Bereavement Support Group

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Post edited by: Annie50, at: 04/01/2010 09:17 AM

Hi Annie,

I'm glad you are willing to give this site a second chance. I'm sorry that you had a negative experience the first time around. I post pretty much on two forums: bereavement and Death in the Family, and both have been really helpful in letting me voice my opinion and what is going on in my life without being preachy or condescending.

I'm also sorry about you losing your parents. This will be the first Father's Day without my dad, and every time I see a commercial or an ad for Father's Day it's like a punch to the stomach.

My boyfriend still has both his parents, and he says things every so often that just seem insensitive. I know he doesn't mean it, he just doesn't fully understand grief. Good for him...wish I didn't!

I wonder what your mother-in-law's experience with grief is. Maybe she had a negative time in her life that made her treat you the way she does.

Anyway, take care, and we are always here to listen.

Sara

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Post edited by: Annie50, at: 04/01/2010 09:21 AM

Annie, I am so sorry for all your losses and I so appreciate you sharing this as hard as it has been for you. I can relate to some of your situation. My M.I.L. also lived on a farm for many years in another country before coming here and marrying. Her and I are just on separate planets. While she means well most of the time, sometimes I feel judged by her. She is very simple and traditional: Cooks, bakes from scratch, gardens and is submissive in catering to her spouse's every need. I am the complete opposite. I don't cook much, bake or garden. I have a masters degree from college, work evenings and enjoy shopping, reading, family and trips with my kids. I expect everyone in the family to help out with cleaning and chores, including my husband and children. Especially, since I work evenings, get little sleep and have gone through depression and the death of my mom. I really miss that motherly figure in my life. I could always call her and talk about issues that bothered us, shopping, crafts. We had so much in common. I don't think it could be like that with my mother in law. She's more of a homebody and because she came from another country and has little education, she says things that are insulting to people but she does not realize, at times. It could make me angry at times. I'm trying though. When mom first died, I resented her because my mom was dead and she is still living. It was part of the anger and my grief. I don't resent her anymore but we are two different people that's for sure.

It must be so hard to move away from all of your firends and family. I'm sorry it turned out to be such a disappointment for you, Annie. I moved to Alaska with my high school sweetheart my first year of college. I made it through a year, and I came back home. I hated being separated from my family.

My current boyfriend's mom is putting the heat on us to get married. Although we are very serious, and probably will, I have only known him a year, and have suffered two major losses in my life. It drives me crazy sometimes, I wish she'd chill out. But I think in her family, that's just what you did.

I'm finding a cultural difference within my own family - with my sister. My sister left home to live 3,000 miles away in California toward the end of the hippie era. She left my parents and me and didn't look back. Before that, when we were children, whenever there was dissension in our family (family of origin) she skipped out the door until it was over. Now that my boyfriend has passed away and all the trauma that has gone with that for me, she has told me that I have done all I can and so she expects that i should now just move on. Some of us just feel things more - for me, I seem to love more and grieve harder than perhaps someone like my sister.

Yes, me too Nancy I love, give and grieve more than any of my sisters. They seem to be able to focus only on themself and I extend more to others and look to keep connected with family and friends. It's sad because I think that's what life's really about: loving each other, giving and receiving and some don't get that. That's where I get upset and disappointed because they don't share my view of life.

Post edited by: Peace4Rach, at: 05/04/2009 06:24 PM

Yes, rachele, I think that that is why I feel like I;ve been through the shredder since just before my boyfriend died. We were loving hard and staying connected - until his family suddenly stepped in and ripped us apart because they thought they should be the ones taking care of him in the end---maybe so, but what about relationships, care, love, connection, dedication. They never thought twice about that; it was sudden, rash, even he said they were swept up in a frenzy of their sudden feelings of responsibility. He said they thought the world of me and that they wished we had met long ago and gotten married---yeah, right. Doesn't friendship, caregiving, love and dedication amount to anything in themselves.

Some people no unfortunely. It is beyond me that people can turn there backs on others and not blink an eye. Sleep like babies and live like nothing ever happened. I have a feeling, they end up being the lonely ones at some point in life. I believe what comes around, goes around.

I've started to allow myself to relive in my mind everything that has happened and I'm starting to cry again every day and not be able to focus on anything else. I feel mentally and physically shredded. I feel like I need to tell the whole story over again - except that I have no one left to tell....except people who would be surprised that we had any relationship at all because we were pretty much by ourselves. I've already processed and undserstand that there is a whole life after grief. It seems like a long way off, though.