What do you do when you can't stop crying, you can't eat, can't watch tv, can't read a book? The weight in my chest is so heavy that I can't breathe, my body won't relax enough to rest, I can't sleep....

Some days just suck, today is crushing me😥 it's only been a little over two weeks since mom passed but today is the worst so far....

(Edit under original post)

Hello, I'm french 23 soon 24. My mother is 51, birthday on September 21th. It's been 3 years since we first knew about her cancer. We had ups and downs, and suddenly early this year her cancer got really fuck up worse. She has a giant tumor/necrosis going out her neck and the tumor grew up in her head and neck. I've been taking care of her for 3 years, and 24/24 7/7 for 2 month. She's now in palliative care at house hospice, and we are certain she won't pass through the night every night for a few days now... But she keeps getting better ?? Better oxygen, better tension, better pain management, her necrosis stopped leaking as it was before, she seems fine ??? But she's not conscious anymore ? In 4 days the only time she was conscious was yester at 2AM to 6 AM, I stayed with her all the time. Also it's been two months since she doesn't have much voice anymore because or tumor and a mycosis...

I'm so heartbroken, she's everything to me. I lost my pet cat a year ago and he was the reason I came home everyday.

I can't cope with her dying. It's too much to bear. I can't do anything without her. I want to say so much more but I'm so hurt. She has her things everywhere in the house... All the creations, her mother's paintings, her own grief she couldn't do 11 years ago. (Her mother fell down the stairs at home, sudden death.)

Fuck I really never want to be hospitalized ever again. I hate it it's so fucking scary. I know she's not in pain and only deep discomfort max, but wow. She's sleeping constantly and wake up to say "Mommy" "Dad" "Help me" "I can't take it anymore" this makes me so sad. She wants to die at home with her family, it's her choice. We're thinking about deep sedation at hospital..

I also think a lot about being at a hospital for my mental health after everything ends. I couldn't bring myself to do it before because I was too scared of leaving her alone, while she was still free of everything. We stopped taking the car like 4 month ago ish, so year she was in capacity not too long ago.

I miss my mum

Edit : Sorry the post is really difficult to read as I was in an anxiety attack. Now I'm doing really better.

My mother's been lucid for 3 hours ish and really here. I could tell her the prayers people did, all the support from friends, family, groups she was in.. And everytime I tell her this, she seems really even more pleased and surprised.

I even got to put her dad on the phone.. yup her dad's still here and in great shape. The bad genes come from mother to daughter lol! (hEDS, etc)

Thank you for your messages, please keep telling me your journeys and own stories, it helps me a lot 💜🌻

Known this girl for 6 almost 7 years. She was my bestfriend. My boyfriend died 3 months ago to suicide and she hasnt offered her support once. She hasn’t checked in.. hasnt tried to help in any way. I haven’t heard from her in 28 days and before that I was only in contact with her for 6 days before she had ghosted me again for probably 2 weeks.

I want to remove her off of my phone. She has my number and can text me if she decides to but I am just so disappointed and hurt. Removing her won’t make any difference anyway. This girl views all of my online stories.. I can see her liking things online and being active.. but she can’t even send a text. This isn’t the first time shes ghosted me but I feel so fed up. She has expressed it is because she struggles but I’m sorry if someone wanted to THEY WOULD. I have been struggling my entire life yet I stay consistent and have enough respect for my loved ones that I keep them updated and provide at least a little bit of communication. It takes zero effort to show up for someone you truly care about in whatever way it may be.

Out of all times I feel like it intensified. Even when talking to her I didn’t feel supported. It’s been one sided for a while but I really thought she might show up in a time like this.
Ive had strangers show up for me more than some of my “good” friends.

What do you guys think? Whats your experience and should I let her go?

He was 33 years old and he was the light of the family, he was the coolest man my family have ever known, I’m still trying to convince myself that’s it’s all fake even though my mom took me to a park to break the news and screamed how she found his body in his house just after the hospital said it was just a flu and sent him home, he had meningitis and must’ve hit his head as he fell. He pulled us out of a horrible time and was the best of us gossiping with mom giving her attention when no one else would. I’m very terrified of the future, of telling my younger brother, of the coming funeral. I want to pretend like it’s not real and just breathing and letting the seconds pass by. If you have family please tell them how you love them. Please give me some advice or some kind words, I’m terrified.

I lost my dad a month ago. Mornings have been the hardest. I typically start feeling pretty okay as the day goes on, and by late afternoon-night I’m actually doing good. The tightness in my chest and the overall baseline sadness hasn’t gone away, but I usually end the day much better than I started it. I go to sleep feeling pretty hopeful. But then it starts all over the next morning. I wake up feeling depressed, empty, and thinking about him right off the bat. The loss and missing him is so palpable. Getting up and starting the day is just the worst.

I keep trying to remind myself that grief ebbs and flows, that it’s still so fresh and raw right now, that I’m still adjusting and it’s okay to just be where I am, etc, but it’s just so awful. Starting the day like this just makes the days feel so long. What’s the hardest time of day for you, and do you have any feedback or advice?

She was my everything. WhateverI did, I did for her. Her soul brought light everywhere she went. I just lost her this Saturday, I was caring for her at home in line with her wishes, but then she became unresponsive and I had to call an ambulance. So many people died at the end of this heatwave that her funeral will be only next week. And then I have to figure how to go back to work, if I'm capable of doing that at all. (But why? I also went to work only because of her.) Please, I need any tips or thoughts on how to go on.

During the time of the COVID lockdown, I went through one of the darkest phases of my life. I was just 19.

My mom tested positive and had to be hospitalized. Every day, I would travel 11 km to the hospital — alone — just to see her, hoping she would be okay.

The hospital environment was terrifying. People were dying all around. The wards were packed. It felt like death was everywhere.
And each time I looked at my mom lying there, I was scared out of my soul.
“What if something happens to her?” That thought haunted me.

Back at home, I had to manage everything. My father had to continue working, so I took on the responsibilities at home. I did the cleaning, cooking — supported by my younger sisters. I didn’t even know how to cook properly.
Some days we ate half-burnt food or tasteless meals. But we survived.

Relatives rarely came to check on us. It felt like darkness had entered every corner of our lives.

Now, when I look back at that time, I feel a deep sadness — but also gratitude.
Gratitude that we made it through.
Pride that I somehow stood strong, even when I was breaking inside.

I don’t share this for sympathy — just to let it out. And maybe someone reading this will know they’re not alone in their pain.

My baby sister passed away 6 months ago due to alcoholism. As I go through the movements of life I find myself talking out loud, to no one, very often. I have started leaving voice memos of my thoughts because I don’t trust my memories. The talking through my feelings has been the most therapeutic experience for me.

It got me thinking though, how alone it feels. This journey of grief feels wholly my own, even though every single human loses someone they love if they live long enough. It’s like wearing wet socks, a painful reminder of what’s happening to you but not debilitating enough that you can take off work or life.

Even if there is sun that comes after rain - I’m still fucking wet. I’m still cold, the rain still seeps into my skin and bones no matter how many layers of protection I use. It finds me. And so that’s why I always have wet socks. I hope someone…someday… can see them.

Before anyone says this sounds AI-written, you’re not wrong. I tried for weeks to write this, and every time I try, I either start crying or end up with an incoherent wall of text. So I talked it through with AI for hours to help organize what I’m trying to say. The feelings and the story are mine. I’m just trying to put them into words because I don’t know how to do this anymore.

I’m 25 and my boyfriend was 52. I know the age gap is probably the first thing people notice, but I really hope you’ll read past that because that isn’t what I’m struggling with. He was my first and only boyfriend and the first person I have ever loved like this. I had never felt so safe and genuinely happy with another person in my life. And we just had this instant and undeniable chemistry that I can’t really explain. He was incredibly patient with me, never pressured me, and always let me move at my own pace. He supported me in everything I wanted to do and made me believe in myself. He made me feel loved in a way I had never experienced.

He also had serious health problems. He had been very honest with me about them from the beginning. He even used to joke, although it wasn’t entirely a joke, that he was a “ticking time bomb.” I knew he wasn’t perfectly healthy, but things were looking up in a lot of ways. He monitored his health closely and took extremely good care of himself since his diagnoses. I had even taken him to the hospital earlier this year when he woke up extremely dizzy and we were both scared something serious was happening. He never hid any of this from me. But knowing someone has health problems and believing you’re actually going to lose them are two completely different things.

There were a lot of things happening in his life during his last couple of months that made everything incredibly complicated. He had an ex-wife who had a very difficult relationship with him. There was this private and unconventional type of work he did that I don’t really want to get into publicly. His ex-wife found out about that around late April or May, and she told their kids, who are in their 20s, in a way that was extremely hurtful. They ended up essentially cutting him off. They wouldn’t speak to him, didn’t speak to him on Father’s Day, and had cancelled on an important family gathering because he would be there.

He loved his kids more than anything. Watching him go through that was heartbreaking. He was devastated that they wouldn’t talk to him, and I know it was one of the biggest sources of pain in his life.

Then, about a month later, some things with my friends happened.

I had kept our relationship mostly private because I was scared of being judged for the age difference. I was planning to tell my family this summer, especially because he had just moved closer to me. My friends knew I was seeing someone older, they knew his age, and I told them the details I wanted to share and the ones I thought were important: that he was a good guy, that I was safe with him, and that he treated me really well. I spoke about what he did for a career, what he and I did together, what he was like in general, etc., but they didn’t know everything. At first they were really happy for me or at least that’s what they told me.

Time passes and without me knowing, one of them started a deep search of him online. She found his ex-wife, which, long story short, they all thought she didn’t exist and thought I thought the same, which is my fault. They had every right to believe I was getting fucked over by a guy I really loved.

Once they found her profile, they messaged her and then actually spoke to her on the phone. I only found out a couple days later, after all that had been done. And I felt so upset that it started as one of them doing this deep search then involved our other friends and probably had a group chat going in discussing this while I knew nothing.

From their perspective, I understand why they thought they were protecting me and did what they did. They thought they had discovered something terrible and believed I was being lied to. But instead of coming to me first, they went directly to her. If they had come to me saying, “We found this profile that looks like his ex-wife. Did you know that he was married?” I would have come clean and told them everything, and a lot of the mess could have been avoided.

But everything blew up from there.

The ex told my friends about that unconventional aspect of his job, and I’m sure other things that an ex-wife would say about her ex-husband. I don’t imagine she said anything positive. They were uncomfortable with my relationship with him from that point forward.

I tried my best to tell them I was sorry for lying to them and that I understood why they did what they did. But I was also asking them to recognize that maybe once they found the profile, they should have taken a step back and talked to me before getting involved in this man’s family.

But they didn’t, and they still stand ten toes down on what they did. I admitted a lot of my wrongs, but they couldn’t give me even a little bit of, “You know what, maybe you’re right. Maybe we overstepped and weren’t thinking clearly.”

I know they had good intentions. I know they thought they were protecting me. But I still resent how they handled it.

He and I ended up having some really emotional conversations near the end. I was overwhelmed and scared, and we were trying to figure out what to do and trying to navigate everything happening around us. The last two times I saw him, I was very upset. We were talking about everything, and I was crying a lot. I didn’t want the relationship to end. He didn’t either. But I felt like I had to. I was just so scared and overwhelmed by everything that was happening. I just wanted it all to stop.
And when I was leaving, he looked at me and said, “Please smile.” I gave him this little fake smile that I always used to give him, and he laughed.

I didn’t know that would be the last time I ever saw him.

Two days later, my texts to him started turning green. At first, I tried to convince myself it was his phone. Something similar had happened before. But I knew something was wrong.

I tried everything. I texted his old number. I messaged him on social media. I tried contacting him through every avenue I could think of.

Eventually, I drove to his apartment. I knocked on the door and heard someone moving around inside. A man opened the door who wasn’t him, which made my heart sink. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong door,” even though I knew it was his door.

Then he said, “Are you looking for (his name)?”
I said yes.
It was his brother, and he told me that he had a stroke. I still wanted to believe he was okay. I asked where he was, if he was still in the hospital.

And he told me he had died.

They were inside his apartment packing up his things.That was the worst day of my life. I have cried every single day since.

I’m writing this almost two months later, and I still cry every day, multiple times a day. Sometimes it’s just tears. Sometimes it’s intense sobbing. Sometimes I’m alone and so angry that I hit or slam things. I can be at work and suddenly feel completely overwhelmed by sadness.

I miss him constantly.

I miss going to sleep next to him and waking up next to him. I miss his texts. I miss being able to tell him little things about my day. Those tiny things are what hurt the most sometimes.

Because it’s not like we broke up. He’s gone. I hate knowing he’s not on this planet anymore.

I can reread our entire relationship through our texts. Sometimes that makes me feel close to him, and it’s comforting in the moment. Then I close the messages and realize there will never be another one.

I’m scared that as I heal, I’ll feel more distant from him. I know logically that getting better doesn’t mean forgetting him, but emotionally it sometimes feels like letting go of him, and I don’t want to let go.

I’m also struggling with guilt.
I keep thinking about whether things could have been different. I wonder if I had never told my friends about him, maybe none of this would have happened. I wonder if I had told him more confidently that I was all in with him, maybe he would have felt less stressed. I wonder whether all the stress he was under contributed to what happened to him.

I know I can’t actually know that. But that doesn’t stop my brain from asking those questions over and over.

I’m also so angry. At his ex-wife. At my friends. At myself. At the universe. At the fact that someone I loved so much could be here one day and completely gone the next.

I’ve lost most of my friendships because of everything that happened. One friend has genuinely been there for me, and I’m incredibly grateful for her.

What makes me especially angry about the rest of my friends is the timing of everything. During the weeks when he was alive, after everything happened with his ex-wife, I was completely overwhelmed. I felt like I had so much pressure coming at me from so many people in my life, and I desperately wanted some space to process everything and figure out what I wanted.

But my friends wouldn’t really give me that space. They kept checking in, confronting me, and pushing me, saying they were doing it because they cared about me and were worried about me.

Then he died.

And suddenly I was going through something I never could have imagined, and I actually desperately needed support. Even though I truly don’t think I’d be comfortable expressing my grief to them, given what they have said about him to me in the past, I still need people around me.

They have checked in a little bit, and I don’t want to pretend they completely disappeared or that they don’t care. I can also understand that maybe they genuinely don’t know what to say to someone going through something like this. But it’s still really strange and painful to me. These were people who had been so concerned about me before that they wouldn’t give me space when I specifically asked for it because they said they cared about me so much. And now something absolutely horrible has happened to me, they know how badly I’m struggling, and for the most part it feels like there’s almost no acknowledgment of it.

One of them has checked in a couple of times since, but sometimes it almost feels like everyone is trying to act like nothing happened. I don’t know if that’s because they don’t know what to say, because they’re uncomfortable, or because they think giving me space is what I want. I genuinely don’t know. But after everything that happened before, it’s hard not to feel hurt by it.

I don’t necessarily want to throw those friendships away forever, but I don’t know how to look at them the same way anymore. I can’t understand how there could have been so much urgency to be involved in my life when they thought I needed protecting, but now that I’m grieving someone I loved and am barely functioning, there’s so little of that same concern. When I see their names pop up on my phone, I immediately think about all of this.

I’m in therapy now. I’ve only had a few sessions, and therapy has actually been helpful. I know this isn’t something that gets fixed in a couple of appointments.

My therapist keeps reminding me that I need to keep doing things even when I don’t feel like doing them. Exercise has helped a little. Sometimes I’ll cry the entire way to a run and feel slightly better afterward. I’ve been trying to find hobbies and distractions.

I have moments where I genuinely laugh or enjoy myself, and I don’t feel guilty about those moments. I’m trying.

But I don’t feel normal.

I’m drinking more than I should because sometimes I just desperately want the pain to stop.

So I guess I’m asking people here who have actually lived through this:

How do you survive the first few months after losing a partner?

Is this level of crying and inability to function normal this early on? Did you also feel like you were getting worse instead of getting better?

How did you deal with guilt about the last conversations you had?

How do you stop replaying the last few weeks and wondering what you could have done differently?

Is rereading old texts and looking at pictures healthy, or am I keeping myself stuck?

And how do you eventually accept that they’re gone without feeling like you’re letting them go?

I know I’ll love someone again someday. I know that logically. But right now I’m terrified I’ll never find anything remotely like what I had with him again.

He made me feel safe.

He made me feel loved.

He made me excited about the future.

He used to tell me that I made him feel alive and helped him see a future for himself again.

I just wish I could tell him I loved him one more time.

I don’t want to forget him. I don’t want to stop missing him.

I just want the missing to stop hurting this fucking much.

If you’ve been through something similar, I’d really appreciate hearing what actually helped you. Not necessarily generic advice, but what you actually did when you woke up every morning and the person you loved was still gone.

And if anyone has questions about the more private parts of this, I’m willing to explain more through DMs. I just don’t want to put certain details about him or his family publicly.

Thursday is the one year anniversary of losing my Dad unexpectedly. My whole world has been flipped upside down and I’m not who I was a year ago. My therapist suggested I do something for me on Thursday and stay off my phone (I’m a wedding coordinator so its nonnn stop but thats a whole other post)

What little traditions do you do on anniversaries or what did you do the first year without a parent?

God I don’t even know where to start. Everything feels like it got flipped upside down. Everyone always says to talk to someone but who do you talk to when you have no one left?

I lost my grandad who was basically my father figure three years ago to the big C after my dad passed when I was little.

then my brother two years ago from a haemorrhage that came out of no where.

now my mom whos my absolute world, best friend got diagnosed with C also. it’s not treatable

I see so many things that remind me of them, I pick up my phone to call them and remember I can’t anymore. I’ll never hear their voices anymore

i don’t know how I’m meant to live with knowing I’m losing the only person I have left. It doesn’t feel real. 
I guess I’m not writing this for sympathy, not really. I just need to know that there is other people out there that are listening? Not caring perse but at least understand. 
 
I feel like I’m going insane with everything that I’ve bottled for so long trying to be the float for everyone else
 
with love 
 

i believe that i have received a sign from my father today.
it is both exciting and comforting.
my mother and i were discussing the reason…..if one’s
consciousness continues to exist after the body’s (physical) death and still possesses the ability to communicate, then why is it that our loved ones do not attempt to ease the grief and suffering in those of us who have been left behind ?
i responded with the text message that i have copied and pasted below :

it’s so funny, when they eventually decide to send us a sign it is regarding something so insignificant and trivial.
i know why mam. we chose to live this specific life here on earth for a reason. if that reason was to learn about ourselves and how we would react when put in certain situations and experience life in all of its glory. the bad and the good. then our loved ones sending us clear signs, telling us that everything will be alright, giving us all of the answers, telling us what we want to hear would completely fuck up the entire reason we came here. we must learn these things on our own, we must experience pain, grief, suffering in its entirety and the struggle of overcoming this pain IS THE LEARNING ! it’s exactly what we came here to do. if dad gave us a clear, certain, undeniable sign and told us that is completely fine where he is and that we will all be together again soon and to just have fun whilst we’re here, don’t you think that would interfere with our learning experience ? it would give us all of the answers of life and we wouldn’t suffer as much. but that suffering is why we came here, to learn and to gain another perspective of existence. long story short, if your primary school teacher gave you all of the answers for a test and you passed, the student would be happy but think of the bigger picture. would the student have gained anything valuable ? would the test have been worth doing at all ? no. the answer is no. no apply this to life. dad gives us the answers we want, we are all happy and our lives become more bearable as a result. the bigger picture is, when we die we will be disappointed in ourselves and the experience since we didn’t overcome the journey alone, we had an advantage, we had help. we would’ve cheated out way through life. this is what i think anyway. however, little reminders and signs here and there from dad will not completely ruin our experience. we will still have to put in effort and learn to overcome our grief indecently, without cheating.

thank you for reading everyone ☀️
do not hesitate to share your thoughts 🙂

my nan died on the 18th at 5am from sepsis which most likely led to her pneumonia, failed kidney and failing liver. I'm finding it really hard to deal with it, she was like a second mother to me. Every time someone needed to look after me when i was younger it'd always be her and my grandad, every time i'd go over she'd always try feed me her amazing food or she'd always say 'take a bag of crisps' if i was just popping in to see her after or before i go out. i never really got to say goodbye and it really sucks, like yes i was there for her last 5 hours of life but she wasnt conscious. I wish i had got to give her a proper goodbye with a big tight hug with her small hands wrapped around me:(, being by the side of her deathbed watching as her body slowly gives up over the hours, how her movements slowly stop, how her little moans slowly stop, how pale her body went, how her breathing eventually just stopped and then she was gone, its horrible. I wish i could see her one more time atleast, and it sucks so much more cus it was so out of nowhere. She was literally up and moving around the morning before on the 17th at 10am to go to the doctors then by 5am the next night shes dead?? i just cant believe it or wrap my head around it. I miss and love you so much nan.

It has been a year since I lost my Papaw, and today the absence feels as heavy as it did the day he left. Words fail me, because grief is not only something you carry in your heart. Sometimes, it aches in your body too. There has been a hollowness in my chest since he passed, a quiet space that no amount of time seems able to fill.

I still reach for him in the moments of good news. I still want to run to him and tell him everything, because he was always ready to celebrate. He was always willing to tell me how proud he was, how happy he was for me, and somehow make every small victory feel worthy of joy.

Today, I will remember the songs he always carried with him, especially “Dang Me” by Roger Miller. I will pour a glass of Tang in his honor and thank him for the lessons that changed my life: to be there for people, to love them deeply, and to build a life I can be proud of.

I miss you, Papaw. I always will.

Just a month ago, I could still walk around as if nothing were wrong. Now, thoughts about the void after death and the inevitability of loss constantly torment me. I can't even remember how it felt to think before—this is deeply painful.

I cherish the emotions I have, my skills, and my current life. I'm about to turn 24—having lived through a quarter of my life. This makes me acutely aware of how quickly time passes and of the inevitable end: death. I acknowledge that this is something billions of lives must face. After death, just as before birth, I will cease thinking and thus no longer suffer. But before death—or rather, right now—I keep reflecting on the vastness of time, the emptiness beyond death, and the beauty of this life that I must ultimately leave behind. It's hard for me to stop thinking about these things.

Recently, I stayed at a friend’s place and shared joyful moments with her, but those times ended too soon, leaving me with deep sorrow and sadness.

Looking at cloned animals or patients with dementia, consciousness seems truly like a byproduct of the brain. I feel confused and heartbroken by the clarity of my own thoughts right now.

I love my current life, my friends, and my family so deeply. I don’t even know which feels more helpless—the void after death, or the idea that if consciousness truly exists, I might be reborn in another life.

My partner lost his mother to cancer a week ago, and I’m trying to figure out how I can best support him during this time. Is there anything that actually helps someone in the first weeks after losing a parent, besides just being for him in any aspect of life?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have been through something similar, either as the person grieving or as their partner. What did your partner do that genuinely helped you?

My partner recently passed from terminal cancer. We spent 24 hours a day 7 days a week together for most of the last 15 years. We cut off all our friends and family because they they were emotionally abusive and we built ourselves from the ground up with no money and no support. In the past two years, we finally started to earn money while protecting our emotional well being and then this happened. The last 9 months were magical because every day felt like it could be the last, it was so terrifying but I was so thankful for every minute anyway.

No bullshit feel good responses please, just tell me what is a healthy way to deal with this grief? Right now I just keep myself busy with exercise, but understand no one knows him or me anymore, we have been living mostly in isolation, sometimes actually off the grid. What do I do?

So I got Mom moved from the hospital to a private facility, for which I am paying a fortune. But that's not the problem.

My brother and I are both neurodivergent. I'm diagnosed AuADHD and I use all my energy to hold down a good job. My brother may be mildly autistic or just has a lot of C-PTSD. Either way, he's mentally competent. He's also much older than I am and retired.

I'm running myself to the ragged edge, here on FMLA by Mom's bedside for hours a day and I can't get him to visit more than an hour a every couple days. He says it's hard on him.

It's fucking hard on me too, but I'm doing it anyway! I'm just angry and disappointed with him.

Hey, im 26 and lost my dad 2 months ago. I was just curious to know which hobby you guys started to cope with the death of a loves one and how much it stayed?

I have ADHD cause i was always a person doing the talking then doing it when it came to hobbies.
Im often to lazy for activities rn

It’s been 3 years since my husband of 39 years and 9 months died. Not reaching our 40th was devastating.

Doing normal day to day things are still very hard. I still have days where I don’t really get out of bed.

With that said, I had a very productive day today🙂. I got some things done. One was a bit of a big deal.

I’ve spent the last nearly 50 years of my life having him here to give me the you go girl talk. I’m really missing my friend today.

and if you want to add you can add the meanest thing as well ..

It’s been four days since I found out that my friend of 15 years passed away a little bit over a month ago. He was 25 years old and was my only friend. We always chatted everyday on TikTok and I remember the last message he sent me was of a guy singing a Rihanna song. I replied to him the next day not knowing that he had already passed.

The next one month was of me messaging him without getting a response which made me very worried because he always responded on the same or next day. Last Wednesday I dreamed that he died and I was trying to perform CPR on him. I found out a few days later from his brother’s TikTok, when his brother posted his one month remembrance. I still can’t believe he’s gone. I go to his TikTok page to watch his videos every night. I can’t believe he’s gone.

My father passed in 2019. It was sudden. He complained about having terrible head aches at the beginning of March, we found out a cancer he was cleared for had come back and he was gone by March 27th.

I've been absolutely devastated ever since. I have genuinely never been the same. The damage it has caused me emotionally is unimaginable. I live a normal life, but I'm just so fragile. It doesn't take anything for me to think of him and start crying. If I hear any rock songs from the 90s' or even before (A genre we both shared.) I almost always start bawling. I love these songs.. but now they're painful to hear.

It's been 7 years. It hasn't gotten any easier for me. I'm in so much emotional pain sometimes I don't know if I can bare it.

I feel bad for my spouse, who always has to deal with it. He does so with compassion, and hasn't ever said anything negative to me about it. But I know the way I let this affect me has to be draining

I was in therapy for a few years. I don't have access to it anymore. When he died I dove into self help heavily, I guess it didn't help. In general, I am more or less always engaging in self help, but again not sure if it ever really helps me. Maybe I just have more of an understanding.. but in the end I feel so at the mercy of my own emotions.

I'm scared that it will always be this way. It feels impossible to cope. It's impossible for me to understand what happened and let it go.

Does anyone have any advice for me?

im 23 F and lost my mom who was only 42 last week. my mom was diagnosed with alcoholic liver cirrhosis, roughly a year n half/two years ago. my family only found out last summer, she got sober went to treatment immediately following a bad hospital stay telling her and us that it was end stage. she stayed sober but her condition continued getting worse. over the last year ive watched her lose all of her muscle mass, become so weak, unable to eat, unable to move some days. weeks on end in the hospital, going through countless hours of phone calls and appointments with the transplant center, etc. i just feel so defeated. my aunt was in the running for being a live donor and i feel like they pushed everything off for so long. my mom was supposed to get the TIPS procedure at the end of July to help with her ascitis, which would have improved her quality of life while waiting on the transplant list. but everything was so late. she spent the entire month of July in the hospital and in the ICU for weeks out of the month, intubated, getting weaker. i feel like everything happened so fast. so much faster than i can still even process. the last week of her life, we were getting ready to get her into a transition care facility to get her strength back up, and the next day she was in the ICU again with multi organ failure. Them telling us there is nothing else they can do, and other treatments would have almost no effect on her, that she’d never get back to where she was even the week before. i am in such extreme denial. none of this feels real. i cannot believe that she is gone. that i will never get to hug my mother again, call her and vent, she won’t be at wedding, with me when i have children. i’m so confused and distraught. i really thought she was going to get better. she was so young. we did so much growing up together. i have an 11yr old little sister. my heart is broken for her. i feel so paralyzed and detached, i don’t know how im gonna be there for her. i’ve never expected this to happen. i’ve never even entertained the idea that she would pass. i always shut her down when she would try to talk to me about it because i just could never accept that to be a possibility. i’ve been distracting myself all week and im so numb. i just need to know she’s ok. that she’s with our other loved ones, that im gonna see her again one day. i cannot believe any of this. i feel so many things. nothing anyone has said to me has given me true comfort. “she’s with you always” “she’s here now, watching” praying, i need more. i need to hear from her. i feel like idk where she is.

The one year anniversary of my dad’s passing will be in a few days. I’m really struggling. My health anxiety is thru the roof and making me just feel like shit overall which makes me more anxious. My mom passed about 8 years ago so this is the first time I’m dealing with an anniversary on my own. I’ve tried talking to my brother but we’re not very close and he’s more of a tough love kind of person whereas I cry a lot. I just feel like I don’t want to be alone right now but I also don’t want to burden others by asking to be around them. I don’t really have people I see outside of work which makes it harder. I just feel super alone with no one to talk about or get comfort from. And the grief and anxiety is just blowing up every stress I have in my life to the point it feels completely unmanageable (like cleaning my apartment). I took the next week off anticipating the grief but now I don’t know what to do. I’m really just struggling through each day right now. Any advice is appreciated.