I don’t even really know why I’m writing this. I think I just need somewhere to put all of this because I’m fucking exhausted.

My mom just had life-threatening spine surgery. She was told she needed to stop smoking because it can keep her spine from healing, and she still refused. She is also smoking meth.

A couple of weeks ago, she basically overdosed on meth and ended up in the hospital.

And somehow, my sister and I are still the ones picking up the pieces.

We drop everything for her. We take care of her. We worry about her. We show up when she needs us. We have spent so much time trying to keep her safe while she continues making choices that are actively putting her life in danger.

And then she lies.

She failed another drug test last week.

So I finally had to cut her off.

And I feel fucking awful about it.

Not because I think I made the wrong decision. I know I didn’t.

But because she’s my mom.

I don’t want to cut my mom out of my life. I don’t want to have to set boundaries with my own mother because she’s doing meth. I don’t want to have to worry about whether she’s going to be alive next week. I don’t want to wonder if the next phone call is going to be another overdose, another hospitalization, or something even worse.

Meth has already ruined so much of my family.

It destroyed my parents’ relationship. My dad is gone now. And now I’m watching the same fucking drug take my mom away from us piece by piece.

And I have a daughter.

She just turned one.

My mom missed her first birthday.

I can’t even explain what that feels like.

Because I don’t just want my mom to be a mom to me anymore. I want her to be a grandma to my daughter.

I want my daughter to have the kind of grandma I always hoped she’d have. The grandma who can’t wait to see her. The grandma who shows up. The grandma who takes a million pictures, spoils her, loves her, celebrates her birthday, and is just there.

Instead, I’m having to explain to myself why her grandmother isn’t there.

And then I look at my husband’s parents.

They are fucking amazing grandparents.

They love my daughter so much. They show up for her. They care about her. They are involved. They are excited about every little thing she does.

And I am SO grateful she has them.

But sometimes watching them love her hurts.

Because I’m jealous.

I’m jealous that my daughter gets to have that relationship with them and probably won’t get that relationship with my mom.

I’m jealous that my husband gets to watch his parents be grandparents while I have to grieve mine.

And I feel guilty for even admitting that because I genuinely love that my daughter has them.

But I can’t help it.

I don’t just miss my dad.

I’m grieving a mom who is still alive.

I’m grieving the grandma my daughter should have had.

I’m grieving the family I thought my daughter would grow up with.

And I’m fucking angry.

I’m angry that my mom keeps choosing meth.

I’m angry that she lies to our faces.

I’m angry that we’ve sacrificed so much trying to help her.

I’m angry that she can miss her granddaughter’s FIRST BIRTHDAY because of this.

I’m angry that I have to protect my daughter from her own grandmother.

But underneath all of that anger, I just want my mom.

I want my mom back.

I want her sober. I want her healthy. I want her here. I want her to choose herself. I want her to choose us.

I want to be able to call my mom without wondering if she’s high.

I want my daughter to know her grandmother.

I want my mom to be part of our lives.

But I can’t do it like this.

I refuse to have meth around my daughter. I refuse to expose her to active addiction, lies, chaos, and someone who isn’t safe or stable enough to be around her.

So I’m choosing my daughter.

I’m choosing my sister.

I’m choosing myself.

And I’m choosing to stop rescuing my mom from the consequences of choices she keeps making.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love her.

It doesn’t mean I want her to die.

It doesn’t mean I don’t hope every single day that she gets sober.

It means I finally understand that I cannot save her.

I can love her.

I can pray for her.

I can hope she gets better.

I can leave the door open for her if she gets sober and genuinely wants to rebuild our relationship.

But I cannot keep destroying myself trying to keep her from destroying herself.

I just wish she would choose us.

Because we’re still here.

We’re still fucking here.

And we love her.

I just can’t love her at the expense of my daughter anymore.

I can promise my daughter will never experience this.

My mother passed away about three years ago. We were never terribly close, and at one time were even estranged for several years. The last 7 or 8 years of her life we mended our relationship enough to have a working relationship again and to be somewhat friends as adults (I was a terrible teenager and many of those problems haunted me thru young adulthood). She was in her early 70s when she passed and I was 39. By then I had straightened my life out and tho we did mend our relationship I can’t shake the guilt I carry for not being there when she died.

So I used to go in cruises about every 2 months. One morning I was packing for another cruise and she called me asking me to come by her house (which was almost two hours away). My mom has NEVER asked me to come over like that. She had told me she’d fallen and needed help - apparently my step dad - who lived with her but always stayed upstairs - hadn’t even noticed she’d fallen tho she confessed she’d slept on the floor after falling the night before. I was heading to the airport anyway in a few hours and strangely she lived like ten min from the airport I was flying out of. So k left early to be able to stop by before having to leave for my flight. I thought I’d be there for an hour or two but once I got there and saw her condition I knew that I was in for much more than that. I was at her house for probably five hours helping her up she and soiled herself so I helped clean her up. Went to the store to get her a few things got her comfortable in bed where she slept. I asked her if she wanted me to take her to the hospital and she urged that she didn’t. My mom was a very stubborn woman. I begged her to go and we ended up compromising on having my stepdad take her first thing in the morning.

When I left her house, I thought for sure I had missed my flight and I just wouldn’t be going on the trip, but when I got in the car, I looked at my phone and had all these notifications from the airline saying the flight had been delayed I took this as a sign that I should still go on the trip once I realize that I hadn’t actually missed the flight. So my significant other and I got on the flight we spent the night in a hotel that night before boarding the cruise the next afternoon. When I woke up that next morning, I called my stepdad to make sure he had taken her to the hospital. He said that he had that she was in the hospital under observation. This has happened a number of times before in the last year and they would discharge her saying it was something like dehydration or some other minor thing and she always turned up fine. I remember telling my stepdad that I hadn’t gotten on the ship yet and then I could come home still if he thought I needed to. But he said no, and he insisted that I went on my trip - so I did.

I remember standing in line to board the ship looking at my significant other and telling him I just know my mom is gonna die while I’m on this trip. He tried to call me down and console me in the next thing I knew we boarded the cruise. It was later that day that I got the call from my sister that she was flying in because mom wasn’t doing well. I told her to call me when she landed and when she called me after getting to Detroit, she told me Mom was already dead. She didn’t even get there in time.

I knew the whole time I had this gut feeling that my mom was going to die, even though it had turned out fine many times before in situations like this I just knew in my very soul that this time was going to be different, but I still got on that plane and I still got on that ship. It’ll never forgive myself.

I’ve had a lot of friends die, and a lot of people super close to me passed away over the years, but none of them struck me the way this one did. Md like I did my mother and I weren’t even that close really - but something about this was different and I just can’t seem to let it go. It’s been three year and I’m still rattled with guilt.

To add insult to injury - almost literally - there’s one other factor. See the problems my mom and I had during my teenage and young duly years stemmed mainly from the fact that I was a heroin did y for ten year in my younger life. When I was 25 I got clean, went to college, and then went onto get a really good job and became really successful.. I had 12 years clean before I relapsed. I relapsed five days before I went to see her that day that she called me. Obviously I didn’t tell her while I was there, but I can’t curb the feeling that she knew anyway she was so proud of the fact that I finally got my shit together, and it took her five years to even believe that I was clean and in another few years for us to even start to mend our relationship. And regardless of whether that she knew that day, just by looking at me, whatever I picture her on the other side, there’s not a doubt in my mind that she knows now and I feel so fucking guilty not only for leaving in the first place, but also for having relapsed after all that the very last time she saw me.

And I can’t fucking shake the guilt. There’s something different about this death in my life - and I can’t decide if it’s because it was my mother, perhaps there’s just something different that crosses over and you when your mother dies. If it was because I know that she must’ve known and that my very last act in her life was disappointing her once again. Or who am I kidding - more than likely, it’s probably both. But I just can’t seem to shake this eerie feeling of being another disappointment to her end of just the guilt of not staying and I’m not doing more when I knew the whole fucking time - I had this feeling in the depths of my soul the entire fucking time that that was the last time I was going to fucking see her. And I just can’t seem to get over it.

i'm looking for any comfort youtuber, podcaster or any book or movie that deals with grief and self growth. i sometimes feel really down and want to watch or read something that could make me feel less lonely and sad about my life. i'd appreciate your recommendations

Heyy I'm 17 and my mother died last year due to cancer. Cancer kills everyone!! It's a shitty disease. I don't know wheather its the treatment but I think after having cancer the chances of Survival depends on the person choice to live. I'm telling you this because this is happened with own mother. My mother got diagnosed with cancer when I was maybe 8 or 9 she had major 4 and 5 operations in her life time and she couldn't survive the last one snd and I didnt see her on the day she was leaving with operation because I was upset. I've been always upset of her because I was never able to live the childhood I wanted and I was forced to act like grown up even before turing a teen . I stopped celebrating birthday after my 14 birthday because for my dad my mother came first. I'll turn 18 this year and I've never celebrated my birthday after that. But I think it's Time for change this is my life and I can't be grieving every day for my loss .

Step daughter pregnant restaurant after dead my wife dead

everyone around me, especially my stepdad, is so devastated that he can’t even look at her pictures without breaking down into tears. meanwhile, i seem to be doing 'okay' i can eat, sleep, and function day-to-day. my mom's funeral photo stays with me, and unlike the others, seeing her face actually makes me smile. aside from struggling to be a fully functioning adult right now, i feel like i’m managing okay. but whenever people see me, they tell me to កាត់ចិត្ត (move on / let go) and stop thinking about her so much. how could i ever do that? she is my mother. when i think of her, i smile and i cry—isn't that exactly how grief is supposed to be? being told to forget her makes me so angry. i don't understand why i feel this way, and is this reaction is a trauma response?

I’m 17 (F), and my mom is 51. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months ago, and honestly, life has been rough as hell since then. I’m the youngest of three siblings, and I’ve been worrying so much about my mom, my future, and life in general. Everything feels stuck in ways I can’t even properly explain.

I still have hope that my mom will beat this because she is so precious to me. Even though we aren’t always as close as I wish we were, she means everything to me and to my family.

My mom is currently at stage 3. She has completed all six cycles of her treatment, and now the doctors will check whether the tumor has shrunk or not. She has lost so much weight, can barely eat properly, and constantly feels nauseous. Watching her go through all of this is something I never imagined I would have to experience. I never expected to see my mom suffer from such a painful disease.

I also feel incredibly bad for my older sister. She has so much weight on her shoulders, both mentally and physically. She left everything behind to come back to us because she was living abroad, and I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for her. I feel like she’s carrying so much, and it hurts me to see her go through it too.

My mom is everything to me and especially to my family. She still worries about me so much and constantly has emotional conversations with us, especially about what would happen to me and who would take care of me. She worries about how I’ll manage myself and what my future will look like. I always reassure her and tell her that nothing is going to happen to her, that she’ll be okay, and that she shouldn’t worry about me.

But at the same time, I know that life is unpredictable, and anything can happen. That thought scares me more than I can explain.

I’m only 17 and I’m in my final year of high school. I’m supposed to be thinking about university, where I want to apply, what I want to study, and what I want to do with my life. But right now, there are so many things happening at once that I feel completely overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed.

I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do anymore. I feel lost in every possible way. It feels like I’ve reached rock bottom, and I’m just trying to somehow keep going while everything around me feels so uncertain.

My mom was nonresponsive three years ago in the middle of the night. I felt so scared and was hysterical. She and I were so close except for a couple of years before she passed away. There was so much unsaid that needed to be addressed. I don’t have any closure. She meant everything to me. I did a lot for her. I keep thinking about a night I pushed her in her wheelchair for us to get some air. I could have talked to her then but didn’t because I was wrapped
up in my own stupid life and didn’t think of the importance of us needing to have a heart to heart conversation. I don’t know if I’ll ever get through this by myself. She was in the wheelchair because she had terrible hip pain, it was bone on bone. There was nothing I could do to stop her pain but cook her food and give her some of my time. I never really showed her how worried I was and how bad I felt inside. I really loved her so much. Has anyone else been through this with their mom or dad? Please comment on my post, I need to hear others advice or similar situations. I’m so sad still.

mama the thought of never having your home cooked meals or feeling your warm hug again is the coldest feeling ever, please God don't let me turn cold but this world isnt kind. Walking around this world without you is such a strange feeling. I have so much love but no one to give it to mama. i love you forever and always mommy and i miss you. looking at pictures of us makes me sad mama but im working on it

不想參加媽媽的喪禮，我已癌末，媽媽給我一輩子的傷害

今天媽媽病逝了，我以為我會先死

Wednesday marked 9 months since I lost my beautiful mother. From a pretty young age my mum tried to prepare me for the possibility her multiple sclerosis would take her away from me sooner then we both wanted , she was trying to be helpful and I think trying to make it less of a shock but really all it did was give me anticipatory grief. I’ve been grieving the thought of her loss way before it even happened. Maybe even for almost as long as I knew her. For as long as I can remember, I would go to sleep every night worrying about when the day she would pass would come. I saw her getting worse and worse over the years , still refusing to read the age appropriate books she tried to get me to read as a kid to understand what was going to happen. My own anxieties were enough , I didn’t want some medical facts added to the fears I already had. I’ve always had separation anxiety from my mum , she was my other half from the day I was born, she understood me in a way nobody will ever understand me again. She was always around me my whole life, I rarely did sleepovers as a kid because I couldn’t fall asleep away from my mommy, I’d stay up all night and leave as soon as the sun rose so I could finally fall asleep back home because I knew my mum was there. I would cry on the first day of elementary school every year, because I hated leaving summer vacation spending all my time with my mum, then going back to school, being away from her for hours. She was my rock and I am lost without her. The pain of knowing I will never see her again as long as I live is indescribable. It feels like i’ve been grieving her for years because I have been. First we lost who she was before the multiple sclerosis started taking its toll on her , every year she was getting worse and worse , then finally we lost her completely when she died. My love for my mother has been tied to grieving for many years and it breaks my heart it’s going to be like that until the day I’m gone myself. I miss her so much. I’m very grateful I had the mother I did, I just wish this wasn’t how our story ended. I will never stop missing her

I never expected to lose my mom especially in my mid-40s but here I am and it stinks cuz I miss her so much. She was my best friend,she took care of me and now it feels scary without her. Around this time she remind me to take my medication and then turn off her PBS and tell me that I would see her in the morning when she would make her coffee and her breakfast and greet me with a big hug. My house is it really silent and it feels so strange because she was a beloved part of my life and she will always be a part of my life but now that feels empty. I've got my immediate family but she was the glue that kept us together and as I face my birthday in the fall without her, that's going to be a rough patch especially when her birthday is the month after around the holidays. Mom I miss you always and I hope you're looking down on me in heaven.

Nobody hides pain more than a mother who is trying to stay strong for her children. 💔

She may cry in silence. She may be tired. She may be hurting inside… but somehow, she keeps going just to see her children smile.

If your mother has ever sacrificed for you, drop a ❤️ for Mom and let her know you appreciate her.

Im trying to keep it together as best I can without numbing my feelings with substances. Im only 25. Im trying to take care of myself, eat properly, and get through it the best I can. I really just feel devastated, but I don’t even know how to get through this. It feels so weird, yet a little bit of relief because I know they aren’t in pain anymore. Can anyone give me some advice on how to make this time in my life feel a little lighter ?

It made 5 months without my mom on the 25th. I’m really struggling to cope. I’ve always dealt with mental illness, but now the thoughts, the crying, and the panic attacks feel so much more consistent. My mom knew that I struggle seeing any aspect of myself in a positive frame and I knew she understood because she was like that too, so we spoke life into each other. I feel so empty and alone without her. I just want to be with her in any manifestation. I don’t know how I’m supposed to navigate grieving and yearning for her for the rest of my life. Life just seems so pointless without her and I’m struggling to do this alone. Is this normal? To struggle finding the desire to keep going without them?

my mom has always been my rock and today the 4th day after she passed. im currently back at our old apartment. sometimes i cried, sometimes i don’t. i would talk out loud as if i were talking to her. but, it is not the same. i have been scrolling on phone and everything else is just a blur. i lost track of time. i wish to be a functioning adult so that my mom would not worry. so any advice will be a huge help to me. (my apologies for my bad English)

I lost my mom a few years ago and every holiday I get depressed. I grieve all over again. I can’t seem to remember all the details that I want to remember about her. I don’t wanna feel like this for the rest of my life missing loved ones. And yes, I tried remembering all the happy times and moments, but that doesn’t help. I tried putting on a strong face and exterior so I can act like nothing happened and that I’m not feeling sad but that don’t work. I’ve tried writing a letter like as if I was talking to her. I tried isolating myself so I could just feel sad and grieve that doesn’t help either this year. I’m trying to be around family and I’m struggling to find the strength to.. there’s so much I wanna say on here, but I’m crying so hard that I can’t even see the phone in front of me😭😭😭 you were my home mom you were my happy place. You were my safe place. I’m just so lost without you.💔