Basically the title.
Not to trauma dump, but my mom died almost exactly a month ago. I was with her for her last hours and it was…as peaceful as it could be, honestly. The facility was so nice and the hospice nurses did a wonderful job at keeping her comfortable. But her lungs were pretty damaged from the flu and lung cancer, so there was also a lot of gasping and breathing struggles, and the last two hours were especially rough (for her and for me).
I know I have some kind of acute traumatic something or another because of it. I can handle the daily intrusive thoughts and I do try to sit with my feelings as they happen.
But the nightmares are terrible. Out of the 29 days since she died, I’ve had nightmares for at least 23 of them. They range from disturbing to straight up “waking up feeling like I’m actively being chased by a serial killer” panic-inducing.
I have them at night, and I have them if I take naps during the day. It’s getting to a point where I’m afraid to sleep because I just don’t want to see those things or feel those feelings.
Has anyone else dealt with this? When did it stop for you?
P.S. I’m in therapy, and I know everyone is different. I’m just trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Sounds pretty rough! Sorry to hear that
In my experience, grief comes in waves, and they slowly diffuse and get weaker and further apart. So it will slow at some point, and then it will come back again, but less intense, and that will repeat until it fades into the background of your mind… Sorry I can’t suggest a timeframe, that’s too context dependant.
Something else I’ve found useful is listening to podcasts about grief - there are quite a few of them, and the wisdom is pretty transferrable, and it has that good vibe of feeling like there are others out there who get it.
I’m definitely experiencing the waves. I haven’t felt any big emotions in over a week and then today they hit me like a train because a stranger that knew her said something nice about her. I do fully expect that to keep happening, though, and I’ve made peace with it.
I hadn’t considered listening to grief podcasts. It hadn’t even occured to me they existed, actually lol. I will definitely look into that - thank you very much for the suggestion. If you have any recommendations on which ones to dive into, I would greatly appreciate it.
Sorry, I don’t have any specific reccs, last time I listen to grief related stuff was years ago. There’s a shitload though, there’s probably some a best-list somewhere on the 'net.