I do 🙂

I’ve never had a parent die, but I do understand how stress and grief can make us do things to numb the pain that, in retrospect, were not the best decisions. I also understand how anger can come up and come out in ways that are damaging, even when we don’t mean to hurt people. I’ve definitely had that happen in my life when I was in a relationship that was making me unhappy and I didn’t have the courage to walk away.

I think the first step is to realize that you are going through a major life transition. A parent dying is a major trauma. Be kind to yourself, let your friends and family and work know that you know you’re not yourself right now, but that you are grieving, and maybe let your friend know that you regret hurting her and tell her how you feel about not feeling heard by her about your continued grief.

It sounds like you need more support right now than your friends or family can provide, especially since your family is also grieving your dad’s death. And you must be so worried about your brother, on top of that. Can you gather your family (even if just on Skype or an internet chat session or something) and tell them you’d like more closeness around the grief? They might be feeling the same way, but may be in too much pain to say anything. They also might think they need to be ‘strong’ and ‘brave’. Maybe you can be brave by talking to them about how much you miss them and how much you want to process the grief together.

Is it possible for you to seek counseling or even group therapy? A grief group might be helpful for you.

Your lover might feel confused and hurt about your mixed messages – I’m sure he can tell that you’re not that into him, and that you mostly want him around when you’re drinking. He’s trying to do the best thing for himself by pulling away. I can understand why he’d do that. have you spoken to him about what’s happening for you, and how you feel about him? If you’re willing to listen to his side of things, maybe you two should have a sober conversation about not the grief, but about your experiences with each other. It might help him understand the mixed messages he’s getting from you, and it might help you understand why he’s pulling away. If he doesn’t want to get into any deep conversation with you about it, you can’t force him, so maybe let go of the expectation that he’s going to be a support person right now. If he’s dealing with his own grief, he has his own processing to do. This is another reason why it might be good to see a therapist or counselor or support group, so you have more people to turn to when you want to process what’s been going on.

It’s too bad that you feel you can’t express your sadness/grief to the world. Have you tried writing it out? I used to blog a lot in the past when I was feeling hurt or sad. You could start an anonymous blog and just write your feelings out, and that way you don’t have to worry that people you know will disapprove, etc. Or maybe do art or something else that can help you work with the feelings on another level than talking about them. Sometimes ‘mentalizing’ about our issues stops being helpful because we end up talking in circles. I’m a big believer in other forms of healing, such as energy work, massage, nature, exercise, animals, meditation, writing, art, gardening, and even watching funny movies or videos on You Tube (yes, really!)

Massage might be one way to have human contact without drinking and sleeping with someone you don’t really care for. Do you have any friends who will hold you and hug you in a nonsexual way? I know how it feels to be lonely and to want to be held, believe me. I’m sending you a big internet hug!

And finally: you have the right to not ‘put on a brave face’. You just had a major death in your life. If you can, give yourself permission and time to grieve, cry, numb out, be sad, and not be productive. Now is a time for you to spend time with yourself and in supportive situations, processing this new reality. Your sadness and feelings of wanting to numb our are saying to you: we need to stop doing what we normally do (acting ‘brave’ and ‘normal’) and take the time to heal.

I’ll be thinking of you.