Discussion
So far this year several of my friends and colleagues have lost relatives; parents, in laws, a couple of middle aged siblings. Some have taken a week or so off work then got back to normal, others have gone back to work after a day or two on the grounds that they feel better with something to do, but worked shorter hours or taken odd days out over the next few weeks.
It's my impression that the ones who took time completely out have more or less got over it when they get back to work, while the ones who came back almost straight away were still feeling fragile for weeks.
Perhaps the ones who felt the need to come back to keep their mind occupied had simply felt the loss more, but I'm wondering if coming back to work for that reason might have been a mistake. Obviously everyone feels grief in their own way, there is no right or wrong way to deal with it, and I can understand why people don't want to sit at home feeling depressed. But perhaps the need isn't to avoid thinking about the loss, but to avoid brooding about it. Spending time dealing with the inevitable admin and speaking to relatives you rarely contact allows you to process what's happened in way distracting yourself doesn't.
What's everyone else's experience?
It's my impression that the ones who took time completely out have more or less got over it when they get back to work, while the ones who came back almost straight away were still feeling fragile for weeks.
Perhaps the ones who felt the need to come back to keep their mind occupied had simply felt the loss more, but I'm wondering if coming back to work for that reason might have been a mistake. Obviously everyone feels grief in their own way, there is no right or wrong way to deal with it, and I can understand why people don't want to sit at home feeling depressed. But perhaps the need isn't to avoid thinking about the loss, but to avoid brooding about it. Spending time dealing with the inevitable admin and speaking to relatives you rarely contact allows you to process what's happened in way distracting yourself doesn't.
What's everyone else's experience?
My dad died 24th December 2014, I was supposed to be in work that day, obviously I didn't go in, there was Christmas, we were only shut 25th and 26th (Thursday and Friday), I was supposed to work on the Saturday (27th) but didn't go in but was back on the Monday, the 29th.
There was no point me being at home moping about, I felt I would be better just getting on with things and being occupied, in truth I think I went back a bit too soon as I was pretty useless, my head just wasn't in it, plus I had issues with dads widow who sucked everything out of me, I pretty much carried her too (different story), my mum believes I didn't grieve properly due to his widow and her "needs".
Anyway, all good now, obviously I miss him but that year after his death I wasn't in a good place mentally, until I cut all ties with his widow in around summer time, so in terms of grieving, moving on etc, it was her slowing me down more so than me maybe returning to work too early, as useless as I was until his funeral in late January (after that it was like a 10 tone weight had been lifted off my shoulders), work was a good way of taking a break from her and being able to clear my head, until I saw or spoke to her again which was often as they only lived 2 roads away!
There was no point me being at home moping about, I felt I would be better just getting on with things and being occupied, in truth I think I went back a bit too soon as I was pretty useless, my head just wasn't in it, plus I had issues with dads widow who sucked everything out of me, I pretty much carried her too (different story), my mum believes I didn't grieve properly due to his widow and her "needs".
Anyway, all good now, obviously I miss him but that year after his death I wasn't in a good place mentally, until I cut all ties with his widow in around summer time, so in terms of grieving, moving on etc, it was her slowing me down more so than me maybe returning to work too early, as useless as I was until his funeral in late January (after that it was like a 10 tone weight had been lifted off my shoulders), work was a good way of taking a break from her and being able to clear my head, until I saw or spoke to her again which was often as they only lived 2 roads away!
Edited by HTP99 on Saturday 26th November 20:47
Sometimes how long you need to take isn't a choice. It could well be determined by what you have to sort out or undo post mortem.
Everyone and every event can be different.
When my father passed it was a release, he was so ill that he wasn't living, he just existed. So life carried on as normal as I'd probably already greived in my own way. I shed tears at his funeral and then we moved on with life carrying the good times we shared in our memories.
Everyone and every event can be different.
When my father passed it was a release, he was so ill that he wasn't living, he just existed. So life carried on as normal as I'd probably already greived in my own way. I shed tears at his funeral and then we moved on with life carrying the good times we shared in our memories.
Everyone is different. I lost both my parents in fairly short order, had a day or so off then went back to work. My wife lost her dad and fell into deep depression that she's slowly coming out of 3 months later.
If anyone had asked beforehand I'd have said she'd be fine and wouldn't be affected in that way.
You just have to let people deal with it in their own way and not judge people.
If anyone had asked beforehand I'd have said she'd be fine and wouldn't be affected in that way.
You just have to let people deal with it in their own way and not judge people.
sociopath said:
Everyone is different. I lost both my parents in fairly short order, had a day or so off then went back to work. My wife lost her dad and fell into deep depression that she's slowly coming out of 3 months later.
If anyone had asked beforehand I'd have said she'd be fine and wouldn't be affected in that way.
You just have to let people deal with it in their own way and not judge people.
This.If anyone had asked beforehand I'd have said she'd be fine and wouldn't be affected in that way.
You just have to let people deal with it in their own way and not judge people.
My wife died August 2021 in the middle of the summer school holidays. I insisted the kids went back to school on the first day of term so they could get support from their friends, I stayed at home for a few days but went back to work full time and within a few weeks we had our new single parent routine in an effort to try to carry on as normal.
I simply couldn’t be at home on my own, I was still sorting through her things, finding her long hair around the house and smelling her perfume. I needed to be out of the house. My life rapidly split into these two scenarios
Work
At work I could carry on as normal, I was use to being away from home all day before her death and I would forget about my new home life and my situation and get stuck into work. All ok
Home
Absolute nightmare. Driving home early to do the school run would instantly remind me I was a lone parent. Morning and evening routine with two young kids, having to deal with every job that was normally split between two. The kids would go to their rooms to complete home work from about 18:00 and I would find myself sat on my own. It was (and is) the evenings that hurt the most. Coming home and seeing her car parked on the drive was something that impacted me the most, she would always be home early (school teacher so she finished at 15:00). The joy of seeing her would change to heartache within a fraction of a second as my mind would remind me that she wasn’t home.
I simply had to get back to work, I was so angry at the situation I found myself in and contemplated suicide on several occasions when alone. I wouldn’t had done anything, I was just so lost without her that I felt my life/our future was gone so what was the point in my life now.
Some of my colleagues didn’t know how to react when they saw me, didn’t know why I came back so soon and my manager was concerned about having me back in the office. I was even arranging her funeral between meetings at work.
I think about her constantly and see her face when I blink, you never get over it but you just adapt.
My dad was killed on his motorbike In 2004 and I took some time off to support my Mum, I went to work after his funeral about 5 weeks later on that occasion
I simply couldn’t be at home on my own, I was still sorting through her things, finding her long hair around the house and smelling her perfume. I needed to be out of the house. My life rapidly split into these two scenarios
Work
At work I could carry on as normal, I was use to being away from home all day before her death and I would forget about my new home life and my situation and get stuck into work. All ok
Home
Absolute nightmare. Driving home early to do the school run would instantly remind me I was a lone parent. Morning and evening routine with two young kids, having to deal with every job that was normally split between two. The kids would go to their rooms to complete home work from about 18:00 and I would find myself sat on my own. It was (and is) the evenings that hurt the most. Coming home and seeing her car parked on the drive was something that impacted me the most, she would always be home early (school teacher so she finished at 15:00). The joy of seeing her would change to heartache within a fraction of a second as my mind would remind me that she wasn’t home.
I simply had to get back to work, I was so angry at the situation I found myself in and contemplated suicide on several occasions when alone. I wouldn’t had done anything, I was just so lost without her that I felt my life/our future was gone so what was the point in my life now.
Some of my colleagues didn’t know how to react when they saw me, didn’t know why I came back so soon and my manager was concerned about having me back in the office. I was even arranging her funeral between meetings at work.
I think about her constantly and see her face when I blink, you never get over it but you just adapt.
My dad was killed on his motorbike In 2004 and I took some time off to support my Mum, I went to work after his funeral about 5 weeks later on that occasion
Edited by oldaudi on Saturday 26th November 22:15
oldaudi said:
My wife died August 2021 in the middle of the summer school holidays. I insisted the kids went back to school on the first day of term so they could get support from their friends, I stayed at home for a few days but went back to work full time and within a few weeks we had our new single parent routine in an effort to try to carry on as normal.
I simply couldn’t be at home on my own, I was still sorting through her things, finding her long hair around the house and smelling her perfume. I needed to be out of the house. My life rapidly split into these two scenarios
Work
At work I could carry on as normal, I was use to being away from home all day before her death and I would forget about my new home life and my situation and get stuck into work. All ok
Home
Absolute nightmare. Driving home early to do the school run would instantly remind me I was a lone parent. Morning and evening routine with two young kids, having to deal with every job that was normally split between two. The kids would go to their rooms to complete home work from about 18:00 and I would find myself sat on my own. It was (and is) the evenings that hurt the most. Coming home and seeing her car parked on the drive was something that impacted me the most, she would always be home early (school teacher so she finished at 15:00). The joy of seeing her would change to heartache within a fraction of a second as my mind would remind me that she wasn’t home.
I simply had to get back to work, I was so angry at the situation I found myself in and contemplated suicide on several occasions when alone. I wouldn’t had done anything, I was just so lost without her that I felt my life/our future was gone so what was the point in my life now.
Some of my colleagues didn’t know how to react when they saw me, didn’t know why I came back so soon and my manager was concerned about having me back in the office. I was even arranging her funeral between meetings at work.
I think about her constantly and see her face when I blink, you never get over it but you just adapt.
My dad was killed on his motorbike In 2004 and I took some time off to support my Mum, I went to work after his funeral about 5 weeks later on that occasion
That was hard to read, I cant imagine how tough it is to live with.I simply couldn’t be at home on my own, I was still sorting through her things, finding her long hair around the house and smelling her perfume. I needed to be out of the house. My life rapidly split into these two scenarios
Work
At work I could carry on as normal, I was use to being away from home all day before her death and I would forget about my new home life and my situation and get stuck into work. All ok
Home
Absolute nightmare. Driving home early to do the school run would instantly remind me I was a lone parent. Morning and evening routine with two young kids, having to deal with every job that was normally split between two. The kids would go to their rooms to complete home work from about 18:00 and I would find myself sat on my own. It was (and is) the evenings that hurt the most. Coming home and seeing her car parked on the drive was something that impacted me the most, she would always be home early (school teacher so she finished at 15:00). The joy of seeing her would change to heartache within a fraction of a second as my mind would remind me that she wasn’t home.
I simply had to get back to work, I was so angry at the situation I found myself in and contemplated suicide on several occasions when alone. I wouldn’t had done anything, I was just so lost without her that I felt my life/our future was gone so what was the point in my life now.
Some of my colleagues didn’t know how to react when they saw me, didn’t know why I came back so soon and my manager was concerned about having me back in the office. I was even arranging her funeral between meetings at work.
I think about her constantly and see her face when I blink, you never get over it but you just adapt.
My dad was killed on his motorbike In 2004 and I took some time off to support my Mum, I went to work after his funeral about 5 weeks later on that occasion
Stick at it friend, you have my admiration and wishes.
My (now ex due to very advanced illness and no longer really knowing who I am) partner has MS and early onset dementia (aged 50). I'm not sure what's worse, someone dying and it being final or someone slowly deteriorating before your eyes.
Whatever, these things make us the people we are. You will never go through something that hard again. When you survive that, you'll know you can deal with anything.
You all have my sympathy. Bereavement can be very strange in how it affects people. My best friend at primary school died at 14, very suddenly from a brain haemorrhage and as time has gone on I often think of him and wonder how his life might have been. There wasn't any counselling in those days and I was on holiday so didn't even go to his funeral. I lost another friend at 34 and still think about her - diabetes had blinded her and her health was failing. I think I grieved most for my father, though at 91 I knew he couldn't live much longer. It was still a shock though, and I had time off work to get over the worst of it. Time does make it easier and it just seems to become yet another part of who you are and acceptable within yourself.
Lost my brother on his motorbike in 2019, 6 weeks after we got married. I was supposed to go round to see him as I had helped him out with some cash to repair his bike and he had just finished fixing it.
I was feeling a bit hungover so I messaged him that I would come round later, so he went out to test it. He didn’t come back. My dad saw the ambulances going down the road.
He was in a coma for just over a week and his vitals were rising until one morning when we were told to get down to the hospital. We managed a few minutes before he passed.
I went straight into organising things for the funeral and sorting the family out and all the coordination.
My boss called me the day after the funeral to say they had mismanaged things and I needed to get back to billable work and that I had taken too much time off for the wedding, the hospital and the funeral.
I went straight back, and was 100% effective. Made such a good impression that the client later gave me work and have followed me through two more roles.
I struggled through non-work life and pretty much avoided anything to do with things that reminded me of my brother. Found myself pretty down and despondent when I wasn’t working. We had honeymoon booked for a few months later and we went out to Japan.
My boss called me over there and told me to leave or be pushed. I left and was offered a job with another company, that had a lot of travelling. I went straight into that job and was doing 3 countries a week and the work wasn’t well organised. Very long hours.
Pretty much had a breakdown in a hotel in Hungary, but still managed to do a lot of work very well. If I wasn’t working, or actively doing something, I struggled.
Quit that job after 4 months, and went to something that was a lot less intense, with nice people and doing something good (fighting cancer). Things were a little better, but I threw myself into lots of things. Changed jobs after my contract ran out.
Pandemic. That was tough. First year without him.
2021 we decided to renovate our place, in hindsight, another project. Halfway through the project we lost my brother in-law unexpectedly to heart disease. Lots of family drama due to his
ker of a landlord.
Carried on the renovations after the funeral and then spent much of 2022 stuck selling. Finally moved after almost a year and then we have the state that we are in now.
To be honest, it’s been pretty unrelenting since 2019.
I’m not totally sure whether more time would have been helpful, but I definitely know being sent back and then dismissed didn’t help.
I think it is true that that time helps. That and good friends. I had one mate who slowly helped me get back on a bike, others who just called in regularly. Sometimes not working is not an option.
I was feeling a bit hungover so I messaged him that I would come round later, so he went out to test it. He didn’t come back. My dad saw the ambulances going down the road.
He was in a coma for just over a week and his vitals were rising until one morning when we were told to get down to the hospital. We managed a few minutes before he passed.
I went straight into organising things for the funeral and sorting the family out and all the coordination.
My boss called me the day after the funeral to say they had mismanaged things and I needed to get back to billable work and that I had taken too much time off for the wedding, the hospital and the funeral.
I went straight back, and was 100% effective. Made such a good impression that the client later gave me work and have followed me through two more roles.
I struggled through non-work life and pretty much avoided anything to do with things that reminded me of my brother. Found myself pretty down and despondent when I wasn’t working. We had honeymoon booked for a few months later and we went out to Japan.
My boss called me over there and told me to leave or be pushed. I left and was offered a job with another company, that had a lot of travelling. I went straight into that job and was doing 3 countries a week and the work wasn’t well organised. Very long hours.
Pretty much had a breakdown in a hotel in Hungary, but still managed to do a lot of work very well. If I wasn’t working, or actively doing something, I struggled.
Quit that job after 4 months, and went to something that was a lot less intense, with nice people and doing something good (fighting cancer). Things were a little better, but I threw myself into lots of things. Changed jobs after my contract ran out.
Pandemic. That was tough. First year without him.
2021 we decided to renovate our place, in hindsight, another project. Halfway through the project we lost my brother in-law unexpectedly to heart disease. Lots of family drama due to his
ker of a landlord. Carried on the renovations after the funeral and then spent much of 2022 stuck selling. Finally moved after almost a year and then we have the state that we are in now.
To be honest, it’s been pretty unrelenting since 2019.
I’m not totally sure whether more time would have been helpful, but I definitely know being sent back and then dismissed didn’t help.
I think it is true that that time helps. That and good friends. I had one mate who slowly helped me get back on a bike, others who just called in regularly. Sometimes not working is not an option.
In my opinion the ones who come in the same day or next eventually grief catches up with them in the next few months and they end up taking extended leave. I had it a few year ago a guy came in the same morning, his dad had passed away during the night.
He worked like a machine he never stopped or told anyone until midday when he explained why. He eventually took a month off but it was pretty obvious something was up.
He worked like a machine he never stopped or told anyone until midday when he explained why. He eventually took a month off but it was pretty obvious something was up.
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