alaynealone

I have been learning that I've lost more than my mother--I've lost some people who I thought were good friends of mine. I wrote my oldest friend about my mother's death, and this friend has not written back. It has been months since I heard from her. I don't understand this. I don't understand why people abandon the bereaved just because they don't know what to say to someone who has lost someone. If a person has a friend, and that friend loses someone, it shouldn't mean that all of a sudden the person no longer knows how to talk to or listen to the friend. Surely being someone's friend means you can be together without having to talk all the time; surely being someone's friend means you are comfortable enough with each other that you don't always have to know how to say something. It makes me wonder how real my friends really were, if they are not here for me now. At least I know my mother was real. Our relationship was real. The friends can take away their friendship, and themselves, but they can't destroy the friendship my mother and I had. Maybe the absence of my other friends is serving to make the bond I had with my mother stronger.

One thing that I have found helps me with my anger is doing something that makes me happy. I didn't realize this until just now, when I read your posts, but I think it has been helping. I have been spending a lot of time working with horses. I have loved horses since childhood but have never been able to spend much time with them. Now I can, and I try to do so. For the time that I am with the horses, I am happy. The happiness may fade within minutes of my leaving the stables, and I may forget to call up the memories when I am away from the stables, but while I am at the stables, working with the horses, learning more about them, I realize I am happy, not only because I love what I am doing, but because I realize I am spending the time and money on myself, treating myself as someone who matters to me. And as I read your posts just now, I realized that these moments of happiness have been helping me with my anger. I don't know if they're counter-balancing the angry times, or if there's some sort of chemical action going on with endorphins or whatever they're called, but something is having some effect. That doesn't mean I don't still get angry, or cry; it just means that sometimes I feel happy. There are no counselors here, either; at least none who are any good; and the ones there are cost money. I don't have any sort of partner to talk with or to understand (or not understand) what I'm going through; I don't feel like playing music, or writing, or any of the other things I have normally done, as "therapy". I don't really care much about anything, not even myself, not even trying to sympathize with myself about being angry and hurt and bereaved. But the momentary happiness that comes from being around the horses is helping. And if any of these thoughts help you, then that helps me too. I just hope that by writing about finding moments of happiness I have not worsened any of your anger or grief. Because one thing that makes me angry, and that adds to my sadness, is when other people start to talk or write about a lessening of their anger and sorrow. It makes me feel like I am losing yet another person, and I can't afford to lose anyone else.

I wish I had some advice for you on how to deal with anger because I have enough of my own I'd like to deal with and get rid of. It's to do with how family and friends have acted since my mother died--or rather, how they haven't acted, since they aren't really doing anything at all. No one is pestering me, or bothering me, which is good; but they aren't paying any good attention to me either. That may make me sound like a spoiled little kid but I don't mean it that way. One thing that does make me angry is how people respond to anger. Like, I noticed there haven't been any replies to your posts. I don't like how people respond to anger by NOT responding. It sounds to me like you've got good reason to be angry, and hurt, and you're asking for help, and no one's responded to your posts. Why do people ignore anger, yet overflow with sympathy and stories of their own when only sadness is expressed? Anyway, I just want to say that I hear your anger and I feel my own. I don't know if that helps, but if you post here again, I'll read it.

Hope it isn't too late to post a reply to these posts. I can identify with your feelings of being all alone. I'm in the same boat. My mother died 2 months ago and now I'm all alone. The others in my family have families to be with and take care of and do things with but I don't, and even my friends are leaving me alone. They said they were sorry when they first heard about my mother, but they never call to see about me or even to see if I'm still alive. I don't think anyone cares that I still am alive, and it's hard for me to care when no one else does. One relative told me my mother wouldn't want me to be sad because she (my mother) is happy now, but that just made me sadder and angry because it sounded like the relative was telling me that my mother didn't care that I loved her and would miss her. I don't know if it's that no one understands how I feel, or that no one cares. Someone said I should get a pet to care for, but I don't want to care for anything that will just end up dying at some time. Nor do I want to go out and try to make any new friends because the friends I've had don't care about me so why should anyone new? So when I read these posts, I thought I may sort of know how they feel, so I decided to post too.