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Day 12

I’m only in active contact with a few members of my extended family (for good reasons) so my mom was one of my primary sources of emotional support, along with my psychologist and psychiatrist. I have always been worried about how my mental health would fare when my mom died. I’ve come a long way in learning how to cope in healthy ways and knowing when I need to ask for help, but losing my mom is such a devastating loss and I am still scared that I will completely unravel. While I have cried a lot and have had more than a few breakdowns, that hasn’t happened, which I’ve been sort of confused by.

As I mentioned a few days ago, seeing certain members of my extended family has definitely brought up unwanted memories and feelings I thought I had dealt with. A relative, who will remain unnamed, came up to me after the burial to say that “we are family and will always be family” and I should “come on over to the house,” which sounds innocuous, right? Except then the person followed this up with assuring me that I am “not a burden and never have been and never will be a burden.” I know I’m not a burden and have never been a burden, but I was not surprised to hear such bullshit coming from this person. I was still in shock after watching my mom’s casket be lowered into the ground and trying to be a good person, so I bit my tongue, but it’s obviously still bothering me.

This is going to make me sound like a terrible person, but I didn’t originally want to give the funeral and memorial service details to certain family members. I even told my mom as recently as last year that I’d just mail them a copy of the obituary afterwards, which she didn’t object to. But I wanted to be a decent human being and I reached out to give those details so they could come if they wished, but it was not an invitation to reenage. Maybe one day I’ll be open to that, but not now, not while the pain of burying my mom is still so raw. There’s just a lot of history there that I’m clearly not ready to deal with right now. The only thing I am concerned about is managing my mental health and I’m having enough trouble with that as it is.

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