2016

[hollowheart]

I care nothing about this upcoming new year. I actually fell asleep and only woke up from people shooting at midnight. I had several people tell me 2016 will be better. Well, unless my sister is being resurrected this year how exactly will this year be better? I feel no different than I did last year. I don't feel any more hopeful or any less sad and lonely. 

I know I have become bitter and angry. Having to bottle everything inside has done that. Every time I talk to someone it makes me annoyed and reminds me how little they really know me and how much I miss my sister and her company. It hurts so much to not have anyone to share your day to day with.  No wonder isolation is used as a torture device. It really can drive you mad.

I'm still in survival mode and hoping to find some companionship. My old friends are useless now. I just want to reverse time. 

 

[Mom's angel]

I feel the same. People celebrating and enjoying and I feel hurt sometimes seeing them.. The loss of that one person that made 90% of myself numb, isn't even a thing to consider by the people. 

Everyone be like "I know it's hard but you should be strong and move on"

First of all they don't know how hard it is, secondly being strong doesn't come in tablets or pills so that I will take one and be strong.. And thirdly move on? Move on from who,? From the memories that are the only thing I'm left with, from the person who is my life, forgetting her is not something that my heart would allow.

May be they are trying to help me, but wrong words coming from someone who is not in the same position are annoying. 

 

[virgo_gal]

I cried alone in my room looking at my brother's picture. Everyone is telling me how 2016 be a great year. Honestly speaking, I feel so scared. At the beginning of 2015, never expected that we will be losing my brother.

I don't know how 2016 is going to be like but I do not want to lose anyone ever again like this.

[hollowheart]

MomsAngel, that is EXACTLY how I think when people say they "be strong and move on" I've had a "friend" who lost both parents very young about 20 years ago I guess, she says "I know it's hard but hang in there" no other words about how she coped. Ok, I get her loss may still be hard to talk about but this is a time where you can relate that loss to help your supposedly good friend. No? Ok. 

I'd like those strong tablets as well. Like you, in Jan 2015 I never dreamed she wouldn't make it to the next year. I was the one that hopes for every new year and created plans that I wanted to accomplish. It was easier to do then. One friend keep telling me how it will be a better year. How? Why? Maybe if I had a neurolizer like in Men in Black and I can erase my mind it will be. I spent 90% of my day in some form of communication with her. All my life. Imagine suddenly losing that and can't replace it?  How do you get over something in a few weeks that was your whole world for decades? You don't. 

Virgo, I'm crying right now. I woke up to that same emptiness and quiet and it just about killed me. A new year without her. It is terrifying. It makes me more aware and scared of other losses to come (older relatives) and as the younger generation I will have to deal without my sister by my side. The future does not feel happy it feels bleak and sad and scary. I don't have a family, who do I lean on? Obviously not my clueless friends. 

This year is bringing on more stress as we all lived in a building and we now have to keep paying her rent. We have talked about moving because wasting the money on her rent won't keep making sense. But it's scary. I love this area, and the idea of having to clean up all the apartments and pack and house search....it's daunting. I don't know what's going to happen to us. 

[Mom's angel]

After somedays of mom's death we went to my uncle's house, a girl in the neighborhood came to talk to me as she lost both her parent's when she was a child, the only things she said was " you'll have to live with the loss."

I have thought about that men in black device many a times? but than I thought about the beautiful memoires we had and neglected the thought.

[virgo_gal]

Yes, no one really talks about it much. Everyone tells the same story, that you gotta deal with the loss.

I want people to tell me how they coped in the beginning. It is so tough. You can't just talk to anyone about this. Sadly, the people who have suffered understand but they are also not willing so much. The future feels really very scare. 2016? 12 long months? Very difficult to imagine.

[kayc]

Virgo, I'm not sure anyone can tell you how to cope in the beginning...and it's hard to describe how it was for us because we were in such a fog.  In the beginning you might feel numb or emotional, everyone is different.  I remember putting one foot in front of another and keeping going, it's all I knew to do. I felt anxious, scared, needed to talk, needed someone to listen. That was with my husband, with my mom it was different yet.  

[hollowheart]

Virgo, I'm finding that a couple of people that I did try to talk to either didn't say much about how they coped, or they just said the usual 'You just gotta keep going' which tells me nothing. I just chalked it up to they didn't want to relive it so I didn't really push, but it was a little hurtful that people that have gone through this dropped me like a hot potato and just expect me to "hang in there".  I feel like I'm losing my mind every single morning I wake up and realize I'm still in this nightmare.

[virgo_gal]

I have experienced the same. I don't push further either.

Yes kayc, you are right it is hard to describe. But I just want someone to talk to. I feel anxious alot as well. I want to feel calm from inside. My mind is in a constant turmoil. I feel scared for myself too. I don't want to fall ill.

Hollowheart I wake up everyday and this realization hits me that my brother is not coming back. 

I have to go back to office from Monday, back to the grind. Back to that shitty life once again. Will have to start being 'normal' again.

[hollowheart]

4 hours ago, virgo_gal said:

Hollowheart I wake up everyday and this realization hits me that my brother is not coming back. 

I have to go back to office from Monday, back to the grind. Back to that shitty life once again. Will have to start being 'normal' again.

Yes, same here. I have had these unrealistic 'flashes' of this just being temporary, like 'ok, after the holidays she will be back' or something like that. It just seems to come out of nowhere that this is just temporary. I guess my mind not still grasping this reality. I think knowing that Monday is the start of being back to the work grind for me too, and the continuation of my crappy life is also depressing. I spent the last couple months just trying to get through the holidays, now there are just going to be normal days to get through and that might be even worse.  I still don't know what to do about work/job/career.  I don't have anyone to talk to about that either because as soon as I start to complain about what to do there I just get answers I don't want, like my friend pushing me to go to school as if that solves all problems. She calls herself being encouraging but it's mostly annoying.

There is no one that cares enough that I can bounce ideas off of, I have someone else that just agrees with whatever I bring up. If I randomly mention medical school (I don't want to go) she's like "Yeah, you should do it! Go to medical school!' just not realistic at all about anything I say.

Yesterday I cried all morning and I think that's why I get even more annoyed with people saying 2016 is a new beginning. It used to be, when all was right with my world. But all my misery followed me right into the new year. I was in tears for hours on the first of the year, so January 1st meant nothing in my life. God I want her back so bad. I just want her back in my life, I want my routine back. I"d be in her apartment right now.

[Mom's angel]

Though our losses are different but our feelings are same.. 

Mornings and nights are the hardest part.. I be wide awake at night with all her thoughts and in the morning waking up with the reality that the dream I just saw about me and her being together was not real.. I do forget sometimes that she's no more and then realizes the truth, this thing seriously hurts.

I got to go to college on monday as they are calling me.. They all thing I'll be normal once I start back my normal routine. Normal? How? Normal was when she was with me.. They don't understand that doing the same routine thing without a person who was a major part of your 'normal' routine is not easy and in no ways will make me 'normal'.

[kayc]

I wish you guys had better friends (I know, tall order), and could get a grief counselor, it'd help.  HH, it sounds like your "friend" isn't hearing you!

[MartyT]

I just read an article that may be of interest to you three: At This Dinner Party, Talking About Death With Strangers Isn't Taboo.

The article describes how "a fledgling nonprofit designs dinners specifically for young adults to get together and talk about their experiences with loss. In cities across the country, the group called The Dinner Party advises 20- and 30-somethings on how to arrange these gatherings."

From The Dinner Party website:

 Our mission: To transform life after loss from an isolating experience into one marked by community support, candid conversation, and forward movement. 

Through beautiful, unstructured dinner parties hosted by friends for friends, we invite those who’ve experienced significant loss - whether a parent, partner, sibling, or friend - to dive into long-tabooed territory, sharing a defining part of ourselves that rarely sees the light of day. Together, we’re pioneering tools and community through which young people who’ve experienced significant loss can use their shared experience as a springboard toward living better, bolder, and more connected lives.

We're well aware that combatting the isolation that so often comes with loss can not be done solely behind closed doors. That's why we're also working to tackle widespread cultural taboos, and to create spaces and tools through which those who have yet to undergo the experience can learn to be better friends or partners to those who have. 

The end goal? We foresee a day in which Dinner Parties are as pervasive as AA meetings, and as culturally acceptable and readily accessible as yoga and meditation classes: a day in which young people who have experienced loss are recognized not as objects of pity, but as better listeners and better leaders, characterized by profound empathy, resilience, and agency.

[hollowheart]

Moms Angel, those are the exact words I've been looking for. Yes, my normal routine is destroyed and it was everything and can not be replaced. To have that suddenly eliminated and then continue on like nothing has changed is just about impossible. I'm the Walking Dead right now. It so hard not having that regular daily conversation with her. 

Kayc, pretty much all my friends are not hearing me and I never had any super close friends, that was my sister. So my friends are just doing what they were doing before, living their own lives. Unfortunately, one that was trying to be attentive has a host of personal problems of her own and disappeared. I used to help her and now she just wants to be alone and no longer gets back to me.  What a lonely world now. 

[Mom's angel]

Hollowheart, 

I'm here to listen to you whenever you feel like sharing something,... At least that much I can do☺.

[virgo_gal]

I have never had close friends either. I know if I reach out to few of them, they will be there. But they will not really get the grief I am going through right now.

Their lives are continuing as usual. Infact, several of our cousins, actually all of them are living their lives, enjoying.

My brother and I were close to each other mainly. But I feel sad, that they all were also related to him. The least they could do was not post their pictures celebrating the new year. But my mom says, I should not hold this against them.

[kayc]

HH, I'm sorry your friend disappeared on you.  If the two of you could only meet and help each other, but sometimes we're in such a state we have nothing left for someone else, it's all we can do to keep our head above water ourselves, this may be the case with both of you right now.  At least you and virgo seem to be able to relate and I hope the two of you can help each other through this really tough time you're both having.

[hollowheart]

Kayc, yeah. thank you. ? I wish Virgo and I lived in the same neighborhood. I wish I could find someone that felt such similar things. I was having another dose of "I can't believe this is real" today. I just can't get past she is gone. Of all people in my life. I just never in my most horrible nightmares think this would happen. I really and truly feel alone. I have a friend that is an only child and the other one that has her own problem has 3 sisters she can't stand doesn't talk to. So the few friends I have can't relate to how close we were and are often amazed we were so close. 

So they don't get how hard this is and gives me the "keep on truckin'" speech. This is like losing my right arm. Everything reminds me of her. How do you just keep on truckin' past that? I'm still very lost 

[kayc]

I don't know.  But if I can be here ten years after my husband died, you can make it too.  We were soulmates, best friends, lovers, partners, everything.  We truly got each other, we communicated well, we loved each other with all our hearts.  It was unexpected, a shock.  Then I lost my job.  All our friends disappeared on me, so did his family.  Somehow I've survived.  I made a new best friend, she moved to TX last year, I miss her.  She was widowed after me, so we could talk about it.  I don't have friends here that get it now, I miss her.  I hope the Lord blesses me with another best friend soon...I just know I have to keep trying, what other choice is there?

[hollowheart]

Kayc, yeah, I know I am just existing. My fear is 20 years later still looking for grief boards and grief groups and therapists. I have no family of my own and I'm sure that's what will happen to me. Time will move on but I won't. That's how people assume we are moving on because time keeps going. It doesn't mean we do. We stay stuck. In ten years I really won't be talking to the few friends I have now. At least it would have been the two of struggling together. It's a scary future. 

[Cathyc]

Someone asked how we coped in the beginning and why people don't talk about it. I think for me it its because I didn't really "cope" in the beginning. I just tried to survive. I was in a fog. I remember telling myself I had to eat even though I didn't think I could hold any food down.  I think the feeling of actually coping maybe sets in a bit later for some of us.

Hollow heart, I agree some people stay stuck. But I think just the sheer fact that you are reaching out here tells me you won't stay stuck. You're actively thinking about what to do and that tells me that you will be able to create a better life for yourself.  In the long run, I think you will find ways to meet like-minded people and bond with people you can trust. You sound like a great person and I am sure you will be able to do that. But in the meantime, all I can tell you for now, is hang in there and keep working on working through the grief.

[hollowheart]

Cathy, thank you so much. That was very encouraging and made me smile. I know I'm the type of person that gets focused to much what other people say. I feel like I'm moving at the fasted pace I can right now. Sometimes I backslide and have those moments.

I think that in talking to a few friends I just felt like I was being rushed and pushed into figuring something out and moving on with life and it made me rebel. I didn't want to already know how I was going to move on from this. I still don't know. I'm still flailing with a lot of things and as much as I complain about what I don't want, I still don't really know what I do want.

It's what I used to talk to my sister about a lot, so losing her was like taking my brain and mixing it up like a rubick's cube. I couldn't get it straight and I had no one to bounce anything off of--she was that person. I just had people telling me where I should be and what I should be doing. It's almost like she was my life coach, and was just suddenly ripped away. How was I supposed to figure out my entire life path during the worst time of my life. I mean my heart is shattered. I was just angry. 

But anyway, thank you.

[virgo_gal]

Hi..I am having a hard time coping too. I came back home from work after the holidays and tried watching a movie. Saw it till my eyes could not take it anymore and fell asleep. I do not want my mind to be idle. I have to constantly keep it distracted. That is how I am surviving.

And I have my brother's phone as well. I keep it in my drawer, usually on silent mode. Maybe I had removed it from silent, so all of sudden it started ringing yesterday.My brother had this same ringtone from the past couple of years. My dad literally jumped from the dinner table and ran to pick it up. He actually broke down after hearing it. It was a sad moment for all of us.

[hollowheart]

Virgo, trying to keep my mind distracted causes me stress sometimes and I think it gives me anxiety. I know I'm a TV/Movie Whore, but to be honest, a lot of my day was spent with her. Even if we watched movies together.  Now I find myself constantly trying to find something to watch (reading is impossible) and that gets old after a few hours. I get to a point where I just want to go hang out with her and I can't and that's where the anxiety starts.

My mom took my sisters phone to use and my sister loved that phone and took a million pictures and had a lot of apps. My mom had her own iphone at one point so she knows how to use one, but she kept giving it to me wanting me to take off pictures and remove stuff. She had alerts popping up and my Ma kept asking what those are. I couldn't bring myself to delete anything and I felt bad because I could see on my Ma's face she didn't know how to do it and she couldn't get me to help. It was to heartbreaking for me.

It's still the same with her apartment. I don't know how I'm gonna pack anything up, I can't stay in there longer than 15 minutes.

[virgo_gal]

I have kept all his messages and other content in his phone. I took out his phone on 1st Jan this year. There were just general messages, no personal message. I felt so bad that there was nothing for him. Therefore, I sent him a text wishing him a happy new year.

Now, if there is anything I'd like to say to him, I have decided I'll send him a text. I wish there was a way where I could reach out to him and tell him how much I love him. It is hell living without him.