Mom greiving

LegacyUser

Hi,
Delighted this forum was started up.
My dad died over a year ago and it has affected my mom quite badly, which is understandable. She was recently starting to improve and she was in better form. However, we recently had another bereavement(my grandmother - dads side) and that seems to have set her back to the beginning again.

She is very down and very sad. Anytime I am talking to her she only gives me bad news - about someone who died, or is ill, or some tragic car crash somewhere in the country. She never seems to have anything positive to report and constantly tells how "tough life is".

She is alone in the house during the day. She was a housewife and never went back to work after we all grew up. The youngest is still at home but likely to move out next year. She insists that she is never going to spend the night alone in the house. Which is fair enough but she has not said what she wants to do.

We try to get her out to visit neighbours and relatives but she rarely does. She doesn't have many passions other than looking after children. Thought about getting her to do an adult course but she has no interest.

I have noticed that she is showing a lot of self pity lately and seems to want everyone to pity her. Only last wkend she said how she misses my gran more than my gran's daughter does!! This I found totally absurd and I was taken aback by it. How does she know how my aunt feels? This got me worried and hence my post here.

Anyone experience a similar situation? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks all!

axel rose

I think that you should encourage your mum to see her GP. How is her sleeping and eating habits?

The reality of her new life may have just hit her with the next death in the family. I know that I had no idea what was going on during my husbands funeral but when I went to my friends mum funeral I was in floods of tears- and that was just the funeral.

dollydimples82

username9 wrote: »

I have noticed that she is showing a lot of self pity lately and seems to want everyone to pity her. Only last wkend she said how she misses my gran more than my gran's daughter does!! This I found totally absurd and I was taken aback by it. How does she know how my aunt feels? This got me worried and hence my post here.

I think your mam is suffering more than you realise, did she have any counselling? After my brother died, my mam became house bound. She wouldnt go shopping, didnt want to see anyone, didnt want to talk to anyone. i actually went on holidays a few months after my brother died because i couldnt cope. (feel very selfish about that now). But I wasnt able to grieve, i was running the home, trying to keep mam 'sane'. My mam is now doing ok, but like your mam she does the pity thing. For example: my aunts son was moving abroad and was upset that he was leving,, my mam was well at least she can see him or call him not like me, how would she like it if she couldnt see him ever again.

It is absurd but remember your mam is grieving, just be there for her, talk to her about the people that passed, your favourite stories, things you remember, thats what i do, and remind her that she has still got you.