I'm new, this is my first post. On September 3, my Mother died from a massive stroke. I'm 44 and have friends who've lost parents. When I imagined what it might be like to lose my Mother, what I imagined was a whole lot easier than this.
Mom and I weren't close. The most difficult relationship I've had in my life was with her. A friend of mine commented recently that none of us get the parents or the children we want. That was SO true of Mom and I. Mom was a devout Mormon, I'm a lesbian and work as a shamanic healer. We struggled with each other. We actually didnt' see each other for 9 years. She came to visit me two weeks before she died. It's the only time we've been together as adults without getting into a fight. She told me she was proud of me for the first time that I can remember. When Mom left I found myself hoping that it was the beginning of a different relationship for us.
I've did alot of work in therapy around my relationship with her. With her death I'm finding that all those issues I worked on are back with a force that feels bigger than I am. I'm wandering around feeling like I have a two-year-old screaming inside me all the time.
This loss is SO incredibly complex. There's the mother I lost and the mother I never had, the one I longed for...they both died.
It's been 8 weeks now and I feel broken in some way that I don't have words for. When does this get easier? I feel awash in feelings I can't name, and some that I can. Sometimes I'm angry at everything. Other times I feel so restless I can't sit still and nothing seems to meet that but driving around aimlessly. I'm not really interested in anything, nothing holds my attention for very long. I don't want to do anything.
This is not my first experience with someone dying. My best friend in 5th grade died from lukemia. A couple years ago I lost a close friend to cancer. I was actually one of her caregivers the last couple months of her life. But this....a parent dying is different. I feel so deeply lost and I'm not even sure why.