Both my big brother and my little brother died when we were teenagers. Big bro died 11 years ago and my little brother 10 years ago. I’m 27. I was 16 when my big brother, Robbie, died. He was 18. When I was 17 my little brother, Ryan, died when he was 16. And even ten years later it doesn’t take away the hurt. I feel as though a part of me will always be mentally 16/17 because I never really moved on. So I understand how you feel; you never really feel the same no matter how much time has passed.

I’m sorry for your loss OP. Sibling loss is the hardest grief to go through; im glad you found this subreddit to talk about it though… somwtimes just talking about your siblings can be so helpful.

I understand tbis feeling, it’s such an isolating thing to go through.

I’m 27 and the majority of my family is dead too.

My big brother died when he was 18; I was 16 when he died.

My little brother died when he was 16. I was 17 when he died.

After they died it was like every year someone I. My family died. I lost my Grandma and Papa a year after.

My dad had lots of siblings and they all died year after year. My aunt, then my uncle, then another two aunts.

In 2022 my Dad died and now it’s just me and my mom.

I used to be very close with all my cousins, and when all my family was alive we were always together, and my family was known to host a good get together. We always did things as a family and I was always hanging out with my cousins. When our parents started dying so did our relationships. I’m nowhere as close to my cousins as I was when all our parents were alive. I also have a sister who I’m no longer in contact with due to our grief.

I really miss having a family. I miss the sense of the village. But there is no village anymore and there is nobody there and no going back and it sucks so much. I’m sorry you’re going through this OP. It’s completely normal to feel like you’ll never stop grieving…. Unfortunately you never will and that can be hard to reconcile with.

Absolutely! I think our loved ones find a way to still be able to communicate with us even beyond death.

My dad died two years ago on May 1st and I receive a lot of signs from him.

For example, my dad used to live in a group home for teenage boys in his youth. I work in this same group home now; I applied to work here a year before he died. And ever since he died a lot of the signs I get are related to the group home. A lot of other signs relate to music, my dad loved all types of music and we bonded the most about music.

For example, this was around Christmas time but I had asked for a sign from my Dad because I was missing him. In the month of December in the span of two weeks I got two signs from him. My dads favorite band is Pink Floyd. One day as I was in the way to work, right as I pulled into the drive way of my work the song “wish you were here” by pink Floyd starts to play. Two weeks later, I found some scrapbooks at work from the group homes progression throughout the years; there was like news paper clippings in as well as pictures of the kids who used to live here throughout the years. I had always grown up with stories about my Dad living in this group home, and in the scrapbooks I found a picture of him in his youth! It brought me a lot of joy, and I was able to share this joy with the kids I work with as well as my coworkers.

I do also get other things like seeing animals he liked; there’s this neighbourhood cat who always comes to me when he sees me. When my dad died two years ago this neighborhood cat found his way to me almost any time I was outside, and be affectionate with me. I’ve also seen lots of red robins, bunnies, cardinals, etc. I have had a few dreams about my Dad too.

• drawing
• music
• dancing
• writing/journaling
• creating stories and characters
• swinging on swings, jumping on trampolines
• going for walks
• spending time with my cats

For ten years straight someone in my family died every year between 2013-2022.

I was a teenager when it all started; I was 16 when my 18 year old brother died—he had multiple disabilities and physical health disabilities; I also didn’t get to grow up with my older brother because myself and my little brother were adopted.

My little brother died when he was 16. I was 17 when he died. My little brother was also multiply disabled and was sick for years; he had severe epilepsy. The day he died he died in my childhood home and I woke up to the sound of my dad in the phone with ambulances.

My brothers deaths were the most significant to me. After that, my biological grandparents died; my papa had cancer and my grandma had a heart attack in her sleep. My grandma passed first and 6 months later papa passed away.

After that, it was a lot of aunts and uncles. My dad had a lot of siblings, and came from a family of 7 siblings. Year by year one of my aunts or uncles passed away; cancer runs in our family and a lot of my aunts and uncles were diagnosed with cancer.

The last to go was my dad, in 2022. He had also been sick for years with COPD, and was an alcoholic. I also think he was struggling with depression for a long time.

I’m only 27. My dad died a week after I turned 25; he went into the hospital the day before my birthday for the last time.

It’s rough to not have much family or any siblings to fall back on. I have a lot of cousins, but we aren’t as close anymore due to all of us losing a parent. We are trying to revitalize family traditions our parents held but it’s hard. I miss the get togethers and seeing hall my family; when my dad and everyone else was alive we did a lot together. I went from seeing my cousins all the time to barely talking.

I miss my family.

I’m 27 and have been working since I was 18.

My first job was at little Caesars for 5 months Taco Bell for 3 years Pizza Hut for 3 years

Then I started to work in my field, which is Child and Youth Care; I’ve done two placements which I was also doing while still working in fast food;

I did a placement with Big Brothers Big Sisters for 4 months I did a youth drop in centre placement for a year.

My first real job in my field, I worked at the Boys and Girls Club for five years. The job I’m at now, is a group home for adolescent boys age 12-18; I’ve been working here for about 3 years now.

So I’ve had five different jobs that have lasted a while throughout my life.

Abbey by Mitski

• so many new physical health problems but too scared to go to the doctor for the fear of “faking it” or being a hypochondriac, etc.

• no idea and overwhelmed on how to manage my health and how to take my symptoms seriously when I’ve been told my whole life my problems don’t matter

• no confidence in starting or initiating friendships; most of the friends I’ve developed are because my friends initiated first. Talking and conversations are very overwhelming and unless someone is patient and I can tell they’re interested I have a hard time speaking up.

• speaking up for myself and defending myself in general… not sure how to advocate for myself and still trying to learn how to be more assertive.

• people pleasing… I’m really trying to learn how to say no more often and how to honour myself.

For me what causes the most pain is considering what life could have been like had the traumatic things in my life hadn't happen. And even if they did, why they had to happen to me, in my time, especially when I was still young.

My biggest trauma source has been generational death and grief. I've lost so much family; I lost my big brother and little brother within the span of a year when I was a teenager. Big bro when I was 16 and he was 18, and little bro when I was 17 and he was 16. And then every year after that someone else in my family passed away, ranging from grandparents, uncles and aunts. The most recent and last was two years ago with my Dad.

There's so much pain in wondering what life would have been like hadn't they died. I used to be very close with all my cousins and extended family, but since grief has been so big in our family a lot of us don't talk anymore. I miss all our family traditions and get together. So for me a lot of pain is also i'm still so young; i'm only 26. and I'm still learning how to reconcile with my grief from years ago with my brothers, let alone with my Dad now too. There's a lot of pain in knowing I didn't get the typical sibling experience, and that most people cant relate or find the topic of grief, let alone sibling grief to be unbearbly uncomfortable. There's just a lot of pain in knowing that with more people dying out, so does that support. I shouldn't have had to lose my brothers when we were all still kids. And I shouldn't have had to lose to my Dad when I'm still in my 20's. It's a lot of I miss my Dad, and i miss my brothers and I miss my family. And that is very painful.

I've found ways to better manage my BPD over the years and it has really been life changing. Going to trauma therapy has helped me so much to work through a lot of my trauma, and thus BPD symptoms.

This is a great question!!

I feel mostly baseline these days. Baseline for me now means that I feel content; not necessarily stressed, sad, overcome by boredom or overexcitement. My baseline even a year ago, or three years ago was.... barely a baseline. I used to have extreme meltdowns that would last for hours. I used to feel very angry, moody and upset most of the time.

Social interactions have become a little bit easier, but something I still struggle with sometimes. I'm also autistic so this plays a big part into it all. I struggle the most with feeling lonely, because I find it really hard to initiate friendships. Most of the friendships I've had are friends I've had for years who know me really well. I find it very difficult to make new friends, I still deal with the paranoia but genuinly I just don't know how to make new friendships. I feel like i'm not as lonely as before though, i have been trying to reconnect with my friends (which can also be a struggle for me) and I'm also trying to hangout with my cousins again more.

I think I still have social anxiety, but it has become a little bit more manageable. Mostly I just follow the lead on how someone is acting, and depending on the relationships I have, the more or less my social anxiety is. Around some people it sky rockets and I have a hard time talking and standing up for myself and being myself around certain people. But others, and this is often where my friends who have known me for a long time, help. I find it very hard to unmask and be my full self in front of new people unless we vibe right away. I generally rely on others to initiate relationships and conversations. I dont think I feel as socially anxious as I used to, however, because it takes two to tango to be awkward.

Jealousy and envy are some of the triggers I struggle with, and I definitely still struggle with splitting on peopple as a result. I am however am able to think things through, allow myself to process and feel my emotions, and come out of it with a way to deal with feeling jealous.

I'm happy to say that I think I'm starting to like myself! I personally feel like trauma therapy has really helped me to get to this point of liking myself. Having processed my trauma for years I feel like I am able to start considering the present and what I want to do with my life. I have a better sense of self, I have hobbies and interests and am able to engage in them without feeling guilt anymore. I've honestly made it my life mission to know how I am and figure out how I can make my life better for myself. I try to honour my inner child and all other versions of who I am. I feel like I have become the adult that I needed when I was a child. I really like to read and use a lot of self help journals with writing prompts, as well as just writing in general to communities like these is very helpful outside of therapy; these things have also really supported me figuring out who I am!

I definitely cry a lot less than when I did. And when I do cry now, I allow myself to cry and I don't punish myself for it. I also allow myself to cry whenever I need to, because it's a healthy release. I used to suppress my feelings and not allow myself to cry. I also used to severely punish myself when I would cry, I would hurt myself and say hurtful things about myself. I used to cry a lot out of anger as well. I don't cry as much as I used to, but I also am able to cry now in a healthy way. I am able to sit with my emotions, and then move on with my day if I do cry. When I used to cry it would ruin my day.

I'm sorry for your loss OP. I lost my Dad two years ago; he was 64. I'm 26 and when my Dad passed away and all the initial supportive gestures died down, i felt extremely alone, every day. I was very angry with the people in my life who weren't supporting me in the time I needed it the most. But as I've grown without my Dad in the last few years I've learned a lot on my own grief journey, and would like to offer some perspective.

Grief and death has been a big part of my family for years. I've lost so much family over the span of 10 years. I was 16 when it first started, and it was like year after year someone in my family died. I lost two of my brothers, many grandparents, aunts and uncles, and the last death in my family was two years ago with my Dad. Each one of these deaths had a significant impact on my family and our ability to connect. I went from seeing my cousins and extended family constantly, as our parents were always arranging family get together. But once people in our family started to die, so did our family traditions.

And throughout each of these different deaths, there were times I felt extremely helpless and I didn't know what I could do to help my cousins who were hurting when their parent died. And I feel that guilt a lot now even still as an adult. I wanted to be there but I didn't know what I could say or do that would make anything better, and truth be told, that is exactly how I felt when my Dad died. Like ideally, I would have loved for more support to be there but tbh, nothing would really make me feel better like just having my Dad back, even though this is impossible.

Everyone deals with grief differently too, and unless others know what it's like, people generally don't know what to do. My parents grieved the loss of my brothers in two completely different ways and as a teenager I felt confused and unable to grieve with them, because they were very private people. I didn't know how to comfort them and they didn't know how to comfort me.

I think it's completely okay to be angry at family and people in your life who don't show up for you. When Dad passed away, I learned a lot of hard truths. I got fired from a job I had been at for 5 years because management was unsympathetic towards my grief. I've cut off certain family or people I used to consider as friends who sometimes, have done a lot more hurt.

Ultimately it really does suck going through it alone. But the sad reality is that sometimes grief is a journey we have to go through alone. The grief and anger you feel right now makes sense, you just lost your mom not too long ago and thats still fresh. It's going to feel fresh and hurtful for a while. May 1st this year will be the official 2nd year since my Dad's passing, and while for myself I do have some really rough periods at times, I look back and those first few months are always going to be the most vulnerable. That first year of grief is going to be hard.

You might not be a religious person, I certainly don't consider myself to be but I do think that once someone dies, even though they are not physically there with us, does not mean that their energy or spirit isn't still with us. I'm genuinely not trying to be cliché here and not just trying to say another statement to you, but maybe it might bring you comfort to know that your mom is a huge part of you and now you can carry her everywhere with you.

When I think of my Dad, I think of all the things I loved about him and what made our relationship so special. And I try and do things to honour him. I think of all the wisdom and advice he's given me, what hes taught me, some of the things he enjoyed that I can also do, like eating his favorite foods or listening to his favorite music and thinking about him.

Again OP I'm sorry for your loss, it sounds like you and your mom had a wonderful bond. I am glad that you found this community to share with; sometimes just having someone to talk to, even if they are anonymous can be helpful.

There is a lot of addiction and trauma within my family, so no doubt I believe that some of my family probably suffered from ptsd symptoms.

There are mental illnesses, disabilities, addiction and trauma throughout my family. To make things even more difficult I'm adopted; it was an in family adoption; my adopted Dad would have been my Uncle had I not been adopted. So knowing that I have two different sets of families with mental illnesses has been a struggle.

My biological dad is schizophrenic. My maternal grandfather of my adopted Mom also had Schizophrenia. My paternal grandmother (my bio dad's mom and my adopted Dad's sister) dealt with Bipolar depression. And there is a lot of addictions surrounding alcohol on all my sides of the family. My biological mother, while I don't know if she had any mental illnesses has developmental disabilities.

I personally have BPD and the trauma aspect. I've done pretty good with not falling down the addiction hole so far.

I would really be interested in a group that allows you to talk and share about your loved one while also doing activities together.

I also love art and would love to see one day a grief group with art therapy combined. I’m always looking for creative ways to express my grief. I love writing, journaling, prompts to talk about, drawing and guided story telling, scrapbooking and stuff. I really would like to put together some sort of art project that expresses my grief.

When I really struggled with self harm and impulsivity and my BPD was in the heights of its rage, I would get angry and dysregulated very quickly over anything. Looking back I’m not sure what the cause even was; but I will say that when my BPD was at the worst to control anything could make me snap. It didn’t matter if it was something rude or not, someone could be asking me to do something or a small detail and I would flip. And I did. Without being too graphic I’ll just say that’s probably the last time I self harmed, because I took it way too far. I had to get stitches, an ambulance showed up to my house and a cop came to talk to my parents. I look back and I have so much shame because I really put my Dad through hell during these BPD spikes, especially on this day. And he always was the type to worry about me. But yeah, I haven’t really struggled with that kind of self harm since. I still have the scar even three years later.

That is awesome dude!!! Sounds like it will be great new experience to still bond with your Dad! Hope it all goes well buddy 😁

Religion was a huge part of my trauma growing up. I grew up with Christian/catholic raising and attended church in my childhood all the time. But my family are very much bigoted and used religion as a way to fear monger, shame, etc. me as a child. And I recognized how hypocritical my family was very young on, so religion to me has not been helpful. I do beileve there are good Christians out there and have met some great people who view God as a loving being rather than a fearful force. The problem in my family was my family liked to use the whole “Jesus hates minorities”. As an adult I have a different view and more respect for religion but I personally do not participate.

I do find spirituality has been helpful. A few years ago myself and a large part of my family found out we are Metis, and ever since I have been taking time to learn about this part of my heritage and the spirituality piece. I have found that going to ceremonies, learning from people, etc. has been really helpful. I definitely still have a lot to learn but spirituality and honouring that has become a new big part of my life I’m t try int to navigate and tbh, I love it!

Honestly, my ability to communicate and talk. My abilities to socialize at times.

I feel self conscious of my speech because I stutter a lot and have a hard time talking coherently. Typing my words out is easier to express myself. And like, after every social interaction I have… I always over analyze and then beat myself up mentally for how I acted in front of others. I always seem to find a way to embarrass myself whether I mean to or not. I’m always either too loud, too quiet, etc. I beat myself up when i fail to recognize social cues.

I’m a Child and Youth Worker. Right now I work at a group home for teenage boys, and while there are some sensory issues that come with it I generally love what I do.

What’s nice about where I work is with my schedule I don’t have a “set” schedule. And since we are a facility that cares for youth all hours of the day there are three different shifts; morning shift, afternoon shift and night shift. I get to do them all and I actually really like it. I also don’t work every day, so there are times when I get a good amount of time off but still get decent work hours that are sustainable. I also like that I can choose when I want to work because I also do a lot of pick up shifts for call ins. This schedule has really helped with my sensory issues and What not because I’m not going in every day.

I also love what I do, the popular lotion we work with is for mental health services as well as disability support. I love that I’m able to help others and be a role model for youth. I have my own lived experience with childhood trauma so being able to help others also helps me feel like I’m helping myself in a way. :)

I love a lot of creative endeavours like drawing, writing, creating characters and story writing. I love drawing and I love creating my own characters!

Things that bring me joy are things that allow me to play, have fun and allow me to embrace my inner child. I love swings, trampolines, climbing gear etc. I have my own trampoline and swing now which I love; I also set aside time to go to parks and allow myself to play on things like slides and climbing equipment. I also love going to trampoline parks; I love this kind of sensory excercises. The chance to move my body makes me happy.

I also love music and dancing, although I don’t think I’m very good at it but it is fun!

I think it’s tottally okay to go to a concert by yourself tho u kno? I can understand not having people to go with and do things with either, but what I’ve been learning is that doing things for yourself on your own can still be enjoyable! As someone who doesn’t have a lot of friends either, you never know when you put yourself out there you may meet other people, and if not that’s okay too. Ultimately it could just be a nice thing to do that honours your Dad; just because he’s gone from the physical realm doesnt mean he isn’t still in your heart you know?

Truly losing a parent really does suck and I empathize for you OP, losing a parent at your age especially is rough. I can say that even as an adult (26 yr old); the missing your Dad feeling never goes away. But you can absolutely still have a relationship with your Dad even after death. You’ll find ways that help you feel close to your Dad in your grief journey. Personally I always feel close to my Dad through music just like you and your Dad, and that’s a pretty special thing. Honour that :)