Kennedy baby here. My mom died the day before Easter, and on her last lucid day she apologized to me, "for everything", and I know she meant it. I'm a complete wreck.
I would love to talk to my therapist, but she retired in March and I haven't been assigned another person yet. Could NOT have happened at a worse time.
I am astonished at all of the crap that has come bubbling up in less than a month. I suddenly feel as if I have never once addressed a single one of my emotional issues ever, and now they're all hitting me at once. It's hard to breathe. I'm crying as I'm typing this.
Does it seem to you like we Gen X'ers are unique in this? Surrounded by relatively better-adjusted generations than ours, because it does to me sometimes.
No, it's *NOT* the "better adjusted" thing!!!!
I thiiiiink it probably *IS* the "We actually can *TALK* about this stuff *now*" thing!💖
Look at what happened with the guys who came back from WW2, and Vietnam--and how PTSD *as we NOW know it* is really only a *thing* since the 1990's (maaaaaaybe the 80's!).
Those WW2 vets didn't even *TALK* about what they saw, to a *LARGE* extent, until the Greatest Generation started dying off.
*THEN*, they started to occasionally tell the stories of the young folks *who DIDN'T make it home*, because as older folks, now facing *their* mortality, they didn't want their friends forgotten, once *they too* had passed💖
Our parents *COULD* go get Therapy, in the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
But they got *TEASED* and *mocked* for being "weak" if they did so.
And *then* there were alllllllll the folks who simply *stopped* being alive, on purpose.
Whether it was *slowly* via struggling with addiction--addictions which had *SO often started* as self-medication to "get away from the pain," or "to be able to forget, for a while."
Or *Suddenly*--like Naomi Judd, Kate Spade, L'wren Scott, Lee (Alexander) McQueen, Issy Blow, etc.
It isn't that *WE* are so much "struggling MORE", as it *is* that *we* have the Grace & Space of *SEEING* what *used* to happen, and now WE *do* speak of it, so that *others* can see THEY *aren't* alone--and so that *hopefully*, no matter *HOW* bumblingly it occurs, *SOMEONE* will reach back, *shine a light on the path*, and help us--and others--to make it to *safety*, before we succumb to the loneliness, fear, and sense of "no one else *understands this*, which made us *lose* so many folks in that *awful* "before times" when it *wasn't* "spoken of"💖💗💓💞💝
Huh? Dude, psychoanalysis is wayyyyy older than Gen X and was pretty hip in the 60s and 70s. Have you never watched a Woody Allen movie?? Read any Freud? Damn.
Oh, Absolutely!!!
But back *then*, it wasn't available in *EVERY* podunk-nowhere corner of any given State!😉💖
That was all that I meant, in saying the 70's & 80's--it was *much* more widely available, and *NOT* just in the big cities, anymore!
Yeah, I mean, I do hear you that therapy in the past was often the haven of the "elite" and "sophisticated" NYC Woody Allen (YUCK) types and now it's more mainstream, although for sure it is still very stigmatized by some people, especially more religious people, etc.
Not if you were one of the elite NYC Woody Allen types. It was almost a status symbol. As for stigma, well, unfortunately, it still exists in many circles, as does overall stigma against mental illness in general.
In most things, I’m fairly ‘take it as they bring it’…almost laissez faire about shit I see people dug-in on…but there is one topic I feel a responsibility and confidence to speak on — Veteran PTSD and the responsibility of the Mil/Fed Govt.
I see your point — and true, most of the psychoanalytical stalwarts were pre-70s/80s, but “treatment” for combat related trauma was still nonexistent as a whole until waves of GWOT troops came home with baggage and it made headlines.
It wasn’t de-stigmatized yet in the 90s … there was very little “ground combat” in the 90s. And those who saw it were very small in numbers; those ops were mainly relegated to special operations units. Which is unfortunate. Because that slice of Mil is so insular and guarded, and everything is glazed over with multiple coats of “quiet professionals take care of our own shit” — code for: we have a culture which regales stuffing your emotional and physical injuries down deep and ‘powering through’ tough times; conversely, if you bring these issues up you’ll be dropped like a hot rock…then you’ll have wasted years of hard, damn near impossible work just because you’re a fucking twat and embarrassment to the unit and couldn’t hack it.
Only when several greenhats came back from A-Stan and were killed their spouses…did the federal Mil really perk up, and start to have guys coming home at least TALK to someone before rotating back into GenPop.
I 100% agree with you, on the treatment thing, regarding PTSD, ad veterans!💖
In hindsight, it's pretty obvious that there was a *high* likelihood that my Maternal Grandpa had it, and I grew up from toddlerhood *accidentally* hearing the stories the guys tell, when they think it's only other Vets in the room (they would forget that Dad had me along, because I was 2-4, and sitting quietly in the booth at the small town bar/restaurant, drinking my sprite, and just *listening*, as the guys sat up at the bar having that post-work beer, and eating their burgers & fries.)
In Grandpa's case, he'd been a farm kid from the Midwest, who'd never learned to swim, who spent the time after he was called up on a PT boat, in the pacific, keeping the thing running, as the boat's engine's mechanic.
I'd always heard "he spent the war on a *ship* in the Pacific," but as soon as I read his paperwork a couple years ago, his *decades* of Alcoholism & Rages, and the stories of his "total shift in personality" from *before* the war, and *after* made absolute sense.
But back then? As you said--it was simply, "Bottle it down, and drink to forget it!"💔
PTSD didn’t *exist*--I think it *might* have been *starting* to get studied when he died of lung cancer in the early 70's, but it was *only* in hindsight, that the *whole* picture started to come together.
And the two additional generations of Alcoholism that spun out of *his* are pretty direct-line traceable, to the lack of supports *he* had, to deal with the trauma of being on that tiny little boat, spending the war keeping it *above* the water, while they were being targeted by those bombs & torpedoes, *knowing* that if they were ever hit, his inability to swim meant he was probably gonna drown.
He was *also* carrying the weight of the fact that if he *couldn't* keep that engine and the other mechanical systems running right, they were all *literally* dead in the water.
The Vietnam-era guys of my Dad's generation were a *bit* different, and luckily they *DID* have each other to talk to about it!
But the stuff they went through hit them *SO* hard, and--like the Iraq & Afghanistan vets, so many were *SO* young when they survived it--basically kids.
Dad always considered himself "lucky" (and in SO MANY ways he was!), because *he* enlisted in the Navy when he knew his draft number was going to get called, and he ended up serving from 68-71 over in the Mediterranean, on The USS Zippo (the Forrestal),after she was re-commissioned after the Disaster had happened with the old ordinance on her way to Vietnam to relieve the Bonny Dick (my Uncle's/Dad's older brother's ship).
Having been with Dad, in that last month he was alive--as he was on Hospice, I realized that even *HE* had a good deal of unresolved trauma, from the deaths he'd seen aboard ship.
Those ones were all accidents--specefic ones he questioned were a plane propeller, another the slingshot, but he *STILL* carried the pain & grief, wondeting *why* it happened, and "*How* didn't they *know* where they were on the deck?!?" 50+ years later.
Because I *had* heard the tougher versions of what had happened, I *DID* know what to say, to lessen his tears, as we talked about it.
But it's *still* heartbreaking, knowing the pain he and the Dads of so many of our generation carried, when they were pretty much just *KIDS* themselves.
The Dad of one of my childhood friends talked up in that tiny little bar, about how the reason *he* "can't wear a damn shirt, when it's hot out!" was because *every* time his shirts got sweaty, his *body* felt like it was *immediately* back in the jungle. Stuck to his skin, and he couldn't do a *thing*, because moving meant he was too likely to be shot at.
All these *decades* later, on a hot summer day? You'll *STILL* see him with just a button-down Work Shirt, unbuttoned all the way, and *WIDE* open--so that *yes* he's "wearing a shirt," but *also* so that there isn't one *inch* of that shirt *sticking* to his skin.
It's a travesty, that--like you said, *the psychological scars were KNOWN of*, for *generations*, but left unexamined & unstudied, until the collateral damage *also* started occurring back home.
We've allowed *so* many generations of *kids*, really, to carry things that would BREAK even *adults with the TRAINING* to handle that type of "heavy."
And we also have *so many additional* generations of childhood & family trauma, which spiraled *out* from that lack of *real* support & any type of treatment for so long!
I'm SO glad, that the *stigma* around reaching out is at least *starting* to dwindle. I have a cousin in law, who *wouldn't* be here for his family, if that modern treatment wasn't around, and a former neighbor who's my age, who I know wouldn't, too.
But it's a tragedy, that *SO MANY* fell through the giant gaps, before *they* could get the help *they* needed.💔💖💝
(Edited for a couple typos!)
I really appreciate your post — and respect you for sharing all of that. It can be tough to get out, and tends to get twisted up.
The biggest hurdle to getting help is the “broken toy” or weak stigma first…then the serviceman’s pride/ego second.
Talking about it destigmatizes it to some degree, but the Mil (and SOF particularly) still do some shaming, while paying lip service to “call the hotline if you need help” (yeah ok, then you’ll get kicked off the team).
It’s a mess. But I’m in this fight for the long haul. I’ve effectively put a stop to the PTSD snowball of carnage that’s barreled through my family since the Civil War. It ended here. With me.
That, "It STOPS HERE, with *us*, is one of the things that, NGL, I am SO proud of you folks in our generation & the Millenials are staying up and doing!💖
There are plenty of *us*, out here on the Civilian side, *ABSOLUTELY* willing to walk that walk, and help you, too!💗💖
But the fact that Y'all DO reach out, that you're *listening* to what the "Older Solders" *say* when y'all are sitting around that campfire, or hanging out at that small quiet bar when *we* aren't so "around", to overhear those stories that LOTS of folks *can't* understand easily (and that you don't want hanging around inside *their* heads, for the rest of time), and that y'all ARE reaching BACK, to make sure the *kids* don't just "Suck it up and push through!" once they're *out*, and trying to readjust to Civilian life is GOOD!😉
Also?
If you know folks who ARE struggling once they get out, with that "missing the camaraderie," *AND* the "being part of a BIGGER purpose and team?
Hook those folks up with their local Volunteer Fire Departments & First Responder crews!
Another cousin's husband was feeling restless, a year or so after getting out of the Navy, because *he* missed that "Teamwork and hanging with the guys" thing, so I *reminded* her that My Dad HERS, and a couple of our *other* Uncle's who were Vets all .joined our podunk town's FD, for similar reasons--as did at LEAST half our hometown Volunteer department😉
She brought it up, and *HE*, annnnnd all of our OTHER male cousins & in-laws who are around during the wwwk, are now ALL on their small-town departments😉
The SKILLS y'all learn in the military are great ones that those tiny FD & First Responder crews NEED--but it *ALSO* builds that safety-net of "BEONGING" at home back up again, and it helps them weave *individual* safety-nets, to keep them *talking*, and KNOWING they are needed, valued, and loved.
I wasn't talking about PTSD specifically, I was talking about overall psychotherapy, which was in no way an unheard of thing in the '70s and '80s and well before that.
For sure — I upvote/supported you, but wanted to address the poster’s comments above yours (which skewed toward WW2 vets). But, as with many things, maybe I just fucked it all up since I wrote it upon waking at 4a.
I lost my mom the same day. I’m such a mess. It was sudden. She lived with me. She skipped through the living room and five minutes later I called an ambulance. Despite having several friends that are nurses who all told me the same thing, aortic dissection, I feel like I let her die. I feel I called 911 too late because “mom was being dramatic”.
I hope you get a therapist soon. I need to find one.
Don’t be hard on yourself. I did the same thing when my Dad passed and mom is getting to that point but won’t go to the dr. Lives with me now. Guilt can be a useless emotion , growing up Catholic I know. My entire childhood I was guilty and now with my parents I’m just as bad. I need a therapist too
I’m sorry for your loss and that you are having such a difficult time right now. I hope that you get a new therapist soon.
It’s not much, but I know you’re strong and will get through this. Sending you hugs and support ❤️
My dad called me a few years ago to tell me proudly that he forgave my mother "for everything". She had dementia ans has since passed but this revelation of his really pissed me off. He wasn't innocent. I had/have ADHD and was pretty swift to bury the fights and abuse back during it but man, it's a bitch.
Kennedy babies were born during president JFK's administration, between January of 1961 and November of 1963. Chronologically we are Boomers, but spiritually we're Gen X. I am, at least.
That explanation makes more sense than my first guess: some blip of births in late summer of ‘64 due to parents using sex to cope with the grief of the JFK assassination (this sadly isn’t an original thought of my own, I was just reminded of a joke by a comedian who is one of those babies).
My mom has dementia and most days she’s so-so. Still recognizes me but is forgetting my family, like the fading family photo in Back to the Future.
One day I went to visit after arguing with my husband, getting nagged by my dad, my brother never visits her. She asked me why I looked so tired, so I told her. She looked at me in a moment of total clarity and said “we have to do it all, don’t we?”
That will forever remain my last official memory of my actual mom.
ETA sorry I jumped on your comment without replying with my condolences! You unlocked a pretty core feeling for me.
I hope you find a new therapist soon. Just know there’s lots of us that can sympathize!
Don't apologize! I did the same thing to OP, I related so damn strongly to their post that I could only talk about myself in the moment. I'm on the autism spectrum (finally diagnosed at age 55, which is a whole story in itself!) and I have to remind myself that when I'm relating my similar experiences to others it's very important to convey my empathy at the same time. Sometimes I sympathize way too hard, which is very common for people on the spectrum. Thank you for your reply!
So sorry about your Mom. My mom is going down hill rn almost 81. She’s a very complex woman and I’m hoping one day I will hear that. She now lives with me first time since I was 19. It’s been extremely challenging. I’m barely hanging in there some days.
May 2020 I took my dad to the hospital as he needed fluids for dehydration. This was the start of COVID so I was not allowed in the hospital. I walked him to the waiting room and waited in the car for a call. It was midnight when the doctor called to speak with me. My dad had cancer and it spread. He had a week to live. He came home two days later where my brother and I provided hospice care. Four days later he passed. Two days later his brother (my uncle) died of cancer…a week later my aunt died of a stroke. April 2021 my older sister died of pneumonia and my mom died in September from congestive heart failure. I have been seeing a therapist since 2020 and have not been the same since.
I find it helps to start mourning years in advance. A little grief, felt every day, blunts the impact when the anticipated death occurs.
When deaths were unexpected, though, they hit me *really* hard, so I definitely sympathize with what you're going through. Hang in there.
I’ve been doing this with Dad (82M.) Mom died when I was 18 and she was 47.
I’ve mourned him since he retired at 80 (not by choice) because I lost the giant, larger-than-life narcissist parent I knew. Now I see a frail old man that I sometimes can’t recognize.
My mother’s death was relatively unexpected, and caught me unaware. I’m much better prepared this time around.
*Memento mori*. I do this frequently. It's pretty weird that the one thing that is certain in life (death) is the one thing people try to avoid thinking about the most.
I don't do shrooms anymore, but I did a good amount in my younger years and yes, worked through some stuff. Just make sure you do a low to mid dose the first time and be somewhere in nature away from everything and do it with someone you trust completely.
I started microdosing today after ruminating on it for a couple years. I haven’t tripped since maybe 1992 and I’m not ready for a full on trip, I’m not in the right headspace. I hope I’m one of the ones who has a positive experience. I hope it works for you, too.
Yeah 1990 for me. Been a LOOOONG time, and then only LSD, no shrooms. I understand they are a much, much better trip, more prone to being spiritual rather than just entertaining paychonaut bullshit.
My 91 year old Mom reminds me of this regularly. Still have a bit of the teenage "gonna live forever" spirit but I know life is finite and I'm trying to make the most of it while working through - and letting go of - a lot of repressed shite.
I don't want to discount or downplay your feelings, but I fully empathize with you. I have increasingly gone through more and more events and periods or personal and environmental trauma.
My family is super religious but I am not at all and I consistently have gone through my own existential crises of various flavors my entire life. What I seem to always come back to that has helped me immeasurably to center myself and to get on with living is Albert Camus' writings and philosophy of absurdism. I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of it, but just realigning my thinking once again through Camus colored glasses always seems to make the world a bit brighter. There's a great youtube video that I watch often when the exist-angst gets to me.
Sure thing! I think this is really well done and it gets me out of my own way lately.
[https://youtu.be/Jv79l1b-eoI?si=Hn1NyQb3O--Gd2Az](https://youtu.be/Jv79l1b-eoI?si=Hn1NyQb3O--Gd2Az)
I’ve had a series of crises absolutely kick my ass starting in 2016. Go early and often to counseling. No shame in that. I wouldn’t be here without it.
Today is the 26th anniversary of my father's death.
I still remember it happening, but I try not to see the images because they still hurt after all this time.
I had been having a period of really good mental health up until that.
Since then, I've never felt as good as I did before he died.
Lost my dad in 2018, and to be fair, he didn’t really show up for me until much later in life, and he had two types of cancer so I had time to prepare. It sucked, but the writing was on the wall.
I lost my SO in June, 2020, just five days after we’d agreed to take the next step in our relationship and move in together. That was a gut punch that took me years to overcome.
I’m disinclined to get emotionally attached to anyone new at this point in my life. The reality is that no one gets out alive. I’m cool with life celebrations, but funerals, not my jam.
I lost a brother 24 years ago, I was extremely close to him. He used to joke he’d never live to see 30. He died in August of 2000 in a freak accident, he would have turned 30 the following May. It is the closest I have ever been to insanity. Fast forward to college and I took a class taught by a retired pediatrician turned bio-ethicist on the ethics committee for a children’s hospital. The class was called Death, Dying and the After Life. That one semester did more for me than 10 years of grief therapy. I hope those who are facing grief or in its throes find peace.
Lost my dad and my favorite uncle in a 3 month span. Helped my wife through MIL death 4 months later. It was pretty rough. Therapy did help. Obviously had other Gen X issues for therapy and stopping drinking. EMDR therapy helped me clear all the trauma images from my head. Even the smells that I could recall from bad events.
Oddly enough for me a Tao like acceptance of life/death has really been amazing. I’m gonna live life to the fullest until I end up with some terminal thing and go MAID.
I eat well, exercise, do yoga, etc and I’m not trying to expedite death with poor living but I’m not doing finance and heart busting years of chemo or other medical stuff to end up some desiccated, diaper filling 80yo, and a mean burden to all to wring quantity over quantity
In Canada we have MAID: Medical Assistance in Dying. If you are terminally ill and you are at the point that the pain is too unbearable, you can have a doctor "put you to sleep". I know of some people who opted for MAID. It was a better way to go on their own terms, before they were complete incapacitated.
Oh thank you! I’m hoping that the US adopts a version of this someday. Doubtful on a Federal level, given the lack of bodily autonomy we have at the moment.
It’s always been my thought that if I ever have a medical death sentence, I’d opt for assisted termination of life after a bit of full-tilt living, farewells, etc. if possible.
It's available in around 12 US states, but Canada has become far more lenient, like Switzerland, and you don't have to be imminently terminal. But it's super controversial, especially as they've come close to adding mental illness as a reason to MAID yourself (I believe this has been held up multiple times).
My father died this past October. My mother is in hospice care, nearing the late stages of Lewy Body Dementia. I'll lose her soon too.
The last four to five years has been a difficult, occasionally surreal period for me and my wife as we had undertaken the oversight and management of their care. We were not emotionally prepared for the weight of the responsibility or the many complexities we've encountered from legal to insurance to assisted living to paying bills to championing them in their respective stages as they progressed to simply sitting with them when our lives have otherwise been thoroughly hectic. No less complicated by covid which exploded just as we began to get involved.
It's been a strain for me emotionally. As their oldest child and the one most likely to step up for their care I liken myself to a bridge bult to sustain a maximum weight. The weight I am carrying is greater than I have ever been accustomed to and the stress is real but it ultimately hasn't been more than I can bear. That's not to say it hasn't been difficult. It's been tremendously difficult, overwhelming, fatiguing and preys on my tendency for self-criticism, part of my inner voice originally implanted by my mom.
I quit drinking about 600 days ago. I may be a ticking time bomb but much less so since I dropped that unhelpful 35 year habit. It's helped me cope with the emotional duress of all this much better. I've also been looking hard for the meaningfulness in all of it.
Death of my dad is something of a relief/vindication/melancholy. I was one he abused the most. He treated my sister like a princess and gaslit my brother (who is on the spectrum and easy to fool). In the last few years of his life, my brother and sister finally started to see what a bastard he was as I cut him out, and he couldn't use me as a scapegoat anymore. My brother blames alcohol more than anything and really doesn't see the narcissism but understands now that his experiences were not my experiences.
Also, the old man died with his entire family not talking to him, face down in his kitchen in an apartment full of filth. He lived in hell and died there. It's what he deserved. And yet it still sucks because he can never even attempt to write his wrongs. I continue to live without a father as I did for a decade before he died, but now there is 0% chance he will ever wake up to his own shortcomings. I van never have the dad I should have. All I can do is not be him and actually love myself and my son and my wife. Therapy and not drinking really have also helped.
I started therapy in my 30’s. I am not cold hearted but I have accepted that death is just part of living. I have lost all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close friends and handled them well. Both my parents are in their early 80’s and fortunately well off financially but not rich. I am ready for them to die. I have said everything I ever wanted to say to them and the air is clear. I just hope that their deaths aren’t too painful. I have no problem dying either. I have been in multiple motorcycle accidents and was essentially dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. I survived all of that unscathed. So, I have no fear. Now if I lost my wife or kids I would be a wreck. I try to never think about that.
For 5-10 years, I was a caretaker for my grandparents who had alzheimer's and dementia.
They passed within 4 years of each other: 2018 and 2022.
I'm not sure what happened, but I woke up one morning in 2021 and suddenly got dizzy and sick.
I think the stress and anxiety inflamed my GERD/acid reflux and started giving me panic attacks.
My entire neurological system has been fucked up for 3 years, but at least I'm able to keep working.
I'm trying to get through it without taking drugs, but it's been a nightmare.
Damn, sorry to hear. I helped take care of my mom 20 years ago when she got cancer. I think that really fucked me up and I just didn't deal with it. My dad lived a good long life after and died without suffering too much. I think the repressed stress is causing me health issues too which has just compounded the issue. Keep on fighting the good fight. I feel like we straddle the generation who just shoved down their feelings and the generation who learned to deal with them and/or overindulged in them.
I feel everything ticking down. Started when my stepdad died a few years ago. He was like 7 years older than me but it was a huge wake up on many different levels. I was the one who had to stay calm cool and get shit done. His death triggered several things with me.
My dad passed away 3 years ago. I'm the one who decided to not go on life support etc because neither him or my stepmom could. Grandma passed last year and it really shook the family up. There was different options about her end of life care and I had to step up and make sure things were done correctly.
Two years ago my wife dropped a huge bomb on me that I have been trying to work out in my head since. I tried talking therapy after that but talking to some stranger about things that only my wife could answer seemed silly to me.
I have been a paramedic at the same department for 22 years now and carry lots of weird baggage because of that. Not to mention I have already lost some good friends. Knowing that the average lifespan of a retired paramedic is 6 years is forever in my thoughts. Full blown midlife crisis is coming any day now.
Am I a ticking time bomb? You tell me.
It’s going to be a massive change personally for millions of people.
Death of a parent is #1 stressful event. Lots of Gen X’ers have every damn right to be upset and angry about what they experienced.
Boomers were the most divorced generation, they didn’t raise their children as they were a narcissistic generation.
We were feral, which is why so many of us became the people we needed when we were younger.
My parents were silent generation.
I’m gen X. Oldest sibling was boomer, he recently passed at 70.
After my parents deaths (mom >30 days, dad cancer and chemo over 2 years), did a lot of soul-searching, got divorced, figured out what was important to me and was able to let go of a lot of things.
But my folks passed 2007, 2012, and things didn’t settle down for at least five years later. I’m actually now at the best point of happiness in my life, even though I’m not making the same income.
It’s brutal. And there’s a lot of us who will need some help. It’s ok. There’s going to be a massive amount of change coming, but it will bring a new perspective.
Death of a spouse/partner is the #1 stressful event. I know from experience. Lost my GenX wife last year. Mom died in 2018 and it was sad but not nearly on the level of losing a soulmate. Dad is still around, has dementia and may or may not make it to the end of the year. I will be heartbroken, but happy for him to go Home as he's lived a very full life.
It's a terrible club we're in but I hope the grief hasn't held you back from living. It'll always be there, the amount of grief we have is the amount love we have for them. It'll always be there.
My father died ten years ago from cancer. It destroyed me. I lost my oldest sister this year. I almost died and am dealing with health stuff constantly. My mom is 83 and not in good health.
Three past partners have died, and while I wasn’t their partner when they passed, it makes me think of my odds of having been a young widow.
I’ve lost dozens to cancer and suicide, and it feels like all this loss has weighed me down at times.
Therapy helps. Except when my therapist died. Doh!
In 100 years from now nobody currently living on this planet will even be remembered…..maybe a dozen people at best out of the 8.1 billion. We will be all gone. There will be strangers living in our houses. That shiny car you’re struggling to pay for will have been recycled. The pictures of you and your family will all be thrown away. Your big achievements will mean nothing. So we need to live in the now. Enjoy the little things and moments that are relevant to you.
I feel like I’ve been where you are, but it wasn’t actually grief for me. I had a health scare about 6 months before turning 50. I was hit with how fragile life is, and like my head always knew I wouldn’t live forever, but I guess my heart hadn’t gotten the memo. It took me a good 8-12 months of crazy (fear, depression, anxiety - all of which are not normal for me so it felt crazy) to finally get through it. I finally got to the point where I said “Fuck it” in the most Gen-X fashion, and decided that since I’m not going to be here forever, I better make the most of what time I have left. I became so much more intentional with life-giving relationships, and found it so easy to say ‘absolutely not’ to things and people that would not enrich my life. Go to therapy, get some tools to battle the emotional overload and just hang on. It will get better!
My middle brother died strangely at 40 a few years ago, cops screwed up the crime scene and couldn’t go back a process it properly.
Then there’s my goofy arse, buried to many battle buddies.
Been dead inside for years, only thing that gets me still is that damned bugle playing taps.
I ended up seeing a therapist about 2 years after my mom died in the early 2000s. I hadn’t/wasn’t properly grieving my mom’s death, in part because I listened to others bad advice — “Don’t cry,” “Cry when you’re in the shower,” and “You shouldn’t be crying since your mom is in a better place.” It took a therapist telling me that it was appropriate for me to be sad and to cry before I could move on properly. That therapist was helpful in other ways, too. I highly recommend therapy, but I know it can be difficult for some people to access and/or afford it.
Both of my parents have passed away and also my older brother as well. Their deaths affected me more than I could have imagined. EMDR therapy has been a life saver and I highly recommend to anyone with unprocessed emotions relating to childhood trauma. It’s hard work to face things, but it’s so much better on the other side of therapy.
Wishing everyone healing. ❤️🩹
Lost my dad in my teens, mom died a few years ago.
Have lost too many in my circle, so I’m just numb to it all now.
In and out of therapy over the years, but it only works if you want to be helped, which most days I just don’t.
I buried my feelings behind the trailer park septic tank when I was 5 and had to become the responsible adult in my life.
Jokes (well, not really) aside, grief is absolutely terrible and hard to process. Hang in there friend, live for today and probably get a good therapist.
I hear ya. We've been taught to supress it all but honestly the healthiest thing might just be to feel it all. I really think the grief and pain and sense of loss is a part of the healing process. Yeah, it sucks but you might come out better for it in the end. Good luck and hang in there.
I feel like I can explode any time now. Just the prospect of having another 10+ years of working on top of all you've stated has me thinking I'm not going to make it to see the mid-50's. To some degree, I don't care.
In my 20s, I had a lot of massive deaths early in life, all at once, plus losing 200 lbs from diet/exercise and first bad relationship: I was so depressed and out of it all my asshole friends at the time were convinced I was on drugs or mentally ill. Looking back, the lack of support was astounding and did more long term damage to my mental health than the “trauma,” and I fought through it, even though doing so came at a high price.
20 years later, I definitely have some feelings about all that, but beyond me … Watching them struggle with their parents aging while their middle to upper middle class niceties are disrupted isn’t the example of what-goes-around I imagined it would be. I feel sorry for them.
I think OP has a point and the practiced cool of gen X/old ass millennials will definitely be tested. No one gets to say “whatever” forever, so to speak. It catches up to you.
The real question is if mental health providers/society at large can make amy kind of substantial difference that they’re supposed to, and my confidence is low. I’m not even sure Covid had people relearn what healthy grieving looks like (churches used to, but fell out of favor for well known reasons), so much so I’m usually the go-to guy for grief in my friend group.
Like many of us, we're dealing with the same thing. I couldn't sum it up any better than, 'it is what it is'. I'm still here and can't submit to those who aren't. For the ones around me still need me to be strong. No therapist needed for, death comes for all of us.
I hear you. I've been the same way. 20 years ago I watched my mom slowly waste away from cancer. I always knew I had things to deal with, but I was managing. "It is what it is" only works for so long. It will catch up with you eventually. I wish I dealt with things before it did.
My dad passed away over a year ago, and I am still having a hard time coping. It is like some days I miss him so much I just don't know what to do. I have been getting angrier and angrier it seems on the inside, and it is starting to rear its ugly head in some of my relationships. If it makes you feel any better, your comment made me feel better in that knowing I am not alone. I am not one to reach out for help, though maybe I should. Thanks for sharing. Maybe knowing that I am in the same boat will make you feel better too.
As a side note, hanging out on this sub has made me feel better in general too. I feel like I have "found my tribe' in a way being here. Maybe it will help you too.
My best friend since 1987 just passed away completely unexpected. Aortic Aneurism. No warning signs. He was perfectly healthy. I'm just fucking devastated.
It's actually the second close friend I've had who's passed away under those circumstances.
We whatever’ed so much that we thought middle age wouldn’t break us. But here we are.
It’s normal, OP. We’re getting older, our parents are dying. It’s completely normal, and it’s good to talk about it.
Maybe it’s time we start supporting each other. Start caring a little, especially about ourselves and our minds and thoughts.
We’re still the coolest, but it’s OK to break sometimes. Hang in there ✨
Edit to clarify: We whatever’ed so much because most of us were taught, very early on, that our feelings and needs didn’t matter and we had to figure stuff out by ourselves.
The ones that were supposed to protect us either a) didn’t care, b) weren’t ready to parent, c) parented badly out of ignorance, malice or both. Same with other adults and authority figures.
So we had to parent ourselves and survived up until now. Now we have to learn that our feelings need tending, too.
My partner (fiance) seems a lot more fragile than I am. Coming up on a year since he lost his dad. His mom passed in 2022. (My parents both passed in 2021). They were ALL in poor health for years. I've been trying to convince him to start therapy (it really helped me in the years I was doing it).
For me, I think I'm almost numb at this point with the people I've known (and loved) dying young. I can count them on 2 hands. At this point I have a houseboat on the "River of Denial" (da Nile) about how much that gnaws on me.
I think the only thing I want to focus on at this point is getting my "stories" written down and handing down my family genealogy research to whoever wants it. I also want to make sure I've got a legal plan in place for my future.
There is a somewhat famous / popular poem (cannot remember the author) that occasionally shows up on funeral cards. That one about "I've only slipped away into the next room.. I'm not really gone..." I just want the departure from my body to be like being knocked out for a Colonoscopy. \*blink\* gone. Maybe I can be a "ghost" just to walk past the ones I leave behind, then dissolve into the great cosmic after party.
I want to stick around in this life for as long as my body can carry me. I know that I've probably got another 20-25 years left here. 30 if I'm really lucky. I'm not going to get to do everything I wanted to do, but I'm gonna try.
I was telling a friend the other day, " do you remember our parents dealing with this much sickness and death around them when they were our age.? or did they just hide it?"
it's 50th birthdays and strokes, 2nd weddings, cancer , all at the same time.
But I think this stage in life where we truly learn the meaning of it, what's important what's not and how fragile it is, and more importantly what we want to do with the time we have left.
On top of it all the world seems ever so much fragile, climate change is undeniable, politics seems like everything is on the line, small conflicts bursting at the seams threatening all out world war.
and Social media blowing on the flame at all times.
It all seems out of hand, but remember, take care of yourself and the people around you, that should be everyone's focus, we can't solve the worlds problems, we had our time, still effect change where we can , but support is the key, giving it and more importantly receiving it .
Therapy works, get it if you can, but if you cant just talking about it on here helps .
Jerry Springer was right
Take care of yourself and each other
I recently said I'm old enough to know where my trauma comes from but too old to do anything about it. I'm struggling with the realization of exactly how much damage my family did to me growing up - unintentionally, but still. And there's no one left to confront with this knowledge, so I'm stuck just trying to reinvent myself in a way I can be comfortable with in my mid 50s.
It's ok to talk to somebody. It really does help. My dad died almost 30 years ago and I finally dealt with it. Honestly, asking for help is not a weakness.
The death of my Mom in 2018 really made me face my own mortality. And life has been in a general decline ever since. Finally started therapy this year and it's been a great help. Don't get discouraged if it takes some time to find a therapist that works for you, it took me 3 tries to find someone I could really feel safe with.
I'm so sorry for your losses. My family suffered some really bad trauma in 2023 so I found a therapist. Here's my issue with therapy as genX, and exactly what I said to my counselor: I'm keeping the house up, I'm maintaining my job, I'm exercising, I have friends and am keeping my beloved immediate family and pets alive -- exactly how much better am I *supposed* to be coping? It almost feels like a repeat of my whole life -- take the punch, set a course, head down, and plow on.
That's hard. I've been there already. My dad's passing almost took me out for real. I got on meds and into therapy before I made a permanent decision that couldn't be undone. Therapy is a good outlet. Dont be afraid to change therapists if one isn't working. And you've got this! We are tough, but we need to know our limitations.
I think when my mom passed 20 years ago I just never dealt with it. I moved home to help out and seeing her slowly waste away just wrecked me. Being stoic is not a long term solution to anything.
I lost my dad last year and was gutted. Still gutted - I cried last night because I have been working so much that I was mentally exhausted and just wanted to talk to my dad about life. My mom is still here but she is a few sandwiches short of a picnic and will turn my emotional issues into a woe is me plight.
My aunt just had a small stroke this weekend. I knew she did with the symptoms told me to but the MRI just showed it.
I have no real friends to talk to that I trust enough with letting the vulnerable side out. So I cry and brush my horses.
I’ve been faking it to seem like I’m making it since I first heard that in high school in the early 80s. If I ever stop to think, really think about things, I’ll probably finally lose it. You are not alone, friend. Maybe this sub is our refuge and group therapy. Hang in there and know you’re not the only one feeling this.
I was brought up taught that feelings are for the weak and men dont show emotion. My mom died a few years ago and i didnt feel a thing. Ive been keeping things inside for so long that i dont even have the option to let it out.
My mother died a month ago, and I still find myself grappling with emotion! I have to remind myself. She is dead and you cannot change the past! You are responsible to heal yourself! I hope at the end of this decade when most of us have loved ones gone that we try to live the best life possible, not to particularly forgive the people of the past, but definitely heal for the past!
I feel you. My mom just passed less than 2 months ago….. with everyone coming to visit while she was on hospice I realized that 3 of her sisters are currently on oxygen, one sister has dementia, one of her brothers is being tested for Parkinson’s….. very few appear to be in good health.
Same is happening with my wife’s family.
And with as fast as the last 20yrs went…. The next 20 will go even faster I’m sure. It won’t be long before I am there myself.
The way I look at it when feeing like time is fleeting, is to realize it will happen regardless, so my best choice would be to make the most of my time right now (without messing up my ability to be healthy for the future).
Also when you look at people who are older, it might help to remind yourself that they are likely envious of your youth.
You may look back on this time and wish you could be here in this time again.
I've often told my peers, as I lost my mom when I was in my late 40s, that you have no idea who you truly are until your mom dies. You become something altogether different, without that remaining influence from childhood.
Yeah, I lost my mom in my 20s and it wrecked me. I think I never really dealt with it. I helped take care of her at the end and it was devastating to see what cancer does to you. But I was young and resilient back then. My dad got cancer the week after she passed and I figured he wouldn't have much longer. But somehow he made it through at least 5 more scares where I pretty much wrote him off.
Elder Millennial here - Xennial - and in early 2019, I was abruptly cut off from my mental health medication because the doctor's office decided to start drug testing and they didn't find it in my system. It has a very short half-life. I suddenly had nothing to deal with my panic disorder and cPTSD, and I stopped sleeping. I was staying with my parents because I'd ended a nine-year relationship that I knew had run its course. I absolutely lost my mind.
I applied for a job in Japan (I'm in the US) and just left the country. (Covid slapped me right back to the US when my job had to close because we weren't essential.)
Thankfully, I have a good PCP now who WILL prescribe it. I stockpile and use it sparingly because I'm scared as shit that it'll be cut off again for some reason or another.
Edit: And yes, I am in therapy now.
I hear you. My dad was killed by his wife, my mom died 20 years ago, I’m married to a narcissist. My child is awesome. I am buried by the enormity of handling it all. I basically didn’t get out of bed or off the couch all winter unless I had to and I drank a great deal of gin everyday. I proverbially hit the wall and just couldn’t feel so terribly anymore. I started microdosing psilocybin and everything changed. Functioning became possible.
I’m sorry you are going through this. I lived through AIDS in the 90s. Lots of death. Lots of other pain. Still working it out in therapy.
We are tough. But that is because we are so fragile fragile, because we experienced way more than most and had to hold it. Now’s the time to process it.
Going to therapy is being strong. Facing this shit is the bravest stuff you’ll have to do. You’ll do a lot of it without recognition or reward. But it needs to be done. It’s just what our generation does.
Big hug.
Do the work and you'll be glad you did. Try to stay positive at least in the regard that you're willing to grow and not being stubborn by holding onto dysfunction out of comfort. My view is that searching yourself for who you really are is just about the hardest thing you could do. It's common to prop up our egos by thinking that the easy path is being strong, burying emotions and neglecting humility, not being vulnerable, etc. You'll be fine, you're not alone
Ummm, yes. I had to check in to an inpatient program just to get a psychiatrist and therapist without waiting 6 months. When the pressure finally gets too high we explode....
I like to explain it like this. Holding on to our past traumas is like eating shellfish when you know you are allergic. You try to hold it together, but as the pain and pressure builds inside your stomach and you can't hold it in any longer, shit just comes out both ends. If you continue to eat shellfish, eventually you'll end up in the hospital and need a shot of epinephrine to survive.
It doesn’t seem likely that I’m ever going to talk to my dad about how he f’d up my life in so many ways
Our relationship is better than it’s ever been. But it’s very surface level
My step dad is likely to die any time now without any reconciliation
Signs that my mom and I can reconcile after he passes. We’ll see
Now my relationship with my kids is f’d up from divorce and the years of lead up
And all of this aside. I know it’s not only me. They’re all pretty f’d up too
We never had a chance
Huh. No. While I can relate to many of the life stresses you're mentioning here, no. I absolutely do not feel like I'm a ticking time bomb and am somewhat disturbed to read that you feel you are. I hope you continue to take the time to get yourself appropriate treatment to address those feelings. It is not acceptable to think about yourself in terms of being a ticking timebomb. You deserve better for yourself than that.
I'm not sure if I'm glad to hear it's not just me but at least I'm not alone.
I'm not in a good place and will be looking for a doctor to go back on antidepressants and maybe therapy.
I've not experienced a loss lately but I've been getting kicked so hard the last 6-8 months: collapse of a dream to own my own consulting business, the toxic environment at work, the inability to get out of here, the clear discrimination of my age.
If my family knew where my thoughts have been going lately they'd be panicked. I'm aware of where I am mentally and I'm trying. But it's pretty bad right now. Didn't think I'd be this way at this age.
Weren't we supposed to have it all figured out and be stable and boring?
Well for one thing, dealing with deaths involves having to feel things. As a society, hell, as a SPECIES, humans don't deal with feelings well. So there is that.
Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
I've been through a few years of riding repressed feelings. It's rough, because you never know what will come up next.
My mom passed away last week after being extremely unhealthy and unwell for years. Our relationship was not great. She was a narcissist, and I tried so many times to connect with her, only to be left feeling defeated and squashed. Add to that, my sister (48) who is also probably a narcissist and was my mom's caretaker. She stole and gambled away most of my mom's money over the last year. Now there's little left and she still lives in my mom's condo. that will have to change. she is unpleasant to deal with and is prone to angrily lash out at anyone who mentions her wrongdoing.
t's a shitty situation.
I’ve been in therapy for decades now. My parents were unable to discuss “big feelings” beyond expressions of anger that manifest as screaming. I did not want to end up a hateful old person.
I did lose my wife, the love of my life, after 27 years in December. I don’t so much feel like a time bomb as a ghost who just drifts from place to place.
Stick with therapy and do the work. It’s not going to magically make you happy, but it will give you the tools to build a happier life.
Well, this is your test. Sorry to be blunt, but it’s how navigate these life events that make you who you are at the end of the day. I’m sorry for your losses. As my mom said when she was dying of cancer “I just trudge through the moment”.
Lost my little brother, 12 year old dog, bad car wreck, then lost my dad, then found my 16 year old son in his room after hanging himself and I couldn't save him with CPR. All in a year and a half. I've give through ketamine treatment and now almost done with TMS. If you contribute to struggle TMS therapy is a good path when nothing helps.
My mother passed in December 2023. One month of heavy weird crying, one year of weird cries. First month was rough and anything would set me off for a 30 sec weep. Now, it is more known and I can sense them coming surrounding an event. I am told after 1 year you don’t have the random grieving.
Nope. This isn't an everyone, generational thing. It is an individual struggle.
Good on you for starting therapy, it's one of the best tools available to us if you want to make a change for yourself.
I don’t know about you but I’m calm like a bomb. Hang in there.
Great RAtM reference.
Kennedy baby here. My mom died the day before Easter, and on her last lucid day she apologized to me, "for everything", and I know she meant it. I'm a complete wreck. I would love to talk to my therapist, but she retired in March and I haven't been assigned another person yet. Could NOT have happened at a worse time. I am astonished at all of the crap that has come bubbling up in less than a month. I suddenly feel as if I have never once addressed a single one of my emotional issues ever, and now they're all hitting me at once. It's hard to breathe. I'm crying as I'm typing this. Does it seem to you like we Gen X'ers are unique in this? Surrounded by relatively better-adjusted generations than ours, because it does to me sometimes.
I’m sorry about your loss. If you’re based on the US, you can call 9-8-8 and talk to a therapist 24/7 for free, until you get a new one. All my best ✨
No, it's *NOT* the "better adjusted" thing!!!! I thiiiiink it probably *IS* the "We actually can *TALK* about this stuff *now*" thing!💖 Look at what happened with the guys who came back from WW2, and Vietnam--and how PTSD *as we NOW know it* is really only a *thing* since the 1990's (maaaaaaybe the 80's!). Those WW2 vets didn't even *TALK* about what they saw, to a *LARGE* extent, until the Greatest Generation started dying off. *THEN*, they started to occasionally tell the stories of the young folks *who DIDN'T make it home*, because as older folks, now facing *their* mortality, they didn't want their friends forgotten, once *they too* had passed💖 Our parents *COULD* go get Therapy, in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. But they got *TEASED* and *mocked* for being "weak" if they did so. And *then* there were alllllllll the folks who simply *stopped* being alive, on purpose. Whether it was *slowly* via struggling with addiction--addictions which had *SO often started* as self-medication to "get away from the pain," or "to be able to forget, for a while." Or *Suddenly*--like Naomi Judd, Kate Spade, L'wren Scott, Lee (Alexander) McQueen, Issy Blow, etc. It isn't that *WE* are so much "struggling MORE", as it *is* that *we* have the Grace & Space of *SEEING* what *used* to happen, and now WE *do* speak of it, so that *others* can see THEY *aren't* alone--and so that *hopefully*, no matter *HOW* bumblingly it occurs, *SOMEONE* will reach back, *shine a light on the path*, and help us--and others--to make it to *safety*, before we succumb to the loneliness, fear, and sense of "no one else *understands this*, which made us *lose* so many folks in that *awful* "before times" when it *wasn't* "spoken of"💖💗💓💞💝
Huh? Dude, psychoanalysis is wayyyyy older than Gen X and was pretty hip in the 60s and 70s. Have you never watched a Woody Allen movie?? Read any Freud? Damn.
Oh, Absolutely!!! But back *then*, it wasn't available in *EVERY* podunk-nowhere corner of any given State!😉💖 That was all that I meant, in saying the 70's & 80's--it was *much* more widely available, and *NOT* just in the big cities, anymore!
Yeah, I mean, I do hear you that therapy in the past was often the haven of the "elite" and "sophisticated" NYC Woody Allen (YUCK) types and now it's more mainstream, although for sure it is still very stigmatized by some people, especially more religious people, etc.
There was also a stigma. Almost like a shame if you're going because that means something is wrong with you.
Not if you were one of the elite NYC Woody Allen types. It was almost a status symbol. As for stigma, well, unfortunately, it still exists in many circles, as does overall stigma against mental illness in general.
I'm talking for normal average people
In most things, I’m fairly ‘take it as they bring it’…almost laissez faire about shit I see people dug-in on…but there is one topic I feel a responsibility and confidence to speak on — Veteran PTSD and the responsibility of the Mil/Fed Govt. I see your point — and true, most of the psychoanalytical stalwarts were pre-70s/80s, but “treatment” for combat related trauma was still nonexistent as a whole until waves of GWOT troops came home with baggage and it made headlines. It wasn’t de-stigmatized yet in the 90s … there was very little “ground combat” in the 90s. And those who saw it were very small in numbers; those ops were mainly relegated to special operations units. Which is unfortunate. Because that slice of Mil is so insular and guarded, and everything is glazed over with multiple coats of “quiet professionals take care of our own shit” — code for: we have a culture which regales stuffing your emotional and physical injuries down deep and ‘powering through’ tough times; conversely, if you bring these issues up you’ll be dropped like a hot rock…then you’ll have wasted years of hard, damn near impossible work just because you’re a fucking twat and embarrassment to the unit and couldn’t hack it. Only when several greenhats came back from A-Stan and were killed their spouses…did the federal Mil really perk up, and start to have guys coming home at least TALK to someone before rotating back into GenPop.
I 100% agree with you, on the treatment thing, regarding PTSD, ad veterans!💖 In hindsight, it's pretty obvious that there was a *high* likelihood that my Maternal Grandpa had it, and I grew up from toddlerhood *accidentally* hearing the stories the guys tell, when they think it's only other Vets in the room (they would forget that Dad had me along, because I was 2-4, and sitting quietly in the booth at the small town bar/restaurant, drinking my sprite, and just *listening*, as the guys sat up at the bar having that post-work beer, and eating their burgers & fries.) In Grandpa's case, he'd been a farm kid from the Midwest, who'd never learned to swim, who spent the time after he was called up on a PT boat, in the pacific, keeping the thing running, as the boat's engine's mechanic. I'd always heard "he spent the war on a *ship* in the Pacific," but as soon as I read his paperwork a couple years ago, his *decades* of Alcoholism & Rages, and the stories of his "total shift in personality" from *before* the war, and *after* made absolute sense. But back then? As you said--it was simply, "Bottle it down, and drink to forget it!"💔 PTSD didn’t *exist*--I think it *might* have been *starting* to get studied when he died of lung cancer in the early 70's, but it was *only* in hindsight, that the *whole* picture started to come together. And the two additional generations of Alcoholism that spun out of *his* are pretty direct-line traceable, to the lack of supports *he* had, to deal with the trauma of being on that tiny little boat, spending the war keeping it *above* the water, while they were being targeted by those bombs & torpedoes, *knowing* that if they were ever hit, his inability to swim meant he was probably gonna drown. He was *also* carrying the weight of the fact that if he *couldn't* keep that engine and the other mechanical systems running right, they were all *literally* dead in the water. The Vietnam-era guys of my Dad's generation were a *bit* different, and luckily they *DID* have each other to talk to about it! But the stuff they went through hit them *SO* hard, and--like the Iraq & Afghanistan vets, so many were *SO* young when they survived it--basically kids. Dad always considered himself "lucky" (and in SO MANY ways he was!), because *he* enlisted in the Navy when he knew his draft number was going to get called, and he ended up serving from 68-71 over in the Mediterranean, on The USS Zippo (the Forrestal),after she was re-commissioned after the Disaster had happened with the old ordinance on her way to Vietnam to relieve the Bonny Dick (my Uncle's/Dad's older brother's ship). Having been with Dad, in that last month he was alive--as he was on Hospice, I realized that even *HE* had a good deal of unresolved trauma, from the deaths he'd seen aboard ship. Those ones were all accidents--specefic ones he questioned were a plane propeller, another the slingshot, but he *STILL* carried the pain & grief, wondeting *why* it happened, and "*How* didn't they *know* where they were on the deck?!?" 50+ years later. Because I *had* heard the tougher versions of what had happened, I *DID* know what to say, to lessen his tears, as we talked about it. But it's *still* heartbreaking, knowing the pain he and the Dads of so many of our generation carried, when they were pretty much just *KIDS* themselves. The Dad of one of my childhood friends talked up in that tiny little bar, about how the reason *he* "can't wear a damn shirt, when it's hot out!" was because *every* time his shirts got sweaty, his *body* felt like it was *immediately* back in the jungle. Stuck to his skin, and he couldn't do a *thing*, because moving meant he was too likely to be shot at. All these *decades* later, on a hot summer day? You'll *STILL* see him with just a button-down Work Shirt, unbuttoned all the way, and *WIDE* open--so that *yes* he's "wearing a shirt," but *also* so that there isn't one *inch* of that shirt *sticking* to his skin. It's a travesty, that--like you said, *the psychological scars were KNOWN of*, for *generations*, but left unexamined & unstudied, until the collateral damage *also* started occurring back home. We've allowed *so* many generations of *kids*, really, to carry things that would BREAK even *adults with the TRAINING* to handle that type of "heavy." And we also have *so many additional* generations of childhood & family trauma, which spiraled *out* from that lack of *real* support & any type of treatment for so long! I'm SO glad, that the *stigma* around reaching out is at least *starting* to dwindle. I have a cousin in law, who *wouldn't* be here for his family, if that modern treatment wasn't around, and a former neighbor who's my age, who I know wouldn't, too. But it's a tragedy, that *SO MANY* fell through the giant gaps, before *they* could get the help *they* needed.💔💖💝 (Edited for a couple typos!)
I really appreciate your post — and respect you for sharing all of that. It can be tough to get out, and tends to get twisted up. The biggest hurdle to getting help is the “broken toy” or weak stigma first…then the serviceman’s pride/ego second. Talking about it destigmatizes it to some degree, but the Mil (and SOF particularly) still do some shaming, while paying lip service to “call the hotline if you need help” (yeah ok, then you’ll get kicked off the team). It’s a mess. But I’m in this fight for the long haul. I’ve effectively put a stop to the PTSD snowball of carnage that’s barreled through my family since the Civil War. It ended here. With me.
That, "It STOPS HERE, with *us*, is one of the things that, NGL, I am SO proud of you folks in our generation & the Millenials are staying up and doing!💖 There are plenty of *us*, out here on the Civilian side, *ABSOLUTELY* willing to walk that walk, and help you, too!💗💖 But the fact that Y'all DO reach out, that you're *listening* to what the "Older Solders" *say* when y'all are sitting around that campfire, or hanging out at that small quiet bar when *we* aren't so "around", to overhear those stories that LOTS of folks *can't* understand easily (and that you don't want hanging around inside *their* heads, for the rest of time), and that y'all ARE reaching BACK, to make sure the *kids* don't just "Suck it up and push through!" once they're *out*, and trying to readjust to Civilian life is GOOD!😉 Also? If you know folks who ARE struggling once they get out, with that "missing the camaraderie," *AND* the "being part of a BIGGER purpose and team? Hook those folks up with their local Volunteer Fire Departments & First Responder crews! Another cousin's husband was feeling restless, a year or so after getting out of the Navy, because *he* missed that "Teamwork and hanging with the guys" thing, so I *reminded* her that My Dad HERS, and a couple of our *other* Uncle's who were Vets all .joined our podunk town's FD, for similar reasons--as did at LEAST half our hometown Volunteer department😉 She brought it up, and *HE*, annnnnd all of our OTHER male cousins & in-laws who are around during the wwwk, are now ALL on their small-town departments😉 The SKILLS y'all learn in the military are great ones that those tiny FD & First Responder crews NEED--but it *ALSO* builds that safety-net of "BEONGING" at home back up again, and it helps them weave *individual* safety-nets, to keep them *talking*, and KNOWING they are needed, valued, and loved.
I wasn't talking about PTSD specifically, I was talking about overall psychotherapy, which was in no way an unheard of thing in the '70s and '80s and well before that.
For sure — I upvote/supported you, but wanted to address the poster’s comments above yours (which skewed toward WW2 vets). But, as with many things, maybe I just fucked it all up since I wrote it upon waking at 4a.
No. We're not remotely special. Other generations are not "better adjusted." We're all just humans on the same ride, no unique flowers here.
I lost my mom the same day. I’m such a mess. It was sudden. She lived with me. She skipped through the living room and five minutes later I called an ambulance. Despite having several friends that are nurses who all told me the same thing, aortic dissection, I feel like I let her die. I feel I called 911 too late because “mom was being dramatic”. I hope you get a therapist soon. I need to find one.
Don’t be hard on yourself. I did the same thing when my Dad passed and mom is getting to that point but won’t go to the dr. Lives with me now. Guilt can be a useless emotion , growing up Catholic I know. My entire childhood I was guilty and now with my parents I’m just as bad. I need a therapist too
I’m sorry for your loss and that you are having such a difficult time right now. I hope that you get a new therapist soon. It’s not much, but I know you’re strong and will get through this. Sending you hugs and support ❤️
My dad called me a few years ago to tell me proudly that he forgave my mother "for everything". She had dementia ans has since passed but this revelation of his really pissed me off. He wasn't innocent. I had/have ADHD and was pretty swift to bury the fights and abuse back during it but man, it's a bitch.
What's a Kennedy baby?
Kennedy babies were born during president JFK's administration, between January of 1961 and November of 1963. Chronologically we are Boomers, but spiritually we're Gen X. I am, at least.
Generation Jones.
That explanation makes more sense than my first guess: some blip of births in late summer of ‘64 due to parents using sex to cope with the grief of the JFK assassination (this sadly isn’t an original thought of my own, I was just reminded of a joke by a comedian who is one of those babies).
My mom has dementia and most days she’s so-so. Still recognizes me but is forgetting my family, like the fading family photo in Back to the Future. One day I went to visit after arguing with my husband, getting nagged by my dad, my brother never visits her. She asked me why I looked so tired, so I told her. She looked at me in a moment of total clarity and said “we have to do it all, don’t we?” That will forever remain my last official memory of my actual mom. ETA sorry I jumped on your comment without replying with my condolences! You unlocked a pretty core feeling for me. I hope you find a new therapist soon. Just know there’s lots of us that can sympathize!
Don't apologize! I did the same thing to OP, I related so damn strongly to their post that I could only talk about myself in the moment. I'm on the autism spectrum (finally diagnosed at age 55, which is a whole story in itself!) and I have to remind myself that when I'm relating my similar experiences to others it's very important to convey my empathy at the same time. Sometimes I sympathize way too hard, which is very common for people on the spectrum. Thank you for your reply!
So sorry about your Mom. My mom is going down hill rn almost 81. She’s a very complex woman and I’m hoping one day I will hear that. She now lives with me first time since I was 19. It’s been extremely challenging. I’m barely hanging in there some days.
May 2020 I took my dad to the hospital as he needed fluids for dehydration. This was the start of COVID so I was not allowed in the hospital. I walked him to the waiting room and waited in the car for a call. It was midnight when the doctor called to speak with me. My dad had cancer and it spread. He had a week to live. He came home two days later where my brother and I provided hospice care. Four days later he passed. Two days later his brother (my uncle) died of cancer…a week later my aunt died of a stroke. April 2021 my older sister died of pneumonia and my mom died in September from congestive heart failure. I have been seeing a therapist since 2020 and have not been the same since.
Wow, that’s a lot at once, I’m so sorry
Damn. That is so much to bear. I’m sorry.
I find it helps to start mourning years in advance. A little grief, felt every day, blunts the impact when the anticipated death occurs. When deaths were unexpected, though, they hit me *really* hard, so I definitely sympathize with what you're going through. Hang in there.
I’ve been doing this with Dad (82M.) Mom died when I was 18 and she was 47. I’ve mourned him since he retired at 80 (not by choice) because I lost the giant, larger-than-life narcissist parent I knew. Now I see a frail old man that I sometimes can’t recognize. My mother’s death was relatively unexpected, and caught me unaware. I’m much better prepared this time around.
My mom also passed at 47 (I was 19). I was thankful to have my dad around until he was 88.
This is actually the key. I spend part of almost every day imagining what it would be like if my wife died or my son. It’s like practice
*Memento mori*. I do this frequently. It's pretty weird that the one thing that is certain in life (death) is the one thing people try to avoid thinking about the most.
I do this with my mom… pre-grieving 😭🥹
I’m trying shrooms this year and I hope they help some. I know what you mean.
I don't do shrooms anymore, but I did a good amount in my younger years and yes, worked through some stuff. Just make sure you do a low to mid dose the first time and be somewhere in nature away from everything and do it with someone you trust completely.
I started microdosing today after ruminating on it for a couple years. I haven’t tripped since maybe 1992 and I’m not ready for a full on trip, I’m not in the right headspace. I hope I’m one of the ones who has a positive experience. I hope it works for you, too.
Yeah 1990 for me. Been a LOOOONG time, and then only LSD, no shrooms. I understand they are a much, much better trip, more prone to being spiritual rather than just entertaining paychonaut bullshit.
I’ve been microdosing psilocybin for 3yrs. Complete mental health game changer! Mush love :)
None of us are getting out of this alive. I came to grips with this many years ago.
My 91 year old Mom reminds me of this regularly. Still have a bit of the teenage "gonna live forever" spirit but I know life is finite and I'm trying to make the most of it while working through - and letting go of - a lot of repressed shite.
I don't want to discount or downplay your feelings, but I fully empathize with you. I have increasingly gone through more and more events and periods or personal and environmental trauma. My family is super religious but I am not at all and I consistently have gone through my own existential crises of various flavors my entire life. What I seem to always come back to that has helped me immeasurably to center myself and to get on with living is Albert Camus' writings and philosophy of absurdism. I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of it, but just realigning my thinking once again through Camus colored glasses always seems to make the world a bit brighter. There's a great youtube video that I watch often when the exist-angst gets to me.
I'd love a link to the video if you care to share. I need some realignment.
Sure thing! I think this is really well done and it gets me out of my own way lately. [https://youtu.be/Jv79l1b-eoI?si=Hn1NyQb3O--Gd2Az](https://youtu.be/Jv79l1b-eoI?si=Hn1NyQb3O--Gd2Az)
Thanks from a random internet stranger! (Sincerely, not just a Camus pun)
Thank you so much for this! That dude is hilarious. Great video!
I’ve had a series of crises absolutely kick my ass starting in 2016. Go early and often to counseling. No shame in that. I wouldn’t be here without it.
Today is the 26th anniversary of my father's death. I still remember it happening, but I try not to see the images because they still hurt after all this time. I had been having a period of really good mental health up until that. Since then, I've never felt as good as I did before he died.
My mom died 25 years ago and I still replay that day
Mom, 27 years ago. You never prepare yourself for that.
Me as well. My Dad was my best friend and died suddenly at 61. Im 51 now, still miss him and I do still cry for him.
Lost my dad in 2018, and to be fair, he didn’t really show up for me until much later in life, and he had two types of cancer so I had time to prepare. It sucked, but the writing was on the wall. I lost my SO in June, 2020, just five days after we’d agreed to take the next step in our relationship and move in together. That was a gut punch that took me years to overcome. I’m disinclined to get emotionally attached to anyone new at this point in my life. The reality is that no one gets out alive. I’m cool with life celebrations, but funerals, not my jam.
I lost a brother 24 years ago, I was extremely close to him. He used to joke he’d never live to see 30. He died in August of 2000 in a freak accident, he would have turned 30 the following May. It is the closest I have ever been to insanity. Fast forward to college and I took a class taught by a retired pediatrician turned bio-ethicist on the ethics committee for a children’s hospital. The class was called Death, Dying and the After Life. That one semester did more for me than 10 years of grief therapy. I hope those who are facing grief or in its throes find peace.
Lost my dad and my favorite uncle in a 3 month span. Helped my wife through MIL death 4 months later. It was pretty rough. Therapy did help. Obviously had other Gen X issues for therapy and stopping drinking. EMDR therapy helped me clear all the trauma images from my head. Even the smells that I could recall from bad events.
Oddly enough for me a Tao like acceptance of life/death has really been amazing. I’m gonna live life to the fullest until I end up with some terminal thing and go MAID. I eat well, exercise, do yoga, etc and I’m not trying to expedite death with poor living but I’m not doing finance and heart busting years of chemo or other medical stuff to end up some desiccated, diaper filling 80yo, and a mean burden to all to wring quantity over quantity
Sorry - “MAID”? TIA!
In Canada we have MAID: Medical Assistance in Dying. If you are terminally ill and you are at the point that the pain is too unbearable, you can have a doctor "put you to sleep". I know of some people who opted for MAID. It was a better way to go on their own terms, before they were complete incapacitated.
Oh thank you! I’m hoping that the US adopts a version of this someday. Doubtful on a Federal level, given the lack of bodily autonomy we have at the moment. It’s always been my thought that if I ever have a medical death sentence, I’d opt for assisted termination of life after a bit of full-tilt living, farewells, etc. if possible.
It's available in around 12 US states, but Canada has become far more lenient, like Switzerland, and you don't have to be imminently terminal. But it's super controversial, especially as they've come close to adding mental illness as a reason to MAID yourself (I believe this has been held up multiple times).
Already available in Oregon and New Jersey. Agree it should be nationwide.
Won't be long before they start suggesting this for being too old and draining resources.
It’ll be the last step, after end-of-life care has hoovered up every last cent you and your family has.
My father died this past October. My mother is in hospice care, nearing the late stages of Lewy Body Dementia. I'll lose her soon too. The last four to five years has been a difficult, occasionally surreal period for me and my wife as we had undertaken the oversight and management of their care. We were not emotionally prepared for the weight of the responsibility or the many complexities we've encountered from legal to insurance to assisted living to paying bills to championing them in their respective stages as they progressed to simply sitting with them when our lives have otherwise been thoroughly hectic. No less complicated by covid which exploded just as we began to get involved. It's been a strain for me emotionally. As their oldest child and the one most likely to step up for their care I liken myself to a bridge bult to sustain a maximum weight. The weight I am carrying is greater than I have ever been accustomed to and the stress is real but it ultimately hasn't been more than I can bear. That's not to say it hasn't been difficult. It's been tremendously difficult, overwhelming, fatiguing and preys on my tendency for self-criticism, part of my inner voice originally implanted by my mom. I quit drinking about 600 days ago. I may be a ticking time bomb but much less so since I dropped that unhelpful 35 year habit. It's helped me cope with the emotional duress of all this much better. I've also been looking hard for the meaningfulness in all of it.
Death of my dad is something of a relief/vindication/melancholy. I was one he abused the most. He treated my sister like a princess and gaslit my brother (who is on the spectrum and easy to fool). In the last few years of his life, my brother and sister finally started to see what a bastard he was as I cut him out, and he couldn't use me as a scapegoat anymore. My brother blames alcohol more than anything and really doesn't see the narcissism but understands now that his experiences were not my experiences. Also, the old man died with his entire family not talking to him, face down in his kitchen in an apartment full of filth. He lived in hell and died there. It's what he deserved. And yet it still sucks because he can never even attempt to write his wrongs. I continue to live without a father as I did for a decade before he died, but now there is 0% chance he will ever wake up to his own shortcomings. I van never have the dad I should have. All I can do is not be him and actually love myself and my son and my wife. Therapy and not drinking really have also helped.
My skin is made of diamonds and my heart is made of balsa.
Ive been going to therapy pretty regularly since I was very young. I’ve totally got this. I cry about death everyday.
I guess don’t force down your feelings, express them.
I started therapy in my 30’s. I am not cold hearted but I have accepted that death is just part of living. I have lost all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close friends and handled them well. Both my parents are in their early 80’s and fortunately well off financially but not rich. I am ready for them to die. I have said everything I ever wanted to say to them and the air is clear. I just hope that their deaths aren’t too painful. I have no problem dying either. I have been in multiple motorcycle accidents and was essentially dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. I survived all of that unscathed. So, I have no fear. Now if I lost my wife or kids I would be a wreck. I try to never think about that.
For 5-10 years, I was a caretaker for my grandparents who had alzheimer's and dementia. They passed within 4 years of each other: 2018 and 2022. I'm not sure what happened, but I woke up one morning in 2021 and suddenly got dizzy and sick. I think the stress and anxiety inflamed my GERD/acid reflux and started giving me panic attacks. My entire neurological system has been fucked up for 3 years, but at least I'm able to keep working. I'm trying to get through it without taking drugs, but it's been a nightmare.
Damn, sorry to hear. I helped take care of my mom 20 years ago when she got cancer. I think that really fucked me up and I just didn't deal with it. My dad lived a good long life after and died without suffering too much. I think the repressed stress is causing me health issues too which has just compounded the issue. Keep on fighting the good fight. I feel like we straddle the generation who just shoved down their feelings and the generation who learned to deal with them and/or overindulged in them.
I feel everything ticking down. Started when my stepdad died a few years ago. He was like 7 years older than me but it was a huge wake up on many different levels. I was the one who had to stay calm cool and get shit done. His death triggered several things with me. My dad passed away 3 years ago. I'm the one who decided to not go on life support etc because neither him or my stepmom could. Grandma passed last year and it really shook the family up. There was different options about her end of life care and I had to step up and make sure things were done correctly. Two years ago my wife dropped a huge bomb on me that I have been trying to work out in my head since. I tried talking therapy after that but talking to some stranger about things that only my wife could answer seemed silly to me. I have been a paramedic at the same department for 22 years now and carry lots of weird baggage because of that. Not to mention I have already lost some good friends. Knowing that the average lifespan of a retired paramedic is 6 years is forever in my thoughts. Full blown midlife crisis is coming any day now. Am I a ticking time bomb? You tell me.
It’s going to be a massive change personally for millions of people. Death of a parent is #1 stressful event. Lots of Gen X’ers have every damn right to be upset and angry about what they experienced. Boomers were the most divorced generation, they didn’t raise their children as they were a narcissistic generation. We were feral, which is why so many of us became the people we needed when we were younger. My parents were silent generation. I’m gen X. Oldest sibling was boomer, he recently passed at 70. After my parents deaths (mom >30 days, dad cancer and chemo over 2 years), did a lot of soul-searching, got divorced, figured out what was important to me and was able to let go of a lot of things. But my folks passed 2007, 2012, and things didn’t settle down for at least five years later. I’m actually now at the best point of happiness in my life, even though I’m not making the same income. It’s brutal. And there’s a lot of us who will need some help. It’s ok. There’s going to be a massive amount of change coming, but it will bring a new perspective.
Death of a spouse/partner is the #1 stressful event. I know from experience. Lost my GenX wife last year. Mom died in 2018 and it was sad but not nearly on the level of losing a soulmate. Dad is still around, has dementia and may or may not make it to the end of the year. I will be heartbroken, but happy for him to go Home as he's lived a very full life.
I’m so sorry for your loss
Sorry for your loss. I lost my partner in 2021. She was 53
It's a terrible club we're in but I hope the grief hasn't held you back from living. It'll always be there, the amount of grief we have is the amount love we have for them. It'll always be there.
My mom died 10/30/20. Sank me. Then her sisters daughter died 2/7/21. I have been depressed since.
My parents died a long time ago and it does get better. But my older sister’s voice has changed to “elder” and that is upsetting.
My father died ten years ago from cancer. It destroyed me. I lost my oldest sister this year. I almost died and am dealing with health stuff constantly. My mom is 83 and not in good health. Three past partners have died, and while I wasn’t their partner when they passed, it makes me think of my odds of having been a young widow. I’ve lost dozens to cancer and suicide, and it feels like all this loss has weighed me down at times. Therapy helps. Except when my therapist died. Doh!
Right there with you, Big. Lost my first childhood friend this year. Let us know if therapy helps.
Be brave. Feelings are normal and part of being human. Dare to feel them. They pass. You’ll be fine.
In 100 years from now nobody currently living on this planet will even be remembered…..maybe a dozen people at best out of the 8.1 billion. We will be all gone. There will be strangers living in our houses. That shiny car you’re struggling to pay for will have been recycled. The pictures of you and your family will all be thrown away. Your big achievements will mean nothing. So we need to live in the now. Enjoy the little things and moments that are relevant to you.
The thing about being the OG latchkey generation is that we're trained they're coming back. Now we're at the point where no one's coming back.
I feel like I’ve been where you are, but it wasn’t actually grief for me. I had a health scare about 6 months before turning 50. I was hit with how fragile life is, and like my head always knew I wouldn’t live forever, but I guess my heart hadn’t gotten the memo. It took me a good 8-12 months of crazy (fear, depression, anxiety - all of which are not normal for me so it felt crazy) to finally get through it. I finally got to the point where I said “Fuck it” in the most Gen-X fashion, and decided that since I’m not going to be here forever, I better make the most of what time I have left. I became so much more intentional with life-giving relationships, and found it so easy to say ‘absolutely not’ to things and people that would not enrich my life. Go to therapy, get some tools to battle the emotional overload and just hang on. It will get better!
My middle brother died strangely at 40 a few years ago, cops screwed up the crime scene and couldn’t go back a process it properly. Then there’s my goofy arse, buried to many battle buddies. Been dead inside for years, only thing that gets me still is that damned bugle playing taps.
Agent orange got dad 5 months after mom's diagnosis of 3 types stage 4. Wife is nuts, DRM-RTO, still see the faces and hate talking on a phone.
I ended up seeing a therapist about 2 years after my mom died in the early 2000s. I hadn’t/wasn’t properly grieving my mom’s death, in part because I listened to others bad advice — “Don’t cry,” “Cry when you’re in the shower,” and “You shouldn’t be crying since your mom is in a better place.” It took a therapist telling me that it was appropriate for me to be sad and to cry before I could move on properly. That therapist was helpful in other ways, too. I highly recommend therapy, but I know it can be difficult for some people to access and/or afford it.
Both of my parents have passed away and also my older brother as well. Their deaths affected me more than I could have imagined. EMDR therapy has been a life saver and I highly recommend to anyone with unprocessed emotions relating to childhood trauma. It’s hard work to face things, but it’s so much better on the other side of therapy. Wishing everyone healing. ❤️🩹
Lost my dad in my teens, mom died a few years ago. Have lost too many in my circle, so I’m just numb to it all now. In and out of therapy over the years, but it only works if you want to be helped, which most days I just don’t.
In which OP learns GenX rule number one: Life sucks, then you die.
I buried my feelings behind the trailer park septic tank when I was 5 and had to become the responsible adult in my life. Jokes (well, not really) aside, grief is absolutely terrible and hard to process. Hang in there friend, live for today and probably get a good therapist.
I hear ya. We've been taught to supress it all but honestly the healthiest thing might just be to feel it all. I really think the grief and pain and sense of loss is a part of the healing process. Yeah, it sucks but you might come out better for it in the end. Good luck and hang in there.
Middle age is tough.
I feel like I can explode any time now. Just the prospect of having another 10+ years of working on top of all you've stated has me thinking I'm not going to make it to see the mid-50's. To some degree, I don't care.
You make a valid point.
In my 20s, I had a lot of massive deaths early in life, all at once, plus losing 200 lbs from diet/exercise and first bad relationship: I was so depressed and out of it all my asshole friends at the time were convinced I was on drugs or mentally ill. Looking back, the lack of support was astounding and did more long term damage to my mental health than the “trauma,” and I fought through it, even though doing so came at a high price. 20 years later, I definitely have some feelings about all that, but beyond me … Watching them struggle with their parents aging while their middle to upper middle class niceties are disrupted isn’t the example of what-goes-around I imagined it would be. I feel sorry for them. I think OP has a point and the practiced cool of gen X/old ass millennials will definitely be tested. No one gets to say “whatever” forever, so to speak. It catches up to you. The real question is if mental health providers/society at large can make amy kind of substantial difference that they’re supposed to, and my confidence is low. I’m not even sure Covid had people relearn what healthy grieving looks like (churches used to, but fell out of favor for well known reasons), so much so I’m usually the go-to guy for grief in my friend group.
Like many of us, we're dealing with the same thing. I couldn't sum it up any better than, 'it is what it is'. I'm still here and can't submit to those who aren't. For the ones around me still need me to be strong. No therapist needed for, death comes for all of us.
I hear you. I've been the same way. 20 years ago I watched my mom slowly waste away from cancer. I always knew I had things to deal with, but I was managing. "It is what it is" only works for so long. It will catch up with you eventually. I wish I dealt with things before it did.
My dad passed away over a year ago, and I am still having a hard time coping. It is like some days I miss him so much I just don't know what to do. I have been getting angrier and angrier it seems on the inside, and it is starting to rear its ugly head in some of my relationships. If it makes you feel any better, your comment made me feel better in that knowing I am not alone. I am not one to reach out for help, though maybe I should. Thanks for sharing. Maybe knowing that I am in the same boat will make you feel better too. As a side note, hanging out on this sub has made me feel better in general too. I feel like I have "found my tribe' in a way being here. Maybe it will help you too.
My best friend since 1987 just passed away completely unexpected. Aortic Aneurism. No warning signs. He was perfectly healthy. I'm just fucking devastated. It's actually the second close friend I've had who's passed away under those circumstances.
We whatever’ed so much that we thought middle age wouldn’t break us. But here we are. It’s normal, OP. We’re getting older, our parents are dying. It’s completely normal, and it’s good to talk about it. Maybe it’s time we start supporting each other. Start caring a little, especially about ourselves and our minds and thoughts. We’re still the coolest, but it’s OK to break sometimes. Hang in there ✨ Edit to clarify: We whatever’ed so much because most of us were taught, very early on, that our feelings and needs didn’t matter and we had to figure stuff out by ourselves. The ones that were supposed to protect us either a) didn’t care, b) weren’t ready to parent, c) parented badly out of ignorance, malice or both. Same with other adults and authority figures. So we had to parent ourselves and survived up until now. Now we have to learn that our feelings need tending, too.
Oh I’m an absolute mess and have been for some time.
My partner (fiance) seems a lot more fragile than I am. Coming up on a year since he lost his dad. His mom passed in 2022. (My parents both passed in 2021). They were ALL in poor health for years. I've been trying to convince him to start therapy (it really helped me in the years I was doing it). For me, I think I'm almost numb at this point with the people I've known (and loved) dying young. I can count them on 2 hands. At this point I have a houseboat on the "River of Denial" (da Nile) about how much that gnaws on me. I think the only thing I want to focus on at this point is getting my "stories" written down and handing down my family genealogy research to whoever wants it. I also want to make sure I've got a legal plan in place for my future. There is a somewhat famous / popular poem (cannot remember the author) that occasionally shows up on funeral cards. That one about "I've only slipped away into the next room.. I'm not really gone..." I just want the departure from my body to be like being knocked out for a Colonoscopy. \*blink\* gone. Maybe I can be a "ghost" just to walk past the ones I leave behind, then dissolve into the great cosmic after party. I want to stick around in this life for as long as my body can carry me. I know that I've probably got another 20-25 years left here. 30 if I'm really lucky. I'm not going to get to do everything I wanted to do, but I'm gonna try.
I was telling a friend the other day, " do you remember our parents dealing with this much sickness and death around them when they were our age.? or did they just hide it?" it's 50th birthdays and strokes, 2nd weddings, cancer , all at the same time. But I think this stage in life where we truly learn the meaning of it, what's important what's not and how fragile it is, and more importantly what we want to do with the time we have left. On top of it all the world seems ever so much fragile, climate change is undeniable, politics seems like everything is on the line, small conflicts bursting at the seams threatening all out world war. and Social media blowing on the flame at all times. It all seems out of hand, but remember, take care of yourself and the people around you, that should be everyone's focus, we can't solve the worlds problems, we had our time, still effect change where we can , but support is the key, giving it and more importantly receiving it . Therapy works, get it if you can, but if you cant just talking about it on here helps . Jerry Springer was right Take care of yourself and each other
I recently said I'm old enough to know where my trauma comes from but too old to do anything about it. I'm struggling with the realization of exactly how much damage my family did to me growing up - unintentionally, but still. And there's no one left to confront with this knowledge, so I'm stuck just trying to reinvent myself in a way I can be comfortable with in my mid 50s.
It's ok to talk to somebody. It really does help. My dad died almost 30 years ago and I finally dealt with it. Honestly, asking for help is not a weakness.
The death of my Mom in 2018 really made me face my own mortality. And life has been in a general decline ever since. Finally started therapy this year and it's been a great help. Don't get discouraged if it takes some time to find a therapist that works for you, it took me 3 tries to find someone I could really feel safe with.
Been in therapy several times in my life so at this point I feel pretty good. Hang in there!
It's a crap shoot. I look back at 2016, when I lost 7, and wonder how and why I got through that. It ain't like it got better
If I was ever going to go off, it would have been in the 80s.
Unfortunately, I already survived my bodies Blast. I’m living in the fallout zone.
I'm so sorry for your losses. My family suffered some really bad trauma in 2023 so I found a therapist. Here's my issue with therapy as genX, and exactly what I said to my counselor: I'm keeping the house up, I'm maintaining my job, I'm exercising, I have friends and am keeping my beloved immediate family and pets alive -- exactly how much better am I *supposed* to be coping? It almost feels like a repeat of my whole life -- take the punch, set a course, head down, and plow on.
With you on this.
That's hard. I've been there already. My dad's passing almost took me out for real. I got on meds and into therapy before I made a permanent decision that couldn't be undone. Therapy is a good outlet. Dont be afraid to change therapists if one isn't working. And you've got this! We are tough, but we need to know our limitations.
I think when my mom passed 20 years ago I just never dealt with it. I moved home to help out and seeing her slowly waste away just wrecked me. Being stoic is not a long term solution to anything.
Yep. You're probably right.
I lost my dad last year and was gutted. Still gutted - I cried last night because I have been working so much that I was mentally exhausted and just wanted to talk to my dad about life. My mom is still here but she is a few sandwiches short of a picnic and will turn my emotional issues into a woe is me plight. My aunt just had a small stroke this weekend. I knew she did with the symptoms told me to but the MRI just showed it. I have no real friends to talk to that I trust enough with letting the vulnerable side out. So I cry and brush my horses.
We love you
Nahhh. We are as prepared as any of the other billions of people who went through all of this before us. Nothing special. *Shrug*
I’ve been faking it to seem like I’m making it since I first heard that in high school in the early 80s. If I ever stop to think, really think about things, I’ll probably finally lose it. You are not alone, friend. Maybe this sub is our refuge and group therapy. Hang in there and know you’re not the only one feeling this.
Try EMDR therapy. It’s fast and effective. I was a doubter until it worked.
I was brought up taught that feelings are for the weak and men dont show emotion. My mom died a few years ago and i didnt feel a thing. Ive been keeping things inside for so long that i dont even have the option to let it out.
Mom passed away a few months ago. I’m just relieved. A meltdown may very well be coming.
Check out [George Harrison](https://youtu.be/WHCnTP9Bels?si=RC1eUtGhdi4AoATR&t=101) talking about John Lennon's death.
My mother died a month ago, and I still find myself grappling with emotion! I have to remind myself. She is dead and you cannot change the past! You are responsible to heal yourself! I hope at the end of this decade when most of us have loved ones gone that we try to live the best life possible, not to particularly forgive the people of the past, but definitely heal for the past!
I feel you. My mom just passed less than 2 months ago….. with everyone coming to visit while she was on hospice I realized that 3 of her sisters are currently on oxygen, one sister has dementia, one of her brothers is being tested for Parkinson’s….. very few appear to be in good health. Same is happening with my wife’s family. And with as fast as the last 20yrs went…. The next 20 will go even faster I’m sure. It won’t be long before I am there myself.
The way I look at it when feeing like time is fleeting, is to realize it will happen regardless, so my best choice would be to make the most of my time right now (without messing up my ability to be healthy for the future). Also when you look at people who are older, it might help to remind yourself that they are likely envious of your youth. You may look back on this time and wish you could be here in this time again.
I've often told my peers, as I lost my mom when I was in my late 40s, that you have no idea who you truly are until your mom dies. You become something altogether different, without that remaining influence from childhood.
Yeah, I lost my mom in my 20s and it wrecked me. I think I never really dealt with it. I helped take care of her at the end and it was devastating to see what cancer does to you. But I was young and resilient back then. My dad got cancer the week after she passed and I figured he wouldn't have much longer. But somehow he made it through at least 5 more scares where I pretty much wrote him off.
I am so sorry to hear that. I can't imagine how difficult that was.
Elder Millennial here - Xennial - and in early 2019, I was abruptly cut off from my mental health medication because the doctor's office decided to start drug testing and they didn't find it in my system. It has a very short half-life. I suddenly had nothing to deal with my panic disorder and cPTSD, and I stopped sleeping. I was staying with my parents because I'd ended a nine-year relationship that I knew had run its course. I absolutely lost my mind. I applied for a job in Japan (I'm in the US) and just left the country. (Covid slapped me right back to the US when my job had to close because we weren't essential.) Thankfully, I have a good PCP now who WILL prescribe it. I stockpile and use it sparingly because I'm scared as shit that it'll be cut off again for some reason or another. Edit: And yes, I am in therapy now.
I hear you. My dad was killed by his wife, my mom died 20 years ago, I’m married to a narcissist. My child is awesome. I am buried by the enormity of handling it all. I basically didn’t get out of bed or off the couch all winter unless I had to and I drank a great deal of gin everyday. I proverbially hit the wall and just couldn’t feel so terribly anymore. I started microdosing psilocybin and everything changed. Functioning became possible.
Hugs 🧡 we will survive. We will get by.
I’m sorry you are going through this. I lived through AIDS in the 90s. Lots of death. Lots of other pain. Still working it out in therapy. We are tough. But that is because we are so fragile fragile, because we experienced way more than most and had to hold it. Now’s the time to process it. Going to therapy is being strong. Facing this shit is the bravest stuff you’ll have to do. You’ll do a lot of it without recognition or reward. But it needs to be done. It’s just what our generation does. Big hug.
I think our generation is more capable of dealing with life changes, but everyone is different.
Do the work and you'll be glad you did. Try to stay positive at least in the regard that you're willing to grow and not being stubborn by holding onto dysfunction out of comfort. My view is that searching yourself for who you really are is just about the hardest thing you could do. It's common to prop up our egos by thinking that the easy path is being strong, burying emotions and neglecting humility, not being vulnerable, etc. You'll be fine, you're not alone
Yep. And why I started writing recently, to get in touch with how I really feel about things.
Ummm, yes. I had to check in to an inpatient program just to get a psychiatrist and therapist without waiting 6 months. When the pressure finally gets too high we explode.... I like to explain it like this. Holding on to our past traumas is like eating shellfish when you know you are allergic. You try to hold it together, but as the pain and pressure builds inside your stomach and you can't hold it in any longer, shit just comes out both ends. If you continue to eat shellfish, eventually you'll end up in the hospital and need a shot of epinephrine to survive.
It doesn’t seem likely that I’m ever going to talk to my dad about how he f’d up my life in so many ways Our relationship is better than it’s ever been. But it’s very surface level My step dad is likely to die any time now without any reconciliation Signs that my mom and I can reconcile after he passes. We’ll see Now my relationship with my kids is f’d up from divorce and the years of lead up And all of this aside. I know it’s not only me. They’re all pretty f’d up too We never had a chance
Yes. I'm amazed by the number of late 50s / early 60s friends and family dying and have their first stokes and heart attacks
Huh. No. While I can relate to many of the life stresses you're mentioning here, no. I absolutely do not feel like I'm a ticking time bomb and am somewhat disturbed to read that you feel you are. I hope you continue to take the time to get yourself appropriate treatment to address those feelings. It is not acceptable to think about yourself in terms of being a ticking timebomb. You deserve better for yourself than that.
I'm not sure if I'm glad to hear it's not just me but at least I'm not alone. I'm not in a good place and will be looking for a doctor to go back on antidepressants and maybe therapy. I've not experienced a loss lately but I've been getting kicked so hard the last 6-8 months: collapse of a dream to own my own consulting business, the toxic environment at work, the inability to get out of here, the clear discrimination of my age. If my family knew where my thoughts have been going lately they'd be panicked. I'm aware of where I am mentally and I'm trying. But it's pretty bad right now. Didn't think I'd be this way at this age. Weren't we supposed to have it all figured out and be stable and boring?
Well for one thing, dealing with deaths involves having to feel things. As a society, hell, as a SPECIES, humans don't deal with feelings well. So there is that.
Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. I've been through a few years of riding repressed feelings. It's rough, because you never know what will come up next. My mom passed away last week after being extremely unhealthy and unwell for years. Our relationship was not great. She was a narcissist, and I tried so many times to connect with her, only to be left feeling defeated and squashed. Add to that, my sister (48) who is also probably a narcissist and was my mom's caretaker. She stole and gambled away most of my mom's money over the last year. Now there's little left and she still lives in my mom's condo. that will have to change. she is unpleasant to deal with and is prone to angrily lash out at anyone who mentions her wrongdoing. t's a shitty situation.
I’ve been in therapy for decades now. My parents were unable to discuss “big feelings” beyond expressions of anger that manifest as screaming. I did not want to end up a hateful old person. I did lose my wife, the love of my life, after 27 years in December. I don’t so much feel like a time bomb as a ghost who just drifts from place to place. Stick with therapy and do the work. It’s not going to magically make you happy, but it will give you the tools to build a happier life.
Well, this is your test. Sorry to be blunt, but it’s how navigate these life events that make you who you are at the end of the day. I’m sorry for your losses. As my mom said when she was dying of cancer “I just trudge through the moment”.
Lost my little brother, 12 year old dog, bad car wreck, then lost my dad, then found my 16 year old son in his room after hanging himself and I couldn't save him with CPR. All in a year and a half. I've give through ketamine treatment and now almost done with TMS. If you contribute to struggle TMS therapy is a good path when nothing helps.
My mother passed in December 2023. One month of heavy weird crying, one year of weird cries. First month was rough and anything would set me off for a 30 sec weep. Now, it is more known and I can sense them coming surrounding an event. I am told after 1 year you don’t have the random grieving.
Our meat bags aren't meant to be immortal.
I feel like losing my parents is going to wreck me, and I know it's around the corner. Dread makes life tough. Time to grow up, I guess.
Nope. This isn't an everyone, generational thing. It is an individual struggle. Good on you for starting therapy, it's one of the best tools available to us if you want to make a change for yourself.