Dealing with Grief
The first time I typed this out it sounded like a very bad Jerry Springer episode and I was nearly embarrassed to talk about it but my "rock" and person I could talk to about anything was gone, my Mom. I had just finished 5 months of Chemo for Lymphoma for the 2nd time and became a 3 time survivor of Cancer in Dec of 2011. Only months earlier I had lost a dear friend of mine of 16 yrs at the start of my Chemo and now I had just gotten the word my Mom was diagnosed with lung & liver Cancer. I was still as weak as a kitten but managed to go care for her and my Dad, who niether of them drove.
My Mom got a painful compression fracture in her back, hindsight tells us the cancer had already spread to her bones but we continued to go through testing to find, she was Stage 4. She called herself a walking dead woman. My Dad was not as strong and in mid Feb of 2012 took his own life by the use of a gun. My Mom came to my home for 6 days until it was beyond my ability to care for her and she was admitted to the hospital...to the same room I had been in just the previous Nov. where she lasted 8 short days and passed away just 13 days after my Dad.
My only sibling, a sister and the one even my Mom described as, "The most embarrassing disappointment she'd ever have to endure." and my Dad refused to call by name showed up at the hospital against my Mom's wishes due to a busy bodied Social Worker that felt she knew best and called her. She showed up as I was trying to make Mom comfortable with some lemon swabs for her mouth and combing her hair. My sister's response to this was, "What's that all for? She's dying anyway!" I was thankful that the nurse heard it and escorted her & her greedy family from the room. Two days after Mom died, she showed up at my house with all new name brand motorcycle clothing valued at well over $300 wanting to know where her money was. She had not been to visit our parents since there had been gifts/money at Christmas, not even when Mom was diagnosed with Cancer. It was painful enough losing both parents but her callus selfishness was unbearable and only made losing them harder.
Since then the sadness of being where I was and the toll that cancer took on my body made it impossible for me to work so I eventually (Last year) had to move from my home into an area much further away and into a much smaller house. I was just starting to feel like my life in my new house was taking a positive step forward when my Mastiff breed dog developed a non-operable tumor in her upper cheek & jaw. She passed with her eyes looking at my face giving her all the love I could give her, with all my heart on Super Bowl Sunday.
I have started making friends and getting involved in the very small community and had made a friend with a nice man with some like kind interests like music, our pets and cooking. Just last April he had asked me to share dinner with him on his birthday in a few days and he was killed in a car crash that night. We were not ever romantically involved but our friendship was growing, he was a kind giving man and his parents have been so very wonderful to me. They've asked me to speak at his Celebration of Life in August and I know it'll be so very difficult but I need to do this for him...for me to say good bye.
I am just so lost in how to handle the collective amount of loss in general I've had to deal with in such a short time and still dealing with. I just learned a dear friend is losing a 7 yr battle with a disease the Drs can not find any cure for her as she wastes away and I will lose her too.
I know as an adult I'm supposed to know how to cope, how to get through it....but I've had so MUCH, so MANY..."IT'S". People I love, people I care about, my health, my home, my friends that vanished during me being sick, my dog-child, more friends and I'm sure IRS will make sure to get their pound+ of flesh by the time I feel like I'm losing my sanity over all this sadness. This seems so strange, I'm usually the go-to gal for people for advice and I don't anyone to talk to since Mom died....and I feel so lost.
This feels like PTSD except with Grief instead of stress. I've always been the strong one, the one that people look up to and give inspiration to, but I have no advice for myself...can someone help me?
I really do not want to hear a bunch of, Get right with God stuff!!
My Mom got a painful compression fracture in her back, hindsight tells us the cancer had already spread to her bones but we continued to go through testing to find, she was Stage 4. She called herself a walking dead woman. My Dad was not as strong and in mid Feb of 2012 took his own life by the use of a gun. My Mom came to my home for 6 days until it was beyond my ability to care for her and she was admitted to the hospital...to the same room I had been in just the previous Nov. where she lasted 8 short days and passed away just 13 days after my Dad.
My only sibling, a sister and the one even my Mom described as, "The most embarrassing disappointment she'd ever have to endure." and my Dad refused to call by name showed up at the hospital against my Mom's wishes due to a busy bodied Social Worker that felt she knew best and called her. She showed up as I was trying to make Mom comfortable with some lemon swabs for her mouth and combing her hair. My sister's response to this was, "What's that all for? She's dying anyway!" I was thankful that the nurse heard it and escorted her & her greedy family from the room. Two days after Mom died, she showed up at my house with all new name brand motorcycle clothing valued at well over $300 wanting to know where her money was. She had not been to visit our parents since there had been gifts/money at Christmas, not even when Mom was diagnosed with Cancer. It was painful enough losing both parents but her callus selfishness was unbearable and only made losing them harder.
Since then the sadness of being where I was and the toll that cancer took on my body made it impossible for me to work so I eventually (Last year) had to move from my home into an area much further away and into a much smaller house. I was just starting to feel like my life in my new house was taking a positive step forward when my Mastiff breed dog developed a non-operable tumor in her upper cheek & jaw. She passed with her eyes looking at my face giving her all the love I could give her, with all my heart on Super Bowl Sunday.
I have started making friends and getting involved in the very small community and had made a friend with a nice man with some like kind interests like music, our pets and cooking. Just last April he had asked me to share dinner with him on his birthday in a few days and he was killed in a car crash that night. We were not ever romantically involved but our friendship was growing, he was a kind giving man and his parents have been so very wonderful to me. They've asked me to speak at his Celebration of Life in August and I know it'll be so very difficult but I need to do this for him...for me to say good bye.
I am just so lost in how to handle the collective amount of loss in general I've had to deal with in such a short time and still dealing with. I just learned a dear friend is losing a 7 yr battle with a disease the Drs can not find any cure for her as she wastes away and I will lose her too.
I know as an adult I'm supposed to know how to cope, how to get through it....but I've had so MUCH, so MANY..."IT'S". People I love, people I care about, my health, my home, my friends that vanished during me being sick, my dog-child, more friends and I'm sure IRS will make sure to get their pound+ of flesh by the time I feel like I'm losing my sanity over all this sadness. This seems so strange, I'm usually the go-to gal for people for advice and I don't anyone to talk to since Mom died....and I feel so lost.
This feels like PTSD except with Grief instead of stress. I've always been the strong one, the one that people look up to and give inspiration to, but I have no advice for myself...can someone help me?
I really do not want to hear a bunch of, Get right with God stuff!!
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