When does the pain go away?

lukesmom

I lost my brother (22) last March, so 7 months ago. He was everything to me, my best friend, my younger brother and I idolised him. He had me wrapped around his finger and was a lovable rogue. We saw each other everyday, he still lived at home with my parents. He took drugs and was a pretty impulsive fella but would go on them for a few months and get fed up and just stop for another few months. This went on for years. This time he wasn't so lucky. My mother found him in his bed and we found out from the autopsy 2 weeks ago (they gave us the results on his 23rd birthday???) that he died from 'acute respiratory failure due to the additive effects of sedatives and narcotics'. I had been at him in the weeks leading up to it, to stop taking so many tablets but he said he'd be grand but nobody is invincible I told him and now he is gone.

As I said it has been 7 months and somedays a bit easier than others but when the pain hits me, it hits very hard, its like the world is a completely different place without him. It will never be the same without him. I am so lonely without him in my life. The way we joked, the ways we had between us, the music we sang together, everything, 22 years of love.

Although I'm very very spiritual by nature, I do find when at my lowest I get dark thoughts like I'm having at the moment. What is the point of life? Its nothing but heartache and then you die. Talk about getting a bad deal and I know I am feeling sorry for myself when my poor parents have to live in the house they shared with him. We are very close and talk about him all the time, and cry.

I often picture walking into the river but then my baby daughter and son will smile or do something that makes me realise it could not be an option. I have to admit though, it does seem like an appealing prospect if it meant I could see him again. This is selfish too though an I know that, but just needed to write what is in my head down. My husband is a good support but doesn't understand grief. I also have thoughts of going to his grave and wanting to just pull him out of there (would never in a million years do this) but this is what goes through my head also, the fact that he will soon be dust. Another thing is the decomposing process. I should never be thinking of this but hey I'm a deep thinker. Oh to shut my mind off for even an hour would be good.

I also gave him C.P.R mouth to mouth and compresses to try resusitate him for about 15 minutes and remember putting my hand on his heart and no heartbeat. I often get this image in my head of no heartbeat. The ambulance came and paramedics were working on him but was too late. I wonder if I dreamt it all sometimes and find myself having to go through it all over again.

Does it ever get easier?

jos28

It will get easier but it is way too soon for you to expect to feel anything but heartache and severe pain at this stage, I am so sorry that you lost your brother and the circumstances make it even worse for you. All you can do at this early stage of grief is to take it one day at a time. Some days will be good ones, some will be bad ones. Some days you will cry at the least thing and other days you will laugh out loud at a memory of your brother. My advice would be to talk to him, write to him, keep a diary....do anything to stop the same things going round in your head. Do something positive to commemorate or remember your brother. Be kind to yourself, try to exercise and eat well. I promise you that that awful gut-wrenching pain will go away but just not yet. Just give it time.

banie01

I don't think the pain ever really does go away....At least not yet in my own experience.
Thats not to say the pain of your grief will weigh on you and cause you heartache forever more.
More that now, you are in the rawest most painful part of your grief, remembering the loss, and wanting your brother here with you, feeling robbed of his life and wondering what might have been if only things were a little different...

I know what its like to be in that place, and quite honestly if not for my own son I could so easily have given up and tried to end it myself after my wife died...
I'm 4 and a half years down the road since then, and its never stopped hurting!

The pain has changed though,but thats more down to how I choose to deal with the loss now, its not the raw all consuming hole it once was!
But for an awful long time the pain of my loss defined me as a person, I gave my grief control and almost lost myself to it

But I managed to change that!
I found that by focusing on all the happy memories, the good times we shared, the smiles that are sparked by often silly recollections of 'us'
Remembering the love we shared, the memories we created and the son we made
That focusing on the brightest, happiest times.....helps hugely!
Rather than wondering about the what ifs? and whys?
Remember the time that ye did have and try to be grateful for that, rather than curse god/the world for the hope of what might have been if he hadn't died...
You will always remember the times ye shared, and often there will be occasions when all you want is him beside you
And that will never get easier, but try to keep it as a sign of how much you love him, rather than how big your loss.

I hope your ok, but the only other piece of advice I can offer from my experience is to talk about it.....
I went to a bereavement counsellor and it helped me hugely, not that they offered any great insight....
But it allowed me to unload myself, to talk out all the threads in my head without the person listening to me breaking down, all my friends and family would get upset whenever i tried to talk about my loss and then I felt guilty for their upset.....
And that guilt just built on top of my grief and messed my head up even more...
Grief counselling just allowed me to unload without the guilt of making my own loved ones upset.

lukesmom

Jos28 thanks so much for your reply and you are right about having to take things one day at a time. I get stuck in the doom of it all and feel there is no escape from the constant noise in my head. The grief is unbearable at times and at other times, I manage to get through the day without crying too much.

And Banie01, to lose your wife and the mother of your son is cruel beyond any measure. I am so sorry you had to go through this. I have found having my own 2 small children makes me have to get up, get them ready etc. If it wasn't for them, like you said, God knows what I would be doing to numb the pain of the grief. I suppose all we can do is hope that one day we are reunited with our loved ones, and hope also that they still watch us from afar, wherever they are

banie01

lukesmom wrote: »

I have found having my own 2 small children makes me have to get up, get them ready etc. If it wasn't for them, like you said, God knows what I would be doing to numb the pain of the grief.

This!
Don't be afraid to grab every moment of vicarious happiness your kids will bring you
It sounds a bit silly, but for the longest time I felt guilty for any happiness that came my way.....
as if I was being disloyal or disrespectful!
That I had to wear my grief and avoid happiness in memory of the pain of my loss, more so than in memory of who I lost...

The great thing about kids is that if you let it/them,
Their happiness and resilience can be infective
Try to catch it.....
And it will carry you through those dark scary times that are still to come.