Hi, my name's Pat. I'm 23, and my mom died Dec 1 - three weeks ago. My brother killed himself when he was 16, eleven years ago. I've been having a pretty tough time sleeping my whole life, but especially now. I have experienced a lot in the past three weeks, between the wake/funeral to the quiet moments after, waking up and forgetting for an instant and coming to realize so brutally seconds later.
I have been up for ~38 hours as of writing this, and am still not tired(for the past three weeks I've been on about two to five hours of sleep a night, with many nonconsecutive days of no sleep).. I think it has to do with the holidays coming around and the family I started out with now being almost entirely gone. In my old house we had a barometer or a thermometer with an ad for Morton's salt - and it said "when it rains it pours" and I have always remembered that. It's strange what happens after you lose someone, especially when you know that the person you lost (in the case of my mom) is the only person who ever unconditionally loved you, and whom you unconditionally loved.
I guess the Morton's salt segues into changes in diet- while I've never been a very large guy, I do enjoy my food - and over the course of mom's battle with cancer lost ~40lbs due to lack of drive/motivation to even eat like I used to. Now after her passing I have been still unable to eat a large amount of anything but cheese and crackers, and that's more because it's like a miniature task that is repetitive and soothing, cutting up the cheese, putting it on crackers, eating them one by one.
Finally the largest thing that I have noticed and has had the most impact of the tertiary consequences of losing someone is the role it plays on how you view others, and how they view you. Me and my girlfriend of ~2 years broke up this week, which to be honest I feel good about even though it's painful - because I know that she'll be better off without me anchoring her down. During and following the wake/funeral I have really weeded out a lot of so called friends who didn't show up/write/call or take me out for a beer (and while if I was in their shoes I wouldn't know how to approach them because everyone handles these things differently- I would at least offer and it wouldn't be an empty gesture). Four of my friends came to the three sessions of the wake or the funeral - and on those 3 days, and the days following, I received a few calls and cards from more... secondary friends. A few of my friends had invited me to do stuff and cancelled, and to be honest I'm pretty pissed off at 99% of the people I thought were my friends.
I have come to realize that the people who I know I would be there for (in SOME capacity at least) who couldn't come to my rescue, are much less deserving of my respect then I had thought. I also see a small glimmer of hope, because I know right now that there's *crosses fingers* not really anywhere to go but up from here.
This is my version of current events.
My primary feeling right now is numbness.
I hope everyone has people to lean on.
-pat
