[Gekkou]

I will feel fine for months and then it's like a giant wet, cold blanket gets thrown over top of me. I feel smothered and trapped, but I just have to keep going blindly until the weight of it is gone. My stepdad had cancer and was treated for years until it became terminal. He died with us caring for him at home. Sometimes it is all I can do to get the image out of my head of his last breath. I can't watch movies where someone dies without being completely inconsolable. I never sought out help with my grief and I feel like it is overwhelming me, even years later.

The passing of a loved one is always emotionally difficult to deal with. There is always a lingering sorrow that I always felt was humaness showing through. However, if those feelings are overwhelming you, then it might be a good idea to seek counseling to help resolve those feelings better. Have you or are you considering seeing a T to help you with this issue?

I hear you ... Having stuff we thought we'd finished with to keep coming up and knocking us down is way beyond frustrating.

I have found that if I can do a little sleuthing to try to figure out what got the old PTSD symptoms kicking back up that it helps me to restore my equilibrium a little quicker regarding the current situation.

Of course I've by no means come anywhere near mastering this yet, but every time I do accomplish it, it makes me feel very good.

Hoping you can figure out the current source of distress that's making the old sources of distress flare back up.

[Open Eyes]

(((((Gekkou))))

You never sought help with the grieving process. It is always very difficult to comprehend the loss of someone we know or are in our daily lives. And this goes for our pets as well. Everyone grieves differently and there is no one correct way a person should grieve. And when you are reminded of that loss, because you surpressed the emotions and didn't talk about it and sort these emotions out, it is very understandable that you experience them again with a loss and unresolve.

Anytime we experience anything that provokes a lot of emotion, it is very important that we take the time to sort out these emotions and truely deal with them. If we don't do that, yes, that continued lack of allowing us to express and understand the emotions can bring them out again as a question that has yet to be settled.

What your describing is that you truely never found a way to accept that experience.
It really takes time and allowing yourself to talk it out that will truely help you. Know that your step father is no longer suffering. I believe that our energy/soul doesn't really die, and that as no energy is destroyed it simply converts to something else, we too do the same. However, we are not contained within our physical presence and allowed to feel the discomfort of the physcial presense.

What you have to realize about the loss of life, is that the person who has lost life no longer is in a suffering state. Often it is us, the ones that remain in life that continue to hold on to the suffering that took place. We all eventually lose the presence of life and we all must do our best to remember to appreciate the fact that we have life and can experience this world and all that it has to behold. Instead of remembering the loss of your step father's life, remember that he did have life and was loved and cared for until he passed. Your memories of him should be about his life and not his passing. It is important that you consciously learn to accept that it is you that is holding onto the pain that he had, he is no longer in pain now. And make efforts to come to a way to believe that he is now free to experience whatever comes beyond the loss of life. Whatever that may be, he is no longer suffering.

(((((Hugs)))))
Open Eyes

[siljie]

I unfortunately know so much of how you feel.... from the PTSD overwhelming symptoms and feelings, to the suffocating cloud of grief... Mine is almost always about, but it must be bad for it to hit you out of no where after it seeming fine. May he rest in peace.