Grief… 6 Months Later

Hi so I want to talk about grief… it’s been six months since I lost my grandmother, the woman who raised me and became the mother I knew.

There is no other way to describe it, the last six months have been so lonely, exhausting and nothing has felt the same with my nan gone. She died of dementia so we were prepared but it was still so sudden as she had been doing well.

Since then, on the 5 month anniversary of her death, my other grandmother died after a surgery on the 19th March. I don’t think I really have processed this yet as I am exhausted of grief and don’t know how to process much more.

There reached a point where I’ve been really angry at myself and life because I’ve just not been able to pick myself up of the floor. I have just felt so stuck and unable to do anything to support myself in the last 6 months and have felt like I have been in self sabotage.

I had just started to process my emotions and understand what I was feeling around my nan’s death when my other nan died last month which just knocked me off my feet again.

This death has been difficult, as I felt so much more guilt and anger as I hardly got to see her. It was so sudden, unexpected and I don’t feel like I really got to know her and I know she had an incredible life and stories to tell!

Life has just felt like a revolving door and I just start to open it, then it shuts back in my face again. I’m heartbroken that they are both gone, life hasn’t felt the same since, like no matter what something is always missing and a piece of me is missing and I can’t ever get it back.

I would like to say there is a positive out of this, but I have yet to find one. It’s so difficult to understand how it’s been 6 months, it feels like a lifetime since I saw both of them and I would do anything to sit and hear my nan’s laughter once more. It’s hard hard to know that life has moved on but I just feel stuck in a routine grieving someone and a life I used to have.

I know it won’t always feel like this and I will look at them both with love and less sadness, I miss them both deeply but also don’t want to move on because it feels like moving on from them or there life on this planet. I’m sure anyone who has lost people can understand, but I’m trying to deal with these emotions.

The other struggle that I know is just grief, but I am constantly terrified that something bad has happened to someone else, a family member, a friend or even an animal! I get this overwhelming panic about what might have happened to them so randomly but it’s really difficult to calm these thoughts. I know it’s not realistic and does cause bad nightmares some days that wake me up in a panic. I am going to get therapy to help these thoughts and I am not afraid to acknowledge that it’s just a part of experiencing grief.

This constant feeling of always missing something and looking for someone who’s not there anymore is really overwhelming some days and I don’t know what to do to help myself. Everybody says it gets better with time and I know that’s true but it’s very difficult right now and I miss them both so much.

I’m sorry if this was a very negative blog post but I thought I would just share my experience so far if anyone is at this same stage in grief as me or maybe has anyway to help me.

Thank you for reading, I can’t promise when I will post again but I will be back with another blog post soon.