*** TW: death ***
How do you cope with death?
When I was younger, I lost my dad.
A sudden heart attack, nothing anyone could have done.
I wasn’t even home when it happened.
The day it happened, we were all at the hospital and they told me I wasn’t allowed into his room because I was too young or something, I’m not entirely sure. Either way, I was told to wait in the waiting room.
I just want to emphasize the fact that I vividly remember a lot about this day. I remember who was there, how everyone was reacting, the order that people showed up, the little groups they all formed. I even remember the layout of the hospital even though I don’t remember what hospital we were in.
I didn’t really have anything to do so I was watching an episode of Lucky Star (not the best anime for the occasion I know), and just sat there. No one really came up to me, no one asked me how I felt, I was just sitting in the corner, waiting until further notice.
Not to shame anyone. My dad was super influential in a lot of people’s lives, so I understand that everyone was very sad and hurt over the sudden passing.
But man.
I just felt so alone.
Before I was told to wait in the waiting room, a few of my family members had come up to me and saw me crying. They then told me I needed to stop crying because now that my dad was gone I had to be a man and step up and be strong for my mom.
I was 11.
But, being the nice and respectful boy that I was, I just nodded and said okay. So I turned and just… stopped. It was my first time trying to handle such strong emotions, and I didn’t know how to do that, so I just shut down internally.
I saw all these people huddling around and comforting each other. Crying and embracing one another. A lot of people around my mom, who had been crying since the ride to the hospital. I remember my brothers, both around ten years older than me, just sobbing. I’ve never seen them so emotional before.
And there I was, in the corner of the waiting room, headphones in, just watching anime.
Every time I try to think back on it, I get really mad at myself. I tell myself that I should have been with everyone else, that I should have done something, anything.
But I really took the advice of my family members to heart.
Don’t cry. Don’t be sad. Be strong. Not for me but for my mom.
I just unconsciously kept that on repeat in my head.
After the hospital, we eventually went home. We had the wake, the funeral, had everything transferred to my mom, my brother moved back in, and things eventually calmed down.
But ever since then, I’ve felt so detached from everyone, especially my family.
With non-family members, none of them really dared to approach me afterwards. I don’t know if they felt awkward or maybe they were disgusted at me shutting down and hiding my grief. To them, I was just some weird kid who was watching a show while his family broke down over my dad’s passing. Either way, they were non-existent to me.
For family, I think it’s my fault that we became so detached. I was stuck in that “don’t be sad” mentality for so long, I actively started to avoid as much contact with them as I could, because just being near them would make me want to cry. But it hurt, seeing them be together and comfort each other. Yet, I stayed away, because I had to be “strong”.
I never mentioned it to the few friends I had at the time, most of my friends didn’t find out till years later. I just, never talked about it. Anytime I would feel even an millimeter of sadness build up, I’d have another internal shutdown and just stare at the wall or ceiling for a few hours.
Growing up was hard after that. I didn’t really have any emotional support so I just kept ignoring my feelings. Anytime anything bad would happen I would just lock it up and move on. Eventually, the lack of emotion became my normal. I felt so empty.
I still think about all of this from time to time, and I don’t think I’ve yet to fully deal and accept both his death and my feelings.
But I’ve gotten to the point where it’s getting more and more difficult to lock away my emotions. At times, I’ll just be doing something mundane when suddenly, the urge to cry just starts to build up. Sometimes a major burst of sadness invades my heart, other times, waves of loneliness come crashing through. These feelings have increasingly become more intense and overwhelming, but I don’t know how to deal with them other than trying to lock them away.
At times I’ll try to share with other people how I’m feeling, but my tendency to self-sabotage manifests itself and I just end up pushing them away.
If I’m being honest, I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve with this. Maybe writing it all down will help me move on with it? Maybe I just needed some way to express these feelings without resorting to locking them away?
In any case, if anyone knows how to deal and cope with death or emotions in general, I’d be grateful to hear about it.
’till next time.
Lunar Thoughts 