How to cope with the death of your mother and help yourself after

Words of condolences on the death of my mother
The death of a mother is a tragic event for any person. Even if your mother passed away at an old age, it is quite difficult to survive the loss. After all, the closest person to whom we remained a child, despite gray hair and wrinkles, died.

We can say that saying goodbye to your mother is saying goodbye to your childhood and the child in yourself. Therefore, it is very difficult to find words of consolation for a person who has lost his mother.

What feelings might you face after a loss?

The experience of loss depends on personal characteristics, social environment, attitude towards death and relationship with mother. In the first days and weeks after a loss, many people are unable to go to work or cope with household chores because this is the acute phase of grief.

Grief researcher William Warden writes that grief and other feelings are needed to adapt to loss. There are a number of feelings that people commonly name when describing their grief experience—all of which are normal. According to the charity Independent Age, after the death of a loved one, people may experience:

shock and feeling of unreality, especially in the first days after death;
anxiety, general or about something specific;
worry about one's own mortality;
anger and irritation - for example, they can be angry with loved ones;
sadness;
guilt;
feeling of hopelessness;
the need to support others and suppress one's own grief;
some relief if a person has been sick for a long time.

Your experience may vary.
It's normal if you have difficulty identifying what specific feeling you are experiencing. Strong emotions can be scary, but they usually get weaker over time. Olga Shaveko , systemic family psychotherapist, specializes in working with trauma and loss.
There are five stages that a person goes through during the loss of a loved one: denial, aggression, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But it is important to remember that the grieving process does not follow clear stages. The stages are very arbitrary, and a lot depends on the situation, on the characteristics of the person, on what kind of support is nearby.

The stages usually go through many times, and the strength of the emotions gradually decreases. It is not always possible to reach acceptance. Then the grieving process can become chronic and last for a long time.

Condolences in the obituary text

It may happen that an employee of the organization where the deceased worked will contact you with a request to write a condolence message about the death of a colleague from the team . Or you yourself decide to say a few words in the obituary. Read about the citation guidelines and be prepared to briefly describe your views on this death. Here are some examples:

[Name Last Name] was distinguished by selfless service to his favorite work, dedication to his profession and a high sense of public duty. A wise mentor, a true master and creator, he devoted himself to the art of classical music, generously sharing his talent and inspiration with others.
We deeply sympathize with the family and friends of our friend and colleague. The bright memory of [Name Last Name] will forever remain in our hearts.
Condolences to the family from the [organization] team

Mom was not born in her era—she was too beautiful for our time—in body and soul.
Daughter [Name]

His views on key architectural issues and events in the city were often radically at odds with the mainstream, which did not bother him at all. He had a rare quality - to have and not hide his own opinion.
It's a pity…
[Name of friend and colleague]

What to do if you feel guilty?

Guilt occurs when a person believes that their actions or inactions have somehow made a situation worse. Psychologist Edward Kubani has found that people who have experienced a traumatic event often distort their role in it. For example, they exaggerate the degree of their responsibility or think that they did something wrong. These are distortions of our thinking; they can be noticed in the process of introspection or analyzed together with a psychologist.

Clinical psychologists Matthew Valley and Hardeep Kaur, in an article for the Psychology Tools website, suggest this exercise to cope with feelings of guilt:

Write down on paper your regrets and everything you blame yourself for.
Try to look at your feelings with compassion. We all have regrets and we all make mistakes, but relationships aren't all mistakes and regrets.
Perhaps you can take a broader view and give yourself some kindness, like you would a dear friend. Ask yourself:

If your mother could hear and see how sorry and guilty you are, how would she reassure and console you?
What would a dear and wise friend say to you?
If another person felt regret and guilt, what would you say to them?

Talk to your friends and family about how you are feeling, they may be able to support you.

Olga Shaveko

Women often come to me with regrets about not having time to talk to their mother, with unspoken grievances. In this situation, it helps to write a letter and express in it everything that was not possible during life. You can do whatever you want with the letter: leave it, burn it, tear it up. If you feel that one letter is not enough, write more.

Sometimes people feel guilty because they think that they somehow did not care for the patient properly or were not there enough. There may be guilt, and it is normal to feel it, but it is important to understand that it should not overwhelm you. “If I had acted differently, everything would have been different” - no. While a person blames himself, he does not accept the fact of loss, he goes over in his head the moments of how everything could be corrected.

To avoid self-blame, it is important to remember that you did not know the consequences and could not have done anything differently. Even if you had a fight with your mother the day before, you can look at it this way: the decision you made then was the only possible one in those circumstances.

Yulia, 25 years old

My mother raised me quite authoritarianly. I was angry with her and could wish her death. Mom died when I was a teenager. I thought I caused her death with my thoughts. Guilt plagued me until I worked through it in therapy as an adult.

The destruction of the illusion of children's omnipotence helped me; I realized that I could not influence my mother's death with my thoughts. I have now been going to therapy for over a year. But I still have a feeling of guilt for wishing her harm, and I continue to work with it.

And if there is no grief, is that normal?

Australian scholar and director of the Grief Center Christopher Hall writes that everyone experiences loss differently. It is possible that you will not grieve the way it is shown in the movies or the way your relatives come to life. You may be coping with your mom's death without tears, but it can still be grief.

If the mother was ill for a long time, the child could grieve her loss even before death. Because the loss is not only death, but also the loss of hope, the loss of a close relationship with the mother.

Sometimes it happens that mother and child do not have a close relationship. Then, even though the mother is a related person by blood, perhaps her child may not experience grief from the death of the mother.

Olga Shaveko

After the death of your mother, you can feel relief if the relationship was bad. Then you can feel that conflicts and resentments have stopped. It is difficult to accept the feeling of relief and joy due to guilt. After all, my mother died, and in such a situation it is customary to grieve. But any emotions are normal, you can allow yourself to feel them.

There may also be relief if the mother was sick for a long time and it was difficult to care for her. When a person is tired and burned out during caregiving, they may feel relieved that the hard work is over. And this is also a normal feeling.

Don't Set a Time Limit on Your Grief

There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and there is no set time limit for the process. The old saying “time heals all wounds” is not entirely accurate, but it is not entirely inaccurate either. No one can accurately answer the question of whether the wound after the loss of a mother will ever heal. The pain becomes more bearable over time. But how long should this take? No one can say for sure. Don't try to speed up this process. Don't rush to get your life back on track, give yourself enough time to accept your loss.

Sooner or later, however, you will come to an understanding of how to learn to live after the death of your mother. It usually comes spontaneously. After months or even years of depression, you suddenly wake up one day with the full understanding that you need to move on, that you want this more than anything in the world. That your mother would really like this too. After this you will feel much easier.

Is it possible to somehow psychologically prepare yourself in advance?

If you are wondering how you will feel during a loss, you can try to explore your own relationship with death. For example, ask yourself what scares you most about her. This will help you gradually come to terms with the fact that sooner or later you may face the loss of a loved one.

At the same time, psychiatrist Abigail Brenner, in a publication for a service for finding psychotherapists, emphasizes that loss will be a painful and difficult experience, even if you prepare for it.

The death of a loved one is a great loss that can cause many changes in life. Grief does not end quickly, and often a person must adapt not only to the loss of a loved one, but also to the fact that the usual order of things will change.

Olga Shaveko

Even if mom is sick, death will still be unexpected. No matter how we realize that the disease is serious, we always live in the moment. For example, one day my mother is more cheerful, and this gives me hope that everything will work out.

At this moment, you can pay attention to your well-being so as not to burn out. A person with burnout often becomes cynical and irritable; he has no strength left for empathy and communication with his mother. And it is important to continue communicating, holding hands, in order to ask all questions and express feelings, while mom can answer them.

The scientific journal “Bulletin of TvGU” presents the results of a comparative study of the experiences of people faced with loss: for some, a loved one passed away suddenly, for others - slowly, as a result of illness. It turned out that sudden death is more difficult to come to terms with. Those faced with such a situation tend to blame themselves for past conflicts with loved ones and for not being able to say goodbye.

We live in the illusion of stability, that tomorrow will come, that we can call our loved ones. And they are not ready for the fact that this can change in one second. Sudden death can be deeply hurtful because it disrupts this sense of stability.
Olga Shaveko

But those who have lost loved ones from a long-term illness experience grief more acutely. This is due to the fact that they were depressed for a long time due to the serious condition of their loved one and the inability to help him recover. Therefore, if you are caring for your mother during illness, it is important to make time for yourself to rest.

Elena, 28 years old

Mom died a year ago. It was unexpected. She was not sick, did not complain about her health. Two days ago we communicated with her, everything was fine. And then death.

How did I feel? I was very hurt. Very sad. I didn't understand why? How? Why so early? I couldn't stop crying for a long time. I didn't believe what was happening. I still, a year later, don’t believe it. I feel sorry, hurt and offended that she left so early.

Since then I turned to a psychologist for help. And just recently it became a little easier. Gradually the feeling that she is somewhere nearby disappears. I stopped dreaming about her often.

Questions and answers

It is not always possible to find something that will help you survive the death of your mother. Sometimes a word changes everything, you get over the tragedy faster, you immediately begin to be drawn to people, if before you wanted to be alone. I would like to offer a selection of questions that my friends and I often asked when we lost loved ones and, above all, our mother.

I have nightmares after my mother's death. How to stop feeling guilty?

Expert opinion

Father Pavel

Clergyman

Advice may vary, depending on the religion of the person grieving, but it is best to follow several steps in sequence:

light a candle for the repose of your mother, pray, and you need to ask for the repose of the deceased;
you can go to the churchyard, which helps, here you can talk to the deceased soul, ask not to disturb, especially if you often have the same nightmare;
You should write a letter if it is difficult to express some grievances, complaints, feelings out loud, or if you are simply uncomfortable talking to yourself.

If a mother dies on her daughter's birthday, what does it mean?

Expert opinion

Remontnikov Vladimir Petrovich

Religious scholar, historian

There is no definite answer, because there are 2 opposing points of view. You can choose your option according to your religion:

a mother dies on her child’s birthday: according to esotericists, the karma of the family is launched, which is like a relay race - a person has not coped with the tests, has not worked out his program according to fate, passes it on;
opinion of the clergy: there is no connection between the death of parents and children, one should not look for it, this is superstition.

How to survive the death of your mother according to Orthodoxy?

Expert opinion

Father Pavel

Clergyman

A Christian can cope with constant pain by relying on God. He should not be heartbroken, because his mother’s soul has not died, she is next to the Heavenly Father, and sees her relatives. It is necessary to pray for the granting of strength to survive the tragedy, as well as for the forgiveness of sins, so that a person close to you will go to heaven. It is also necessary to perform other religious rituals: order funeral services, commemorate on established days, light a candle in the temple for the repose and talk about what happened: with loved ones, with a priest.

Where is my mother after death?

Expert opinion

Father Pavel

Clergyman

Parents, when they die, ascend to heaven - this image means their stay in another world. We, the living, can only hope that our loved ones will escape the fate of going to hell. Moreover, the souls of the dead see us, help, support, do not forget and love us.

A friend’s mother died, how can I support her?

Expert opinion

Lavrova Tatyana

Rehabilitation specialist, psychologist

When the person you love most passes away, words don’t always help. It’s better to support in a different way: be together more often, don’t force conversations, make it clear that you are always there to help. You should also commit to organizing the funeral or be involved in the process.

How to meet your dead mother?

Expert opinion

Father Pavel

Clergyman

It is impossible to meet physically, but we can see our loved ones in dreams, feel their presence in difficult moments, and talk to them. We must live in hope that after death, when our turn comes, we will find ourselves together.

How to say goodbye to your mother?

All cultures have rituals of farewell to the deceased. They may differ, but they have a similar meaning - they help to acknowledge the fact of loss, say goodbye, and be together in difficult times. According to clinical psychologist Kristi Denkla, one of the steps to coming to terms with the fact of death is to see the body of the deceased. Therefore, many psychotherapists advise attending the funeral.

In Russia, it is customary to say goodbye at a funeral and then at a wake. Also, many remember the deceased on his birthday and the day of death.

If you didn't have the opportunity to attend the funeral, you can say goodbye in a different way. For example, write a farewell letter and burn it, play your favorite song with your mother at a family meeting, go on a trip to her favorite places. All these actions are symbolic, but they also help to overcome grief.

Olga Shaveko

Rituals help you say goodbye. There are situations when it hurts so much that you can’t talk about your mother or remember her. Then the topic becomes taboo. Funerals and wakes are needed to get everyone together and say goodbye. This is a kind of transition to reality, where the person is no longer with you.

Mother's birthdays and death days remind us that now is the time to remember and talk about her. Conversations are needed to share sadness with other people, to recognize that there was a person, everyone remembers him, but now he is gone. These are the traditions that are worth preserving because they help you adapt to loss.

Even if people do not perform special rituals, they still tend to remember the dead on their important dates. Often clients come to therapy on the anniversaries of the death of their loved ones.

Remember your mom

This subtitle, of course, sounds somewhat ridiculous. Of course you will remember your mother. She was your mother! But that's not what this is about. It's about remembering what kind of person she was and constantly consulting her in your thoughts.

People who lost their mother spent months remembering her as a perfect person who was by far the greatest mother who ever walked the earth. Mom was a wonderful person, but let's face it, she was just a person! A few months after you decide to move on, you may have memories of the real mother you grew up with. She probably wasn't perfect, and you didn't always get along. She could be unfair to you quite often, and you were not always patient with her. Most likely, she herself would not have liked the posthumous idealization, because she perfectly understood what kind of person she was. By thinking about this, over time you will understand how to accept your mother's death.

Yes, remembering bad times is not always easy. Regret may rear its ugly head, rearing up in your soul and polluting it with its foul vibes, but now there is nothing you can do about it. You can't push it away because, like grief, it will find you. As they say, it is what it is. Your mother knew that you loved her very much, and you knew that this love was mutual. You probably didn't have a perfect relationship, but you ended up being there for her. You watched her take her last breath, just as she watched you take your first. She was your mother. Good, bad or absolutely ugly... She was your mother, and you loved her.

What to do if everything around reminds you of your mother?

It happens that it is difficult to come across constant reminders of your mother. And if you lived together, her things would be everywhere: a toothbrush in the bathroom, laundry in the laundry, a mug in the kitchen. But throwing things away or putting them away can be even more difficult than looking at them.

If mom's room remains untouched for many years after her death, it may maintain the illusion that nothing happened. This is bad because a person can remain in denial that his mother died.
Olga Shaveko

Co-founders of the grief portal What's your grief? They advise you to sort things out like this:

Call friends or family members for help. Ask them to collect and throw away things that are definitely not valuable (uneaten food, personal hygiene items, laundry). You can also ask them to help you collect and sort the rest of your things. For example, you can put things in different boxes:

save for yourself;
leave for others;
sell;
donate, give;
throw away;
things that you can't decide yet.

When sorting, it can be difficult to decide what to do with things. It is important to take breaks; there is no need to sort everything out at once.

You can ask yourself questions:

Do I have room for this item?
Do I need to save all items? For example, if your mother collected porcelain figurines, the collection may take up a lot of space. Then you can keep a few figures for yourself and give the rest to relatives and friends.
Can I take a photo of this item? Sometimes it is difficult to part with an item, even if it is necessary. In this case, you can take high-quality photos of the item and keep them as a souvenir.
Can I make something valuable out of these things? For example, you can make a bedspread from prints of old T-shirts.

Important things for you, photographs, letters can be put in a special “memory box”. Find a suitable storage space and schedule times when you remember Mom and look through the items in the box, such as on death anniversaries and birthdays.

After a loss, especially in the first weeks, it can be difficult to return to activities that involve mom. For example, going to your cafe, mom’s favorite dish, cycling along your route. It is important to gradually regain the opportunity to visit your favorite places and do your favorite things in a new reality where there is no mother.

Here's a way to gradually confront situations that trigger memories:

Make a list of places and activities that remind you of your mother. Rank the situations from the simplest to the most complex, causing a lot of feelings.
Make a plan for how and when you will begin to face the situations you have been avoiding. To make it easier, ask a friend or close family member to go with you.
Be gentle with yourself, it's best to start with small steps because it may be difficult to face the reminders again.
If you notice difficult emotions arising, try to slow down and describe these emotions, feel where exactly in the body they are felt most strongly. This will help you get in touch with your emotions.

How to survive a day full of sad memories

Here's what psychologists advise to get through such a difficult day:

Don't suppress sadness or memories. Whether or not you had a positive relationship with your mother, it was probably the deepest relationship of your life. The deep emotions caused by her death are completely normal and there is nothing scary about them. People often run from strong feelings because they are afraid of being trapped. Don't run from grief, but try not to wear it like a stuffy blanket. Your ability to grieve also shows your ability to love.
Share your feelings with those you care about, such as your spouse, friends and family. Your brothers and sisters will be most affected by your emotions regarding your common mother.
Don't torture yourself with triggers that you know will cause pain. In other words, stay away from the surefire “instigators” of grief. These triggers include looking at Mother's Day cards, looking through Facebook or Instagram at all the photos of happy families, and going to restaurants during the busy family holidays. Analyze which moments without your mother make you grieve the most. Maybe you used to always go to the pool or to the theater together. Try to avoid such situations alone: invite friends or relatives with you.
Continue to make plans for each day. Don't spend the day with your head under the covers, avoiding the world. Change your usual schedule and hobbies. If you used to meet with your mother on Saturdays, sign up for aerobics classes at this time, for example.
Treat yourself to self-compassion and acceptance of your sad situation. If you choose to spend time alone, practice self-care, such as cooking something instead of devoting your day to junk food and watching sad movies. Nourish your body and soul with good, healthy food and exercise. Listen to some meditation tapes, focus on work, or look at old photos or videos that bring back good memories. Read an incredible book whose hero you would like to be.
The point is to do what you enjoy, not what will make your loss worse. Maybe you can go hiking or travel to some place that warms your soul. Have a backup plan if you decide you don't want to be alone. Arrange in advance for a friend or family member to accompany you.
Do something to honor your mother. This can take many forms. For example, you can make a charitable contribution in her name to organizations such as Save the Children, Develop Africa, or any non-profit organization that cares about people. Overcoming your laziness (or greed) and doing something for others in need is a wonderful way to honor your mother and help yourself feel better.
Another helpful idea, especially for the first Mother's Day without your beloved parent, is to get together with your family and share your stories - try to keep the stories funny and positive!
Create new traditions. While your mother was alive, there must have been some traditions associated with her in your family. Now that she's gone, you can create new traditions to make the day special.

How to support yourself after loss?

Different actions may be required at different times after a loss. Clinical psychologists Matthew Valley and Hardeep Kaur recommend:

Carry out any rituals. Rituals help you understand the reality of what happened and find your meaning in it.
Express your grief, sorrow and other feelings. For example, keep a diary and record your experiences in it.
Tell the story of your loss and grief, for example, write your story on social networks. This is also a way to reflect on experiences and get support.
Write a letter to your mom about what you wanted to say and didn’t say. This will help express feelings.
Be in touch with your emotions. Many of us are good at suppressing emotions, so feeling them can be difficult and unusual. You can imagine every emotion as a part of yourself. For example, the part that is angry and the part that is afraid. Distinguishing your emotions is important to understand what is happening to you and how you can help yourself.

Olga Shaveko

The better a person understands himself, the easier it is to support himself during periods of grief. Support is a word that everyone understands differently. You can understand what kind of support you need by remembering what kind of support you had in your family, or by asking yourself what kind of support I expect. Often we do not ask ourselves such questions, but expect from loved ones that they should know what and when to say.

Sadness and crying are normal and appropriate to the situation. Many people find it difficult to allow themselves emotions, because there is a feeling that if you let yourself go a little, you will never stop crying. The grieving process occurs in waves, sometimes it’s very difficult, sometimes it becomes easier.

And often society, people who support, try to distract, say that life goes on and we must hold on. You can try to get away from emotions for a while, but they will still cover you. Then trivial situations like spilled tea can cause sobs. At such moments, it helps to go to a psychologist to create a safe space for living emotions.

You can say: “It’s important for me to cry.” Explain that this helps to cope with the loss. It is difficult for people to simply be there and hold the hand of a crying person. I want to do something and help. But being close can be the most important thing.

If loved ones violate your personal space and devalue your feelings, it is important to find a time and place for yourself where you can experience emotions. For example, agree to see a supportive friend more often. It is better to reduce communication that makes you feel bad.

Yulia, 25 years old

My mother died when I was 12 years old. I stayed with my dad and grandmother. It was a stressful period, conflicts began in the family, and soon my grandmother left.

For a long time I repressed my feelings about my mother’s death. There was a moment at the funeral when I wanted to cry and join in the general feeling of grief. One of my mother’s friends said that I should not cry so as not to upset my grandmother. I never managed to cry, and for a long time after that I didn’t cry at all. And repressed grief.

When I was at university, it became more and more difficult for me to pass papers. I came to therapy with a request about difficulties in studying, and at the very first session I began to talk about the death of my mother and cry. In therapy, I felt better, and I began to work with unlived and blocked feelings.

How to support loved ones who are also experiencing loss?

Many people find it difficult to find words that are appropriate. Here are the phrases cited by psychologist Sergei Shefov as an example of what you can say to a grieving person:

"How do you feel?" is an open question that gives the grieving person the opportunity to speak out.
“I'm sorry this happened” and “I don't know what to say, but I want you to know that I feel this way with you” are ways to express your feelings.

Olga Shaveko

You and your loved ones may not be in the same stages of grief. For example, one person is in the stage of aggression and protests against what happened. And the other one is sad. And it seems to the first that the second doesn’t care at all and doesn’t support him. It is important to understand that you experience grief differently. You can seek support from people who are not affected by grief.

You can be there and allow emotions to show, ask what support is needed. Do not isolate a person from life, for example, if he feels the strength to go to work, support his decision.

It certainly doesn’t help to ignore the topic of loss and expect that after the funeral a person will live as before. Because then it will be difficult for the grieving person to cry and be sad next to you. He may brace himself to hide his emotions, but this will only increase the tension between you.

What if the family has small children? How can you avoid hurting them?

Candidate of Psychological Sciences Natalya Nozikova and educational psychologist Ekaterina Kolesnik argue that a child is more likely to experience grief without post-traumatic syndrome if he is allowed to show feelings. And also if there is a significant adult in his life who takes care of him.

Lena, 36 years old

When my mother died, my daughter was less than two months old. I wasn’t at the funeral, I couldn’t leave her with anyone. I think mom would understand. I don’t have an open gestalt about farewell.

I was constantly concerned about my daughter. I consoled myself with the thought that it was natural that we bury our parents. Mom lived a difficult life, buried two sons, but remained strong. I wanted to get support from her, I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t call her. Although I am 36 years old, it seems that before my mother died I was a child, and now I have become an adult.

Olga Shaveko

You can tell the child that his grandmother or mother has died, that now we will not see her, but we will remember her. You can take a child to a funeral, but don’t lead him if he doesn’t want to, don’t push him to take active action. It is important for a child, like an adult, to say goodbye to a loved one. The very presence at the funeral is not traumatic for him. A hysteria from an adult that he sees can frighten a child.

Younger children 3–5 years old see death as something reversible. From the age of 6, children understand that living things tend to die. You can build a conversation based on the child’s questions and his reaction.

If you feel that the child will have a hard time bearing the news of death, you can read fairy tales in which the characters lose someone close.

Often clients say: “How can I cry, because there are children nearby?” If a person does not bang his head against the wall, then children are able to withstand the tears of their parents. You can tell your child: “I’m sad that grandma is not around.” This is how we allow the child to feel. Children grieve too, but they may show it differently.

Practical advice

Dealing with the death of your mother is very difficult. It is doubly difficult to do this alone. That is why we have collected advice from those who have coped with similar grief. Perhaps they will be useful for you:

Talk through your grief, don’t withdraw into yourself. From the outside it may seem that people are avoiding you, but this is not so. They simply don’t know what to answer you, how to support you so as not to aggravate the pain of loss. So just start the conversation with the phrase: “I need to talk now, please stay close and listen to me.” Try to find a person who has already experienced the death of a loved one, or talk about this topic with a priest or a professional psychologist.
Get creative. The pain that has accumulated inside you must find a way out. It is impossible to express it or cry it all out. But you can express it in your creativity. Try painting pictures or embroidering with beads. You can also start writing a book or poetry. Choose any creativity that is close to your spirit.
Start helping others. Caring for others makes you feel needed. It brings you back from heavy thoughts to reality and fills life with new meaning. You can take care of lonely old people, animals, children left without parents.
Occupational therapy. Physical work, especially in nature, helps to distract from gloomy thoughts. You can plant a beautiful garden, start building a house, etc.
Think about your mother only in a positive way. Try to remember only the good things, how your mother was happy, how happy she was, what she was proud of, where she visited and what she saw. You can even fulfill her deepest wish. For example, visit an exotic country, attend a concert of your favorite star, visit friends from your youth.

It takes time to get over your mother's death and let go. Of course, you will never be able to completely forget about your loss. But the day will definitely come when you think not “what a pity that mom left,” but “what a blessing that she was there”!

Arina, Petrozavodsk

How long will it take to return to life?

It's difficult to make predictions because people deal with grief differently. In a Cambridge University study, many people describe the first 4-6 months after a loss as the peak of grief. The experience of grief does not end there, but after this period a person may feel more stable.

Olga Shaveko

For many clients, grieving takes 1.5–2 years.

You can understand that the grieving process has ended if the emotions become weaker. The feeling of pain and loss will roll in, but it will be more of sadness and regret, rather than hopeless grief.

There is a stereotype that only good things are remembered about those who have passed on. However, if the mother is remembered as unrealistically good, this may mean that the work of grief has not yet been done. When the grieving process is completed, the memories will be voluminous - both good and bad.

When should you seek help?

In an article for the non-profit organization HelpGuide, they name signs when you need to seek help:

You feel that life is not worth living.
I would like to die with my mother.
Blame yourself for your mother's death.
For several weeks now you have not felt connected to others, as if you were separated from them.
You don't trust anyone after your mother's death.
You cannot carry out your daily activities.

You can also ask for help, even if you are coping: just to make yourself easier and more comfortable.

Olga Shaveko

The loss of a loved one in itself is a reason to seek help. A psychologist or psychotherapist creates a safe space for emotions to live.

I would definitely advise starting work in the following cases: 1. If mom left a long time ago, and the amplitude of emotions does not decrease. 2. If when talking about mom, tears appear, breathing becomes difficult, and it’s difficult to speak. 3. If the grieving process is not so long, but it takes you out of life completely, you cannot work or do household chores.

You can find a specialist on websites and social networks in communities of psychologists: the Gestalt approach, the cognitive approach, systemic family therapy are suitable.

If you don’t have the money for an expensive specialist, you can turn to master’s students. These are people at the last stage of education, they also go to personal therapy and supervision and can provide qualified assistance.

Parental departure hurts at any age: is it possible to prepare, stages of acceptance?

A person grows up and then grows old. Relatives do not notice the moment when these changes have already happened. My mother was not sick and remained active. She died of a heart attack very quickly. At that moment, I was already a mature, accomplished person with my family (husband, children). But her death still took me by surprise. I just stopped breathing for a moment. It was that hard.

After a while, I analyze my behavior at the moment of receiving terrible news, I see that the reaction is always the same: in childhood, in the period of maturity and even in my own old age. It doesn't matter how old you are. The pain of losing a mother is equally strong, because this is the closest person, she remains like that throughout her life. There is no way to prepare for something like this, no matter how much training you take.

While you read such words, you think that you will definitely have time to prepare, because there is still a lot of time. But this is a misconception. I suggest focusing on ways to help yourself in difficult times. First, it is necessary to consider the stages that a person goes through after terrible news:

1 THE FIRST REACTION IS UNPREDICTABLE. It varies and depends on the person’s temperament, character, and also on the degree of his openness and closeness with the deceased. It happens that a mother does not allow her to live her life, but her son/daughter is reserved and, due to the circumstances, has a closed character. As a result, the reaction to death is as follows: detachment and coldness appear—protection from severe pain. Other people, on the contrary, react loudly and emotionally to such an event: they cry, scream.

2 ANGER AND RESULT. Strong emotions are looking for a way out. When I worked with my psychologist, he said that if this does not happen through tears, then anger and resentment often appear. This reaction is also due to character traits. A person is looking for someone to blame in order to unleash the power of his pain through hatred. He may blame other people or himself for the death of his mother, and be offended by his mother for leaving her. In the most severe cases, a person does not stop and takes revenge. This is the path to destruction. The situation is aggravated by a change in the financial situation, which can be caused by the death of a woman.

3 FEELING OF GUILT In the previous case, grief forced me to look for an outlet for emotions outside. Then the focus is on one’s own mistakes made when communicating with the mother. This does not allow you to calm down and let go of your loved one. Blaming oneself often leads to an increase in the intensity of pain, which manifests itself not only in mental but also physical pain. At this stage, it is difficult to pull yourself together, cope with emotions, stop tears, and start doing something.

4 ACCEPTANCE AND REORGANIZATION Often the emotional state changes naturally when a person fully experiences all the feelings at each stage. As the psychologist said, disruption of this process requires further adjustment of the psychological state. But those who have gotten rid of negative experiences still manage to improve their lives. The recovery process is long. It is impossible to predict how long it will take to reorganize life in each individual case.