Don't pay attention to people who say or make you feel like you should be over your grief by now. It's only been 4 months! And it was a sudden lose. My Mom went into the hospital in early May and passed by July 13th. Her becoming so suddenly ill in May was a shock to everyone. Then to lose my Dad in a car accident less than 5 months later on 12/10 was an extreme shock. This was all in 2007 and I still struggle with my grief on a daily basis.

I did find a great book on grief which talks about things like not putting a time limit on your grief and deals with different grief based upon who passed and sudden passings etc. It's called "How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies" by Therese A. Rando, Ph.D.

The book debunks a lot of myths about grief that society imposes on us. Like I said before unless someone has been there they have no idea what it is like to lose a Parent. I sure had no clue. You can find the book at Borders, probably Barnes and Noble too. I know Borders website has it too. Not that a book is a total answer but it is very helpful and gave me ideas and points of view that I never thought of before.

I have found that crying is extremely helpful to me. I used to stuff it or cut myself off when I started to feel like crying but now I let it out. It's odd too because I can be having a good day and then something about them hits me and I tear up or cry fully.

Yes, the 5 day bereavement leave from work is a joke. Bottom line is there is no correct way to grieve it's a personal experience. But doing self destructive things is not going to help and probably will delay the enevitable process of going through the grief.

I hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you need too. I'm learning all this as I go too and definitely am not an expert of any kind but I can relate a lot to how you feel.