I dont visit the life support part of SW often but I feel like SW is my safe place on the internet and I just need to vent and let my emotions out
My grandma died today....actually she will die tomorrow but as of now she is brain dead so for all intensive purposes dead. She is on a ventilator but brain dead and tomorrow it will be turned off due to her wishes to not be kept on life support.
Yesterday she fell and hit her head on a brick step when she was coming home from church. She had a heart attack but there is no way to tell if she fell because of the heart attack or had the heart attack because she fell. It took the ambulance 15 minutes to respond and at some point she stopped breathing. There was no way my grandpa could have done CPR because he is extremely frail/weak and that may not have made a difference anyways. Like I said she's on a ventilator and when she fell one of her cervical was broke and damaged the part of her brain responsible for breathing so the doctors say there is pretty much no chance she will breathe on her own.
I guess it hasn't fully hit me yet. I haven't fallen apart the way I have in the past when someone close to me has died but maybe that is because I wasn't close to her. I never knew her growing up due to a toxic mother in law/daughter in law relationship she had with mom. I saw her when i was younger but don't remember. I started seeing her again when I was 13 but the relationship was never close. I saw her maybe twice a year and maybe talked to her 4 times a year. She didn't like me. I'm sure she loved me but I am certain she didn't like me. Other people realized she didn't like me. I look a lot like my mom which I'm sure had something to do with it. She liked my sister....always said my sister reminded her of herself. Actually the last time I saw her she made me cry because I realized she didn't like me.
One of the worst parts for me is this stress is a huge trigger for me. All I want to do is gamble. I never talk about this on SW but I have a gambling problem. I go to GA meetings and have been clean for almost a month. I have been trying to quit for a while now, I hit a low gambled away all my savings, everything I had worked so hard for, and then some, I came clean to my family and friends, swallowed my pride and got help. Right now though the urge just feels overwhelming.
So now I'm left with guilt. Guilt that I could have been a better granddaughter. Guilt that I could have reached out. I never tried to reach out and call, my grandparents did but I didn't answer most of the time so they stopped when I was around 17. I just feel horribly guilty and I don't feel extremely sad which makes me feel more guilty.
Here I am having to plan a funeral with my sister and mom - who she hated and hated her - because my dad and grandpa(her only other family) just cant deal with it.
I don't even know what to do but I do know this isn't how I should be feeling right now with the loss of a grandparent and that makes me feel like a horrible person.




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I'm sorry for your loss. Family is rough sometimes. Although I know there isn't anyway for me to truly understand your situation, I just wanted to let you know that your feelings matter too. Don't let society or family or who/whatever else tell you how you should feel. Take it one day at a time and don't feel guilty. How you feel about the situation is how you feel, and that's ok. Take some time to reflect and keep a few really good friends/family members around who will understand and listen to you. You'll power though it (IMO being a dancer means your a tough cookie). Also def stay away from the gambling if you can, real support from your loved ones and taking the time to understand your own feelings will make you feel a lot better (and save you some money too.)
But at the same time, if she didn't feel something she wouldn't have asked me those questions.
) items that I remember from my childhood, and listened to stories. Maybe your grandpa will tell you the good times he had with her. I even walked away with some awesome finds. 

Wishing you peace in your grieving. You might feel like self medicating/proving your worth through gambling. It's part of the process to want to medicate the emotions her loss has triggered. I'd suggest doing some sessions with a therapist and journaling to get a release of you thought s memories feelings toward her. You mourn the relationship you wish you had, and her choice to remain distant. Don't blame yourself for the choices of the adults around you. Childhood is about being in the passenger's seat and making peace with what the adults feel like doing. You can still support and honor yourself without having seen her attitude toward you change. Your worth is not defined by her actions/attitudes.

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