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

Yes, I was lucky we could talk. She was always herself up until the very end. Of course I wish we would have known what was about to happen but I guess I have to accept that we didn't. I'm grateful for all the conversations we had over the years. I was talking with her today in my head as I ate breakfast.

Alzheimers is tough. My stepdad seems more disoriented the past week. He wasn't sure who I was today. It makes me feel bad and makes me feel I'm not doing anything positive here. I'm sure it was extra hard for you since the Alzheimers involved your Mom.

I'm guessing he's acting this way because he's had a major change in his life losing my Mom. Maybe he's thrown off and needs to adjust again. As far as I know he wasn't having these episodes of being lost before. I feel helpless because the only one who could truly help him would be my Mom.

I'd ask how old he is, but that's not much relevant as far as alzheimer's striking.

Hmm, does he have any pets? or like watching birds outside? (You can tell that next I'm going to ask if he has any hobbies..) Sometimes small things can get a person interested in life again.

No pets or hobbies. He has vision problems too so it's hard for him to get involved in too much. My Mom was really his world.

That is sad. I'm seeing why you are so drawn to help as best you can.

I just remembered, you did say his age in an early post.

Now I want him to have a little kitten, or some such, and that would probably be a dumb idea, not to mention more work.

He's passed that point where he'd connect to pets. They had a dog but when he died years ago they decided not to get another. I was looking into some type of temporary pet care thing for emergencies like someone mentioned somewhere in the thread, but they don't do that in this area. I was mainly going to do it for me though since he wouldn't be into it. I just feel bad because I can tell he's so sad but he's not able to express why. He's always pleasant though so I'm grateful for that because I've heard a person in his situation can get pretty verbally abusive and change personalities.

Hey there SoCal

I know it probably doesn't feel like it, but you are doing incredibly well girl and coping marvellously, especially with your step-father. I think your Mom would be so very proud of you and how you are managing.

Cry all you need to - sometimes just going for a drive and being out in the open and getting the tears out is what you need to do to be able to get thru the rest of the day. I often drive up on to the moors back home and just sit quietly on my own - those wide open spaces seem to be able to soak up some of the emotions.

Take the time you need for you. I know the mornings are especially hard, do what you can to distract yourself, even if it's just talking on here.

You know, I just reread this thread... the feelings you are experiencing right now... are just so huge. It's not simply the loss of your Mom. You've moved from where you were living - to a whole new life, a whole new set of responsibilities, a life without your Mom, and a new life that as yet, you have no idea what's going to happen with your Step-father. It must be complete turmoil for your head to get around all those feelings.

Another thing - the grief sessions you are going to - it can be very difficult - the reason you are there is for your grief - but you have an empathetic/sympathetic nature - therefore you will take on the grief of others too. Sometimes it can put things into perspective a little - sometimes it may just make you feel horribly bad for others grief. When you go, try to focus on your feelings hun - try not to take on the grief of others - it's too raw at the moment and it may be like being a sponge - where you're soaking up others emotions. Try, if you can, when you leave the session to let go of those feelings and just take from the session what you need to, to help with your grief. Easier said than done. A support group is about supporting others.... but, right now, you just need a positive support (not saying that isn't there, just do be careful if it's hard for you to see other people grieving). (hope that makes sense)

I am amazed again at how you are keeping going thru this - and with your sanity. I've been told many times I'm strong - when really, I don't feel it. So, me saying you are incredibly strong is not going to make you feel any better right now - you probably feel numb and just letting each day roll on by. SOCAL - you are strong. You are doing such a good job expressing yourself - keep on talking, do silent mode if you need to (I do that a lot too) - but please do be gentle with yourself. You do have a future. You are going to get thru the days, weeks and months ahead - and you have people here who care about how you're feeling - albeit it's a cyber world - it does make a difference just knowing someone is listening to you - no matter what you say or how you say it.

Gentle hug to you and hoping you will have a better sleep tonite.






< Did you order the stained glass suncatcher? >

Thank you Izzie I'm avoiding going to bed right now because I hate the idea of dreaming and mornings, so thanks for the thoughts. I would love one night of normal non-emotional sleep and waking up.

You're right about all the changes. I never looked at it that way because the main feeling has been the loss I'm feeling for her. I don't think I'm being strong at all but that's nice of you to say. There is definitely a feeling of uncertainy about the future. At this point I feel almost helpless that at any minute something bad can happen.

I'm not sure what to do about the grief group. Maybe I'll go one more time and like you're saying try to just focus on my own issues.

I didn't order the suncatcher. Maybe I will though. I was thinking today that anytime I used to visit my Mom the UPS truck would usually come. She loved getting packages. I saw one of the UPS trucks drive by today and I was almost waiting for it to stop. It's so strange how I'm looking for her to come back in the strangest ways. It's like my mind still won't fully accept it.

I decided to order the suncatcher, so I went to get my wallet in the living room. All the sudden I could smell my Mom's perfume. That never happened before so it gave me the chills. Maybe she was trying to tell me she's glad I'm ordering it.

(I hope I'm not going nuts.)

ahhhhhhh.... moi, I believe in signs.


Mom's perfume lingering... just to say, she's with in spirit... and yeah, good time to smell the "roses" and order something that will send coloured light through straight into your life. A rainbow every time. I reckon you should order it - you'll love it.

Take good care girl - I delay sleep, as most know here and need med help to sleep every nite - being fearful of going to sleep because you don't wish to dream... not exactly relaxing. There are deep breathing exercises that folk can advise you on - Ehbeth and JPB may be able to help you along with there with advice. Chai has some handy tips too I believe. It also helps when you have chest palps... that still needs to get seen by a doc (ahem) but when it happens, lay down, deep breathe. Please do go get checked out. It's very important you be healthy here and you must think of you - you can't help your Step-father if you are sick. It could be anxiety pains - please take care of yourself. Your wellbeing is so important.

Try to think of all the positives you have achieved just today - you will have achieved without even realising it, nothing major, litle things - everything you do for your step-father is achievement, every meal you cook, each time you log on here and talk is achieving.

Then try to think of what you will do first thing in the morning. Then try and lose all thougts of everything else, imagine yourself walking in a garden, down to the stream, down some steps - the colours of the flowers around you, the smells, the sounds of the stream - where nothing can touch you - where you can float along with nothing weighing down. Count backwards from 10 to 1 with each step and hold your breath, breathe deeply from you tummy (so you breathe in deep in your mouth so your tummy gets bigger) and then breathe out slowly through nose... it takes practice, it may not work, its worth a go maybe. (mind you, you do feel a bit dorkish doing it the first times, I can't get the breathing pattern going, it all seems so forced - but, when my counsellor did it with me.. I did it, my hands numbed and arms tingled and tho I wasn't asleep, I was relaxing.

Its not easy to do - I 've not mastered it without help from a counsellor yet - but you may be more far more receptive than I. Maybe give it a go one nite - no pressure - candles (safe) are relaxing too, bath before bed, wash off the day...calm and peaceful before sleep.

wishing you well, sleep soundly. xx

I slept well half the night, then the other half was plagued by thoughts that her doctor misdiagnosed something on her CT Scan last year that could have made the difference. I keep telling myself maybe God spared her a lot of suffering, but then I get back to feeling she was cheated again. Maybe she could have had 5 more years.

I wish I could control my thoughts so I wouldn't think about it, but I feel so bad that she went to doctors all the time yet still had something like this still happened. She could have avoided doctors all those years and it wouldn't have ended any different. I feel bad that she wasted her energy on appointments and tests when they did nothing to prevent this.

I wish I knew for sure whether her doctor made a mistake or not. If he didn't, I could live with it better. If he did, it would haunt me. He's saying he didn't make a mistake but of course he's going to say that. She trusted this doctor the most too. We thought he was always on top on everything, but the one thing he wasn't on top of might have been the one thing that mattered. I wish there was a way to know for sure.

I wish I could delete this topic.

Well heck, _I_ don't!

You've come so very far since your first post, plus you've demonstrated to all of us how very well a person can handle a tragedy.

I've learned from you how to Be Strong, how to keep going in the face of adversity. Would you deny that knowledge to us?

You help us. Please, keep on helping us.

Perhaps you could start a different topic to talk about things other than your grief and your mom. Izzie came here with a heavy head/heart and started her toppling off thread. Then, later, she started her Yabber-liner thread for being silly and chatty. She's occasionally gone back to the original thread when she needs to let go of some head/heart hurt, but mostly posts on the "ship" and elsewhere.

I, for one, am lacking details here.

Are you Absolutely Sure that the Doctors were no help at all?

I don't think we've even talked about the cause of her death: Please pardon me if I missed that fact in this thread!

Can you possibly obtain some of her medical records?

I know I've gotten copies of My Own Medical Records, and they're very revealing. I've found many things in there that the Dr's don't actually Say, but which are True nonetheless.

Do you have a legal right to review her medical records? I'm very unsure of "the law" here. No doubt someone else on A2K would know better than me.

Still, even if we pretend her Doctors Completely and Utterly Fucked Up with her case, would that not mean she was, on some unconscious level, ready to leave this world? I don't know, I'm just guessing here.

I'm sending hugs, snuggles, and all the comfort I can for you, as are many others here on A2K.

We Care.

We have all her records. She kept copies of everything. She was meticulous about it. I reviewed some things a few weeks ago and then resolved them in my head but then the questions came back again last night. I know it doesn't matter at this point.

I don't think she was ready to leave. When my Dad died and I told her I felt he wasn't ready, she said "no one wants to die" but when it's their time then that's how it is. I guess it was her time, but it just doesn't feel that way to me.

good morning, socal. I hope you were able to get some sleep last night.

I thought I would tell you that you make me smile when I read about your relationship with your mom. It reminds me very much of my relationship with my mother. We were very, very close and her death was a tremendous shock to me and brought with it a deep sense of loss that took me quite a while to get comfortable bearing. You're doing wonderfully, even though you don't think you're bearing it very well at all.

My mother died from complications of what was supposed to be "simple" surgery. She was diagnosed with very early onset colon cancer which could be "easily removed" surgically. She'd always said that she would never submit to medical interventions because she didn't want to live past her healthy days. The surgeon convinced her she'd make a full recovery and return home to live independently. She agreed to the surgery. The plan was for her to be in the hospital for two weeks, transfer to rehab for another two weeks, and then return home where she'd lived by herself since my father passed away a few years earlier. I have one sibling (brother) who lived nearby and the rest of us (3 girls) are scattered around the country. We decided to split up her care-giving so that each of us could be with her at different stages of her recovery.

I flew in about 12 days post-surgery with the plan of helping to get her settled in rehab. The docs told me she wasn't stabilizing as quickly as they'd hoped and they doubted she'd be ready to move as soon as originally thought. Ok... regroup... I could visit with her in the hospital while I was there and see about returning later once she'd gotten home (my sisters had each planned a trip in at one-week intervals).

I was staying at her house and on the last day I was there I brought her mail to her on my way to the airport. When I got to the hospital the resident told me that she wasn't ready to go to rehab but she needed to be transferred elsewhere and they were considering moving her to a nursing home. OH MY!!! She had always been strong and independent and was HORRIFIED at the idea of being in a nursing home. They hadn't told her yet and thought it was best if I give her the news. Gee... thanks, doc -- I'm about to get on an airplane and I need to tell her that she can't go home, and she can't go to rehab, and she can't stay in the hospital, and she still needs nursing care so she needs to transfer to a nursing home which was her biggest fear in life, AND - just in case that wasn't bad enough - there were no available nursing home beds anywhere in her part of the state so they were going to transfer her to.... no one knew yet. She gulped big when the words "nursing home" were uttered. She "knew" that if she ever went into a nursing home that she would never leave alive.

I stayed as long as I could and then left for the airport and returned home. My family met me at the airport and we stopped for some dinner before going home. There was a message on the answering machine from my brother to call him when I got home. My mother had passed away that afternoon.

My eldest sister was furious at the doctors for "screwing up" what was supposed to be a simple surgical intervention. I didn't realize how much anger she was harboring until we were driving across FL two years later and she was still expressing deep, deep bitterness. I told her about the last morning I spent with our Mom and how scared she was to go to a nursing home. It wasn't the doctor's fault that she couldn't be weaned off of the oxygen. It wasn't the doctor's fault that she didn't recover as expected. My take was that she'd never wanted to be dependent and once her independence was going to be taken from her she would have rather have died quickly than go and languish in a nursing home. The blood clot that took her life that afternoon was probably the reason she wasn't recovering and also probably fortuitous in it's timing to travel to her lungs from wherever it had formed.

Her surgeon had gone on vacation shortly after her surgery and had no idea that she wasn't recovering as planned. He called my brother as soon as he heard the news of her passing and cried. My sister-in-law made an appointment with him a few years later and when he found out who she was (my mother's DIL), he nearly cried again. He felt guilty for talking her into having the surgery. I still think she was happier going quickly from complications of her surgery than languishing from either untreated colon cancer or spending the rest of her life in a nursing home. My sister was finally able to set aside her anger when she looked at some alternatives.

I don't know the specifics of your mother's illness and I don't presume that my mother's situation is in any way related, but my own ability to cope with her loss was helped greatly when I considered the alternatives.

Hugs and thoughts to you. I know it isn't easy.

((((JPB)))) - that must have been hard to write down...

Love you - see you Tuesday x

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Good Morning SoCal - hope you slept a little better and are OK.



yep hun - I think that a lot too... mainly about my posts during insomnia state or "hurting" mode (cringe). Ya know tho - when I look back, say, a few months down the line, reading posts that others have written in reponse to mine gives me strength to carry on sometimes. Especially from one of our A2K posters who passed away last year and whom this forum holds dear - she showed me how to "hold my dominion" - and it was only then I realised I had my own "dominion". Without our topics, all the topics over the years - that connection would not be there.

I also read back to see how far I've come and are still going - from being in place where I didn't know how to get up each day for various reasons...... to travelling around the world by....different means of transport.

Re-reading your pain can also be cathartic (if painful) when you can see how you are achieving - no matter how small the achievement, the reminders can be good for your perspective too. At the moment - it's too much - even having this topic here is a constant reminder you of why you wrote.

Maybe join in on some of the other gentle topics for a while - there are lots of word games that long term A2Kers play - just trivia and games - and some other gentle topics (don't go into heavy political stuff quite yet I reckon).

We're thinking about you - take care SoCal - off to make my cuppa tea - can't do without a cuppa first thing in the morning. Then travelling to Missouri, St Louis and up to Chicago in a big 'ole truck (when I arrived on this forum - I could not step out my house easily and had huge insecurities...I still have problems doing that and still have insecurities... doing it nonetheless)

Hugs gal x

Thanks for sharing your story JPB. I'm sorry about what happened to your Mom. Her doctor showing emotion is so rare. That must at least be comforting knowing he cared. My Mom's doctors had that stoic doctor mentality. My Mom was the same way as yours about nursing homes. She hated hospitals too.

In my Mom's case, the alternative would have been for her to live in at least some level of pain. The outcome would have been the same. Maybe she would have had more time but she would have gone through things she always feared. In some ways I do think this was destiny for her in order to spare her certain things. Maybe I should focus on that aspect in order to cope better. She definitely would not have wanted to spend the last years of her life having to deal with doctors and hospitals. I just wonder if she would have felt different if she was actually given that type of diagnosis. Maybe she would have liked having time to complete things she wanted to complete. I guess I need to just let it be since nothing can change it. (One of my family members said maybe it happened to fast to "spare us too" which shows you how selfish some people in my family are, but that's another story. I would have gladly taken care of my Mom for however long she needed.)

Thank you also Izzie. I stopped posting here because I got some emails that seemed like people knew too much about me and about things I didn't post. They were from people I don't know and not in this thread. I really was wishing I could delete this thread or at least parts of it. I asked the admin but they (rudely) said no. So they told me not to post in it anymore and it will fade away. But I couldn't leave the last two posts up without thanking you both. I'll thank everyone else too again while I'm at it.

There's been more stuff going on and more stuff I normally would have posted about but I'm feeling a little too vulnerable right now. I guess I was thinking this was just for "us" and more of a private area even though I know it's the interent. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly. Anyway, thanks again everyone.

Oh, for goodness sakes, why do people do things like this??? (I mean emailing you).

You can always PM me, or Izzie, or JPB. That, at least, should be safe for you.

I really hope you DO post more on this thread, or new threads you create. We're concerned about your progress, and very much heartened by what you've been able to accomplish in a very short period of time.

I have to say again: You are doing wonderfully!