Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by gramaokie on June 19, 2014 at 12:53am

Hi Kimberly:  You've REALLY been through a lot, especially for being so young!!  I think it's so important that you are getting professional help.  I don't know what I would have done without my therpist over the past years.  I can somewhat relate to the feelings you have been experiencing.  My aunt died Dec 2006; my youngest cousin Dec 2007 (pancreatic cancer); my sister-in-law who was also my best friend (breast cancer) Dec 2008.  Then, in Mar 2010 my mom found my younger brother in his apt. dead after a seizure.  8 weeks later, May 2010, we lost my daddy.  Mar 2011 my favorite uncle died.  My mom will be 85 in Oct, although her overall health is pretty good except for back pain and neuropathy, which are both very painful.  My youngest brother lives in another state.  I was with my sister-in-law every day for the last year of her life.  I also took care of my brother before he died.  So although I'm not the sole survivor of my core family like you, my world changed forever. I was driving in the car just today and my grief just washed over me and brought me to tears.   I hope you will take care of both your physical and mental health.  This site has helped me many many times.  Take care.  

Permalink Reply by Kimberly on July 12, 2014 at 1:23am

Thanks for the reply gramaokie. I agree, I would not have come as far as I have already without my therapist! I am so sorry for the losses you've experienced, so many in a short timespan. I know exactly what you mean, how the grief just overcomes you, and I know people say it gets "easier", but I haven't found that to be true or that it hurts less either. Thanks for your kind words, I am slowly learning how to care for myself, and trying to apply it. Take care of yourself too!

Permalink Reply by charles daley on June 19, 2014 at 8:20am

hi kim my name is charlie i'm very sorrry for your loss i know how you feel i lost my father to lung cancer and i lost my wife about 4 years ago due to a heart problem and now i lost my mom to due to a infection  blame myself for my wife's and mom death due to the fact that i was their caregiver so i know what you are going though take one day at a time and hang in there

Permalink Reply by Kimberly on July 12, 2014 at 1:25am

Hi Charlie, thanks for the reply. I'm so sorry to hear of your losses and boy, do I understand the feelings of blaming yourself. Though I hope you - and I - can forgive ourselves and know one day that things were out of our hands and we did the best we could... I want to believe that. Take care, and be good to yourself Charlie.

Permalink Reply by Diane A on June 19, 2014 at 11:46am

Hello, Kimberly.  You are young to have experienced so much loss so early.  I'm sorry to hear that.  I understand about the shutting down, because I did much the same.  My mother passed away 11/30/2006.  I had been her caregiver since 1998.  She had Alzheimer's disease.  She slowly drifted away from us.  My parents moved in with me in March 2002, because my  dad couldn't handle mom anymore. Then in 2003, she had a stroke which left her bedfast.  She became an infant, my baby.  When she passed away, I still had my dad to care for.  In 2005, Mom stopped recognizing him and he lost his will to live.  He started experiencing dementia and acting out.  I had no choice but to place both my parents in a nursing home.  The day I did that was the hardest day of my life.  Then in Nov mom died.  I had to walk right by her room to where dad was.  I sucked it up.  I had to go on for him.  I went everyday to the NH sometimes more than once to make sure he was not being neglected.  The strain was great, but I was able to maintain until he passed in Feb 2010.  That was hard!!! I was daddy's girl and it broke my heart.  However, I still hadn't grieved mom.  About a year later, a friend's mother was very ill and to the point of dying. I went to hospital to be with her.  While there he mother passed and suddenly, it was if my mom had.  I broke.  I couldn't believe the hurt I felt.  I realized I was an orphan.  I have 2 brothers but they don't live close.  We talk on the phone occasionally but we're not close.  I have made it through but I still have moments that my heart aches.  The pain is unexplainable.  People act like "why don't you just get over it?"  I wish I could, but the ache doesn't go away.  I pray you do better. 

Permalink Reply by Kimberly on July 12, 2014 at 1:30am

Thanks for the reply Diane. I feel much too young for all this, thank you for acknowledging that. My heart goes out to you for your losses and struggles, I can sympathize on many levels. Yes, yes, I know what you mean about the heart aching (as I said above, the pain is not any "better" or less, when it hits, than it was in the beginning) and unexplainable pain. Exactly, if we could "get over it", I sure would too! I think the hardest part is the deep loneliness and feeling as if most people don't truly understand, or maybe don't want to. Thank you for the prayers, I pray the same for you!

Permalink Reply by charles daley on July 12, 2014 at 9:06pm

kimberly i'm very sorry for your loss i know first hand what you are going though i lost two people   i know how hard to get by   i know you have strengh inside but you feel that you don't but i know it is not easy  please stay strong i know you could do this charles

Permalink Reply by Jenny Renn on August 18, 2014 at 7:41pm

Hi Kimberly, as with others I am so sorry for your losses and your pain.  My Father passed on last September and my Mother just this January past.  Being a caregiver is very physically and mentally demanding but for you to be the age that you are and to not only motivate yourself to be your parent's caregiver (and by that I mean looking after them always the very best that you can) but also being daughter must have been an emotional roller coaster too.  I just want you to know how much I admire you for what you did for your parents.  You did the right thing by your Dad, he needs professional care.

I wish for you that in time you will meet new people who will become your support team and system.  They will never replace your Mom or your brother but they will hopefully be there for you when you need them.  Websites like this are a great start.  You are never alone in your grief and I weirdly think that that is the upside of grief.  Knowing that there are people out there who have some idea of what you are going through makes this a less lonely process or place to be.  

It is such great news about your therapist.  I have been contemplating on trying therapy myself.  I am not sure if I will go through with it but sometimes when the feeling of loss is out of control I think that it might be a good idea to talk about it to someone.  I find that friends don't really want to talk about it, maybe they don't know what to say but this website is a start.

Again, I would just like to say that I admire very much for your having looked after your parents and I can imagine that it was very hard to put your Dad in a nursing home but maybe it will be good for you and him to be able to concentrate on loving him as his daughter and not as his caregiver and daughter if that makes sense.  Sometimes I feel that when you are looking after someone, you have so many things to remember, concentrate on and do that bed time comes around before you know it.  Hopefully, with the nurses looking after your dad, your time spent with him can be more about him and you.  I pray for strength for you.  You will find yourself again one day, soon I hope.  To me you sound like a wonderful daughter, sister and person.  You have a strength within you that you will find again.  I miss my parents terribly, not that I loved my Mother any more that my Father but she was my best friend and when I feel her loss so deeply I try to remember her values.  That is what I can do to keep her alive, to live by her values as best I can.  She was near perfect and I don't think that I will ever be as great as she was but I can try and when I do, I feel a little more close to her.  It is like she is telling me to do things or advising me on a decision I have to make.  I also want to start writing in a journal.  I think that it will be a mix of memories and things I wish I could say to them.  I would like to think that from Heaven they will be reading it.

Anyway, I hope that everyday you get a little better.  Take care