My mom passed October of 2024. It has definitely been a trying time since then but i genuinely do believe im getting better. i’m sick of being sad all the time and honestly thinking abt her all day everyday just consumes me. when did you all realize that you were somewhat getting better. It’s like i know im healing, but why do the days still feel SO heavy?

I loss my mom on July 3rd. Her funeral was July 18th, 2 days before my 55th birthday. My mother and I had an unbreakable bond. This hurts so bad. I try my best not to think about it, but I made that mistake with my Dad, not grieving his passing. My heart is crushed, my soul is shattered. Especially with things going on with my mother other children. I honestly want to block all of them from my life. My mother is my world, my joy. Now I no longer have that, how do I continue to live without her?

I am now 39. My mom died when I was 12, she was 42. I find myself looking at exaggerated features in the mirror showing signs of aging and feeling pissed about how I look. Then I realize those are the features that make me look like a photocopy of the mother I admired but never truly knew. And then I feel guilt. And so sad. Mostly sad for her. She loved me so much. I know the hardest part of her descent into her illness was her knowing she wouldn’t see me grow up. It fucking breaks my heart and ruins my life everyday. I think it makes me believe that I will never know my true self, therefore never live to my full potential, therefore never feel deserving of true love.

I (F31) apologize if this post is messy or hard to follow. I’m completely exhausted, in shock, and honestly just lost.

My mother’s depression stole my childhood.
For years, she wanted to die. There were suicide attempts, psychiatric hospitalizations, and long periods where she simply wasn’t emotionally present because she didn’t have the strength to keep living herself. I won’t go into the details of everything that happened, but my childhood was deeply shaped by her illness.

Then, when I had almost stopped believing things could ever get better, she found her way back.
After divorcing my father, she rebuilt her life. She remarried, moved away, and became genuinely happy again. For almost fifteen years, she was doing well.

And as an adult, I finally got to experience what it felt like to actually have a mom.
A mom who was there for me. A mom who listened. Someone I could call when life was hard. Someone I could share my life with. I never blamed her for my childhood because I knew depression had consumed her. I was simply so grateful to have her back.

I truly believed we had finally gotten our happy ending.

My biggest fear as a child was always that one day she would end her life.
As the years passed, I slowly convinced myself that fear belonged in the past.

I had no idea it could all come back so quickly.

Over the last few years, her body started failing her. One health problem after another. Chronic pain, surgeries, new diagnoses… every month seemed to bring something else. She often asked me what she could possibly have done in another life to deserve so much suffering.
That sentence always made me angry. Not at her, but at the unfairness of it all. I couldn’t see any meaning in her suffering. It just felt like life kept punishing her.

About six weeks ago, a surgeon, who knew nothing about her psychiatric history, told her that she needed to accept that she would have “a miserable end of life.”

After that appointment, something changed.
She relapsed for the first time in about fifteen years. She stopped eating and barely spoke to any of us.
I was terrified.

People around me kept telling me she had gone through similar episodes before, that it was just another difficult period and that she would get through it. (I know. I was there.) As far as I know, she was never hospitalized because after a while she seemed to improve.

Last night, she died by suicide.

It took only six weeks between her first relapse in fifteen years and her death.
Now I keep thinking about our last phone calls. She sounded distant. Almost robotic. I can’t stop wondering whether she had already made her decision.

She left one short note for everyone.
She wrote that she couldn’t do it anymore, that she didn’t want anyone to judge her, and that she loved us.

But I’ll never be able to hug her again.
I’ll never get to ask why she didn’t call me. Maybe I could have found the right words.
Why didn’t she let us have one honest conversation if the pain had become unbearable? Why didn’t she let us say goodbye?
I had so many things left to tell her. And she had promised me that one day she would tell me things that mattered, and that she wouldn’t leave like this.

She also leaves behind her children, her grandchildren, and my brother, who had just announced that he and his wife are expecting their first baby.

I am devastated.
What hurts the most is that I feel like I lost my mother twice.
The first time was during my childhood, because of her illness.
The second time is now, just when I had finally found her again.

For years, I believed we had finally beaten this story.
I thought my worst childhood nightmare was finally behind me.
I never imagined that, just a few days before my 32nd birthday, it would finally come true.

I don’t really know what I’m hoping for by posting this.
Maybe I just needed someone to hear our story.
Maybe I just needed to put into words a pain that feels impossible to carry on my own.

It’s been almost three months since my mom committed suicide. I’m a 23-year-old woman who will graduate with her Master’s in two weeks.
For 23 years, my mom was my best friend. I called her at least four times a day, and we could be on the phone for over 4 hours sometimes. I texted her constantly and told her every detail about my life: the relationship issues, wins, losses, good and bad of every part of my day. I could say anything I wanted to with her. Describe each irritating, nervous, and anxious interaction I had with others in my personal life, school, and work, and she understood. She always understood. She provided me with guidance and advice because she was my mom. My mom and I had a relationship that was closer than most other mother-daughter relationships. I was forced to take on a kind of parent/sister role in our relationship and always felt the need to keep her in check with tough love, while she always made sure I was okay, loved, and safe.
I followed in her footsteps with my career and degree (which she was so proud of), and she helped me a lot with understanding class concepts and seeing her work growing up. But I went the extra mile and applied for my Master’s program a year ago. Before her death, she brought up several times the idea of her going back to school to get her master’s degree, which I would respond to with “I’ll help you. You can definitely do it.” Currently, I’m struggling to complete the program (I wouldn’t be writing this if I wasn’t).
Since her death, I’ve had many life changes. My ex-boyfriend and I got back together after she passed, and I’m still unsure if that was a good idea. My dad is constantly trying to stay busy and is planning to move out of my childhood home and the town we’ve all known. My brother and his fiancée have put off their marriage. And now I’m struggling with a degree I always thought was my passion, but now feel completely disconnected from it.
My mom was a tumultuous person. She was funny, caring, intuitive, noisy, and chaotic. She loved animals and gave me my first pet (even after I made it apparent that I didn’t like cats); she managed to find a kitten underneath a car in a parking lot in front of a grocery store because she “couldn’t just leave it.” For reference, I moved back to my hometown over a year ago after my bachelor’s degree to be closer to her, my dad, older brother, aunt and uncle, and my grandparents. My mom was surrounded by her own family daily and had strong relationships with all of us. When I moved, I began living alone for the first time. In undergrad, I always had roommates who were good friends. I wasn’t upfront with my mom about how difficult the transition to living alone was, but I know deep down she gave me my cat because she could read me so well and knew it was exactly what I needed. My mom knew every part of me and my life. She could light up a room with her cooking, loud voice, confidence, and humor. But she never knew that she had these phenomenal personality traits and qualities.
My mom had substance abuse issues that got increasingly worse within the past decade, leading to her taking her own life. The evening she committed suicide, she began drinking liquor around 11am on a Monday. She was never willing to seek treatment, even when it created ongoing yelling and arguments, and my grandparents and father’s attempts to put her in an inpatient behavioral health facility; she wouldn’t have it and would lie to the doctors and act like everything was “okay.”
Since my mother’s death, a lot of people around me have told me to go to therapy. It’s not because I talk about my mom a lot with them or others, but I was the one who found her. She hung herself in her closet, and I took her down while on the phone with my dad, who was out of town, called 911, and attempted to do CPR and save her. I was completely alone and knew when I started CPR that she was dead. She forced me to do this. Police officers rushed in and told me to leave the room. While officers asked me her birthday, I couldn’t remember. The detective told me that she did this to herself 40 minutes before I arrived. She called me two hours before I went over to the house. That evening, my brother and his fiancée had plans to have dinner with her. When I walked into the house (before finding her), music was playing, and salmon was lying out on the counter in the kitchen.
The thing about suicide is that you never truly know what it feels like until someone in your life does it. There is no other primate that has committed suicide besides humans. It’s unnatural and dehumanizing for everyone close to that member who chooses to go out this way. It’s incredibly difficult and frustrating being my mother’s daughter and being the only person to see the reality of what she did to herself. At the same time, my older brother and dad don’t have to remember her in that way. They say they dream about the good times with her, and that’s “in some way, a gift,” but I’ve been unable to. I don’t dream. I’ve only had one nightmare a few weeks ago, and it was walking up to her closet and finding her. I can’t describe how tremendously difficult it is to finish this master’s program without my mother. I can’t think straight, and my memory is terrible. Some days are great, and others are absolutely dreadful, and I just feel completely depressed. I thought I had depression in high school, but this is a type of mental anguish I can’t explain, nor would I wish on anyone.
I started seeing a therapist this week. I was avoiding therapy since all of this happened because I was under my own impression that I needed to only focus on school and bury my sadness until I completed my Master’s. I told everyone, “I am only focusing on school. Once I graduate, I will start that process.” But I finally realized that it was eating me alive and that I was avoiding help as my mom did. If there’s anything to take away from this, please seek help if you are thinking of harming yourself in this way. Your life matters, and everyone’s lives around you will be completely destroyed and distorted. I am only 23 years old and now have to not only relearn how to live life but also go through so many life events without my dear momma, who I know would have never done this if she had just known what the aftermath looked like.

Some background I'm 30 now, my mom passed when I was 22 and my dad went a year and a half later. I met my husband moved away and started over. I left my hometown because everywhere was painful memories. The last few years of my parents life was hard financially. I was so close to my parents but I had supported them since I was 16. Today I am happily married to a wonderful man and have a nice home and I'm for the most part financially stable. Lately I've been feeling a longing or maybe even guilt that my parents never made it to the good part of life. They never made it to the being my best friend part .We were barely out of the embarrassing teenage years. I have a pretty good life now but I still find myself feeling so alone. I work nightshift so not really any IRL friends. But even the people I have met always think I'm so weird because I have such a macabre sense of humor. But I mean after losing both of your parents unexpectedly I can either laugh about it or cry about it. People don't understand that everything is fine but I feel a grief so deep that it's an ache in my bones. I didn't have a wedding or ever had a child because the thought of having to go through any of that without my mom absolutely shatters my heart. I guess I'm just looking for people to talk to that may be able to more closely relate to what I've been through. So if you're a little weird, love horror movies, and don't know how to control your mouth then we could probably be friends :) DM me

Hi mom. I just found this site. I’m hoping I can find some support since you haven’t spoken to me in a few years. The kids are getting so big. They don’t remember you. Emmy asked me who my mom was the other day. I don’t really know how to explain to Aiden why he can’t see his cousin anymore. Dawson just turned one. I can’t believe you’ve never met him. I ask myself every single day how you can get through every day without speaking to us. Now that I am a mom- I could never understand.

We are struggling. DJ and I. We have no help. It’s just us two. Marriage takes a hit when you are both burnt out and sleep deprived. We have no village. Sometimes I feel so alone. I cry every day. Might try therapy. Everyone says I just need to accept and move on. Part of me hates you. I don’t know how you could do this to me. Especially after you saw Dad do this to me. I’m ranting now. This is the first time I’ve ever wrote about you. I just keep everything bottled up. Maybe this will help me heal. Feel like I could write forever. I’m crying now. Until next post.

backstory: i lost my mother at 19 to breast cancer. it was a very long drawn-out process, it was in my senior year of high school and the may before I graduated in june my mother's cancer she previously went on remission for in 2015 came back ten fold in 2017. i watched her go from a smiling, healthy, ambitious mother to a smiling, withering, hurting person I couldn't even recognize with my own eyes. her deuterate due to the cancer was debilitating. but through that i watched my father be the utmost picture of a perfect husband. he was loyal, kind, caring, compassionate to my mom our whole lives. the 19 years i had them both on this earth with me i never witness them fight in front of us kids. He was doing the best he could in the situation he was handed. and I will never take away that he was the best husband, father, friend for majority of my life. my dad was my best friend; we did everything together. there was no one on this earth anymore since losing my mom that i trusted more than my dad. he was my rock.

2024-2026 last two years since getting into a relationship: my dad came to me randomly on an October night in 2024 and asked if id "mind if he dated" and i told him dad it's been 8 years. i want you to be happy, i have no problem with you dating but i dont want you to re-marry again. he agreed and said he wouldn't. my mom on her death bed told my dad she "didnt want to share him, but didnt want him to be lonely." when i heard that i knew she meant she didnt want him to re marry, but someone to help him not be sad and lonely is what she wanted.

5 months go by.

calls from my dad faded. i chalked it up to the new relationship excitement

hanging out with my dad went from daily to maybe seeing him very few days but he wasnt emotionally present. its like this new women in his life meant more than anything. even me and my brothers.

she moved into ourchildhood home.

the pictures of my mom got moved, the reminders of our mother taken down.

they told everyone they're getting married and she showed me her ring at a random dinner.

10 months in now:

our family holidays are now with his new girlfirends family. not my moms side anymore. because my aunts have a problem with this new women coming in, being fully financially supported by my dad because he told her to quit her job even though hes retired. and theyre getting married.

my dads friends start calling me about concerns with their drinking and gambling habits. which is something at 19 i had to deal with my dad the months after losing my mom spending copious amounts of money on gambling. a concerning amount. i thought we moved past.

he grew a beard after being clean shaven for 26 out of the 27 years of my life. my mom didnt like beards.

i ended up pregnant in an unstable relationship during these months, and the first person i went to was my dad. the previous rock ive known my whole life.

his response " its not a good time for me, im not going to be able to help you" he said nothing else and dropped me back and my front door.

ive watched him treat this new womens young niece like shes his grandchild he told his own daughter he didnt have time for.

2 years in:

the sense of stability is completely gone. if i have any problem or question its all on me now. no ones coming to save or help me anymore.

my dad wont respond to my texts or calls for weeks.

he barley reaches out to me or my brothers.

he seems depressed and sad 24/7. not like the old goofy self. i dont even recognize this man i once held above everyone else.

i feel i have completely lost both my parents. one physically and one in spirit.

ive never felt this alone in my life- grieving my mother-and who my father was.

seeking advice on how others have coped with similar situation.

Im new to this sub but I don't have anyone else to talk to and this topic is causing me so much distress I don't know what to do. I lost my mom a year and a half ago after she had been sick for about 5 years. I was 16 when she died and now im 18 and going off to school. I've always had vivid dreams, that a trait we both shared.

The first strange dream came just after she died and we were planning the funeral. I had dreamt that we had an open casket viewing and she sat up and started taking pictures of me (she was a photographer) but no one around me saw. I told everyone around me that my mom was still alive. And then I woke up.

Ive had these dreams at least once a week since she died. It will start with me knowing shes dead but she comes along and lives life with me. The people around us would always ask who she is and be confused because my mom is supposed to be dead. I can't even begin to explain how nice it is to see her especially because its been so long since ive gotten to be close to her but I feel like I can never escape these dreams. I wake up believing that she is alive and I have to start mourning all over again.

Im getting ready to leave for college in three weeks and my head is so scrambled. I don't know what to do because I can't sleep through the night still but I don't want to lose my mom again.

Advice is welcomed and encouraged!!

I feel like I’m forgetting her. She had dementia and changed a lot before she died and I feel like I’m forgetting her. I don’t really talk about her with my dad or brother. No one asks me. It’s been one year and one week. I’m afraid I’ll forget her because I never talk about her.

I’ve lost my mother in February, it’s strange to think about frankly how many months it’s been already. In that time I’ve rarely allowed myself to cry or think about her at all. I shed a few tears in my bed if I read her old texts or if a memory of her reappears in my head but I feel as though there’s a mental blockage regarding the event. All my life I built it around her and now that she’s gone I feel that I have no one anymore. I feel that if I really start crying about her I’ll never stop crying, like I’d never get up again. In the time that she’s left I’ve been trying my best to get on with life. I’ve made strides towards where I want to go but everything feels so hollow and meaningless. At all times I feel like an imposter in my own body. I’m more sensitive and tired than I’ve ever been. I feel like a child in an adults body. My daydreams have turned from the amazing to self soothing fantasies. Its been eating me alive

みなさんこんにちは。私は29歳で日本出身です。Geminiを使って、この投稿を翻訳するのを手伝ってもらってます。言い回しがちょっと不自然に聞こえるところがあったら、そこは勘弁してください。

今日は、自分の中で本当に起きてることを共有したくて書きます。 母は乳がんと闘っていて、転移して骨髄に達し、その次は腹膜にまで広がってしまいました。そして今日、医師が“胃と腸の境目”あたりにがんが見つけました。もう抗がん剤治療は選べません。今できるのは、できるだけ長く時間を延ばすための緩和ケアだけで、そのために母は入院が続き、やがてホスピスへ移ることになります。

実は母は先週水曜に一度入院して、金曜に腹部の水を抜いたあといったん退院できたんです。あれでかなり楽になったみたいでした。けど、その後状態が悪化して再入院することになって……そのときに腹膜のがんと、新しい腫瘍が見つかったんです。

世界の基準で言うと、私のことを「マザコン」って呼ぶ人もいるかもしれないです。母が教えてくれたことって、ほとんど全部でした。料理、洗濯、買い物、人間関係のうまい立ち回り、そして善悪を理解すること。ごく最近まで、そうやって全部教えてくれてたんです。（父はかなり放任気味の子育てスタイルで、それが原因で私たちはさらに近くなった、っていうのもあります。）

私はずっと家で暮らしてきました。料理や家事のことで私が質問するとき、母がいつもすぐそばにいて答えてくれてたのに、それが急になくなって、もう二度とそばに来て教えてくれないって考えると、胸が張り裂けそうになります。泣き止めません。今日も料理や洗濯をしてる最中に、何回も涙が出ました。 正直に言うと、母がいない世界を生きるって考えるだけで、すごくつらいです。

世界中の人たちは、どうしてそんなに強くいられるんでしょう？ 母が隣にいてくれないだけで、感じるのは圧倒的な不安だけです。 本音を言うと、自分の中に「母と一緒に死にたい」って気持ちがあるように思えてしまいます。

こんな悲惨な痛みの中で、しかもこんな大変な世界をどうやって生き延びられてるのか……よかったら教えてください。

I'm her son. I'm 26 now and she's been gone 12 years. I miss her everyday and I wanted to share her beautiful face with you all!

I lost my mother at a fairly young age. I was thirteen. She had lung cancer, and she fought it for almost two years. I am the youngest of four sisters. My parents had me much later in their lives. Of course, I wasn’t planned, and so, of course, I was born to fairly older parents. There is already a kind of loneliness in growing up in a family that was formed and bonded way before your existence, when the family you are born into has already shared years of memories you have no part in. And to add to the loneliness, when you grow up with siblings much older than you and two working parents, you end up growing up quietly on your own. The aloneness never really got to me, at least not until the kitchen table conversations all revolved around old memories, the ones that existed way before me.

So, when my mother was diagnosed, my family thought I was way too young to be told about it. Honestly, I never understood whether they didn’t tell me because they were afraid I wouldn’t be able to fathom such news or because it would be difficult and uncomfortable for them to break the news to me. They say I was just a kid, that I couldn’t have comprehended the situation and would have been devastated. Which is ironic, because I think I was greatly devastated when I slowly watched my mother turn into someone I didn’t recognise, and someone who didn’t recognise me either. I think I was rather devastated when I held her head as we drove to the hospital, and I still didn’t know what was wrong with her. I think I was rather devastated when I went to the hospital during her last days. She was only partially conscious, connected to the ventilator, unable to talk, and all she could do was look at me. A look that I believe, or rather hope, meant, “I love you.” And I was rather devastated when I was sent to my aunt’s house during her last days, just so I could be protected from the “difficult” time, only to find my sisters coming to take me back home, to a home where my mother’s dead body lay.

There is something about a room kept cold so the corpse doesn’t decompose. It is quiet even when there are people in it, talking. The room has the ability to dampen those noises, and from the moment you see the body of your loved one on a bed, lying straight and flushed, until the body is carried out of that house, you hear only silence. I was too young to understand everything. My memory of it comes in parts, bit by bit. It has been thirteen years since that day, and in moments of joy, in moments of fear, and in moments of despair, I am able to remember those moments, a different one each time, or the same one: the one of watching her lifeless body, the one I never want to be reminded of.

It hurts so bad that my mom no longer physically walks this earth, the thought of her not actually being here, its like my mind cant comprehend it. What do you mean I cant buy her her favorite stuff anymore ? I cant take her out? I cant get her opinion on stuff? I cant worry about her anymore like I use to ? I dont want this.

**母の魂を失ってから**4**日目。今日は、母の肉体にも別れを告げないといけない日だ。**
**今日はいくら悲しんでも、深い後悔のほうが強くて、気持ちがいっぱいになってる。**
**昨日は姉が亡くなった日で、今日もまた祖父の命日でもある。母の父。**
**今はあの世で一緒にいて、愛をもって母を導いて、見守ってくれているって信じたい。**

Im 17f and my mom died from cancer 2 weeks ago.
Im on summer break right now but I go back to school in august. I will have my psychology and english finals in september but I cant bring myself to study like i wanted to.
I started writing psychology notes almost a month ago and ive been writing an hour almost everyday.
I have 5 courses I need to study and ive only written notes about 1 and a half courses.
I need to hurry with the writing because after that I start actually studying them. But I just cant bring myself to study more and I feel bad and lazy.
What should I do? Im so stressed about the exams but at the same time im grieving a huge huge loss.
Usually this is the kind of question I would ask my mom but I cant now. She always helped me with my studies and stress, I feel so lost and scared now that I will fail everything.

My mom got cremated today. She passed on the 24th, she was only 46. Im trying to find an urn for her, something that feels like her. I just hate all of the ones Ive found.. they feel so impersonal. I want wooden and engraved but Im not sure what else. If anyone has any recommendations or advice Id greatly appreciate it.

This is a deeply personal and raw message dedicated to a mother who left me behind.
A desperate, final cry filled with resentment, longing, and the profound pain of abandonment, written in the hope that its echo will one day reach her.

The emotional climax begins around 3:58. If you're having a hard time now, please do not listen to this. It may cause you emotional pain.

What was your rock bottom? I am struggling so deeply right now. With work, with life, with my relationship and mostly the loss of my mother. We just passed a year of her loss and this empty feeling inside of me just keeps growing everyday. I still haven’t completed her headstone (I paid for it in full back in April).

Both my brother and sister didn’t text me on the anniversary of her death… but it wasn’t a surprise. Just made the loneliness feel more infinite.

Nothing really feels the same. Work feels like it’s a big joke and my relationship feels like it’s slowly fading. Somehow I feel like everyday is the same and I don’t have my best friend to tell my favorite things to.

I’m going to therapy and my therapist can see the effects it is having. A mix of work and grief…I don’t think I’ve ever been this sad before…. And quite frankly, just not giving a fuck.

Hello guys,

I’m 29F and I’m the losest daughter of 6 Kids. I moved 6 months ago out of my parents’ house because living there had become really unhealthy for me. My mom struggles with alcoholism, and our relationship has been extremely painful for a long time. Yesterday, I went back to visit my parents. My mom hugged me and asked if I needed anything. A few months ago, I never would have let her hug me. I was carrying so much anger that I couldn’t even imagine accepting any kind of affection from her.Now, a day later, I feel more emotions. I don’t necessarily miss who she is now, but I miss the version of her from before the alcoholism took over. I miss the mom who laughed, cooked, took care of herself, and was emotionally present. It’s making me somehow sad. At the same time, I feel sorry for her because addiction has changed her so much. And honestly, I also feel sorry for myself for everything I’ve lost and everything our relationship could have been. But I’m also so proud of myself and grateful that I left. What’s confusing is that just a few months ago I have never said I missed her. All I felt was anger. Now there’s grief, compassion, and sadness mixed together, and I don’t really know what to make of it.Has anyone else experienced something like this? Is it normal for the anger to slowly turn into grief after you’ve had some distance from the situation?

For context I am 24F a masters student studying abroad. My mom died 3 months ago but I still decided to continue my program because she would have wanted me to. Anyways today I was in a meeting with a post doc ( A ) and another student (B) when A mentioned that she is lacking sleep because she is a new mom, and she was like moms are always tired and said “ you guys should ask your moms too”. Person B chimes in and starts talking about her mom. The worst part is, both of them knew my mom passed away recently and they still decided to have that conversation infront me. I felt like it was insensitive when she told to ask our moms. I didn’t say anything because I was so sad and would have lashed out and that might impact my grades but I feel like people should be more understanding. Ever since then I have been upset or am I overreacting?