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My amazing Mum died....why can’t I feel anything?

Laura72
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My amazing Mum died just over 3weeks ago. 

She was diagnosed with breast cancer 7years ago but it returned 4years later on her lung. We were of course told that this time it was incurable but they said it was treatable. Mum was doing so well and everything was stable while taking chemo tablets but the medicine they had given her for high calcium levels caused necrosis of the jaw and she was taken off the tablets for several months while it healed. In January we were told there were “worrying changes” in her lymph nodes and in April they said the cancer had progressed further. Despite saying they would put a treatment plan into action, Mum’s condition deteriorated very rapidly. In the weeks before she passed I was distraught! Crying lots, shaking, feeling sick but then, 4 days before it actually happened, a strange calm serenity descended upon me and I have generally stayed like that ever since. Dad and I planned the funeral, I called relatives and friends with the news, booked the flowers, all without shedding a single tear! I didn’t even cry much at the funeral.

I have always been an emotional soul, I would love a pound for ever time I’ve called my mum in floods of tears and she’s had to calm me down, so it feels really weird to be completely emotionless about the thing that I have been petrified of my whole life! 

I am an only child and my mum and I were exceptionally close. I idolised her and the feeling was mutual. We were the best of friends. We still went on holiday with my parents and we’d stay there a week at Christmas, my children adored her. I am so worried she’s looking down and thinking I didn’t care! I’m frightened other people think I don’t care. No one can believe how well put together I am. People say “I can’t imagine the pain you’re feeling!” but I can’t feel any pain. Although I know it’s not, at the moment it all feels like I’ve just got to wait a short time and then she’ll be back! I repeat to myself “My mum is dead” but I just can’t get my head around it. 

Has anyone else felt this way? Is this normal? Am I just in self preservation mode? Sometimes I think it’s because I’m way too scared to let it sink in. I don’t want to believe it as I’m too frightened of the pain it will cause. Or could it be that I was a lot more prepared for this than I thought I was? 

All your thoughts would be gratefully appreciated. This really doesn’t feel right 

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    Hi I no exactly how u r feeling my mum passed away on 6th June this year I'm the same I feel as tho I can't cry I have cried everyday the past three years when we first found out I was an emotional wreck to the point the family where more worried about me than mum to how I was coping with it but now u just feel as tho I can't cry i the same say my mum is gone to myself but I still think mum will come back which is absolutely never going to happen it's so strange mum was my best friend and everyone always said we were like a double act u never seen 1 without the other day just do t understand how o feeling I hope u r ok as u can b 

  • Offline in reply to mymummymero

    Hiya

     

    So sorry to hear you lost your lovely Mum. Over a year later and I still am holding it together and hardly ever cry. I think it's a coping mechanism and I also think that, when you know you will lose someone, you do a lot of your grieving while they are still around. And I had the most amazing amount of anxiety and worry at the thought of losing my Mum that effected me every day so when the worst did happen, all that angst went away. If that makes sense? 
     

    I guess there's no right or wrong way to grieve. I literally ache with missing her but still the tears hardly fall. 
     

    Just go with the flow and take as much time for you as you can....I'm sure that's what she would want for you. Enjoy life, be as happy as you can and rejoice in the fact that we have been so blessed to have had such wonderful Mums in our lives. They will always be by our sides. 

     

     

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  • Offline in reply to mymummymero

    Hiya

     

    So sorry to hear you lost your lovely Mum. Over a year later and I still am holding it together and hardly ever cry. I think it's a coping mechanism and I also think that, when you know you will lose someone, you do a lot of your grieving while they are still around. And I had the most amazing amount of anxiety and worry at the thought of losing my Mum that effected me every day so when the worst did happen, all that angst went away. If that makes sense? 
     

    I guess there's no right or wrong way to grieve. I literally ache with missing her but still the tears hardly fall. 
     

    Just go with the flow and take as much time for you as you can....I'm sure that's what she would want for you. Enjoy life, be as happy as you can and rejoice in the fact that we have been so blessed to have had such wonderful Mums in our lives. They will always be by our sides. 

     

     

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