Grief Healing: When Grief Takes Away Everything That Was Normal

There is something about losing a mother that is permanent and inexpressible—a wound that will never quite heal. ~ Susan Wiggs

A reader writes: My mom died of cancer three months ago after seven years of fighting. I am 22 years old, and I feel as though I have lost everything that was normal. I miss my mom so much. She was my very best friend. I just need someone to talk to who understands. I feel so alone.

I am a Christian, and my faith helps a lot, but I literally don't have anyone. My dad had to move away. My boyfriend of three and a half years broke up with me one week after the funeral, and my friends are too involved with college and partying. I feel like I have been robbed.

I don't know who to grieve over—the aching heart I have from losing my boyfriend, or the loss of my best friend, comforter, and inspiration, my mom. I feel like I don't cry enough. No one wants to hear about my problems, and I have lost several close "friends" because they feel like I complain too much.

I just don't know what to do. I am trying to move on, but I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. I need her now more than ever. She would give me advice and genuinely listen to me.

All I ever want to do is read and be alone. I used to be a people person. I used to run two miles a day and always be outdoors, but now I don't care about my health or anything. I just read the Bible and pray.

I hope you can relate and give me some comfort. I just need a friend.

My response: I’m so very sorry that, at the tender age of 22, you are mourning the death of your beloved mother—your "very best friend, comforter and inspiration-mom."

As if that were not enough, you are also mourning the end of your relationship with your boyfriend of nearly four years.

I can only imagine how alone, lost, bewildered, and abandoned you must feel.

You may be surprised by the intensity of your grief three months after your mother's death. You may even feel "crazy" or out of control at times, wondering what is wrong and why you seem to be "falling apart" now, three months later.

I want to assure you that there is nothing unusual about this. In the early weeks following a devastating loss, shock and numbness can temporarily cushion us from the full force of what has happened. The loss is so enormous that it may simply be too much for us to take in all at once. We may find ourselves walking around in a fog, functioning on "automatic pilot." Then we may feel as if we have been hit by a truck. It can seem as though we are experiencing the death all over again, but this time with a greater awareness of what it really means.

Unfortunately, until this happens, friends and classmates may have assumed that you were doing fine—"handling things so well" and being "so strong" in the face of such devastating loss. They may not understand that the person who appeared strong on the outside was simply doing what she had to do to get through those first difficult weeks.

I'm also so sorry that your boyfriend chose to end your relationship just a week after your mother's funeral. That must have been devastating. You are now grieving two enormous losses at the same time.

Grief is exhausting. It can leave a person focused inward, with very little emotional energy available to invest in a relationship. And sadly, when a relationship isn't strong enough to withstand the strain of a significant loss, this may be when it falls apart. His decision does not mean that there was anything wrong with you or that you were "too much" to love.

It helps enormously to understand what normal grief can look and feel like. When you know what to expect, you may feel less frightened by your reactions and better able to cope with them. Understanding the grieving process can also help you recognize that many of the things you are experiencing are not signs that you are "going crazy"—they are painful but understandable responses to profound loss.

If you haven't already done so, I hope you'll visit my Grief Healing website. Take some time to visit the Comfort for Grieving Hearts page, and follow some of the links on the Death of a Parent and Death of a Relationship pages. You can also visit Marty's Articles and click on any of the titles that interest you to learn more about the grieving process.

Learning about grief can reassure you that so much of what you are experiencing is normal—even predictable—and can give you hope that, if others have survived such pain, you will find a way to survive it, too.

I also encourage you to check out National Students of AMF, an organization whose resources are specifically designed to support, connect, and empower grieving young adults:

Finally, I hope you'll consider finding your way to a grief support group, either in person or online. There you may find some of the comfort, compassion, understanding, and friendship you so desperately need and deserve right now.

None of us can take away your pain at this sad and difficult time in your young life, my dear. But we can assure you of this: you do not have to endure it all by yourself.

And although right now you may feel that you have lost everything that was normal, you have not lost the person you are. She is still there, beneath all this pain. In time, and with the support of others who understand, you will begin to discover who you are again.

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