You mention that you have complicated feelings about the death of your relative, but nonetheless I’m sorry for your loss. Even if they were someone abusive who you didn’t even want to be around, with the finality of death the possibility of reconciliation or improvement is gone, and that’s its own complex set of emotions to deal with on top of normal grief.

For me, talking helped. If you have access to a therapist, a death is a very common reason to go talk to one. If you don’t, a friend, family member, or journal could help. There are also internet support groups for grief, although I don’t know off the top of my head of any active ones on the fediverse.

You feel it and you live anyways.

It doesn’t work for everyone, but for me: relentless and ghoulish dark humor. I’ve told people close to me time and time again that I want my funeral to just be this:

I recently lost my aunt and uncle. I didn’t know them very well because they lived in Australia, but we were close. My aunt died suddenly of a heart attack last summer and my uncle passed away from cancer on Christmas evening.

The emotions come and go. Sometimes I feel like crying because I miss them and feel sad that I’m not only never going to see them again, but I’ve also reached that age in life where the people that I’ve known since childhood start to die one by one. Other times I feel completely fine, but then I feel guilty for not even thinking about them. I recently went through the birthday cards that I received throughout my life and I saw one from them and I had very mixed emotions.

Other than them, the only real loss I’ve ever had was my dog. With both, it helps a lot to talk about them ***with the right people. *** It keeps their soul alive and it makes me feel close to them again. I also now try to keep as much memorabilia as I can of the people who are still around. One of my biggest fears is losing my memory of them. Be careful though; know when it’s time to step aside and think of something else.

First, I thought of happy memories about that person and let the grief all out. Just a lot of thinking and introspecting.

Grief is complicated and doesn’t always look the same. When my dad died, he’d been in the hospital for a month for a surprise illness, so I had time to get used to the idea he might not make it out. His older sisters hadn’t seriously considered the possibility. I’d done some “pre grieving” and they hadn’t, so my reaction was a bit less dramatic? outwardly intense?

A friend of mine says grief is an ambush predator. You can be going about your day and suddenly something triggers you to suddenly drown in emotion. When that hits, I just swim in it, feel my feelings, all the complex emotions that come up–anger, loss, regret.

And as time goes on, I’ve gotten ambushed less often, but it can still feel just as intense. I have more practice swimming in it, so maybe I don’t have to excuse myself and hide in a work bathroom to cry anymore, I can just sit at my desk and focus on drinking my coffee.

(It’s after my bedtime, so I hope this all makes sense. There’s also the Grief Box analogy, which feels accurate to me.)

I tell myself that the grief is me feeling bad for myself.

How did they go? Was it mercifully fast or drawn out? Was it painful? Were they ready?

And so I try to channel my grief though empathy for their pain rather then focusing on my own feelings of mood

With grief, the only way out is through. Unlike other mental ailments such as depression or anxiety, you’re not going to find a cognitive distortion or flawed line of thinking that is responsible for the distress and can be challenged. Grief is logical, and we have to feel it until it becomes less intense.

What we can do is modulate how much we’re processing at any given moment to try to keep it manageable. Think of it like that saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” You can’t change the total size of the task, but you can control how big of bites you take.

Finding what helps you reduce the “bites” will be personal, but starting with some general coping skills like “thought-stopping”, meditation, or any activity that keeps your mind active and occupied is a good start.

overthink my feelings without meaningfully addressing or processing them, smile

You’re already dealing with grief, and you’re doing it in your own way. Know that it will pass. Some people break down, some people are just more vulnerable for a time, some people don’t give a f, some others pretend they don’t give a f and break down in private, some others don’t care, etc.

All you have to do if you have an outburst is to stay conscious of your context and maybe explore the roots of your feeling. It boils down to asking yourself “why”. Being confronted to our mortality always has an impact, and may the conclusion of our experiences inspire us to enjoy life and what/who’s in it a little more. Be patient and kind to yourself and others. Talk with them if that is possible. Some good can come out of it.

Time and patience.

I feel you. I lost my dad 3 weeks ago.

I always wanted to do some more woodworking, so that is what I did the last weeks in nearly every free minute. Dad would have loved the results, most of it I learned from him. And creating something, that helps. A lot.

This works for me, you will have to find that will work for you.

Be strong. And that means: strong enough to deal with you feelings and grief, not pushing it away or burrowing it

Maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t. But I think about this Reddit post a lot grief comes in waves

When my mother-in-law passed away I attended the funeral in rural China. It was weird for me as a non-Chinese, it seemed to me like everyone was being hysterical with the wailing, pulling at their own hair and clothes in grief etc.

But I joined in anyway and looking back on it I feel that while it seemed weird at the time to grieve so publicly, it was positive to get it all out at once.

Go do something that will start the tears flowing, watch a sad movie if you have to, but once you start let it all out.

I just go through it just fine. Normally, I accept that death is part of life, of which itself is a terminal disease. As it’s said, life is the biggest cause of death.