How do I grieve?

rainbows7

My mother died when I just became a teenager. A part of my dad also died that day. He just exists. He gave up on life and suffers from depression.
I became the parent, trying to keep siblings in tact, encouraging study and so on, it more or less fell on deaf ears. It's now almost 20 years since my mothers passing. I'm seeing a counsellor at the moment and she feels I'm still quite affected from my mothers passing as I never got to grieve for her. My father never wanted to talk about my mother so we stopped talking about her. This obviously didn't help any of us and speaking for myself I'm still carrying this heavy cross and it has affected me in life. I have this hole in my heart and deep within I'm sad. I get on with life but struggle with happiness.

I had this old friend who once said to me I wouldn't be any different as a person if my mother was alive. How dare she. Little does she know.

So assuming my counsellor is right, that I'm still affected from my Mom's death because of never getting the chance to grieve, how do I start to grieve now? I don't know what to do? It's hardly a case of setting aside a week to spend it crying as a matter of accepting it?? Please advise. Thank you

pastorbarrett

Hi Maryjoe,

Grieving is a very personal process, and even though there may be common emotions at play (confusion, hurt, anger, sadness and so on), everybody grieves in their own particular way. There are no hard and fast rules in respect of grieving, or a 'right' or 'wrong' way to grieve.

I think the line your taking now is the best possible course of action. Continue speaking to your counsellor about these events from your life, and see how the process unfolds. A time delay in respect of grieving is by no means unusual, and from your post it does seem that you bolstered the family together through a difficult time. Like everything else in life there is no quick fix, but engaging with a bereavement counsellor or similar will hopefully, in time, offer you insight and understanding on these events. Best of luck

Corkgirl210

check out bereaved.ie... they have leaflets on it.. x we grieve at different times.. sometimes our coping mechanicisms only allow us to deal with one thing at a time..

a fat guy

Perhaps you don't need to grieve, but simply to accept what happened?

Taking care of your siblings may have taken from you the time that you wanted to use to grieve, but you had to do it for their sake and that stands to you.

That strength may be the reason why you didn't grieve as one normally grieves, or maybe you just don't need to grieve at all.

And try talking to dad and siblings about your mother, that would definitely benefit you.