How do you grieve?

[Cali Cat]

... it's hard for me to express my grief to anyone but my closest family, people often think I do am not grieving ... [edit] my preference for accepting the inevitable death of a very ill person or animal over believing in and hoping for a last-minute miracle cure ...

I can relate to this too. At least in situations where I have some warning of the impending death, I tend to make peace with the idea before the reality takes place. Therefore, when the person actually dies, I don't express grief in the form of tears. Since it's still seen as typical for women to cry when they are upset, many people think I'm cold and don't care.

It's a completely different story, though, when pets are involved, or when someone very close to me dies unexpectedly. I've grieved woefully for many terminally ill pets who I had to have euthanized when they were too young (by my standards) or pets who were hit by cars or just went missing indefinitely. I think it's because I feel guilty over it, like I should've been able to protect them and prevent whatever happened.

The worst grieving experience of all was when my late husband died without warning. It was such a shock to my whole system that I nearly shutdown completely for a year. I could do what needed to be done if I had to, but I really wasn't mentally present for any of it.

 

[OddmanJive]

First, Cali Cat, my sincerest condolences for the loss of your husband. I can't imagine how hard that must be/have been.

[I apologize for the blatant TMI below. I share some details because maybe it will resonate with someone, and I feel like maybe that could be helpful.]

This is a more accurate description of how I grieve than my first post in this thread: I have lost many relatives to untimely deaths, and I grieved them all. Some of them I mourned very hard, and I wept over their lives and how I would miss them. But, I should say that I also still miss my childhood dog, Peter, and my first "who adopted whom?" cat, Babe, who was my most constant companion—human or nonhuman—through my difficult twenties. So, I guess I do mourn pretty hard for those close to me. Maybe I rationalize loss in order to mitigate the inevitable emotional and psychosocial turmoil? My mother is a very hard griever, and I have seen her suffer greatly with depression, often catalyzed by the loss of a beloved pet or friend. She literally tore her hair out when her favorite sister died at 21. I was 7, full-aspie-mode, watching my family try to shield me from my mother's major breakdown. I remember it as one of the most chaotic times of my childhood. I now suspect that my stepfather (who was 23 at the time!) stepped up and took care of me and my mom. I think I internalized a lot of that, and I later developed strategies to be better able to integrate loss. In other words, I basically learned to avoid thinking about or remembering certain experiences by overthinking everything else. Truth.

 

[rx7chick]

Interesting synchronicity this came up now. I had 2 chihuahuas, who both died. I was out of the country when it happened. They were both 14. One died in 2009, the other in 2010. They loved me and I loved them in a way that I have never connected with a human. With them, I had the loving bond I could never make with people, including my parents and my family. They loved me truly. They didn't care that I was weird, or awkward, said the wrong things, disliked by most, or loved to be alone. They loved to be alone with me. I am not getting over it. The grief is like background noise that never stops. I can't control it. It eases up sometimes, and then it will come back like a tidal wave, and all I can do is try to get through my days. Lately I have been dreaming about them and I wake up really mournful and crying. Last night I dreamed I saw my little boy and he was so happy and overcome with love to see me that he couldn't stop wiggling. The guilt I feel because I was not with them when they passes is not manageable, not matter what anyone tries to tell me to comfort me. They loved me and I left them. Even though it was unavoidable for me to be away, they couldn't know that. It is a loss from which I will never recover. It was the loss to the only true love I ever knew.

 

[Velociraptor40]

I've had a few losses of family members but I never have any grief towards them as I tend to not connect with people but when the family cat died I cried each day for an entire month She was the closest thing I had to a friend at the time and it was so shocking when she was hit by the car.

 

[Harrison]

I didn't grieve over the loss of my parents, something I find weird at best, yet the death of my dog put me in a bad space for months. I find this lack of grief the hardest thing about being an aspie, especially as I can cry over the most stupid things.

 

[Kirsty]

I'm glad there's others like me. I'm female. My father found it puzzling that I never cried at my Grandpa's funeral when I was 15, and was taken aback by what he said. I later said I did love and miss him. I felt sad but didn't cry. I wasn't even shocked. Years down the line my grief spilled out and I've cried heaps for him, but in private as he meant so much to me. The same happened to me when my Granny died, when I was 11.

I always cry straight away when I see a pet die or is whining in pain. RSPCA adverts always get me going.

 

[Ferdinand94]

It is a loss from which I will never recover. It was the loss to the only true love I ever knew. View attachment 13444

 

[Alex Bogue]

I lost my daddy when I was 9 to a heart attack. And I literally lost it.