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I'm not sure who or where to ask so this forum seems like a good start.
My nephew passed away from a drug overdose approx 6 months ago. He was 25. I am going thru my grieving process, but I am really concerned about my sister (who is his mother).
I realize there's no correct or incorrect way to grieve, but IMO my sister isn't taking it well and I think it's interfering with her daily life. She sees a psychologist and attends a support group for people who have lost loved ones to drug overdoses. Other than that I'm not sure what else she can do.
She has a lot of guilt, but I and other family members keep telling her she has nothing to feel guilty about. She tried (and the rest of the family) tried to help him as much as we could, but he couldn't over come the addiction.
My sister engages in some odd behaviors IMO such as visiting the grave site nearly everyday, hanging pictures of her son every where (altho none of the pictures are of him as an adult) and sleeps in his bed.
I could understand doing some of the above in the beginning, but I would think after 6 months some of these behaviors would subside.
Anyone have any suggestions ? Other than things will get better with time, I'm not sure what to tell her.
Sounds like she’s doing what she can, which is more than many at this stage. At 6 months, reality might just be starting to set in. What she’s doing is all part of her process. I’d be worried if she was still doing these things 5 years later but 6 months is no time at all, IMO.
My experience with grief is that you aren’t aware you’re in shock and on autopilot for the first while. She’s grieving a type of loss that many can’t understand because there is a huge guilt component blended in with outliving your child, which is not the natural order of things.
IMO, all you can do is be supportive and be of comfort to her and not try to steer her away from the stage of grief process she needs to go through right now.
After losing my husband unexpectedly a year and a half ago, I realized very specifically that people grieve differently and on different time lines.
Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about her style of grief for at least a year. But there's nothing wrong with you taking notice of things either. Is she getting "worse?" I mean, does she seem to be fixating more or less on his memory? She's doing the right things from what it sounds like.
If six months from now, she seems to be drowning, she may need to switch her psychologist. But right now - honestly, this doesn't sound particularly alarming.
"Unhealthy" grieving, is when it takes over your life.
Indeed, I feel that the grieving has taken over my sister's life, but the consensus seems to think that 6 months isn't enough time yet to be concerned. Perhaps after a year things will get better.
We just passed his birthday which was significant and the next significant date will be the day he passed away. Maybe after passing these date milestones things will get better.
Indeed, I feel that the grieving has taken over my sister's life, but the consensus seems to think that 6 months isn't enough time yet to be concerned. Perhaps after a year things will get better.
We just passed his birthday which was significant and the next significant date will be the day he passed away. Maybe after passing these date milestones things will get better.
I did find that after the first year things have gotten better. The first anniversary of everything is upsetting.
What took me by surprise was the anniversary of my husband's death. I was wide awake the whole night before - I couldn't stop thinking about our last conversation, "he was alive a year ago right now," "he didn't know that in a few hours he'd be dead," "was there anything I could have done?" "did he feel anything different?" All that. He died at 6 am the next morning and I was told by 9 am. Ironically, after that time frame a year later, I felt OK. Not great that day, but not in the throes of grief if that makes sense.
Anyway, I noticed things lessening afterward. I did celebrate his birthday - I think I always will because the day he was born was a fantastic day for me - I just didn't know it - LOL.
Maybe your sister will feel the same way.
By the way, in her defense, I was definitely in the worst part of my grieving process probably six months into it. It was horrible. It was a long enough time to accept it but the shock had worn off and all the time before me just seemed to be endless. Now I realize I'm going to be OK (coming up on 2 years) but at the 6 month mark, things were pretty bad for me emotionally.
Christmas and New Years - my first without him - was about 4-5 months after he died. THE. WORST. HOLIDAY. SEASON. EVER. This past year, it was actually a pleasant holiday season for me.
The holiday season after my dad died was very difficult as well. It was also just a few months after he had passed away.
It's not like you are going to talk her out of her grief, so what you tell her is that you are there for her and listen to her and just be with her.
6 months is not a long time. It is not considered abnormal to grieve at that time--when therapists do put time limits on what is considered "normal grief" it is usually closer to 1.5-2 years.
I'm not sure who or where to ask so this forum seems like a good start.
My nephew passed away from a drug overdose approx 6 months ago. He was 25. I am going thru my grieving process, but I am really concerned about my sister (who is his mother).
I realize there's no correct or incorrect way to grieve, but IMO my sister isn't taking it well and I think it's interfering with her daily life. She sees a psychologist and attends a support group for people who have lost loved ones to drug overdoses. Other than that I'm not sure what else she can do.
She has a lot of guilt, but I and other family members keep telling her she has nothing to feel guilty about. She tried (and the rest of the family) tried to help him as much as we could, but he couldn't over come the addiction.
My sister engages in some odd behaviors IMO such as visiting the grave site nearly everyday, hanging pictures of her son every where (altho none of the pictures are of him as an adult) and sleeps in his bed.
I could understand doing some of the above in the beginning, but I would think after 6 months some of these behaviors would subside.
Anyone have any suggestions ? Other than things will get better with time, I'm not sure what to tell her.
About fifty years ago, my mother's cousin lost her husband. I was a young teen, and I remember hearing how her husband said he was going out to their backyard to get some firewood and didn't come back. She went out to find him and found him dead of a heart attack. They had an eight-month-old baby.
Every day for the next year, "Pat" spent all day every day at the grave of her husband while other family members took care of her baby. Finally after a year, the family sat her down and said, "you have a son to raise, etc." and she began to rejoin the world. I knew her years later through town events, and she was steady as a rock, son grown, in a relationship.
I'd say that was unhealthy grieving.
There's an afterword to this story. Many years later, I mentioned to my mother that I remembered when "Pat's" husband died young of a heart attack, and she said, "That's what they told people outside the family at the time. The real story is that she went out to find him after he said he was going to get firewood, and he had hung himself from a tree behind the garage. There was no note, and she never knew why he did it."
Oh, Lord have mercy. Oh, wow. God bless her that she eventually found a way to move on. She's strong.
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