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Missing my dad


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I am in my middle 40's and 3 years ago today we buried my dad. My parents were married for 45 years at the time. Our family is really close and I am so lucky to have the parents I have. My mom is still alive and is keeping busy and seems pretty healthy and active. Once my dad passed away I have not been the same person. I can feel a huge shift in my personality and just how I feel physically. I used to have such a drive to do my best at work and climb the ranks. I used to remember everything. My mind was clear and focused. I seem to get irritated more easily now. I have this brain fog that will not go away that affects everything. I can't remember things for very long. Things are not clear and I feel like I have no energy. I have gained over 80 pounds since he passed away. I am not trying to blame my weight gain and lack of energy on anything but my own doing. But I really feel like I am in a huge rut that I try to claw my way out of to just fall back down again. I am lucky to have a support group in my family. I have been to therapists and psychologists and had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, insomnia, and anxiety. I know I need to grab the bull by the horns and get my stuff together and take care of myself. I know I am not the same person and I wish I was. I was so much easier to live with 🙂. At this point I don't know if I will ever get this brain fog to go away or have the gumption I used too. Has anybody else had this issue?

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Hi Sparks, I’m in my early 60’s, my mum passed away 5 months ago and my dad 7 years ago. I had a really hard time after dad died. I felt raw for a long time, and in my case, also felt very alone with my grief in the family because dad had been the person I was closest to, the one person in my family I could easily be with. It took a long time before the grief started to recede and feel less painful.  We lost my mother in law three years after dad died and that was tough as I felt close to her.

None of this is easy. It sounds like you are trying to do your best, and I would say from my experience don’t push too hard-a lot of learning to cope is trial and error. Have you had things checked medically? Is your thyroid balanced? In my case my thyroid meds needed adjusting as the stress threw things off. I had the opposite issue : losing too much weight from the stress -lucky me!  You may wish to trade places with me ;-)) But that was how my body responded. And I had poor sleep for a long time. I found restorative yoga helpful. I had been on antidepressants after a traumatic event 16 years ago and though they helped I found they kind off blunted my emotions too much and for a time caused weight gain. I managed to get the dose reduced to as little as possible (and then lost too much coz my thyroid was off...it’s complicated!). I’m off antidepressants now (it was tricky but I have a Dr that is good about balancing hormones and that’s what made the difference for me,  in the end).

I don’t have an answer for you around brain fog, though I had what I call « bereavement brain » in the months after dad died and to a certain extent after mum did too. I had a hard time keeping track of things and was easily irritated over nothing. Eventually it settled. I’m sorry that you are having a more prolonged bout of it, that would indeed make you wonder if you’ll ever get back to normal....

If anything, what I’ve learned is it’s important to keep working on self-care, small steps at a time. Grief doesn’t go away, it changes, sometimes it recedes, then comes back when we’re triggered...and loss triggers other issues as well. I’ve been in therapy on and off as my losses uncovered deeper family issues that I wanted to understand better and deal with. I’m still working on those.

I dunno if any of this is helpful, but I hope some of it is. Our bodies are complicated and it can be so frustrating when things get out of whack. Loss is a big disruptor.... in many ways. 

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Thank you for the medical suggestion. I will see when my last thyroid check was. Yes it does seem that antidepressants blunt your emotions. If I could get off those things I would be happy with that. I tried too one time but had to go back on them. I just miss the old me. I just need to find her again. Thank you for telling me your story. 

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I am sorry for your loss.  Grief brain is common in early grief and can last quite a while.  
https://mikeunkelhaeuser.weebly.com/blog/widows-brain
https://refugeingrief.com/2018/04/10/grief-crazy/

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Hi Sparks, me again. A few more thoughts about antidepressants. They have their role, for sure, but my experience in trying to get off them over the years was really bumpy. I tried three times, slowly tapering, and couldn’t. Finally I got to a point where I was at the lowest dose that seemed to work the best without blunting my emotions.
Because of my complicated hormonal profile it took a while (several years) to get my hormone levels (thyroid included) all where they should be. But I still wondered about tapering the antidepressant to zero.  The MD who checks and balances my hormones said : ´If you’re going to taper off them, do it in the late winter early spring, not later in the year’. Something to do with the amount of light and how that affects mood for those of us living in North America. That was a new and useful piece of information. No one ever mentioned that to me before. 
I’m sharing this not to give any medical advice as that’s not what this website is about, and I have zero qualifications for that, but just to encourage you to persevere. Take everything as learning, even the frustration when your body seems to betray you, so that over time you will really know yourself well and what works for you. And in the process, who knows, you may find the old you, again. 

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Good article clarifying depression vs depressive symptoms due to grief:

http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2012/06/voices-of-experience-grief-and.html
 

That doesn't mean it's "wrong" to get help for our depression, sometimes it's necessary, but it helps to understand that these may lessen with time and perhaps consider other "treatments" before resorting to a Rx medicine.   That's where a grief counselor can aid with suggestions as well as the therapy itself can help.

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16 hours ago, gg2b said:

´If you’re going to taper off them, do it in the late winter early spring, not later in the year

GOOD advice!

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