Hello,

I am so sorry for your loss of your Mum and how you are feeling. I am 10 weeks after losing my Mum to Covid pneumonia/incureable lung cancer. Your description of feeling so numb and in survival mode for the first few months is exactly how I have been feeling. I feel in denial. I have lived with my Mum on and off most of my life as when I moved to Scotland to start a business for 10 years she came up to visit and stayed on and off to help most of that time, when I returned to Devon my partner and I moved in with her and we stayed for the last 8 years. Unfortunately I was not able to have children and I know my Mum helped fill that huge gap in my life. The problem is now she has gone there is a massive part of my life gone forever. Mum was my best friend and my world so I understand your pain. 

I am sorry that the awfulness of losing your Mum has resulted in your hair loss. The immense devastation that bereavement brings into our lives often will cause physical problems. I have symptoms of vertigo right now (it started last year) so bad I struggle each day, I have no doubt this has become worse through how I feel about Mum. If I find any advice about hair loss I will pass it on to you. I am guessing you have spoken to your GP. Often the problem won't get better until we start to feel stronger in ourselves. Stress and heartbreak can really affect us physically. 

Your right in saying until someone has gone through similar they can't really understand. I am finding the friends I thought would be supportive were ok for the first few weeks now 10 weeks on and I haven't heard from some of them for weeks, that is not how I would show support to a friend that has lost their world. It's almost like they get bored of hearing that your not still ok. If someone asks me how I am, I say the truth. I am missing Mum more now as time goes on and I feel my life will never be the same, I am not the same person as before and I wont be. This changes you. I think some people just want you get over it and return to normal.

Since Mum died I have become almost obsessed with dying, death and a possible afterlife. I think worrying about your Dad is completely normal. You have lost your Mum and now you are scared to lose your Dad. These feelings are natural. Have you tried any Counselling? I am on a waiting list for Cruse. I know talking can help and coming here also helps.

I am older than you, I am 47. You are very young to lose your Mum and I am so sorry for this. I still feel young to lose my Mum at my age. 1 year after losing your Mum is still very early, what is 1 year when you lose someone so important to you? Its nothing in the length of our lifetime. Please don't think you should be feeling ok after this length of time, grief is different for everyone. Some people move forward and get back to some kind of normality quicker than others. Some people still feel the same years later. There are no standard timescales. All I know personally is that the loss of my Mum will affect me for life, I will never be that carefree happy Jane that I was when Mum was alive but I do hope in time (and no pressure when) I will find some happy times, I will find joy and think of Mum with a smile knowing she would be happy for me and I do hope beyond anything that after this life Mum and I will be reunited again, I am struggling with believing there is an afterlife but I hope there is. I just want to make Mum proud of me for what life I have left and I want to make the most of life like she did.

When I start to feel complete panic that I will never see her again I have to immediate distract myself, either start to do something, talk to my dog (he really helps me), go outside for some fresh air/maybe a walk, start to read a book, anything that takes my mind off the complete panic. I also talk out loud to my Mum and I ask her to help me stay strong. I hope you can find some support here with us too. Take very good care of yourself.

Hi Chrissy,

Hello again! I am sorry it isn't getting easier but then, this is one of the hardest losses we have to bear so I am hoping you are finding solace sometimes throughout the day.

I think with friends and accquaintances. They will make the right noises when you tell them for the first time but you can't expect too much from them - grieving is a personal thing and the grieving of lost ones belongs to the people who are doing the grieving, you can't share it out I have found and if you try to talk about the person you lost over any period of time, people will just stay away - even when it is the loss of your parents. 

How I see this is simple. One day, your friends will experience what you're now experiencing - nobody escapes that eventuality unless they go before their parents - they will have to grieve their parents and you will only be able to help them so much, say the right things and show your sorrow and then retreat and let them grieve the loss because that is the only thing you can do because the grieving of this loss will take months if not years. 

I know you are hurt by the reactions of your friends but I would suggest try and be forgiving and don't blame them too much - most of the time, they don't know what to say after the initial condelences and they probably feel helpless because there is nothing they can do to make you feel better and the pain to go away, so they stay away instead. I think it is more to do with their inadequacies in helping you feel better and to ease the pain and the fact that most people just aren't very good listeners, we all want to unload on people we class as our friends but I found that the only people we can talk about our loss to is the people sharing that loss - in my case, my 87 year old father. 

I am hoping you find your peace over the coming months and years. 

Hi Chrissy,

Hello again! I am sorry it isn't getting easier but then, this is one of the hardest losses we have to bear so I am hoping you are finding solace sometimes throughout the day.

I think with friends and accquaintances. They will make the right noises when you tell them for the first time but you can't expect too much from them - grieving is a personal thing and the grieving of lost ones belongs to the people who are doing the grieving, you can't share it out I have found and if you try to talk about the person you lost over any period of time, people will just stay away - even when it is the loss of your parents. 

How I see this is simple. One day, your friends will experience what you're now experiencing - nobody escapes that eventuality unless they go before their parents - they will have to grieve their parents and you will only be able to help them so much, say the right things and show your sorrow and then retreat and let them grieve the loss because that is the only thing you can do because the grieving of this loss will take months if not years. 

I know you are hurt by the reactions of your friends but I would suggest try and be forgiving and don't blame them too much - most of the time, they don't know what to say after the initial condelences and they probably feel helpless because there is nothing they can do to make you feel better and the pain to go away, so they stay away instead. I think it is more to do with their inadequacies in helping you feel better and to ease the pain and the fact that most people just aren't very good listeners, we all want to unload on people we class as our friends but I found that the only people we can talk about our loss to is the people sharing that loss - in my case, my 87 year old father. 

I am hoping you find your peace over the coming months and years.