Hi Reddit. I’m having a really hard time and don’t know who to turn to. Last year, both my grandparents passed away due to COVID on the same day. We (my family) did everything we could to help them, but it did not work. They had been living away from my parents (my parents job is in a different country and they needed to save up for my education) and I had not seen them in 2 years. I got into college the week of their passing, so I didn’t really get to process either of those things. I entered my freshman year burying my pain, but fine nonetheless. However, a year later, I am really struggling to come to terms with everything that happened. I feel guilty for living my life, for going to college, for doing, well anything. I feel like nothing I do will be good enough. I’m in the college of my dreams, the city of my dreams, but I feel guilty. Like I don’t deserve any of this, like everything is my fault. If I hadn’t been here, my parents could have taken better care of them and would have not worried about sending me to college. It would have all been different. I would have not lost my sweet grandfather, for as loving as he was, did not deserve a passing in COVID isolation.
I wake up some days from my sleep, overwhelmed with emotion and burst out crying in their memory. I see children with their grandparents and have a breakdown. I dream about them. I replay the phone call when my dad told me that they wouldn’t make it. I replay my last phone call with them. I regret not telling them my goodbye words because I didn’t want to believe it. Most of all, I just feel my heart heavy all the time: I feel bad when I have moments in life that I enjoy, none of my happiness feels auThentic. I can’t really talk about it with my parents: the memory is very traumatic for them. I am seeking your advice, your experiences as redditors in how to deal with this trauma, my first trauma of passing. Thank you.
1 comment
Hey it’s alright. I felt very similar feelings when my grandpa died when I was 17. The truth is that feeling responsible for the death of a loved one is probably a natural, evolutionary resposne by our bodies to make us take care of our families regardless of whether it was actually our fault or not.
Reading your post I get the feeling that you already know that it isn’t actually your fault but you can’t make yourself internalize it and the feelings lf guilt won’t go away even if the rational parts of you know that it’s not your fault.
Honestly I can’t offer you much advice on how to get over that. When it happend to me I wasn’t dealing with it for as long as you have been. Maybe therapy is an option? Idk. Maybe just knowing there are other people who go through similar things makes you feel a little better.