What is Anticipatory Grief and why am I talking about it?
The definition of anticipatory grief is when you experience the emotions associated with grief before the expected loss actually happens. This can cause conflicting thoughts and feelings, on one hand you hold onto hope that your loved one will survive and get through this, but on the other hand you struggle with the concept of letting your loved one go when they do finally die. During this period, you live in the fight-or-flight mode as you’re constantly on edge not knowing when your loved one will pass. You live in fear, anxiety, and panic, and over prolonged periods, this can affect your mental health and well-being.
While experiencing anticipatory grief, you put your life on hold to be there and care for your loved ones, this can inevitably cause feelings of anger, dread, and feelings of being fed up on occasions. You may also feel sadness, frustration, hopefulness, desperation, anxiety, panic, insecurity, guilt, shame, love, isolation and depression. These are all natural feelings and no one should ever feel ashamed for feeling any of these as ultimately, you wish for your loved one to no longer be suffering and for you to no longer have to see them suffer. This can often lead to thoughts and feelings of wishing it would all come to an end. This is entirely normal and no one should ever feel guilty for feeling this, it’s very mentally draining and causes us all to think and feel things we wish we would have never said or thought. But it is completely natural to feel this way, the reason I know this is because in 2020 I lost my mother to bowl cancer after a nearly 3 year-long battle.
I wanted to write something to emphasise and highlight many issues that families face today and the struggles that people go through when experiencing, living with and caring for someone with a terminal illness.
It has taken me nearly three years to build the guts to write this post. But I have always felt it has been necessary and important that I relay this information, as I wish I had had something like this when I was really experiencing anticipatory grief. I am creating a space for people to communicate and talk about their experiences, especially those who lost their parents at a young age and through the Covid-19 pandemic, who wish they also had a platform like this to talk on.
I am going to tell my story in hopes it can help someone who has or is going through the same. You are not alone and lots of people will be here to support you and listen to you. We understand. We are here. You are not alone.
The two saying below are quotes my mother used to say to me when I was low or had no idea what i wanted to do in life. She always knew what to say and she inspired many.
‘Be yourself, everyone else is already taken’
Oscar Wilde
‘Life is just what you make it’
Donny Osmond