I had a painful and extremely vivid "fake" dream last night - in that - it never happened but it's still a nightmare. In that dream, my mom left her walker and then fell once she found me and I got so angry with her.
1. Thank God it was just a dream.
2. I never yelled at her in real life. Maybe I fussed but never yelled like I did in my dream.
3. In this dream, for whatever reason (I think I went to a public bathroom), I had to leave her alone for a few minutes and next thing I knew she tried to find me without her walker and then she fell when she found me.
I was so angry with her in my dream! Then, I was angry that she waited to fall right in front of me and (hate to say it) left me to sort it out.
Long story short, it was just a dream. If it had been real/true, she would've been in a wheelchair. I never would've taken her somewhere, no matter how pretty, if it required her to walk long or far. Still, it's odd.
It's odd because sometimes I can't even remember what I ate yesterday and yet this dream of her falling and me yelling at her was so vivid, when none of it happened. I'm usually crazy but in a fun way. This was not fun at all. I canceled attending an event today because I'd have these morbid thoughts and knew I wouldn't be fun at all. Oi. Thanks for listening.
I'm reluctant to point out any specific post because all have been helpful but I must especially agree with "sallie" who said, "Stress in real life creeps into our dreams." I am under a lot of stress. I often have vivid dreams, to the point of not remembering if I said something in real life or in my dreams. This was just so horrible, especially the part of seeing my mom trying to find me, FALLING, and then me yelling at her. The dream was so vivid I could actually draw a map and timeline of what happened. I was so freaked out even hours later, that I cancelled plans to do something fun. The whole dream was just odd and surprising even for me, but then her "death anniversary" is coming up so maybe that had something to do with it.
She had the "rudeness" to die the Sunday before Thanksgiving. If I were God, I'd ensure no one died between early November and late January because it just totally messes all the survivors up. It's never a good time, but that is whacked. I've been deeply humbled by so many of your posts, I'm almost too embarrassed to say anything in general.
For the record- the only time I even fussed at my mom was after she'd had some mini-strokes. She loved Diet Coke in a special sort of glass with a bent straw and both my sis and I made sure it was on a table right next to her, esp since her meds gave her dry mouth. But the strokes somehow destroyed her peripheral vision (imagine a horse with blinders on) so she'd just look straight ahead and ask where it was. I did fuss at her to turn her head so she could see it, but not often. That's the kicker...usually I put it in her hand.
Anyway, just a dream. "Keep calm and carry on" as they say.
I'm glad your daddy's death anniversary doesn't seem to affect you. Just stay aware. My father died in June. We were not as close as I would have liked. His bday was in mid-December. I actually got a speeding ticket on his bday the same year after he died. I didn't even realize it until much later. In fact, I was so proud of myself for "handling" it. So here's a funny story...I was driving along doing errands and not in a rush to do anything. Then I saw the police lights in my rearview mirror and pulled over as soon as I could so the cop could catch the "bad guy." Needless to say, the bad guy was me! ACK!
I'm not sure if this pertains to you, but my mom always went "beyond nutty" when she was in the hospital. The things she thought she saw were beyond the belief of feasability for her to even imagine. For example, she was in the ICU ward and was completely convinced it was a brothel. It gets worse from there. We were told it was due to the added stress - and it didn't help when they kept moving her to different wards within the same hospital. So the medical professionals also put her on antipsychotic meds.
My family, also, had essentially a "Come to Jesus" meeting saying she would die immenently - and she didn't. Perhaps that would've been a blessing (figure of speech - after all this mess I am not religious).
It took 3+ years of sobbing for hours when I got home from work and self-medicating myself to get "over" her and my grandparents' deaths. It's been a long time now and I thought I was healthy and on an even keel, which is why that dream really freaked me out.
A hearty AMEN to what you said. I grew up with my mother morbidly dragging herself around all of December b/c her father had died right before Christmas. Being just a child, I loved him, and was upset by a very sudden and unexpected death--but now I see that mother making every "anniversary" of a death of someone becoming a day or month of mourning.....just not ok. My mother keeps saying "not a one of you will mourn me, you won't respect my things, nothing means anything to any of you" and I don't get what she's saying. Is it terrible that I don't have huge sentimental emotions about a dresser my grandmother had? Or a souvenir she and dad got from the Grand Canyon 70 years ago? I know my daddy wants us to live happy and full lives. I'm sure granddad wouldn't have wanted Mother to mourn for 50 years like she has.
All I can say is we all have our different strengths and weaknesses. I get what you're saying. At the same time, please tread carefully. Just because it doesn't affect you in such a way, doesn't mean it doesn't affect others. I'm lucky although I don't feel that way. I had a friend whose father passed on Christmas Eve. She puts on a "good face," but you can't tell me it doesn't affect her unless you're smoking something I'm not.
I had to giggle a bit about the whole calendar of death days on top of the whole usual gamut of birthdays, etc.. My mom did that. I vowed I would never do that.
Still, HER death day still resonates very strongly with me in ways I know she wouldn't like as well as a few others who were very close to me. Ultimately, I focus on the best memories I have of them, but I'd be lying if I said their loss doesn't affect me.
In short, don't be a d*ckhead and all high and mighty. youtube/watch?v=SjnYRD2vm8E with given props to Smokey Robinson.
It's generally a bad policy to tell other people how to grieve, or how MUCH to, but yeah, its possible to overdo, maybe out of ego tripping but maybe more often out of feeling disloyal to the person you lost if you don't remember to make a big deal out of their day. I think I'm going to go with Mother's Day, Father's Day, and All Souls Day for my folks to remember them specially.
But I will never forget the day mum died.
I am glad it was not Christmas.
We are only human, and selfish or not, I am glad we do not have such a sad anniversary at Christmas.
Going to be hard enough having Christmas now without my mum sat chatting to me in my kitchen as we peel a small mountain of veg, and drink G&Ts. Was our special time, and I will miss it forever.
2 months on and still adjusting.
That made it hard.
But we all got some reassurance, that Dad couldn't have picked a better day than Good Friday, to check out, on his terms.
Sis has been dealing with it better than Mum...who felt terrible, and still does.
None of us can forget that day.
One sis got married on Valentines Day--people do things like that, to make it easier to remember--which is kinda a neat idea.
We can choose to frame the memories in a good light, or a sad light.
It's up to us to choose which.
But some folks can't make that choice---they have strange chemistry in them, which makes sad memories traumatic for decades.
The chemical feed-back loops just refuse to moderate.
Some respond to guided meditations, psychotherapy, and some to medications...but those suffering their losses repeatedly for many years or decades, need help breaking that cycle.
As more is learned about how to optimally handle PTSD, this similar cycling of sad/negative events, can also be helped.
Chimonger, every year that passes I like to think it gets better, but it doesn't really. Maybe it does, but it's so slight I don't even notice. The kicker is that I know my mom would hate that. She was a very happy and joyous woman despite all her infirmities over the years. Her poor body just gave out right before Thanksgiving.
Thank you, again, for your response. It means a lot.
I often wonder after all this system failure and the very difficult issues Mom has, what will happen to my mental state when I am off this autopilot of taking care of her and finances, appointments etc. I believe these dreams are showing us what we fear, but at the same time dreams serve to cleanse the mind and show us our fears so that we can be aware of our feelings. Whenever I have a bad dream similar to this I try to busy myself the next day to "shake off" any bad feelings. I do worry about the trust issues I am developing because of all the loser nursing home and PT people that that I have encountered in the last 7 months. These physical therapists tell you she will walk again yet then when that doesn't happen at the end of the rehab stint they give you the robotic fish eyed response she will need 24/7 care or longterm care, of course hoping you will stick them into their facility for massive amounts of money. PTS....I think it is already happening with my trust issues....