Like the pain of losing loved ones (including pets) is so distressing and overwhelming that you want to just end your own life so you won’t have to deal with the crushing sadness? With each death in my family, even grandparents in their late 80s who knew they were going to go, I find myself becoming less and less resilient. If anything happened to my parents or siblings, I don’t think I could live much longer.

Yes.

I have to stay alive no matter who dies at this point. But if a GA dies i feel a little pep in my step as twisted as that sounds. Everyone dies so make the best of the rest of your life. I still mourn my best friend who died five years ago but nobody is going to bring him back. The only way to move on is to make new friends that are not mormon scumbags i have found. Living in religion is way worse than death by the way. You don't even have your own mind in the mormon church in my opinion. But i do understand what you are saying, i have a few good friends that died and i had survivors guilt for a while and wanted to join them like every day, i was just suffering anyways down here you know.

Adam, maybe it’s because you’ve been thru so much, but you’ve become a voice of healing.

You must not be an only child...

I feel very, very sad when a pet dies... Shoot, even now just remembering... I cry like a colicky baby when I lose a pet.

But so far, I haven't had a human being die 'out of season', so I haven't been caught unawares. I teared up a little when I got word that my dad died (myocardial infarction), but felt nothing but guilty relief when my mom died, in my home, at 98.

I think being self-centered makes it easier to let go of humans (cuz I always remember being let down), whereas the love you invest in a beloved pet, and feel it being returned to you, disappears with the pet's death and it hurts like hell...

One thing I am certain of, is that there is no one 'right and proper' way to react when death barges into the room.

Yes, pets...

My little chihuahua, Binx, died a few months ago.

Does anyone have a chihuahua they’d like to sell me?

Nothing worse than watching your dog pass away.

If there is "Another Side," I will be looking all over for the the Rainbow Bridge. I'll be crying happy tears and covered with cat hair.

And my best buddy and I will have eternity, to catch up on gossip.

Sounds OK to me!

MatchaZen Wrote:
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> I find myself
> becoming less and less resilient. If anything
> happened to my parents or siblings, I don’t
> think I could live much longer.

Hi MatchaZen, you may have had a recent death that’s exacerbating these feelings. Understanding and hurting from death of a loved one, or beloved pet companion, is a big part of grieving. It may take several months of hurting to begin to heal.

If its been 6-12 months and you’re still struggling and feeling intensive pain, you may want to consider professional grief counseling.

In a sense, many of us who've dealt with the death of parents, siblings, partners, spouses, or children never really “get over” their deaths. But, we learn to let the pain flow through us, heal us, and help us move forward.

Both my parents have been dead many years; I miss them. If I think deeply about them and start to hurt, I give myself permission to cry until the pain goes away. This may take a couple of minutes, sometimes longer.

As I'm way past my mid-life, I know that I must live because eventually I’ll join my family and the rest of humanity who’ve pass on. (((Hugs)))



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2018 02:46AM by BYU Boner.

In 2017 I lost my wife, a sister in law, 4 dear friends and one of my beloved Cocker Spaniels. It's been a tough go since my wife passed in October but I'm getting through it. Feeling sorry for myself can get pretty devastating if I let it.

Deep grieving is a marker of deep love. How much worse would it be to feel nothing?

The loss of my dogs, my little furry kids, is unbearable. It is sheer hell. But in time it turns to beautiful memories that warm. Always wait.

The worst day of my life so far was when my cocker spaniel got killed 8 months after my husband left me. It was much more difficult to lose this dog than lose my husband. My son still says it was the worst day of our lives. I lost hope that day. It has been 20 years now and it still effects me.

Each death since has been horrible, too, and I still suffer from those deaths. I swear each time I lost a dog, I will never get another one. Somehow I end up getting another one in time. It doesn't replace the last dog, but it helps me heal, to feel again. And then I worry about when I'll lose these 2 I have. I try not to think about it. I have my dogs buried in my back yard. I decorate their graves all the time. It is a very peaceful place. You can feel it. I didn't go back there for years after my first dog died. It was just too much to handle. When my next dog died 14 years later, I forced myself to go back there and now it is a place of comfort. I've buried 2 more dogs since then.

My parents both died within 2 months of each other 9 years ago. It was time for them to die. But it doesn't make it easy. I also decorate their grave. Everyone lets me to do it as I started out doing it. It gives me peace to go visit their grave and their home, since my brother lives there.

I'm 60. Yes, each death makes me more ready to die. My dogs and kids need me, so I'll stick around like I have been all these 20 years since my first dog left.

My therapist told me when my dog of 14 years died to take a few moments every day to grieve. I'd sing the song I had for him to him every day. I did it for a year.

My 2 dogs now carry me through.

Kathleen, I have adopted 2 or 3 chihuahuas. My first one was a long-haired chihuahua. Then my 2 dogs now are half terrier and half chihuahua. One looks like a terrier, the other a chihuahua. They are brothers. Go to a rescue. They actually have a lot of chihuahuas.

As we know, losing any loved one is depressing. Add to that years of depression for other reasons and that is where I am at. My mom died a while back and it changed me. I rarely smile, laugh, feel happy, or even have the motivation to do things. It is most likely that part of this is who she left behind and my feelings towards them.

I am just starting to "bounce" back. It is because I don't want my offspring to feel the way I do when I die..which I expect isn't far off if I continue down the path I am going. Until then, I avoid situations where I might be reminded of death. Case in point, Barbara Bush died this week and it didn't bother me until I saw a cartoon of her in heaven with her daughter that died at age three and I lost control of my emotions. Even as I type this, I am teary-eyed.

I have lost my parents a sibling and friends. None of this comes close to losing a child in 1989. I was so shocked and stricken I could not talk at all for around two weeks. If I had not had 2 other young children I probably would have joined her.

I lost my entire family, in 5 years. My parents lived to be 93 and 95, then all my siblings died too young, of cancer. I became an orphan. As Mormons do, the surviving spouses all remarried within a year. I want people to heal and be happy, but I feel that marrying so quickly showed a lack of respect, and shallowness--well, they were always shallow, anyway.

I think of my parents every day, in a positive way. It helps to remember the best times.

We spend more hours close to our pets, than to any other human, except our children when they are little. I'm single, and my black lab was never farther away than 4 feet from me, whenever I was home, and she slept at the foot of the bed, and her bed had to be touching my bed, or she wouldn't stay in it. She was my son's puppy, but my children grew up and moved away into apartments, dorms, fraternity houses for college, and left her behind with me. She and I were kind of in the same situation. No human would have stayed up all night with me, when I was in pain, or would have listened to me talk about my troubles. She encouraged me to get up and outside and hike in these beautiful mountains. Without her, I might have just gone to work, and come home and curled up on the couch in a ball. I had no Mormon friends, as they all shunned me.

I still, sometimes, pick up my phone to call my favorite brother, to share something funny that happened, which he would appreciate. Then it hits me all over again, that he is gone. It's those times that kill me. I call my grandchildren's black lab by my black lab's name, accidentally, all the time.

Part of adjusting is to accept sorrow and death as part of life. Don't ever beat yourself up for having feelings, or for not feeling enough. It used to upset me that Mormons rejoiced too much at funerals, and would say things like, "He's with his mother and father, now," and "What a happy reunion they must be having in the Celestial Kingdom, right now!" Believing in a hereafter or not believing in a hereafter--is all the same to me. Death is not easier or harder to face, either way. I will always hate and fear death.

My parents have both passed. But by far the hardest passing for me will be when my brother and sister-in-law die, because they have both been such a constant and important part of my life.

One thing that I've found is that when a loved one dies, no matter how painful it is, it presents a new opportunity for growth and change. After my mom died, I bought my home and spent a lot of time decorating it. It gives me a great deal of peace, comfort, and security. As much as I loved my mom, I very much appreciate the opportunity to live on my own.

When my father died many years ago, it presented a lot of hardships but also opportunities for growth. I got a lot closer to my brother and sister-in-law as a result (I went to live with them in high school,) learned to be more independent, which served me well in later years, and loved the dearest, sweetest dog I ever have known.

When beloved pets have died, it has (eventually) opened my heart to new little pets that are in need of a loving home.

The death of a loved one can be very painful, but nature and time are great healers. If you are not able to move on in time, and enjoy life, then counseling or a grief support group may be in order.