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Turning Into The Deceased?


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Ok, before I get into my topic, has anyone from these boards added me to MSN? I've had a couple of people who have added me, but I don't know who they are. Then I remembered that I had my MSN screen name in my profile, so thought I'd ask.

Ok, on to the topic.

I swear, I've turned into my mother.

It started about a month ago. The lower left side of my back started hurting. It kept up for two weeks. That is unusual, as I am not one to get aches and pains. Then it moved into my hip. My left hip. That still does hurt, occasionally. But I never had pain there before.

Last Sunday I was at a work party that my godfather was having. I pretty much pigged out on plain potato chips. I'm not even a potato chip person. Then the next day, I got a bag of potato chips. A big bag, plain. Ate the whole bag. That's the first time I recall doing that probably since my mom died. That was her thing. She'd scarf down a bag or two every chance she got.

And then of course, the chips bothered my tummy. So I ended up feeling bloated. Now that I do get at times, but I'm sure it was related to all of the junk food I was eating.

The anniversary is coming up, but not until early next month. But it's so strange that I've been...acting JUST like her.

Has anyone either had this happen or heard of it happening? Or am I just crazy? :P

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I don't think there's a woman alive who hasn't found herself at some point crying, "OMG, I look/sound/am acting just like my mother!" Kind of a shock when that happens.

But seriously, I have heard of or witnessed people taking on characteristics of a departed friend or family member, usually shortly after their death or sometime around an anniversary or birthday. It's fairly common, I think.

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Ha, this will sound even weirder.

I was turning into my ex-husband after he died. I found myself surfing TV channels and then watching several episodes of Find & Design, where people searched out bargains in flea markets and turned them into wonderful home makeovers. I hate flea markets and have absolutely no talent for home design, especially on a shoestring. It took me several hours of watching this (I think it was a marathon) before I realized it was EXACTLY the kind of show my ex would have loved.

But here's the weirdest thing -- although we had been divorced for 20 years, and lived on opposite coasts (Atlanta vs Seattle), our symptoms seemed to match up. I was having episodes of menstrual bleeding that were excessive and lengthy (like five weeks at a time) during the same 19 months when my ex was ill. I did not tell him about this (it turned out later I had cancer, which was cured by surgery) so as not to worry him, because he was very seriously ill with liver disease and waiting for a transplant. And our relationship was all by phone -- I planned to visit him but couldn't afford it yet. And he wanted me to visit after he had the transplant (which he unfortunately died waiting for).

But I realized later that his hospitalizations exactly correlated with my bleeding episodes -- to the day. He would go into the hospital with a coma episode (an unfortunate side effect of chronic liver failure), and I would start bleeding the same day, without knowing he was hospitalized. This happened about six separate times. He would be in there for maybe three to five weeks, and when he was released my bleeding stopped. He would tell me about the coma the next time I talked to him on the phone, so I never matched it up until after he died. One day I happened to compare my journal entries with my menstrual calendar for my gynecologist. And, although I was not called until five days after his death to be informed that he had passed away, my cancer was diagnosed the day after he died, and the bleeding stopped then and never returned due to my hysterectomy. Is that weird, or what?

Ann

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