How are you supposed to grieve the loss (of any kind)?

I don't mean just people, but loss of what you thought life was going to be or who you were going to be or things you could accomplish or whatever.

I struggle with both. I have PTSD and depression, have seen a therapist, taken pills for years. I'm a romantic at heart. Even life as it is was never easy to digest but then my sibling was hospitalized with a chronic psychotic illness and things fell apart. Nothing like a severe illness to bring out the worst sides of people close to you, like your parents, that you been trying to forget. So the trauma led to my father leaving (a work "excuse") and mother becoming way more judgmental and distant (almost as if trying to reject the illness and my sibling both like poison), and I myself felt alone and forever changed by that experience. It's like staring into the animal nature of people around you, the frightening powerless and loneliness that is inherent in the human condition.

The trauma made me recall my own hospitalization years ago (physical illness) where parents again came up short. Back then, almost 20 years ago, I was 13, I did really need them. I don't anymore, but I still struggle, with the sibling out of hospital but never looking stable enough, with parents whose every temper or agitation reminds me of the possibility of repeat of the past in some shape or form (and my own romantic notions of the possibility of a "happy family" that I had been so resistant to give up for so many years).

God was my second protector as a kid, when my parents (the first ones) and the world was too scary or unpredictable. Both of those meaning systems crumbled. Neither's happiness motivates me any longer or seems relevant. I feel homeless. A sensitive romantic guy in my early 30s, unemployed, with no direction, me who was for so many years as a child on top of my classes academically and had great work ethic, up early and early to bed, now have sleeplessness as my bedfellow, and struggle with the simplest tasks (like clean the room) as soon as the slightest provocation from my parents (like news about slightest deterioration in my sibling's condition or them having a fight), almost transporting me back to childhood when I was helpless and at the mercy of their whim. I thought I was headed for greatness and with hard work, I could even get a doctorate, live a good decent life, making my own family, own a car, live life....

Yesterday my mom's call and insistence that we spend the day together did it for me, completely messed me up and I sat for hours mindlessly playing a flash computer game, like 5 hours then up all night, could not sleep. More often than not when she calls, she has manipulations on mind. Just because I had a good conversation with dad just the other day. She wants to possess me, ally with me, almost out of competition with dad, but does not care for me personally. It's a strange place to be in. Victimhood is her foremost identity. And manipulation comes naturally to her. I don't mind being manipulated sometimes, she has reason enough to be a victim (kicked out of house as a young girl, narcissistic parents, etc) but I have a limit. Especially in this condition, I can't put up with it. Yet the need behind it is real, so I can't ignore her. But it hurts so much. And this is the person who gave birth to me, sending me as a child to say things to my dad to upset him, almost to see if he still loves her, having absolutely no concern with how it damaged my relationship with my dad. She is preoccupied with power. Cooperation is meaningless to her. Even if serious illness or dire circumstances call for it. There is no red line. And I loved her more than I loved myself. She hated that my dad was old, so she would often take me places, hand in hand, as if we were lovers, tell me secrets....

I'm already regretting saying so much, fearing people will judge me as weak or narcissistic or pervert or something. But I'll stop here. How do you move on? We need the world to be a certain way, predictable, safe, loving parents, people dying of old age with minimum suffering and surrounded by family and friends and having experienced life and comforted with possibility of afterlife and a God who will right the wrongs and injustices (non too big of course to have traumatized them) that they experienced. But life doesn't work that way. God, if present, is invisible. Parents are visible but have flaws. Your attempt to deal with these is make up stories that are false. Life is unpredictable, unsafe, unknowable. There is nothing to hang on to. No guarantees. Yet people fight to survive...whatever this is.

But many do more, many actually LIVE. They adapt, find friends if family disappoints them, get good jobs if get laid off, learn to sing if go blind, learn to tap dance if lose their arms, actually feel happiness and joy, not fake joy or forcing yourself to be happy but actually feel happy. How is that even possible? When your buttons are so easy to press? It seems it's impossible to get past loss. Unless you deny part of your identity. Past is true. How can you still SEE the same behavior and not react. It's impossible!
Thank you for reading and sorry for such long post.

Partless, I just read your post and truly wish I had answers to some of the same questions you have. But one thing I believe, though it's taken years for me to understand this and I still have questions and struggles: there is nothing you have to do or be in order to be a good person. I don't think there are rules about that. You already are a worthy person, just by being alive; I think we all start out that way, and that it's important to try to accept that at your basic core, you ARE. Even if the core of yourself doesn't FEEL like a strong core. I lived for a long time not knowing how to be a person with inner strength. Where were the rules that told me how to have an inner core (I always thought of it as a steel pole running through me from feet to head, very strong). It gradually dawned on me that I just need to BE. To sink down into the feeling that I just AM. And if you can find it, there is joy in that: just being able to BE who you are. And I think you've been hit from many sides by manipulation; by people who might be sick themselves and wanted to use you to make themselves feel better somehow. Well, you deserve far more than that; you deserve to have a boundary that you can build around yourself for protection, which might be: refusing to believe what someone else tells you about yourself, unless that someone is a professional who is definitely in your corner. I was in therapy when I finally came to the conclusion that I'm worthy simply by the fact that I AM. And you ARE. You're an individual, a real person, and as a foundation, because of that you're worthy. Then you might build walls on that foundation by finding things about this YOU that you like. Even if it's only one thing; you can build on that. And gradually, little by little, strength may feel like strength.

As far as grieving all the different kinds of losses in life, I have a strong feeling that we're all individuals there, too. I wonder if you're possibly asking, not only how to grieve (because each of us does that in individual ways), but how to get on the OTHER SIDE of that grief. One thing, as a beginning, I know did work for me: I told myself firmly that it was perfectly okay to grieve, to FEEL the loss, to lean into it, and find out all the parts: once you allow yourself to grieve like that (crying, or thinking, or meditating, or pausing to let yourself get your mind off it so your mind has the time to give you answers) you might find that one day you look around and think, "Oh! I used to feel that way, didn't I? But now it's different; I don't have that terrible feeling of loss any more." I believe that's what helps build your core self to be stronger, to be able to deal with things a bit more comfortably.

I'm truly hoping I'm helping, but I know this is pretty nebulous information, and I'm sorry about that. It's just that I don't think there's only one way to deal with anything, and I kind of rejoice in that, because I can choose to find a healthy way to help myself. One good thing, I think, is allowing yourself to write it out, the way you did. It helps to get it outside your physical body so you can see it a bit more clearly. And you can think about it hard, but then -- go to a movie, or read a good book, or do something fun or good for yourself. Many times your mind will come up with some amazing answers that way.

I'm still building my core, and I'm 65. I've found it to be a fascinating process, like a kind of journey. My mother used to say, when I understood something better, that I had joined the OIC Club. "Oh, I See!") Hang in there; I'll be thinking really good thoughts for you! Juleeo

Hello, Partless. Each day is a new opportunity to take control of your life and empower it with purpose and meaning. You can choose what is important to you, and how you can make a difference beneficial to mankind.

You can also choose to be the past you regret and forever lament what might have been.

Please read and see if you can find help beginning the process of purposeful living: Dimensions of Wellness

I wish you well.

Hello, Partless.

Some of what you wrote sounds a bit like "parentification." Here's a 2008 PsychCentral article introducing the subject: Harming Your Child by Making Him Your Parent by Samuel López De Victoria, Ph.D.

May you find something to get you closer to answers.

your mother is manipulative and maybe has BPD or narcissism or both. you sound (maybe) like you realize this but still cannot overcome it. you sound like a good son, but you know how some of those storys end. you are waiting basically for her to die before you can live your own life. it's a shame and true and many people are in or were in the same predicament(sp) (myself included).
you are 30-33 - but depending how old your folks are, you might have to wait another 30yrs - do you want to do that? sometimes, unfortunately, you have to make a break - & i mean break. it'll hurt them, it'll hurt you - but go away. so far away that your mom can't call and ask you to spend the day w/ her cause you're 3000miles away - gee whiz, come to jersey or NYC. your parents are in a relationship of their own and there is nothing you can do that can change that. your brother, obviously, has his own issues - and whether you are there or not, he shall always have his own issues. you - as everyone - must take care of yourself. perhaps you are unsuccessful right now because of where you are and you need to change your focus of continuing on the present depressing journey or moving on.
Yes - the Past is True - but that doesn't preclude that the future is not true also.
Stated simply - get out of her grasp. (unless of course you come from like really rich folks and you don't want to do anything cause you're being supported by them, etc., which makes your whole argument false.)
Whatever - your choice - you really already know what you have to do. You don't need a stranger's approval on some nebulous forum to tell you really that you need to get out of there.
take care - and good luck.

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