thoughts about grief.

[smilinpretty]

Thank you for your kind and caring responses. I don't know if I can say I am becoming use to being alone, how does one get use to being alone? I think for me, I have accepted that I am alone now and it is what it is. For me, I can't take any drama. The other day, I drove to Phoenix to meet a woman I use to know,she had phoned me and wanted to see me and I her. I was invited to spend the night. I walked into the little studio and my friend started to unleash how she couldn't take one more second of this woman and this woman drove her nuts, blah, blah, blah. Then the woman walks in and my friend told her she could not stay with her, she couldn't take her anymore. OMG, those women were bickering and I jumped up, grabbed my computer and purse and ran out the door. My friend rented a room for us to stay in. Next morning, her friend came into dining room, my friend pleaded with her to join us and the woman exclaimed, "leave me alone" and rushed out. I could not eat all my breakfast, we arrived back to room and I told my friend I have to leave now. I find I can't take any drama. I can't tolerate people who excessively talk. I don't do crowds. I am very touchy. I believe I still suffer from PTS. If I go visit a couple and they start to bicker, I excuse myself and I am out of their in a flash. I need allot of down time and me time. I met a woman in a restaurant today, she was single and lonely and she gave me her name and phone number but she talked excessively and I started to become dizzy. Is this part of my grief you think?

[CArizona]

Originally Posted by smilinpretty

Thank you for your kind and caring responses. I don't know if I can say I am becoming use to being alone, how does one get use to being alone? I think for me, I have accepted that I am alone now and it is what it is. For me, I can't take any drama. The other day, I drove to Phoenix to meet a woman I use to know,she had phoned me and wanted to see me and I her. I was invited to spend the night. I walked into the little studio and my friend started to unleash how she couldn't take one more second of this woman and this woman drove her nuts, blah, blah, blah. Then the woman walks in and my friend told her she could not stay with her, she couldn't take her anymore. OMG, those women were bickering and I jumped up, grabbed my computer and purse and ran out the door. My friend rented a room for us to stay in. Next morning, her friend came into dining room, my friend pleaded with her to join us and the woman exclaimed, "leave me alone" and rushed out. I could not eat all my breakfast, we arrived back to room and I told my friend I have to leave now. I find I can't take any drama. I can't tolerate people who excessively talk. I don't do crowds. I am very touchy. I believe I still suffer from PTS. If I go visit a couple and they start to bicker, I excuse myself and I am out of their in a flash. I need allot of down time and me time. I met a woman in a restaurant today, she was single and lonely and she gave me her name and phone number but she talked excessively and I started to become dizzy. Is this part of my grief you think?

Sorry about all you went through when you went to see your friend. (And have a pleasant visit with her!)...It's hard for me to be around "angry people" right now too...I don't mind talking but "negative sarcasm" really bothers me..."Humorous sarcasm" (once in awhile) doesn't bother me as much. (But a steady diet of it gets old.)...I'm human and I get angry once in awhile too. But I try to process my anger versus holding on to it forever and ever...How about you?...Sorry you had such a negative experience when you went to visit your friend.

[Marcy1210]

I'm so sorry you had to go through all that, Smilin...that sounds like a nightmare. I don't think I could do the drama, either. I have so much drama in my life with my kids, I don't need any more from acquaintenances...I don't know if your reaction was part of your grief, but I'd say it was a pretty normal response for anyone in that situation, grieving or not.

I'm coming up on four years, and I know I've moved through those years, some days well, many days not so well, but I'm in no way at peace yet. I am involved in a small committee with my condo's HOA, which is good as it's the landscape committee, and I'm a gardener at heart. I'm limited to container gardening now as I'm in a 2nd floor condo, but it's theraputic, and being in Tucson, we can grow some things year 'round which I love. You can't beat hanging pots of geraniums at Christmas, or amaryllis on the balcony....but anyway...I still tear up and get a lump in my throat at the mention of Bob's name, or at a memory. The hurt and sadness are still right on the surface. I think, probably, that I never really went through the grief appropriately. I held it in for so long because it took years to settle the estate, because Andrew hated seeing me cry~~it made him angry~~and so I learned to suck it up, literally, and I've never just truly broken down and sobbed or wailed like I did with my parents. I think at this point, I probably never will, and it will always be right at the surface.

I do alright around people. I have a drole sense of humor that's dry, not sarcastic, and it's my sense of humor that's gotten me through. I'm a talker with people I know really well, but I'm very reserved with people I don't know or who I just met. I think if I had someone to come by and deliver my mail and take out my garbage, I'd rarely leave the house, but since we have a community mail center at our complex's clubhouse, and I'm about 1/2 block from the community dumpster, I have to get out every day. And inevitably, I run into people which means I have to chat, so in that sense, I guess I'm social, although I'd rather not be. As an aside, the good thing about Tucson in summer (at least at my complex) is that it's relatively empty and it's too hot to go outside. But, now that fall (Tucson style) is upon us and the U of AZ kids are in town, and the snowbirds are arriving every day, there are more people to run into around the place, so I have to be more social, even if it's just a slight wave, or a quiet "hi" in passing. The days go by and I just muddle through. I think that's my lot in life now, and it's really not so bad...

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by CArizona

I know that it's hard to "give" what we never "got" (or received) ourselves...Some people have gone through "losses" (or problems) in their life with little to no "support."...The whole concept of "support" is foreign and unfamiliar to people like this...Asking or needing or expecting "support" seems "unmanly" to them. (Even if they are women!)...And I've definitely been around a lot of "macho" and "tough hombre" women during my lifetime! No "soft-spots" allowed!...Anyway it's hard for people who take pride in being "super strong" all the time (and totally self-reliant) to understand someone else's prolonged grief. Have you noticed this?...They have a tendency to to try to get others to "toughen-up" fast! (Because this is all they have "known.")

You have resurrected the picture of my mother, an immature angry woman all her married life, who turned into a monster upon the death of my father - she became so "macho" she was repellent, and no one, absolutely no one had ever suffered as she suffered.

Her sister's husband died only a few weeks later. This was the sister my mother was closest too (for what that was worth) and the relative that I saw most of all my life and dearly loved. My mother was vile, absolutely vile to her sister. Rebuking her for her grief, ridiculing and denouncing her grief behind her back to anyone and everyone. An essential ingredient in this hideous behaviour was probably the fact that my aunt had had a loving, warm, happy marriage. I quite frankly came to feel that my mother thoroughly enjoyed her early widowhood as an exercise in naked power.

After a year of this she got her comeuppance from a former neighbour and longtime acquaintance who called her on this behaviour in the baldest and most unflattering of terms, and it sure caused my mother to trim her sails in short order.

I am a big advocate of encouraging people...when the time is appropriate, not to cultivate suffering to add to the pain. But as a result of the experience with my mother I have to admit that since then when I have run into men or women who are staging a ferociously aggressive denial of pain and grief. I withdraw.

My grief did not have an entitlement clause that allowed me to bludgeon other people because of it, and neither does anyone elses.

[CArizona]

Originally Posted by kevxu

You have resurrected the picture of my mother, an immature angry woman all her married life, who turned into a monster upon the death of my father - she became so "macho" she was repellent, and no one, absolutely no one had ever suffered as she suffered.

Her sister's husband died only a few weeks later. This was the sister my mother was closest too (for what that was worth) and the relative that I saw most of all my life and dearly loved. My mother was vile, absolutely vile to her sister. Rebuking her for her grief, ridiculing and denouncing her grief behind her back to anyone and everyone. An essential ingredient in this hideous behaviour was probably the fact that my aunt had had a loving, warm, happy marriage. I quite frankly came to feel that my mother thoroughly enjoyed her early widowhood as an exercise in naked power.

After a year of this she got her comeuppance from a former neighbour and longtime acquaintance who called her on this behaviour in the baldest and most unflattering of terms, and it sure caused my mother to trim her sails in short order.

I am a big advocate of encouraging people...when the time is appropriate, not to cultivate suffering to add to the pain. But as a result of the experience with my mother I have to admit that since then when I have run into men or women who are staging a ferociously aggressive denial of pain and grief. I withdraw.

My grief did not have an entitlement clause that allowed me to bludgeon other people because of it, and neither does anyone elses.

I'm sorry that your Mom was so angry and bitter and unhappy and just "stayed" that way...This is how my Grandma acted during her later years. She blamed us (and the whole world) for her unhappiness...Early in life I made a vow NOT to be like my Grandma...But I've sure been criticized (at times) for not taking a "hard-line approach" when I have issues to work-through (and understand) in my relationships...I don't want to come-out "swinging" right off the bat..I don't want to "react" in anger. (And get all caught-up in hate and blame and "persecution tactics," etc.)...Anyway thanks for sharing your story. I'm sorry your Mom was so angry and unhappy. Sorry for you! (And the rest of your family.)

[tamiznluv]

What, after the initial anger, is there to be angry with death? We are all marching towards the grave even in vitro. We are all born to die. Some earlier, some later. Sad that some do not pass the anger stage. The only deaths that do not seem "fair" is the death of children.

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by tamiznluv

What, after the initial anger, is there to be angry with death? We are all marching towards the grave even in vitro. We are all born to die. Some earlier, some later. Sad that some do not pass the anger stage. The only deaths that do not seem "fair" is the death of children.

There is lesson in my religion that has the line: "Death has come along with life, like the sun rushing to its setting as soon as it has risen."

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by CArizona

I'm sorry that your Mom was so angry and bitter and unhappy and just "stayed" that way...This is how my Grandma acted during her later years. She blamed us (and the whole world) for her unhappiness...Early in life I made a vow NOT to be like my Grandma...But I've sure been criticized (at times) for not taking a "hard-line approach" when I have issues to work-through (and understand) in my relationships...I don't want to come-out "swinging" right off the bat..I don't want to "react" in anger. (And get all caught-up in hate and blame and "persecution tactics," etc.)...Anyway thanks for sharing your story. I'm sorry your Mom was so angry and unhappy. Sorry for you! (And the rest of your family.)

Thank you for your comments. I have never been able to shake the memory of how hideously she treated her widowed sister.

The fact that you are so aware of what you do not want to do, probably means that you have really taken in the lesson of where that kind of behaviour leads. My mother, to be fair, had - from what I learned - a terrible, unloving mother, and she somehow was unable to push that model away. When I was in my late twenties I had lunch with the aunt my mother abused, and another of their sisters, also widowed. This second aunt had lived a difficult life with a husband who drifted into alcoholism. We had always had a nice relationship, but not a terribly close one as she lived some distance away. But she turned to me at one point, and with some difficulty said, "I'm sure your mother thinks she loves you, but she is just like our mother." So, my mother it seems was just unable to wrest herself from that terrible inheritance.

[CArizona]

Originally Posted by kevxu

Thank you for your comments. I have never been able to shake the memory of how hideously she treated her widowed sister.

The fact that you are so aware of what you do not want to do, probably means that you have really taken in the lesson of where that kind of behaviour leads. My mother, to be fair, had - from what I learned - a terrible, unloving mother, and she somehow was unable to push that model away. When I was in my late twenties I had lunch with the aunt my mother abused, and another of their sisters, also widowed. This second aunt had lived a difficult life with a husband who drifted into alcoholism. We had always had a nice relationship, but not a terribly close one as she lived some distance away. But she turned to me at one point, and with some difficulty said, "I'm sure your mother thinks she loves you, but she is just like our mother." So, my mother it seems was just unable to wrest herself from that terrible inheritance.

Thanks for writing back...I can definitely relate. One of my aunts followed in the footsteps of her mother too...She caused "havoc" in the family...I guess "misery" wants to have "company." It's hard for people like this to see others happy. (As you know too well!) Sorry!

[Mtn. States Resident]

Originally Posted by kevxu

You have resurrected the picture of my mother, an immature angry woman all her married life, who turned into a monster upon the death of my father - she became so "macho" she was repellent, and no one, absolutely no one had ever suffered as she suffered.

Her sister's husband died only a few weeks later. This was the sister my mother was closest too (for what that was worth) and the relative that I saw most of all my life and dearly loved. My mother was vile, absolutely vile to her sister. Rebuking her for her grief, ridiculing and denouncing her grief behind her back to anyone and everyone. An essential ingredient in this hideous behaviour was probably the fact that my aunt had had a loving, warm, happy marriage. I quite frankly came to feel that my mother thoroughly enjoyed her early widowhood as an exercise in naked power.

After a year of this she got her comeuppance from a former neighbour and longtime acquaintance who called her on this behaviour in the baldest and most unflattering of terms, and it sure caused my mother to trim her sails in short order.

I am a big advocate of encouraging people...when the time is appropriate, not to cultivate suffering to add to the pain. But as a result of the experience with my mother I have to admit that since then when I have run into men or women who are staging a ferociously aggressive denial of pain and grief. I withdraw.

My grief did not have an entitlement clause that allowed me to bludgeon other people because of it, and neither does anyone elses.

Kevxu,

Thanks for sharing your experience here. I'm sorry you had the experiences so many of us seemed to with older family members. For those raising families during the Great Depression ( or children at that time), I think many adopted a "tough as nails" approach to avoid depression and survive. Unfortunately, when people were more secure most didn't abandon behaviors and thinking that didn't necessarily serve them well later.

I absolutely love your last sentence★

Thanks.

MSR