How do I overcome the loss of my Mom when I was already in a depression?

Congratulations on quoting

Yes it's quite an accomplishment. Maybe I'll win a Nobel Peace Prize for it.


Thank you too David for caring. I appreciate you trying to make me feel better. I think it's great of you to purposely seek out people in pain to help them.

I am happy to try to help, Socal. (Is that for southern California?)

When I have offered this consolation to the bereaved,
I have not known what to expect.
I was grateful for it when it was given to me, when I needed it,
but I have gotten negative reactions.

Some years ago, we dined in a fine restaurant in Manhattan,
with a lady who had worked as a mathematician on the Manhattan Project
during the Second World War, resulting in the Atomic Bom.
From that history, we know that she was intelligent.
She said that the worst pain of her life
was the loss of her little boy, who had been killed in an accident.
It troubled her.

I told her of the works of Raymond Moody, M.D.
and of people who have survived death,
whereupon she began screaming very loudly
that "my son is only rotten meat in the cemetery."
She appeared to resent my impugning his status as rotten meat.

U never know what to expect.
Life is full of surprizes.





David

Yes about socal. That's very sad about that lady referring to her son like that. I'm surprised since usually Moms who have lost children seem to be the ones who believe most in afterlife or heaven.

She is a member of an ethnic group
that has treated me somewhat harshly,
when I offer consolation of this nature.

Hers was the most dramatic, and the loudest,
incident thereof.





David

TeeHee on the quoting thing! Heck, all accomplishments are Good Accomplishments.

Glad to hear you're just feeling quiet right now. That's allowed.

Yay, she's quoting!!!

That means you're family now, ya know

How's your week going, socal?

you may believe you are offering consolation. Offending someone's religious beliefs may have had the opposite effect.

It's been a bad week. Mainly I'm just crying and driving aimlessly. My birthday was the worst. I started remembering my dreams in the morning now too.

I never did so overtly.
In the most dramatic event of expressed resentment
(hereinabove set forth) she had lamented that the worst pain
that she suffered (in the past and present) was loss of her son in the distant past.

I have almost never brought up the subject of religion
in addressing people. Considerable experiences with making
efforts to console the newly bereaved have led me to believe
that a hi proportion of members of that ethnic group are emotionally
invested in ceasing to exist when the human body becomes
dysfunctional. Some of them have said that explicitly.
Obviously, everyone has a right to desire whatever he chooses
to desire. I got the vague impression of quiet fear from them,
but I have no idea what thay fear.

People who have returned from "death" have said that thay liked
it, if thay remembered it -- most of the time. There were some
reports of bad experiences from suicides and from atheists.
(The latter changed their minds and yelled for help.)

Something that has never happened,
is that we have never had any reports of anyone having trouble
because of membership in any particular religion.

The closest to that which I can remember reading
was the temporary "death" from a heart attack
of a "fire and brimstone" Protestant preacher,
who had a life review experience, who saw
himself threatening his congregation, as usual,
including a ten year old boy, whom he recognized,
who was taking him seriously -- quaking in his boots.

When he returned from "death" he said:
"I was surprized that God was not interested in my theology."
He said that he calmed down and relaxed in the practice of his profession.





David

I 've heard it said that bad dreams are the subconscious mind's way
of SCREAMING at u, when u don 't pay attention to its message.





David

Sorry your week has been particularly rough. I imagine it will continue that way for a while, especially on significant days such as your birthday.

I don't know much about dreams and/or interpreting them. Some people think you can get a lot of understanding from dream analysis. Do your dreams give you any insight into your physical morning pain?

I had unpleasant dreams also,
after my mother excarnated.

Oh, dreams!

When my sister was killed, I dreamed for YEARS that she was actually alive. She'd return to me and tell me she was just fine, she'd just moved to Arizona (or somewhere).

It was waking up that was horrid. The dreams themselves were very comforting.

That would be so hard. My dreams are more about the last week of her life, such as trying to get her in another hospital, or having a conversation with my Mom where she's worried and I'm telling her she'll be fine. Since I started remembering the dreams, the physical pains I was having in my heart aren't as strong. Sometimes they are replaced with an overall feeling of sadness and dread. Then I usually go drive somewhere so I can cry and get it all out. I usually handle things better in the late afternoon.

I can't remember if I posted this before but I went to my second grief share meeting. It actually made me feel worse. They were talking about how the person's history is "now over" and so on. And how your old life is now gone and you have to create a "new normal" and all that. I never really looked at my Mom's history as being "gone" and I don't like that way of looking at it.

I also noticed that (since the group is for all grief) certain people's grief makes me grieve for others things too that I normally don't even think about. One pregnant woman is always crying and sharing about the miscarriage she had last year. She's pregnant again now and she also has a toddler at home. She always talks about going to the grave with her daughter and how she's in so much pain from losing her baby. I feel bad for the little girl that she has to spend so much time at a gravesite with her grieving Mom. The woman looks as if she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Hearing her cry starts to make me feel depressed that I don't have a child. It's like the meetings sometimes add even more sad thoughts to my head. Sometimes I don't feel like going back there. I don't know if that's just me being in denial or if maybe these meetings aren't constructive for me.

I'm from Los Angeles, Socal. Some of the rest of us regulars on a2k are from socal too. (Although if you call it Cali, I may have to desist from this thread, for better or worse.)
Just checking in.

Yeah; waking up was bad.

I lived in LA until I moved here in July. I still have all my stuff in storage there.

And don't worry, I never say Cali. I think that's something tourists say or people who are new to the area. It's like when "Angel's Stadium" in Anaheim was changed to "Edison Field" --- I don't know anyone who stopped calling it Angel's Stadium.

I was just wondering where Hamburgboy has been.

Hamburgboy doesn't post all the time, but will be back, I bet.

Glad to connect, socal.

On dreams, I dunno. Mine are predominately a mix, often exciting, of people from some time ago, and some place from even earlier ------ in other words, I take it, that my dreams, my floating photos that I give words to, are from data I've brain processed some time earlier. Relatively few, bordering on none, have people in my life right now, and that has been true over time. But, since I'm so old, some of those who were previously excluded are coming into the scenery.

My mother is sometimes in my dreams, as not quite herself. My mother went into horrible alzheimers, and I was clueless. I loved her dearly as a child, and fought with her in late teens for good reasons on both sides, and then she just sort of vaporized. I'm old myself now, and understand her better with the passing days.

You had a treasure, that you could talk with your mother.