When the ONLY person you want is the one you've lost

Hi everyone,

To keep a long story short: I lost my father to this f*****g disease we call "cancer" about 18 months ago. He was the love of my life. EVERYTHING that means anything is tied up with my dad. And I currently have no will to live without him. For any moderator who may see this, please don't worry about suicide - I do not plan to kill myself. However, I have absolutely zero - and I mean ZERO - interest in anything else in this world, which no longer contains the most important and wonderful thing I've ever known - my father.

I'm writing this post not to get "advice," since that has always been totally useless. I'm writing this to reach out to anybody who feels the same way - do you feel that the only person you want to talk to is the one you've lost? That all other people and all other relationships are second-rate (sounds harsh, but it's how I feel) and largely pointless? Here are things I've tried and found useless:

1) Counselling (4 different counsellors) - utterly useless

2) Talking to friends - utterly useless (they mean well but their empathy skills are extremely poor)

3) Writing about how I feel - not entirely useless but not much good

4) Posting here occasionally - not entirely useless but so far of very limited use

Here are the two things that almost everyone says, both of which are also useless:

1) "Time will help" - maybe it will; maybe it won't. I wouldn't be so sure in my case. Since my father was my entire world, and since I've lost him, I don't see how "time will help." Is time going to bring him back? Obviously not. It is now 18 months since my father died and I do not feel different at all. Not one bit. Every day is exactly the same. I do not expect this to change any time soon. I would not be surprised if I felt like this for years. Hell, I would not be surprised if I feel like this forever. I have never loved anything or anyone in the way I loved my father. I have never been loved by anyone in the way I was loved by my father. Neither of those things is going to change. 

2) "Your father would want you to move on and live your life" - utterly useless advice. My father is no longer here! What he would want if he were here is irrelevant. What's relevant is that I don't have him with me, can't cuddle him, can't hear his laugh, can't feel his warmth, and so on. I don't want to "move on and life my life." I want to be with my b****y dad!

So that brings me back to the title of this post - the ONLY person I want is the one I have lost. The only THING I want (interaction with my father) is the one thing I can never have again. Instead I am supposed to spend the rest of my life on planet earth (which could be decades) without the only thing that ever really meant anything to me (on the deepest level). Everything else feels utterly trivial and pointless.

How are you supposed to live when the ONLY person you want to be with is the one you've lost? If you feel the same, feel free to reply,

Adam

  • Thank you for your replies, it is heartening to know there are others who can understand what I'm feeling.

    I know I'd be significantly worse with the support of the people who are around me and I'm so thankful for that.

    I find it so hard to gather the will together to keep going at times and to accept the fact that she's gone and not coming back, I'm sorry for hijacking this thread but I've been reading this place for weeks and I felt I could say how I'm feeling on here.

    I hope everybody who's going through this has the strength to see it through and in times finds happiness once more. 

  • I found this helpful. Thank you for writing it. I feel lost and just want to continue crying. I realised I needed to reach out because it doesn't work for me to depend on family or friends. I feel I have to comfort them. I don't know if I will ever get over the horror of the depth of emotion  and possible loss.Maybe, if the worst happens, I will have to be another kind of person. Seeing the world, and carrying the burden of loss for ever.Thank you for writing about your father. 

  • I'm glad it helped. I'm sorry if my post was overwhelmingly negative. That's just how I felt and how I feel. Like you, I don't know whether I'll ever get over the horror or the enormous void where my soul once was (my soul being my father). So at least you can know that there are others who feel like you. Wishing you strength

  • [@Dexter123]‍ 

    Your mum would be unbelievably proud of you, thanks again for your inspiration. Sending you a huge amount of love ️ ️ ️

  • No I also need to hear these posts as I feel like I'm the only person feeling so dark my mum is my world the only person who keeps me hanging on and looking forward in life I'm so scared

  • Ok - sometimes I wonder whether I'm just depressing the hell out of other people with my posts. I am living under a permanent cloud of depression and hopelessness and see no light at the end of the tunnel (since the "light" in my life was my dad), and I know I'm unlucky to "inspire" anybody with my posts.

    But if it helps to see that you are not the only person feeling as you do, then at least some good may come of what I write.

  • Meant to write "unlikely to inspire" (not "unlucky")

  • How long has it been since your dad passed?

    no it's helpful to know there's other people feeling like this it's indescribable so painful no words can even come close and my mums not even gone yet

    dont know how I'm physically or mentally going to cope 

  • Hi [@bras1548]‍ 

    I am sorry to hear about your father and how you have been feeling. Cancer is truly a horrible disease and life can be so cruel. I have been reading this thread and can relate to quite a lot of it because my mum died a few months ago from pancreatic cancer. I'm about 3 months into grieving and it's incredibly tough. After my mum was diagnosed (with very few warning symptoms) I became her carer. Within the space of 3 weeks I watched her get sick, diagnosed and change from being a very positive person to telling me she all she wanted to do was die as quickly as possible- the cancer broke her spirit. I was very close to my mum and it was heart breaking and deeply traumatic. My mum died 5 weeks after diagnosis and I struggle every day  knowing  that she isn't here any more. 

    Friends haven't been very helpful and I suppose I don't blame them because none can relate to the situation I am in. Grief is a very individual, personal thing and I hope that you can heal eventually. You said you have had counseling which unfortunately didn't work for you.  I am going through that at the moment and my counselor has been really great. She has never made any judgements or suggestions, she just nudges me to talk about the most traumatic parts of my mum's death. Perhaps you should go back to your GP and ask for advice. Sorry I can't be more helpful, just came on here to say I know how you are feeling and how terriblly isolating it is. 

     

    Take care 

  • 18 months. But it may as well be 18 minutes. Or 18 years. The time is irrelevant. My father was the core of my existence and the centre of my universe so the tired cliche that "time will heal" isn't really applying very well.

    I think you'll cope. It probably won't be much fun, and may well include a ton of negative emotion(s), but I guess I am "coping" in my own way. Depressed, yes. Feeling hopeless, yes. But "coping" too, I suppose. Just not very happily