"Normal" reaction to loss of parent, what is typical?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This feels pretty typical to me, but there is no “normal”. I remember when I was 14 and my aunt died—I cried nonstop for a week, couldn’t go to school, and still felt pretty normal after—but losing an aunt is different from losing a parent.

Was Your aunt your caretaker or was it a gruesome or sudden tragic death?

Often children and teens don’t know how to grieve or process big emotions so they copy movies or what they then they should be doing- bawling, crying, heaving, suffering, lying around, not functioning.
There is also peer pressure to show sadness, at that age. My high school class lost a girl to cancer- she showed up in 9th grade and died in 10th grade. The entire school was at the funeral and kids who didn’t even know her from her sports or honor classes were loudly crying the whole time. Were they truly very sad? Did they want to appear very sad to be socially acceptable? Were they projecting doomsday on themselves? Did they have other connections or deaths recently and triggered? Unlikely. Just peer pressure.

Her death was unexpected and in a way that’s still hard for me to say here. It happened right after we’d returned from vacationing together over the holidays. We were a close family. This wasn’t my first experience with grief, but it was the one that hit the hardest as a kid. My grandfather had died when I was 11; he was very elderly and sick (still had mostly the same reaction), and while I cried and struggled then too, it wasn’t as intense and was easier to process because of the circumstances.

Losing my aunt — someone young and close to me was very different, and as a teenage girl (especially a more naive & “young for X age” one) the way she died was frightening and destabilizing. It suddenly made the world feel unpredictable and unsafe in a way I hadn’t experienced before. She was about to turn 30, healthy, and had very small children: a 1 year-old girl and 3 year old boy. I spent a lot of time with them and babysat sometimes just because even though she didn’t need it, because I loved babies/toddlers, and part of my grief was for her kids as well. I loved my own mom deeply, often had nightmares about losing her, so the thought of her children growing up without their wonderful mom was incomprehensible me.

My mom was a mess , which did play a role; she wasn’t cooking, wasn’t going to work, wasn’t enforcing routines, and wasn’t emotionally there in the way she normally was. I barely ate or went to school that week and lost weight as a result. I didn’t use any of the new gifts my aunt had given me because I couldn’t bear to look at them, and put away all the items she ever gave me for months (8-10) because it was just to painful to use/see. After that week, there was still a looming feeling of sadness & grief, and my mom hasn’t been the same since. Even now, every couple of months, something will trigger it and I still feel a wave of grief, it’s certainly a complex thing to deal with.

[Anonymous]

That was how I dealt with my dad's death. I didn't see the point in letting the grief linger or consume me. So I mourned him for a couple days and then continued on with life. Doesn't mean I don't think about him or miss him. FWIW, I was 34 and he was 74 so ..maybe a tad on the younger side of expected passing but still within the realm of normal.

[Anonymous]

truly wallow in my despair.

Your mother would not want this for you

[Anonymous]

Honestly watching the decline and the person you love get consumed by something like cancer is worse than the actual death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your spouse is a man? That's normal. He stuffed it in a box and it'll slowly rot therr.

Yeah, mine lost both of his parents within 6 months last year and to the outside world he continued life completely normally like OP describes her husband. It's only obvious to me, who is with him out of the public eye daily, how he is still deeply hurting over it. And he's never been very open or expressive about it, I can just see the changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

truly wallow in my despair.

Your mother would not want this for you

Maybe. Then you have guilt added on to all the other negative feelings. I tell my kids to feel their feelings. Ifr they wallow in grief, who am I to say don't do that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your spouse is a man? That's normal. He stuffed it in a box and it'll slowly rot therr.

Yeah, mine lost both of his parents within 6 months last year and to the outside world he continued life completely normally like OP describes her husband. It's only obvious to me, who is with him out of the public eye daily, how he is still deeply hurting over it. And he's never been very open or expressive about it, I can just see the changes.

What kind of changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get ready for the displaced anger, acting out by drinking more, ramped up porn addiction, and other ways in which men express grief because they're too weak to face sadness.

no

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly watching the decline and the person you love get consumed by something like cancer is worse than the actual death.

This. By the end I was praying to God to take my Dad out of his misery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's more abnormal when an old (like 85+) person dies of natural causes and their child acts like it is the shock of the century. Did you think they would live to be 100+?

Exactly. You should be be prepared for your parents' deaths by the time they're 60. A heart attack could come along and take them away in an instant.

Why do so many people have such unnatural and unhealthy attitudes towards death?

You post s**t like this on every thread. 60 is not “old” nowadays, but regardless, there’s nothing psychological about being shocked or devastated when people die at 60. My kids will be in their twenties when I’m 60.

And while I agree that it’s not shocking when a parent in their 80s dies, it can still cause very deep grief. But there’s no right or wrong way to experience it.

60 is old. Not old enough you should be surprised if they don't die, but old enough you shouldn't be surprised if they do. If a 60yo dying hits you that hard, you've failed in your preparations. People in their 20s don't need their parents anymore. It actually removes a lot of the potential burden of elderly caregiving, leading to a happier life overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This feels pretty typical to me, but there is no “normal”. I remember when I was 14 and my aunt died—I cried nonstop for a week, couldn’t go to school, and still felt pretty normal after—but losing an aunt is different from losing a parent.

Was Your aunt your caretaker or was it a gruesome or sudden tragic death?

Often children and teens don’t know how to grieve or process big emotions so they copy movies or what they then they should be doing- bawling, crying, heaving, suffering, lying around, not functioning.
There is also peer pressure to show sadness, at that age. My high school class lost a girl to cancer- she showed up in 9th grade and died in 10th grade. The entire school was at the funeral and kids who didn’t even know her from her sports or honor classes were loudly crying the whole time. Were they truly very sad? Did they want to appear very sad to be socially acceptable? Were they projecting doomsday on themselves? Did they have other connections or deaths recently and triggered? Unlikely. Just peer pressure.

Her death was unexpected and in a way that’s still hard for me to say here. It happened right after we’d returned from vacationing together over the holidays. We were a close family. This wasn’t my first experience with grief, but it was the one that hit the hardest as a kid. My grandfather had died when I was 11; he was very elderly and sick (still had mostly the same reaction), and while I cried and struggled then too, it wasn’t as intense and was easier to process because of the circumstances.

Losing my aunt — someone young and close to me was very different, and as a teenage girl (especially a more naive & “young for X age” one) the way she died was frightening and destabilizing. It suddenly made the world feel unpredictable and unsafe in a way I hadn’t experienced before. She was about to turn 30, healthy, and had very small children: a 1 year-old girl and 3 year old boy. I spent a lot of time with them and babysat sometimes just because even though she didn’t need it, because I loved babies/toddlers, and part of my grief was for her kids as well. I loved my own mom deeply, often had nightmares about losing her, so the thought of her children growing up without their wonderful mom was incomprehensible me.

My mom was a mess , which did play a role; she wasn’t cooking, wasn’t going to work, wasn’t enforcing routines, and wasn’t emotionally there in the way she normally was. I barely ate or went to school that week and lost weight as a result. I didn’t use any of the new gifts my aunt had given me because I couldn’t bear to look at them, and put away all the items she ever gave me for months (8-10) because it was just to painful to use/see. After that week, there was still a looming feeling of sadness & grief, and my mom hasn’t been the same since. Even now, every couple of months, something will trigger it and I still feel a wave of grief, it’s certainly a complex thing to deal with.

Not sure why the post got removed. You're referring to an overdose or suicide, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This feels pretty typical to me, but there is no “normal”. I remember when I was 14 and my aunt died—I cried nonstop for a week, couldn’t go to school, and still felt pretty normal after—but losing an aunt is different from losing a parent.

Was Your aunt your caretaker or was it a gruesome or sudden tragic death?

Often children and teens don’t know how to grieve or process big emotions so they copy movies or what they then they should be doing- bawling, crying, heaving, suffering, lying around, not functioning.
There is also peer pressure to show sadness, at that age. My high school class lost a girl to cancer- she showed up in 9th grade and died in 10th grade. The entire school was at the funeral and kids who didn’t even know her from her sports or honor classes were loudly crying the whole time. Were they truly very sad? Did they want to appear very sad to be socially acceptable? Were they projecting doomsday on themselves? Did they have other connections or deaths recently and triggered? Unlikely. Just peer pressure.

Her death was unexpected and in a way that’s still hard for me to say here. It happened right after we’d returned from vacationing together over the holidays. We were a close family. This wasn’t my first experience with grief, but it was the one that hit the hardest as a kid. My grandfather had died when I was 11; he was very elderly and sick (still had mostly the same reaction), and while I cried and struggled then too, it wasn’t as intense and was easier to process because of the circumstances.

Losing my aunt — someone young and close to me was very different, and as a teenage girl (especially a more naive & “young for X age” one) the way she died was frightening and destabilizing. It suddenly made the world feel unpredictable and unsafe in a way I hadn’t experienced before. She was about to turn 30, healthy, and had very small children: a 1 year-old girl and 3 year old boy. I spent a lot of time with them and babysat sometimes just because even though she didn’t need it, because I loved babies/toddlers, and part of my grief was for her kids as well. I loved my own mom deeply, often had nightmares about losing her, so the thought of her children growing up without their wonderful mom was incomprehensible me.

My mom was a mess , which did play a role; she wasn’t cooking, wasn’t going to work, wasn’t enforcing routines, and wasn’t emotionally there in the way she normally was. I barely ate or went to school that week and lost weight as a result. I didn’t use any of the new gifts my aunt had given me because I couldn’t bear to look at them, and put away all the items she ever gave me for months (8-10) because it was just to painful to use/see. After that week, there was still a looming feeling of sadness & grief, and my mom hasn’t been the same since. Even now, every couple of months, something will trigger it and I still feel a wave of grief, it’s certainly a complex thing to deal with.

Not sure why the post got removed. You're referring to an overdose or suicide, right?

No, a pretty gruesome freak accident, too much to write here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get ready for the displaced anger, acting out by drinking more, ramped up porn addiction, and other ways in which men express grief because they're too weak to face sadness.

no

That's what happened with my now ex-DH. His mother died at age 65 and his grieving seemed short only for all sorts of dysfunction and constant rage to emerge and never leave. When I finally divorced him 5 years later, it was with regret that he hadn't died with his mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

truly wallow in my despair.

Your mother would not want this for you

I know, and it's what allows me to be okay 99% of the time. I just miss her so much, and there are still moments when the realization that she is gone hits me like a tidal wave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly watching the decline and the person you love get consumed by something like cancer is worse than the actual death.

This is somewhat true in my experience, and grieving in anticipation did a lot of the heavy lifting for me. Less than a year in, though, I still find that I have to struggle not to think about the decline and how my mom suffered at the end. I have 56 years of happy memories with her, and I have to try hard to focus on those rather than on the terrible year that preceded her death. It's taking baby steps, but I'm making progress.