@kitboga how i'm feeling

So I’ve suffered for depression and anxiety for a number of years, i found it a battle to find away to be happy. I finally got there (this was around march this years) I like to draw and create things. I was uploading regulary but as the months passed i noticed i was sliping again and no matter what i tried i just couldn’t get back.

I lost interest in doing everything i loved and i couldn’t be bothered with work but i went anyway (i work in customer service). It was so hard going there everyday pretending that i was happy and that i wanted to be there when i just wanted to be left alone.

My dads funeral was on the 23rd December and now we are being chucked into christmas, it feels too soon to even celebrate it. I feel like i’ve had zero time to prepare for him not being here on christmas day. I also can’t shake the feeling like everyday is pointless, i don’t want to be awake and i never feel like doing anything so i just sleep all day.

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it must be awful to feel so rushed into celebrations while you’re still processing it.

In my religion, we generally prohibit any major or new events like weddings etc for one year following a death, and people stick to that or they dont, but it helps to give us a timeframe for grieving and doing rituals for the departed.

Maybe your celebrations dont have to be big or busy? Just a simple easy to prepare meal and family chill time? I hope everyone in the family is able to take a few moments to grieve and feel their feelings. Death is hard, and it’s a process to come to terms with it. It can get better eventually, you’re in the most intense part of it now.

Keep strong friend, we’re here however we can help!

It’s just been so hard to believe he died because i wish he was here so much. My mum wanted us to have a nice christmas regardless and that’s what dad would have wanted too i believe.

We are all going down my sisters house for food this year since only mum is up the house now, i feel it may be good to be around them as i feel better when i’m around them all. Thank you i really hope too.
I still got my dad a christmas present and card because it didn’t feel right not to get one.

Thank you so much, i’ve found this site amazing tbh

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i think getting a present is a lovely idea. really hoping you all find some peace with each other, and can celebrate your dad a bit and remember some of the funny stuff he did and smile a bit!

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Hey @Princessookami,

I’m so grateful for you and the fact that you keep trusting this community by sharing your heart. As Sita described, you are in the middle of the storm right now. It’s hard to breathe, hard to find time to really have a break, hard to slow down while all that you want is just sleep and not having to feel all of this.

Only two weeks after my brother passed away, my sister got married. It was planned a while ago of course and even though she thought about canceling it, it was just out of the question. Unfortunately, our parents didn’t travel to attend the celebration, so I was the only one in our family. It was a small, intimate celebration, but sitting there, as a witness, next to the chair my brother should have been sitting on, felt like being in a completely different reality.

When we are caught on the train of life and have not (yet) the space we need to slow down and grieve, everything feels too much and also unreal. It’s only months after, once at home and settled again into my own routines, that I have realized how much the month following my brother’s passing was completely crazy, that I was disconnected most of the time, but also feeling everything very deeply.

You will know other seasons after this one. Grief really is a journey during which we learn to give a new space to every little thing, every little memory, every space and time we have shared with the person we have lost. It takes time. Sometimes it feels like moving backwards as the pain strikes deeply. Sometimes it brings very conflictual feelings. But it is, all in all, a succession of seasons through which we learn to cope, live with the pain, and live for ourselves too.

I am sure you dad would have appreciated the gift and card you got for him. What a sweet, loving attention.

Take care, friend. There is no right or wrong way to feel. And when your heart is grieving, you are not required to perform or act as if you were not - even if our society tends to make us believe the opposite.

You are in my thoughts. :hrtlegolove:

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From: ᏒᎧᏕᎥᏋ

Hi @princessookami Hope you made it thru ok, you’re in my thoughts. Have you thought about finding a talk therapist to talk to about your depression? Sometimes, it helps to talk to someone and learn coping skills. I wish you all the best ~Mystrose

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From: Lisalovesfeathers

Hi Friend, thanks for posting I know its been a week and Christmas has now past but I wanted to check in with you to see how you were doing? You had such a difficult time and this New Year is going to be so hard i am sure, I would really encourage you to try to get some sort of help with managing your grief as we enter the New Year if you find it a struggle please dont keep it in and suffer in silence no one wants that for you and your Dad certainly wouldn’t want that. Please know also that we are here anytime you need us, so please dont hesitate to post if you need some support, I wish you well friend. Much Love Lisa. x

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From: twixremix

hey friend, i appreciate your vulnerability with this and posting here. i hope christmas was okay after the funeral of your father 2 days prior. your strength is admirable and i hope you’re taking things easy on your heart as you grieve and embrace those emotions of that entire grief process. as we approach the new year, i wish with my entire heart that you can find peace, comfort, and allow yourself to grieve. i also hope that you can gradually introduce more of your passions of art and creation little-by-little, day-by-day back into your routine. remember the joy it brings you and allow yourself to dive headfirst back into those hobbies if it helps you cope and find strength. all in all, i am wishing a better year ahead for you, my friend. you are loved, valued, and so incredibly strong! love, twix

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From: SuchBlue

Hi @princessookami,

While Christmas is a thing, people also grieve their loved ones a lot during this time. it is a lot of mixed feelings, and sometimes it feels very sad that everyone is enjoying their Christmas while you are suffering because of the loss of your dad. It’s fine that you didn’t have enough time to prepare for his loss, because what really matters is that you thought of him and you still love him with all your heart.

May he rest in peace and I’m sure he’s proud of you and what you’ve done throughout your life. ~SuchBlue

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From: eloquentpetrichor

Hello, princessookami! Thank you for posting again and keeping us updated. I’m so sorry about your dad. This is such a terrible time of year to lose someone. I know it’s never good but there is just something about losing someone at Christmas that makes it harder. I hope you and your family are doing okay after spending last weekend without him.

I also use art to help me stay happy with my depression but I know what you mean that sometimes when it gets bad that even the things we love doing the most just feel depressing and pointless. I hope that you find something to inspire you again and help you get back into your art as it sounds like it helps you a lot.
Maybe you could draw or create something to help you deal with your dad’s death. Something that makes you think of him or that was important to him. Make it and share it with your family members so they can remember him with you through your art. Make something that can represent each of your family members’ individual relationships with him that they can have and cherish for years to come. Just a few ideas that may help you on multiple levels at this extra difficult time in your life.

I hope you and your family were able to enjoy Christmas some and I hope that your life improves in 2022. Please don’t hesitate to post again anytime, we would love to hear from you again :hrtlegolove: Happy New Year and hold fast :sparkler::fireworks:

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@Lisalovesfeathersandfur Christmas was lovely i spent it with my best friend (who i live with) my mum and sister’s family. I’m doing okay i’ve felt mostly numb but i’ve been getting by, i did speaking a counciling service that is provided through my job and should be doing some counciling with them soon. I’ve also taken another 4 weeks off work to try and work through things.

I’ve managed to start my drawing again so for the last couple of days i’ve been doing drawing and making more video’s for my social media’s. I’ve found the drawing really helped getting through the days.

The hardest part of everything atm is going to sleep temporarily forgetting that he died, i dreamt of him last night - I seen him in a shop and I asked him where he’s been and then i woke up. I miss him so much. Thank you for checking on me this made me smile and i’ll be posting again soon x

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@eloquentpetrichor Thank you so much. It was hard going from the funeral straight into christmas, i mean i can’t complain christmas was lovely with my family but it didn’t hit me until after i got home and everything was less busy. I check in with my mum everyday and she’s okay but she know’s if she needs me i’m here for here.

The day he died i refused to sleep so i just worked on alot of art stuff for my dad at the beginging - i made a memory box, a crow doll and i did a few digital art pieces for him (which i can modify for other events, so i have some idea’s in mind. After the stuff i made for my dad i stopped doing art i think it put me off but i recently got back in doing some drawings and i made a few timelapse video’s to post on my art pages. It felt really good, it’s honestly been so long since i enjoyed doing something.

Christmas was wonderful, i still got my dad a card and present i just got my mum to open it for him :heart:
i was going to a progress post of some the art i’ve created in the couple of days, i feel proud i was able to do something for the first time in a while.
I hope you had a wonderful new year! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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@SuchBlue

It’s been a weird month, it doesn’t even feel like it happened a month it weirdly feels like longer. I’ve felt mostly numb but then i get some really sad days but i think of him all the time. The pastor who did prayers at my mums said “grieve is the conequence of love” which i thought was beautiful

I really hope he is, i’ve always tried to be my best x

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@Micro at first all i would do is stay up really late and then sleep allday, somedays if i had dreams about my dad i wouldn’t even get up because i didn’t feel like existing. I’m really sorry to hear about brother and i’d like to believe he was there at the wedding with you all.

I still manage to do normal day to day stuff and at first i found sleeping was the only answer but all my dreams have some esence of my dad in them and i’ve had 2 surreal where i think he visted me. In the last one i asked “where have you been” but i can’t remember anything after that :/. The waking up part after the dreams in the worst because i remember the pain again.

i’ve been told i must not be hard on myself or be angry with myself for not doing stuff and i’m currently trying to do that

thank you so much :heart:

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@ᏒᎧᏕᎥᏋ i made it with the help of my family and my best friend. I have got a counciling service provided through my job and i may be going through some counciling soon. I also took some extra time off work to get though (work isn’t going to be happy) XD

thank you for reaching out x

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@twixremix i’ve found this community so supportive! Christmas was so lovely you could forget for a moment that you was sad. i’m starting to not be so hard on myself, i was judging myself for feeling the way i do but after speaking to a councilor i understand it’s normal and to not be hard on myself for not doing anything.

I started drawing again, i think i’ve drawn more in the last couple days than the who of last year! Thank you so much i appropriate you x

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The waking up part after the dreams in the worst because i remember the pain again.

Oh @princessookami, that is so very true. I also had some vivid dreams after losing my brother, and sometimes still. In these, I am kind of in the same situation as what you’ve described: for some reason he was away or we thought he was dead, and I get mad at him or ask plenty of questions in order to know where he was. The pain in the dream is already intense, so waking up and being hit by the reality that it was just a dream adds another layer of pain on top of it. I feel for you, with all my heart. Somehow it’s just our mind processing, and our deepest wishes expressing themselves at night, but it’s still another aspect of grief to process and to learn to deal with.

i’ve been told i must not be hard on myself or be angry with myself for not doing stuff and i’m currently trying to do that

You can be proud of yourself for trying not to judge yourself. Welcoming your emotions just as they are is the right thing to do. A loss affects us consciously and unconsciously, emotionally and physically. It’s a lot at once, and the rules/expectations that apply during a “normal” time of life don’t have to apply when our heart is grieving, especially the first days, weeks and months that follow the loss. Little by little, we reinvest our life, differently, but it’s okay to take our time while doing so, and making sure that self-care is a priority.

I’m proud of you. :hrtlegolove:

This time dreamt about him it wasn’t sad but I think it was because I had little more time to process some of it.

Even in little minor dreams which are less surreal he’s in there or once his name was mentioned. I just wish I didn’t feel so numb about it all but I know I don’t want to be overwhelmed at the same time.

It’s so hard not to judge myself for anything or not crying. On top of this I’ve been trying to get a get job for the last couple of months with no luck. I can’t deal with my job anymore it made my mental health worse and I have a interview on Monday but I can’t there as my room mate is working and ironically if my dad was here he would have taken me. Intact the last interview I had he took me :pensive:

I just feel so shit I just need something good to happy because I’m really losing faith in everything so quickly :pensive:

I’m trying to as positive as I can :heart:

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:pensive: I’m so sorry. I wish you luck for your job and I’m very glad that you have the courage to get a new job since your current one isn’t doing you any good. We’re here to make you happy :pray: :hrtlegolove:

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Thank you, it’s sad because my job pays good and I work from home but it’s made me so miserable. I wasn’t willing to sacfrice my mental health anymore for it :blush:

Honestly you all so amazing and it’s nice to talk about i feel as i used to feel like I couldn’t as most people didn’t care so I thank you all :pleading_face::heart:

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