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Not feeling like I should - My dad passed away yesterday

MissA87
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My dad lost his long fight with cancer yesterday. Even though the fight was long the end was quick he spent Sunday at a wedding and gone on Monday. I was lucky enough to have been there by chance, I even washed and dressed his body for the undertakers. I of course cried, but I feel like I should be worse than I am, I thought I wouldn't be able to drag myself out of bed today but I got up and cleaned and sorted my kids and went about my normal routine. My family have broken down and had panic attacks and I feel like I should have too. My dad was young, he was my best friend, we was so close. I feel unbelievable guilt for feeling like I should be crying all day especially where it's so new. Could I be in shock? I just feel weird instead 

  • Hello MissA87

    I'm so sorry that you lost your much-loved Dad earlier this week. Undoubtedly this will be a difficult time for the whole family however there are no hard and fast rules about how each person should grieve. 

    Grief is a natural process; while it can feel overwhelming, not everyone experiences grief in the same way. Feeling numb is very common in the early days following a bereavement. Please don't put pressure on yourself to feel or behave in a certain way. Instead, be kind to yourself and take each day as it comes. I suspect that there will be plenty of tears in the coming weeks and months. 

    If you feel at any point you want to talk to someone about how you're feeling then do get in touch with Cruse, a charity that's able to offer bereavement support. 

    On behalf of the whole Cancer Chat team, please accept our condolences and know that our thoughts are with you all. 

    Best wishes, 
    Jenn
    Cancer Chat moderator 

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    Hey I'm so sorry for your loss. We all cope differently and when my mum passed I don't think it really hit me until 3-6 months later... To begin with you're just dealing with everything and managing everything and you don't have time to really appreciate that they're really gone. Sorting funerals, assets, homes, telling people what's happened, sorting family, remembering to eat, drink and bathe with all that's going on around you... You're managing and coping just as you and your brain needs you to.

    You're doing fine and you're grieving how you need to. If you feel you need to cry now then fine, if you feel you need to crack jokes to manage for now, then that's fine too.

    You may be upset a few months down the line like I was. When it suddenly really hits you. Or you may not.

    You're in a state of shock at the moment as well  - it does get easier and please don't compare your feelings to others as your feelings are your own. sending you and your family lots of love and healing thoughts x

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    Hi MissA87

    I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.

    It might be shock or might not. I don't think there is a certain way anyone 'should' feel after the loss of a loved one. It's a very personal process I believe and everyone is different. There is nothing wrong with what you're feeling at the moment and there's no need to feel guilty about this. I lost my mother 10 months ago and although it was extremely stressful from the beginning because of my underlying anxiety, the real grief hit me about 5 months later. I don't mean in any way 'wait and see what's coming' because as I said everyone is different. One of my closest friends lost her father in the summer and has managed to go on with her life pretty quickly so there are no rules here I believe.

    Look after yourself and keep close the ones you love and care about! I've made the mistake of needing my space more and more ofter and avoided meeting friends etc. but in the end I think it's made it a lot worse. xx

     

     

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    There's no "should" with these things. And honestly, many, probably the majority of, people never have panic attacks or are unable to get out of bed due to unhappiness, no matter how bad things get. Those, while normal responses to grief are not something everybody who is really upset experiences.

    I also think that sometimes when somebody has been ill a long time or is older, there is a sense that you have known it was coming and sometimes you almost grieve in advance.

    When my dad died, I felt sort of...distracted for a number of weeks, like I wasn't functioning at my best at work and so on and there was one day when I felt weirdly anxious, not to the point of having panic attacks or anything like that, but like everything was stressing me. And that was it. I don't think I cried or even really felt unhappy. I think it was largely that while his actual death was pretty much out of the blue, he was in his 80s and had had cancer a few years previously, so I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that it was likely to happen sometime in the following five years or so, so at some unconscious level, I was somewhat prepared.

    Your reaction sounds completely normal. I mean, not that there is any real "normal," but your reaction sounds pretty as close to "typical" as it's possible to get. Don't compare with other people. Their reactions are neither "better" nor "worse" than yours. People just react differently and being more visibly upset doesn't mean one loved the deceased person more.

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