Can't Take The Guilt

Yesterday I decided to open up my mom's medical records I sent for, the autopsy report and a picture of her headstone sent to me. It was too much to handle. I am a mess now. I fell apart. I was already feeling so depressed about the New Year coming and me being in the shape I am. I feel enormous guilt. The records stated my Mom lived alone but had friends that stayed with her at times and an aide. I should have been more involved. I should have had more contact with her doctors and known everything that was going on. I let my own problems get in the way of being a good daughter. Also it confirmed what I had already suspected. She was near death when she first went to the ER and days later she was sitting up talking and showing improvement. The night they told her she was being transferred to another hospital and would have surgery and that it was 50/50, she was very ill but this was her only chance to survive, she took a turn for the worse. She went from talking, being oriented and aware to being disoriented, combative and eventually she couldn't breath and had to be put on a respirator. She never recovered. The records state that she showed signs of improvement and then her mental status deteriorated. That is the reason why. She was scared. The mind is very powerful, it can kill you. I should never have allowed them to tell her. I should have just said they were moving her to a hospital that had a better coronary care unit or something. That is what led to her decline. I can't deal with this. I can't stand to be awake and thinking. My life is a horrible mess as it is and I can't move forward. I feel like dying myself.

WHOA!!!!

You are "should-ing" all over yourself. Second guessing is not a good way to go with this.

IF you had had this information ahead of time...(of course, you can't have, but...) COULD you have really changed your own life to try and change the outcome???? WHO gets to do that anyway???

When you were going through this and she was going through that, were you honestly saying, I can go be with my mom, I feel great and would do that, but I'd rather go to the movies instead??? HUH???? I doubt it.

You didn't willingly NOT be there 24/7 (and who can do that anyway?)

There is never a "good" time to die. Everyone's experience is different. You really don't know that if you HAD been able to change some things, that other things might have happened that still ended with her leaving.

Now stop it. What you are putting on yourself is guilt, and guilt implies you DID something wrong. You didn't, imo.

Now realize that she isn't suffering any more, that she wouldn't want you to be feeling so bad, and put those papers away.

You are grieving. It's a tough process, but you'll get through it. (((hugs)))

I'm sorry for your loss.

i don't feel that you are responsible for your mother's death. she was on a respirator and that is serious. she had to be told why she was being moved......hospital rules, etc.......please don't take on all of this guilt and let it overload your heart.

we all do the best that we can do when a crisis comes along and i'm certain that you were doing what you could then........please dont' let this consume you. i don't think your mother would want you to feel responsible........xoxoxo pat

I know logically that I am not to blame and that I did what I could at the time but I can't stop myself from feeling guilty. I don't know why. My mom was not very nice to me alot of the time. She only started showing concern and wanting to be around me after I moved and even then she was difficult. She had her own issues. But still, I feel I didn't do enough. I feel I should have done more and been more involved. I don't know how to stop these negative thoughts. They are consuming me and making me feel even worse about myself then I already do. I just don't know how to stop feeling this way. I can't take it.

do you see a therapist? talking IRL would help.....posting here helps.......xoxoxo pat

I watch a lot of CSI-type shows on television, with murders and imagine finding a relative/parent/sibling killed suddenly like that in horrible circumstances and then imagine what it must feel like one's self to die horribly. One thing I've gradually come to realize is that everyone dies, can't do anything about that and "how" you die only matters to the people left behind and we don't get to ask the person who died their opinion.

My stepmother got more and more senile until "she" wasn't there anymore. At one point she fell in the night trying to get to her bathroom in the assisted living center and lay there unconscious and with a broken shoulder for a couple hours. They couldn't set her shoulder because her bones were like swiss cheese and wouldn't have just crumbled so her shoulder was left to "mend" the way it was broken. She didn't seem to know/"mind" but it probably "should" have been painful. It seemed kind of like with pain in other animals; things are painful for other animals but they don't think about or analyze it, it's "clean" for them, isn't aggrevated by emotion, their body throws in its pain killers and "dulls" the senses. It's usually not "painful" to die as an animal, they're "out of it." My stepmother got so she couldn't respond to us at all, she had some days that were better than others but eventually she just "wound down" and died. It was very painful to watch.

I think that is the key. I'm 56 now and can look back and see that some things that use to worry me, just don't anymore. I suspect that when I'm 86 (my aunt, is 85 and just called me a couple nights ago from across the country) I'll have different worries from what I have now. No one is judging you besides yourself and only you have the power to stop that. I remember when my father was in the hospital dying for a month in another state, my stepmother with him the whole time and eventually two of my three brothers and I showed up at the hospital worrying about what the people at the hospital must think that we left these elderly people alone at the hospital and didn't come visit. "Should" is not a good way to run one's life. Whether it's coming from our ideas of what other people are thinking or from our own need to think of ourselves as a "good" daughter or whatever, it's never positive or very useful?

But I hang on to how I would "feel" dying/being dead and equate it to after my appendix burst and I was waiting to be operated on for 8 hours. What if I'd never awaken from the operation? I did have breathing problems they were concerned about. But I wasn't "blaming" anyone for anything. I was wishing someone could make the pain stop. I'm sure if I had died my husband might have kicked himself for not taking me to the hospital earlier? We were out-of-state when my appedicitus started; my father-in-law had just died and my husband was executor and I had gone to help support him in that task. I bet if I'd died he would have thought/wished I hadn't been exposed to the stress? Hadn't had to move/travel so much? But what would I have felt? I would have been dead and going on with whatever comes after death.

Give yourself a break; your mother isn't "along" anymore, there was nothing you could have done to prevent her death, maybe you could have made her momentarily "happier" by visiting/calling/caring for her in some way but even if they didn't tell her she would probably have been scared if that was her "bent". But when you're "out" of it and sick, etc. emotions like "scared" have a hard time getting in. I had never been in the hospital before, was/am afraid of hospitals (am more so now) but there was no fear at all during my appendicitis attack, operation, and hospital stay. There's a whole lot of anticipatory fear but I now realize that when something is "happening" there's not much room other than dealing with what it is. That's what adrenaline does for one. But whether your mother was scared or not, there was nothing you could have done; her fear was hers! Being in the hospital or in a care situation, there are so many other people in the equation besides ourselves and our loved ones. I had frightening things happen in the hospital the week I was there several months after they botched my appendectomy, and there were those people and activities frightening me and those that comforted me but my husband was only there evenings during visiting hours. That's all part of my life and not something someone else can get in there and live for me. Your mother's life was about your mother, not your thoughts/feelings only your life is about you.

Perhaps the feelings that you said were guilt aren't really guilt, but a strong desire to have had things go differently? This could be especially with regard to what you did or didn't do, and how you responded emotionally. Perhaps you wish you had felt differently and done more. I wouldn't associate those things with guilt. (As I said, guilt means you did something wrong.)

We all wish for things to go as best as possible, to have and help others live well and long... I hope you can gradually reframe those feelings, pulling them from the "guilt" category and placing them someplace more palatable.

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_Sky said:
Perhaps the feelings that you said were guilt aren't really guilt, but a strong desire to have had things go differently?

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Very true, I agree with Sky.

Oh Bree,
Hon, I am sooo sorry about your Mom. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to go through when I lost my Mom.
Please don't feel guilty. I know your Mom wouldn't want you to feel this way.
You did all you could at the time. You have to convince yourself of that. Feeling guilty and upset over it, isn't going to bring her back. You need to take care of you now.
My own Mom ask the doctor in December, if she would be alive the next Easter and he told her no. She then ask him how much time she had left and he told her not long. She was gone a month later. I was right there when he told her that. I felt guilty for a long time for letting the doc tell her that. But, she was the kind that wanted to know.
I hope you can find peace in all this. I know your Mom would want the best for you.
Take care and let us know how you are doing,
Linda

I am really grateful for all of your responses. It is helpful to have support when I am feeling so badly about myself. I have nobody in my life I can talk to except my BF. I am hoping to start counseling this week, it is quite a distance and I have to take 3 buses to get there but I know I need help and I found out about this place in the newspaper. They will see anyone regardless of whether you have insurance or income. Anyway, I am trying to take in all of your comments. I do realize that when you die your life on earth is over and its everyone left behind that has a difficult time with the death. I know my Mom is at peace, she doesn't have to worry or stress about anything. She did not have a very happy life. I am just upset at how sudden it was and that I didn't get the chance to spend some time with her and also I wanted to be in a better place in my life before she died. She was worried about me and my life situation. I did talk to her while she was dying and told her that I was going to be ok and that it was ok to go and be at peace if she was tired. I told her that I was sorry for not being able to do more and then I talked about things we did together and thanked her for taking care of me. I asked my sister and BF to leave the room so I could have this time in private and my sister hesitated. I think she was afraid I was going to tell my mother to hold on and not to die. I told her I was not going to say anything to upset her, and she said, "Please Don't". That really hurt me. I have a lot of issues to work through with this and I hope the counseling will help. But I do appreciate everyones support here.

Thanks again.

Bree Marie.

Hi BreeMarie,

I am so glad that you came back and updated your post. I didn't want to bother you but I had been checking to see if you were OK.

I am so glad that you are going for counseling this week. It should help you alot. It won't be easy but will give you someone to talk to about how you are feeling.

I am sorry that your Mother didn't have a happy life. But, one thing I am sure of, is that she wants you to have a happy life.

Try not to let what your sister said, upset you too much. She may not realize how badly it hurt you.

I do hope that you two can become close sisters. No one should come between the two of you. I am sure that is the way your Mother would want it, also.

I wish you all the best and please continue to let us know how you are doing. Especially, after you start counseling. I would love to know if it is helping you.

Wishing you all the best and sending you lots of hugs,
Linda ((((((((((((((((((((((BreeMarie)))))))))))))))))