It was so sudden… He wasn’t young. He wasn’t in great health. But still, seeing this man who I had so much fun with just a week prior lay motionless on the floor was not something I was prepared for, to say the least.
When I got the bad news a couple of days ago, I felt absolutely nothing. And I hated myself for it. When I got there, I had to fake every emotion. Put on a sad face, keep your head down, act like how a normal person would in this situation. Even seeing his dead body didn’t make me feel anything. It just felt like another normal day. I kept asking myself: How come the death of someone I love so much doesn’t affect me? What’s wrong with me? Am I a psychopath?
The next day, while I was going through files on his computer, it all hit me. He really was gone, and he’s not coming back. Never again would we laugh together about some dumb movie we watched. Never again would we talk about video games we’ve been playing. Or shoot random Gravity Falls references at each other. Or argue about Lord of the Rings lore. I lost such an amazing friend, a man who gave so much of his soul to me. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard in my entire life. It’s a relief to know I’m not insane. I could barely finish writing this paragraph because I begun crying again.
One thing I learned is that five stages of grief is not just some pop-psych nonsense, It is completely real. And let me tell you: Bargaining really fucks with you. It’s an endless cycle of questions that cannot be answered. What if we met just a bit more frequently? What if I gave him this gift just a couple of days earlier? What if I’d given him a phone call on the day it happened? Is there any set of circumstances that could have saved him? And for how long? And all that blame… How much of it was my fault? All of it? None of it? I have no idea. My brain has turned into a soup of contradicting emotions. All I can do right now is to distract myself so as to not think about it too much.
I guess now I have Depression to look forward to. Awesome. I must get through this.
Don’t know why I felt the need to write this on here, but here it is. Thank you for reading.
I blamed myself for my dad’s death for a really long time and hated myself for it. I held on to that hate for a long time and didn’t care about a lot of bad things that happened to me and felt I deserved all of it. Don’t do that. There’s no shortcuts through grief but I definitely got stuck in that phase way longer than I should have or was healthy for someone to experience. I struggled finding help and after a decade I just woke up and was like “wait, that wasn’t my fault” and sort of started moving on from there. Please take care of yourself
I mean, yes, there are typical stages, but it is a highly individualized process. How, when, and even if you move through them is different per person and per loss. I’m sorry that your first response was to judge yourself as bad or deficient because it’s completely normal to have a delayed reaction, even possibly a delay of months .
I’m sorry for your loss.
I’m so sorry
Sorry for your loss comrade, he sounded like a great dad. ngl the cycle of grief is very real and it’s a bitch to go though, went through it when my mom passed. Having someone to talk to helps, thankfully at the time I had a therapist who helped me along.
Thank you, he really was a great dad. And I’m sorry to hear about your mom
I’m sorry for your loss, it sounds like y’all had a pretty great relationship. Cherish the memories you have and be easy on yourself, grief is weird.
Yeah we had a great relationship. I just wish I had been more present for him. He had some health issues that he didn’t seem to want to talk about and the few times I tried to bring it up with him, he would kinda hand wave it away. I would have loved to pay for his medicine or for his doctor visits. I just hope he was doing it out of some sense of pride or something. That he didn’t assume I would think of him as a burden and stop loving him
Unanswered questions can be so difficult to process, I’m sure he knew you loved him dearly. I mean, I can feel it in your replies comrade. If an internet stranger can see it, you can bet he saw it in you as well.
I think you’re right. Thank you so much
My condolences comrade, please try to take care of yourself
Sorry for your loss. Don’t hold your tears in.
I think it’s pretty common to not feel anything right away. It’s a cliche that everyone experiences grief differently, but I think it’s a cliche for a reason. I’m glad it didn’t take long for the dam to break for you. That interim period can sow some harmful seeds of doubt if left to fester for too long.
I will say that the stages of grief aren’t pop science, but them happening in that specific order was observed in terminal patients dealing grief about their own lives. Grief in general can skip over steps and it can repeat them and it can get stuck if not processed. It’s different for everyone. But it seems like you’re on a healthy, if lengthy, track to healing.
It’s more a whirlwind or cyclone of grief. Another extenuating factor is where you are in your life, like if you already have personal stressors or you have to immediately start taking administrative action because of the death your brain will just ignore the sadness for a while. Then it will slowly start creeping in in waves for months or years.
This is almost verbatim what I felt when I lost a parent.
The most eerie thing was how utterly mundane it was, both in the moment and for the rest of the day. I think the human brain is designed to cope well with emergencies: get yourself to safety first, process emotions later.
The next several weeks were filled with random, sudden tears. Pulling to the side of the road because I couldn’t see when my eyes welled up. All this for someone who, despite being my parent, I wasn’t that emotionally close with.
It never really gets less sad, but you do start to understand how to accept it. Your brain starts to understand how to integrate this new information into your psyche, which right now feels as absurd as if the sky literally fell down.
If my experience is anything to go by, your experience is incredibly normal. My heart goes out to you.
Sending you some good vibes, comrade
I’m sorry for your loss.
