to ask him anything again and I cannot deal with the thought right now. It is ripping my heart out and shredding it to pieces and I don't know how to begin to deal with it. I cannot imagine never talking with him again.

I am so sad and depressed I cannot begin to describe and it is weird because I kind of cope through the day. I am depressed but hang in there but come about 8pm I start to feel the depression settling on me even heavier. It gets worse and worse until by the early hours I am in a terrible mess. I am having really dark thoughts regularly.

I am now starting to withdraw into myself, I feel that I cannot keep leaning on the wonderful people here, they have their own problems, but I have nobody else to support me. I don't know what to do with myself. I want to reach out but feel I shouldn't, I couldn't. The thoughts I have at night scare me but I feel drawn to them too. I want to escape this pain without being a burden to others.

 

[J'qel]

Hon, you're grieving over a parent. You're watching him as his health degrades. There is no wonder why you're feeling the way you are. When a loved one gets very ill, ages or is at rick of death, of course you feel helpless, hopeless and depressed. None of us can fight mortality. It is the one foe we can never conquer.

My mother in law passed late last year (just after her 65th birthday) and it was rough-I loved her dearly, but she was in pain and mentally unwell. When I heard how she passed it hurt so much because I couldn't be there (she lives a few hours away).

But I wouldn't have asked her to stay. She was in pain, she had mobility issues, cognitive issues and every day was a struggle. She dreaded the thought of going into a care home, yet she could barely manage with in home care in a tiny bungalow apartment. She knew what was happening and there was nothing she could do.

I miss her, but for all the world, I would not wish what she went through to have been prolonged on her. It's still hard. I expect the hole she left behind will always be there.

That's grief. It's messy and confused and conflicted.

You're hardly burdening any of us with your grief. That's what we're here for. We will virtually hold on while you wait, because many of us have been there. We can rally for eachother in our darkest times, and that we includes you, and your difficulties right now.

Don't worry about unburdening yourself, it sounds like you really need to. We're here and we will be.

*Hugs* if you accept them.

 

[ladee]

Its sad that you have been here as long as you have and still feel you are burden .
I am So sorry about your dad..but I hope you know deep in your heart, the last thing he would ever want is for you to harm yourself.
He raised you to be an intellegent woman who has yet to test her strength.
You are so much stronger than you allow your self to be.
You may be called on during this very hard heartbreaking time...to test that strength. You are not who experience and negative self talk tells you
are.
A very hard thing loosing a parent you love...so make him proud ....it hasn't happened yet. Set with him and tell him everything you need to say. Have no regrets.
And show him He raised a strong woman. Make him proud.

 

[Chloe44]

I don't quite know where to start with this. It's my second attempt at trying to write it. I gave up...

I'm new here and haven't done my back round summary yet, however this has my heart pounding for you as I lost my Dad 1 year ago...with almost the same circumstances. I am completely lost without my Dad. I know your pain.

 

[Friday]

The ONLY nice thing about long illness is this; the extension of grief / the chance to say goodbye & begin to prepare yourself for what lays ahead. The fear of never being able to have a conversation or spend an afternoon (or even 5 minutes) with someone I love, can be actioned by going to their bedside and spending 5 minutes (or an afternoon) with them, then & there. Having the opportunity to see what's coming, but not have to live it, yet. I might be talking to them on my own, their in a coma or asleep or in any other way not able to respond... But I can still talk to them. I can still reach out, & hold their hand, or just sit in a chair in the corner (or my feet kicked up over their bed) reading a book & sharing air with them. Being in the same space.

PTSD means 2 things for me with this process; 1) My stress levels are going to skyrocket (which means I need to be constantly blowing off stress as much as possible) & 2) I'm going to automatically shift into not allowing myself to grieve. To be shutting off my emotions, and disassociating, and sometimes even avoiding the person/situation all together. Because it's quite simply too much for me. Which means I need to actively fight against that. NOT by denial (I'm fine! I'm fine, I can handle this. & making no changes in my life to allow the space for it, or for not being fine), but by conscious action. If adding that situation to my existing situation is too much? I need to change my existing situation to allow it. To allow myself to grieve, to spend time with them, etc. What I've come to realize is that 2 follows 1. If I'm not minding my stress levels? I start shutting down & avoiding in response / as a self defense mechanism. So in order to circumvent that I need to actively defend myself in other ways. Limit my life in other areas, so that I can expend the energy here, with them. I have a finite capacity for stress. Where I choose to expend that capacity? Isn't always on me, but when it is? When I have a choice? Choosing where & with whom I want to be expending it.

 

[Blackjack]

Its sad that you have been here as long as you have and still feel you are burden .
I am So sorry about y...

Ladee, I will always feel a burden. It's no slant on anybody here. It's because I have spent 50 years being told I am a nuisance, unwanted and a burden to everybody. I just get so scared of scaring people away, of loosing precious friends.

 

[Blackjack]

I'm new here and haven't done my back round summary yet, however this has my heart pounding for you as...

Chloe I am so very sorry for your loss. It is an unbearable pain isn't it. I adore my dad I really do. He was the one person that treated me well. It's heartbreaking

 

[Deleted member 541]

@Blackjack I'm so sorry. Everyone loses someone that is their world, the on person that they adore. It's sad, it hurts and it sucks. From the day that we are born, we live on this earth and die a little bit everyday. Each of us will face that time, sooner or latter, because it inevitable.

Hang on to whatever time that you have now, and cherish it. You will and are going through the process of grief, and it will take you through many many emotions over and over again. Hang strong and hang on. Grief counciling might be something to look into.....

 

[J'qel]

Blackjack-let us be your therapy in overcoming that burden issue, then :)

Tell us, let us be here for you, as we are asking to be able to help. You are not a nuisance and this *is* a trying time.

 

[bring em all in]

Ladee, I will always feel a burden. It's no slant on anybody here. It's because I have spent 50 year...

I lost my mom in 2009 after about a year of flinching every time the phone rang. It is soooo nerve-wracking! My dad died in 2012 after a long illness. I have his picture on my computer desk and just yesterday I looked at it and longed to talk to him. And my sister died in 2014 after years as an alcoholic.

Your posts are in no way a burden- we are here to love and support each other.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I lost my mother-in-law to cancer and it was basically a few years of ups and downs and then towards the end it was that horrible feeling of waiting for that phone call. My husband and I were planning to go visit her when she really went downhill to say our final good-byes. But we didn't make it there in time and it still haunts me because even though I had kind of said my good-byes, I was absent from visits for the last month or so because it was too hard for me to watch her decline. She wasn't my mother or my father, but it's a horrible thing to watch so I reach out that offer of sympathy.

Also, on the other note about being a burden. I feel that way all the time. I feel like I am a burden to everyone all the time, but I am working on challenging that. Especially on here where people can choose to respond or not. People wouldn't respond with such compassion if they were feeling burdened. At least that's how I choose to look at it...or at least try to look at it.

 

[Copper Princess]

I am so sorry about your Dad. You are not a burden and I really hope that you will let us support you. For those of us that have not lost our father's or either parent we can still be a good ear for you. (((Hugs)))