Perhaps a question with an obvious answer but wondering if others experience this.
As reported, my mom passed earlier in the month. At the same time, there have been a couple other more personal issues in my life which might otherwise be challenging but I am now totally bowled over and debilitated by other issues even though relatively speaking, they should not be as important as grief about my mom.
Yet I feel I am sort of obsessing about other issue more than the grief over my mom. Before my moms death, I found the other issue perhaps difficult at times but still manageable
I guess I would like to think the other issue is not as really as bad as I am viewing it now, as maybe my thinking on it is distorted because of the grief.
Any armchair psychologists out there?
Our minds often seek other things to "worry about" because there's a fear of walking into the dark unknown woods of grief.
The say our minds actually seek, even create, other problems. Being mad at caregivers, family, even ourselves; settling estates-- just anything to let us avoid sitting with the finality of grief.
I think we often surprise ourselves also about what grief actually is. Often there is a sort of relief inside that isn't acknowledged because we are a bit uncomfortable with the thought of "being relieved". Much as I loved my parents and my brother, all had been ready to go, and expressed the same. And I felt relief for them more than anything, that they had no longer to be afraid, to face losses while I stood helpless witness to their pain and loss. I could, make no mistake, sink into my own self pity that my brother, the single certainty in all the days of my life, would no longer be there for me. Was gone. Hard to fathom that really when he was still so "alive in my head" (and still is).
Grief varies. The levels, the depth, the qualities of it.
As to armchair psychologists, I surely am one and do a lot of thinking and OVERthinking. Grief is unique to each of us I think. So is the experience of dying. For those of us who have spent time we this dying, we know this.
My partner, N. had a stoke in Oct. I wrote about in discussions. When he and I initially believed he was going, we were both OK with that (as opposed to staying in a nursing home with the left side out and no swallow). Clot busters changed all that. But we have talked often since then what it all "felt like" from our own perspective. We were surprised how we were just sort of "Oh, OK. I knew this was coming. It's OK." ODD!
I am kind of a death and survivors "junkie" and was always. Even as a child on the lookout for some little dead animal I could hold a state funeral for, making little crosses, lining cookie tins (my mom saved for me) with cotton. Holding funerals. Was destined to be a nurse or a funeral director I guess, and few want funeral directors who are non-believers, soooo.....the path was clear. Today there are Hospice volunteers and even "death doulas". Loss and the loss of the living who go on fascinates me and always did.
I KNOW that no one is out to get me. I KNOW that you guys love me. I KNOW that nothing has really changed in my life except that my mother is now gone. My every day activities (outside of caregiving) are the same. My debts are the same. My needs and wants are the same. My expectations are the same. My life is the same.
What is different is ME. What is different is how I process the things that are happening to me. What is different is that life goes on but I'm stuck between going on and processing losing her.
To give you an example - she said that she is super sensitive to things that she isn't normally super sensitive to. My mom is one of those people that is a nurturer, she normally doesn't let what people say bother her, she pretty much just ignores people's stupidity etc. But right now, when she gets into a funk - and she doesn't stay in them but she does fall into them, she will feel like it is her against the world.
I think that is just how grief works. And the hard part is that grief works differently for everyone.
Being more sensitive than usual - absolutely. Getting sick more often - yep. Getting angry easier - of course. Being in denial about all of that being grief - you bet. Grief shows itself in a myriad of ways. And when we don't take time to process or deal with it, or push it back and try to move forward without allowing ourselves proper time to breathe - it can come back even harder.
What he came to realize (and something that helped him a lot) was that grief lowers your emotional bandwidth. It doesn’t just make you sad—it scrambles your ability to process other stressors. He described it like grief was taking up all the space in his mind, so even smaller things felt overwhelming because there was no room left to process them rationally.
He started journaling, just briefly each day, to separate what was grief and what was everything else. He also talked to a counselor who pointed out that grief can magnify other problems—not because those problems are worse, but because your ability to handle them is reduced while you’re grieving.
So yeah, your thinking probably is being affected by the grief—and that’s not a flaw, it’s just how grief works. You’re not obsessing—you’re overloaded. My friend learned to give himself a little grace, and that helped. Maybe that could help you too.
My first experience with this was when I was 9. My dad's mom had died a few weeks before and while my dad was sad, there had been no weeping or wailing. He was quite the stoic.
One night, he came home from work very excited; he had bought a lemon meringue pie at a bakery near his work. He popped it in the fridge to eat after dinner.
Finished with dinner, he went to the ice box to grab the pie box. He took it out and discovered that he had placed it upside down. The meringue was quite squashed.
My dad burst into tears.
He ran into his bedroom and I turned to my mom and asked "Is Daddy crying about the pie?". She told me no, that sometimes when people are grieving a death of someone they loved, their feelings pop out when something not so important happens, that people's behavior is sometimes not about the thing in front of them, but something else.
My grandmother was a deeply difficult person, and my dad loved her, but loathed her behavior a lot of the time. Looking back, she was probably bipolar. Very smart, very manipulative and very "over the top" in a lot of ways.
Karsten, please take good care and be gentle with yourself. Grief counseling, or maybe a bit of therapy would not be amiss at this time.
I always feel, when I hit a depression "speed-bump" that it's not only the current problem that's affected my equilibrium, but all the past issues (which have previously contributed to depressive episodes) that are piled up, one on top of the other. I thought I got rid of them, banished them to the dark corners of my brain, only to have them pop up again when I'm feeling a bit fragile.
Grief doesn't follow a straight path. It meanders, goes up and down, and you can seem lost for a little while, before you find yourself again.
Wishing you all the best.
I think that we turn to other things in order to avoid grief because grief is scary. It kind of makes us feel that if we "go there" we may get stuck in the quicksand, may find no answer, may despair.
So we take on stuff that is more familiar, or stuff that just "has to be done" like organizing things. Anything for a diversion. Even cleaning out drawers.
I think our brains kind of attempt to protect us.
The finality of loss is so hard. Honestly, kind of like death itself, unimaginable.
I tried to IMAGINE my losses beforehand when I knew they were coming. I thought I should "have a plan". And the difference was that the losses were, for me, much different than I imagined. It's odd to say, but looking back on them, they were "easier" in many ways, than I expected them to be. I could not imagine a world without those loved ones I lost. But it came. And the sun still came up every day.
Hard to explain, and I would guess because our minds are all so unique, our own experience is as well.
I know the things that helped me in the beginning of grief.
It's a kind of wandering in the woods looking for the path to "being OK".
As to some of those "other issues". Both grief and CANCER (hee hee) can give you a different perspective. Even with my last bout with cancer a year ago, it gives you an odd sort of "freedom" and "clarity". It's kind of like "Oh, for goodness SAKE! I have CANCER. What do YOU think you can do to me? KILL ME? Ha!" Yeah. The mind is strange. Quite the nut to crack.