Quiksand

Thank you, Marty. This is exactly what I'm going through, albeit much sooner than 6 months. I believe I started having these dreams as soon as 1 month into the loss. I'll try and see if I could attempt to practice the techniques described in your article. Even thought I try to not think about what happened as much as I can... sooner or later I'll have to consciously accept it.

First and foremost I'd like to thank this website and the beautiful people here for this sacred work that you do: giving people who lost someone a hope for a better tomorrow. You helped me not lose myself after the loss of my mother, and I would probably be much worse if not for the words of kindness and advice that I've received here. Life is still dull and confusing, I haven't wrapped my heart around the loss and I'm still fighting the battle, but I'll get there. This being said... I've been having these recurring nightmares, almost every day. Seeing as I try to push away the memories and thoughts of the event that lead to my loss, it seems that my brain tries to "catch up" in my sleep and... I keep dreaming of losing her. Sometimes it's her hospital bed, sometimes it's just knowing in my dream that she's dying and crying over it, sometimes it's seeing her healthy and alive, but knowing it won't last. Every day it's a bit different, but I wake up screaming and crying and... it's definitely taking a little toll on the rest of the day. Have you been through a similar experience? Bluntly asking: Is there a way to stop these nightmares, or is it just a matter of time and acceptance?

Here is also another wonderful article worth reading. This author nails it. http://www.timjlawrence.com/blog/2016/1/24/grieving-people-arent-stupid

@kayc Thank you for your reply. I absolutely agree with you. Lately, people seem to shun away from anything they deem "negative", and more and more people seem to be absolutely unable to handle any non-superficial emotions, even if it means offending and hurting another person. I'm just afraid that standing up to most of those people might be pointless, since you can't guilt those without a conscience or heart. So yea, sticking together seems to be the best course of action. @kvolm Thank you, Kvolm. I can't truly understand why I'm being treated that way either. Luckily, I do have a few supportive people in my life, but I could count those people on one hand. It's getting increasingly harder to talk to them about things that bother me, cause I'm starting to feel like a burden. I'd rather keep to myself. It helps that I've developed a strong denial and repressed most hurtful memories, all while abstaining from any sort of substances; I just hope that I can repress it long enough until I find a healthy outlet... @scba This. So many times this. This is such an accurate article and such a brilliant description of what I and most grieving people are terrified of. And I feel it so hard, too. So many people treating me like I'm enjoying the state I'm in and expect all the pity in the world to fuel my ego. It's so ignorant.

That is the impression I've been getting from people of various ages and statuses, based on observations made of people currently in my life. Not a week had passed since my mother was gone after a long and torturous illness, where most people were already showing signs of wanting me to move on with life. Or more like to stop pestering them with the notion alone that I'd lost someone. Their behaviour towards me in the following weeks emphasized that attitude greatly. They do not consider at all how I am exhausted after the fight, how I am now living alone in a house full of memories, how I need to take care of bureaucracy while taking care of myself, how I am hurting over the loss of someone I loved more than life itself. How I haven't been sleeping or eating properly for the past month because of nightmares and stress. Those things don't matter. What they do consider and what the deal-breaker is for them is that in this mere month, I haven't found a job (despite it being holiday season on top of everything else), that I'm still wearing black and looking upset, that I'm "isolating myself" and not "actively seeking company", that I'm not calling them every other day to check how they are doing in their routine life. This attitude lead them to not only show no understanding towards me, but to be, simply put, flat out hostile. I've been called out for not getting over it. I've been publicly accosted by acquaintances. While I was sitting at a bar the other day minding my own business, some former friends approached my table and started to bother me with "dude why are you so sad all the time" until it erupted into a loud argument which ended up with them ridiculing me in front of the whole bar saying things like "so what your mum died, get over it" and "look at him what a sissy" and that I, verbatim, should go f myself with my sorrow. Grown up people might I add, and the bar was almost cheering. Even the psychiatrist who specialised in grieving that I went to made it more than clear that his main goal was to make money off of me, since he didn't take my case seriously. When it comes to family, most family members just left me for dead, others maintain minimal contact. My closest relative here, when I approached him for some help with documents, after providing said help started lecturing me loudly in front of his subordinates on how I haven't done anything productive in the past month, "sitting on my a** doing nothing" and wasting time and money. He thought the little money I inherited was undeserved and I shouldn't have gotten it. He ended his speech by calling me a useless inept loser and a lost cause. In front of his workers, who found it amusing. There are only 3 people I can actually talk to about all of this and who I know will understand and respect what I say. But as for the rest... it seems that by just minding my own business and trying to get over such a loss, I'm annoying them. People are genuinely irritated, weirded out and almost disgusted by the fact that I'm grieving over a loss and they get a gist of it. Is this the general attitude these days, the social norm? If someone dies, you have to get over it as fast as possible and return to a normal life, and god forbid you as much as mention being in sorrow lest you get weird looks? Are grieving people really that annoying to everyone around them?

The psychotherapist failed me. I'm so full of bitterness and disappointment. It started off well, he let me talk and tried to give guidelines, but then he began to repeat how he's professional, and how his services are expensive for a reason, and how I need to go to him a lot cause lots of work needs to be done and he's such a professional, and how he was doing me a favour working on a holiday, despite making it clear yesterday that he was absolutely fine with helping me out on a holiday, and how his services are expensive cause they're professional again, all that several times, like a broken record. By the end I felt so uneasy and ashamed and just wanted to give him his money and leave. And that's supposed to be among the best psychotherapists in town. Never again. I guess now I'm only left with myself and you all, the only ones who seem to truly know what's going on inside someone in the position that we've all unfortunately been put in...

Knowing that I'm understood and people can relate to me helps stay afloat, so once again I thank you all for sharing your stories and easing my pain. I really wish I could reply to each of you personally, but I feel like I still lack the mental capacity to do so. Even writing this post took some collecting myself... It's been a month now. No one called me to check on me. I wanted to visit her grave, but couldn't get myself to do it. Besides, the cemetery is fairly far away and I don't have a car, public transportation is difficult to reach it, and no one offers to drive me. "Ask us if you need something" was the last I've heard from some people, as if they don't know that I won't ask since I don't want to be a bother. A close relative called me today for the first time in weeks. His first inquiry? "You do remember that "X" has a birthday today, right? Alright was just making sure." I felt crushed. No one, no one around me cares. Other close relatives haven't called in 2 weeks, cause apparently they're on vacations abroad having a good time. I wasn't informed, let alone invited. Everyone's living their life, having a good time. A friend told me I need to set a goal and move towards it. I had to agree for the n'th time, without bothering to explain that I need to rest first and recover before I'm capable of doing anything. Countless times have I tried to start some art projects or do something creative, and I can't. The dominant feeling right now is disappointment and absolute exhaustion. If I had that choice, I would've left long ago. Left them all behind. They've done nothing but add to the feeling of loneliness and coldness that's been crushing me since my mother was gone. I'll scrape together some money and give a professional a shot, cause my very own relatives can't do the basic supportive things.

Happy new year to all of you. Thank you for the kind advice, mathilde and kayc. I've had a few strong conversations with a few people and they got upset with me and decided to just stop asking, which, I guess, is better than asking the wrong questions. Kayc, the list you sent seems so... right. Most of these things are exactly what I need, and what I don't get... I'm starting to become afraid that as time passes and the... passing of my mother is left more and more in the past, people around me will stop taking it and me so seriously. I mean, barely a month passed, and I already feel uncomfortable just from the thought of mentioning it in any conversation I have with a relative or informed acquaintance. I feel like they'd internally roll their eyes like "Oh, not this again", and it hurts. I'm still in major denial about it. Trying to push away each and any thought and memory of the past year and the last few months. Drowning days after days in TVs and films and anything distracting. I decided to put some of her stuff in storage today, and immediately felt like I'm going to collapse. At some point called out for her, even though I was super aware it was silly. Meanwhile, time is fleeting... and I feel that soon people around me will stop understanding my apathy altogether and will just shut me out as a hermit of sorts. I thought after my mother's passing the stress would ease, but I'm just as stressed as I used to be...

Thank you all so much for the kind words. The past days have been a bit hazy, so I wasn't in a condition to reply. I will look into all your advices. Maybe I will visit a counsellor after the new year. One of my biggest problems now is how my relatives borderline guilt trip me for having spent a month at home without "achieving" anything. One of them keeps repeating how he's upset that I haven't gone back to the university right after my mother passed away, another one insists I should've gotten a job, and just in general they keep pestering me about doing something productive. Not in an inspiring way, but in a rather patronising way. I'm being made to feel bad about grieving the way I am. Whatever strength I'm trying to recover in my idle state, is destroyed by words like these. And it's not like I can just nod in agreement and they'll let me be. They judge me for a lack of action. But not a single person has properly tried to get me out of the house recently or suggested we go take a walk or drive or invited me somewhere. Barely anyone calls me anymore to ask how I'm doing. Only WHAT I'm doing and why I'm not doing anything proper. It's excruciating.

I can't count how many attempts I took at writing down whatever's going on in my storming head. Even now I'm not certain at what I'm going to say. What's even the point. It's not going to get better anyway. Just duller. I'm 25, guy. Two weeks ago my mother passed away. After a one year long battle against pancreatic cancer. Diagnosed it at stage 4 when I was abroad trying to make a living. I left everything and came back to be by her side throughout the treatment, while other relatives helped during the surgery. Everything was in vain. My life is empty and pointless. (There was whole story here, but on a sober mind, I figured it was too overwhelming.) The whole year was a struggle that slowly turned hopeless. The last days were unbearably agonising. When she passed away, there was no relief. There were no tears. All the tears were spilled in the months before. There was just a dull feeling of heartache. And darkness. The funeral was... like a bad dream. I was waiting to wake up. But then I was looking at her being submerged into the ground and wanted to scream at people to stop and get her back out cause what are you doing... that's my mother... stop burying my mother... There was a gathering afterwards, a decent amount of people came and said words of comfort, as well as remembered what a fantastic and friendly person she always was, to everyone. I was still waiting to wake up. Afterwards I went back into an empty home. No one was waiting for me. I called her phone, and it wouldn't answer. I wrote her on Viber, but she hadn't been online for a few days. I waited for her to come home, but she didn't. Call me to eat, but she wouldn't. She was gone. Forever. I was alone. After that... just blackouts. Days went by. Some drunk, some extremely drunk. Some inconvenienced by random events, or bureaucratic moments. Only the closest people would call and pass on their condolences, some would ask if they could help, or how I was holding up. At first I was... accepting of what happened. The first few sober days I put up her picture on my table and would talk to her, greet her in the morning and wish her good night. I would take days one by one, hour by hour if needed. But soon this peaceful approach would no longer work. I put her picture away. I started resorting to sedating myself again. It did more harm than good, though. No doubt I destroyed my own health even more than the months long stress had already done. What added to the nightmare is how some people WOULD INSIST I MOVED ON. Some would convince me that hey, parents die, it's a natural course of things! Others would gently remind me that I can't change anything anymore, like I didn't KNOW it. It was INFURIATING. Not a week later people would ask for my life plans and if I would decide to go on studying or look for a job and guys guys GUYS STOP. I just buried my mother a week ago, after a whole year of pain and false hope!! Can I at least... let it filter through me a bit?! But they wouldn't understand. Some even got offended. People wouldn't accept that I'm not accepting of their pointless advice and would prefer to sit all day at home rather than go seize life and live it to the fullest. What life though. My life ended with my mother's last heartbeat. Now there's a different, new life. A life without her, and it feels like I need to learn to walk and talk and live again. But no one around me seemed to understand that, so I was borderline forced to put up a facade of normality and smiles and courage to get them off my case and show them that I'm handling it all fine, like a true champ. Inside it's just darkness. A darkness that's slowly consuming me. A dull, sharp pain. Anger. Disappointment. Despair. Hatred. All mixed up in one shattered heart. Leaking all over my very being. Some days are more bearable than others, I still have to pretend that I'm holding up. But the wall of denial I put up is crumbling. Pushing back memories and distracting myself with nonsense will eventually stop working. I stopped drinking, so there's no more sedating either. So how am I supposed to handle this all. Talking to people about it doesn't help either. Not anymore. I mean nothing changes, so the reality catches up again. Panic attacks are happening more often, but I try to deal with them by myself. People wouldn't understand. It's the third week without my mother. It feels like years have passed, but as if I just saw her smiling yesterday and hearing her beautiful voice, one I will only hear in the few videos I have of her. Soon is going to be my first new year's without her. And the only present I've been wishing for is the one that I didn't get. I don't know how to go on. What do I do now. Thank you for taking the time and reading through my story. I know it's one like many others, so I appreciate you listening to mine. Thank you.