To those of you who lost a loved one, how did you overcome the grief?

[lmfao]

20 year old male here. 1 month ago one of my best friends from high school who I've known since I was 11 committed suicide. He was like a brother to me, so many good memories. 

School ended in 2018 for me, and we didn't stay in much contact with each other since then. We met a handful of times though, and every time I met him it was still great and amazing. My last proper encounter with him was a video call I had with him in June, for 3-4 hours. I ended up messaging him 2-3 days before he went missing and committed suicide, but the message was just me acknowledging that I saw him chilling on Spotify ( his account was online) and it was a very brief exchange. I regret not saying more or starting a conversation, and I regret not having been in contact with him more since school ended. 

He loved music a lot, was one of or his main hobby. Through his Spotify profile I can see the last few songs he probably ever listened to before killing himself. It haunts me in a way and makes me emotional.


Thinking about his death, I feel very physically sick in my stomach and chest, sometimes cry. Today I managed to open myself a little more to the feeling in an honest/direct manner, turns out I have a lot of suppressed and conflicting emotions. 

I want to "move on" but I don't know what moving on means. And then I feel like if I "move on" too quickly, I would have killed or suppressed an important part of me.

I'm also a hurt child throwing a tantrum, I want others to know the depth of my pain. Hence this thread. 

Any similar experiences here? 

Edited October 27, 2020 by lmfao

[SonataAllegro]

So sorry to hear, man. My mom died in July, I'm 21. Grieving takes time, and you have to honor it. Love yourself fully, even at the expense of loosing footing on your habits and productivity. Sometimes going easy on yourself is the thing you need most. Trust that as you move forward, you won't forget your friend. You'll think about him less often, but his memory will change meanings for the better. You'll start to look fondly back on the positive memories you had with him rather than dwelling on the regrets you might have. This can become a great source of motivation and an outpouring of love in the future, but don't be mad at yourself if you feel self-focused and lazy for now. This is your greatest opportunity to give yourself space and radical self love, and you'll inevitably live from a much deeper place after this. 

Also understand that "moving on" and suppression of emotion is not always bad -- sometimes there's just too much to handle all at once. There's very little you need to do, just make sure to not get in the way of your healing. Try to sense the complex interplay between your thoughts and your feelings, this makes you more mindful of emotions. Yoga is especially helpful -- it's really the whole body that's experiencing the grief, not just the mind. And when you're ready, psychedelics can really help you overcome emotional pain, as LSD did for me recently. Work toward something -- I highly  recommend the life purpose course if you don't know yours, or if you do, go deeper into your purpose. And then there'll be days when you're just plain depressed, and you'll have to be present with your emotions. See Leo's episode on how to deal with strong negative emotion. I also found much comfort in the what is death episode.

Don't spend hours on youtube finding the cheap fix for how to cure emotional pain, learn to feel it. Bottom line is, give yourself plenty of space and radical self love. My condolences, man.

[lmfao]

Cheers for the reply 

[Leo Gura]

Look, you're going to go through a greiving process and then at some point after you get it all out of your system, you will forget about it and move on with life as if it never happened.

That's how life works. Shit happens to you, you stress over it, then you forget about it because it no longer matters to your survival. Regardless, all you're doing is survival. Survival, survival, survival -- every day.

If you feel shitty, be kind and gentle with yourself for a while.

[electroBeam]

1 hour ago, lmfao said:

I want to "move on" 

Of course, what have you been doing your entire life? Moving on. You have homework to do, so you move onto playing video games to get away from the fear of doing homework. Your parents get angry at you, so you run away in fear or get angry back at them to move on from the pain that your parents are triggering within you, when a girl rejects you, you think she's not worth it anyway or start thinking she's a jerk just to move on from the pain of being rejected.

We move on a lot in life, but who here actually doesn't move on and fully feels and embraces what we're trying to move on from?

How long will you be moving on before you realise that moving on is the problem? And the solution isn't to move on, but to stop and look at what's actually happening instead?

[Average Investor]

I had a buddy kill himself after telling me he was about to "get his girlfriend back" or something like that. We were talked and had just hung out the day before that. I stopped mid conversation because I had to take my girlfriend at the time to the hospital. I told him not to do anything crazy etc. He believed his girlfriend had been talking to other guys and stuff. 

I replied to him later at the hospital, but I checked facebook and found out that he had hung himself.  I almost punch a brick wall I was so overfilled with emotion about it. I had blamed myself for a bit about it, but to be fair looking at it now he was pretty fucked up. It wasn't my fault and I can't have any grief for that.  He made the choice to do what he did. 

I got it out and it effected me for awhile. Strangely I was even having a hard time remembering his name the other day. It's been about 3 years since that happened now. Time heals the wounds. 

[Oliver Saavedra]

Cry a LOT, let yourself be sad and depressed. Let the emotions massage you, feel them going through you.

The only way out of the grieving process is through it. So let yourself feel it, and rest a lot. 

Write a lot, do some rituals. 

The time of the process can vary, if he was very close to you it might take a long time. So keep in mind that you'll be there. 

Much Love ❤️

[Matt23]

Feel those emotions.  Feel the chest and love in there.  Grief is a sign of care.  Let it be felt.  Let it out.

There is a distinction I just learned between A) Grief (felt in the chest) and B) emptiness (felt lower in the abdomen).  Sometime people feel and grieve the loss of loved ones, which is healthy.  But then they feel a deeper hole in themselves.  Apparently, this isn't about the person leaving, per se, but about a hole within the person themselves. 

Kindness though.

Be yourself.  Allow yourself, your feelings. 

[Eren Eeager]

@lmfao Maybe the best solution is to love. let the love take the grief away and replace it with acceptance. let love honor his soul and honor his death. love him so he is  inside your heart, always.