Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?
If I had to give some advice, I would say the most important thing to do now is to make sure that they are prepared for the administrative side of major health events and death. Power of attorney, wills, passwords, keys, etc. Having to push through a bunch of paperwork while grieving was a really tough experience.
I would also recommend starting to think about it happening now so you can make good choices about how you spend your time. If you’re actively avoiding the subject in your head then it will be a much bigger hit when it inevitably happens.
Grief and loss is universal but also very personal. It’s very hard to go through but you grow a lot, personally, if you let it happen. I wrote about my experience with my mom’s stroke below. If it’s not too heavy, there might be something helpful in there for you.
I felt complete in our relationship in the moment. I still have times when I wish I could share something with him. But, I felt like I had really vocalized the love I had for him. I love you doesn't really count in my mind, but being specific about how they make you feel loved and how you love them. And secondly, I had accepted/forgiven him for anything that wasn't in that love category.
That feeling of being complete was really nice to have after his sudden passing. It didn't take away the sadness and missing him, but I didn't feel the regret that I've heard others do.
So, my suggestion would be to express the specific love you feel for your parents and in laws to them and forgive or accept them in the other things. I hope this helps somehow or at least makes some nice moments in your family.
He lived in a podunk and traveled little throughout his life - I lived in a larger metro area with some world-class outdoors, and just by luck it turned out he loved coming out to visit.
So we had him out to visit over and over and over, and that traveling around with him is one of the things I’m most thankful to have done.
It was as much for myself than for them.
The family had finished the new house and went to the monk to get a scroll to sanctify the hearth. The monk worked for some time, and then called the family to see the scroll he had written. It said:
Grandfather dies
Father dies
Son dies
Grandson dies
> We are born, we live and then we all die. And in-between a lot of spectacular things can happen. Or maybe not. Sounds harsh when you put it like this, right? But there’s an undeniable and for many people uncomfortable truth in this and I Am Easy To Find is a film that transports that feeling pretty well.
The key idea, iirc, is to regularly meditate on/ imagine the loss of everyone and everything you hold dear. On one hand, you’ll appreciate them more afterwards, on the other, it is good practice to prepare for actual losses.
I'm in my 30s. Not religious either so I don't have the comfort of expecting an afterlife.
I've been through a lot of hard things but I was always taught how to be resourceful and make it through hard times to the other side. No one teaches you how to die. There is no other side to make it to.
It helped me shift my thinking from death as an end to death as an experience
So far it has helped with death anxiety. No atheists in foxholes, none of us are getting out of this alive, etc.
Are you sure this is what you mean?
For most professions, that seems to be upheld.
Article 1 > No, they were arrested by law enforcement.
Article 2 > after first accusation, yes - school administration argued that the initial accusation was not credible. After additional accusation > No, the educator and their organizational leadership were arrested by law enforcement.
Did the public school system moved teachers accused of child abuse into different schools in a new community allowing them the opportunity to abuse again?
Article 1 & 2: No.
In any case - I’m glad we agree that adults in a position of trust and power over children, who then abuse those children, should all be arrested, tried, and - if guilty - put in jail in their crimes. There is no amount of whataboutism that makes either group sympathetic.
The problem is most religions, under the presentation of being about the after, are very much all about imposing, some kind of sometimes very light, sometimes very strong, anxious tyranny on the shared societal present.
Enjoy them.
I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of death, so I don't get anxious per-se. But it's still a very melancholy thing to think about.
I just do as much as I can with him and try not to get distracted by it.
Given acceptance of that reality, do the stuff you might wish you had done. Visit more, talk more, listen more. If they’re comfortable with mortality (older people are often moreso than younger), don’t avoid the topic. If they’re not, well, maybe there are small things you can do to help both you and them to accept.
It’s such a difficult thing, but it’s pretty much mandatory. Acceptance can reduce anxiety.
If you're anxious about the future, it's because you're spending you're time in this mentally fast forwarded space where you're dealing with the imagined realities of it.
Your imagined ideas of future challenges, in my experience, are usually much worse than the ones I actually deal with. IMO, anxiety has more drawbacks than advantages.
Let tomorrow's problems be tomorrow's problems. Enjoy your parents now.
Spend as much time with them as you can, especially closer to the end. Make sure you go out to dinner with them if they are still able. Help when they need it. Tell them you love them. When it's over, it will leave a hole in you for the rest of your life, so spend the time while you can so you don't regret not doing that.
My dad died when I was recently out of college. He got colon cancer and died 3 months later. Watching him decline was hard. It still hurts 23 years later. I've had uncles and aunts and grandparents I was close with die in the past few years. My mom is declining fast, so I spend at least one day a week with her, and do all her chores that need doing. She'll probably need to move in with me soon, which I'm fine with, because there's only a few years at best left.
The one good thing about it, if I had to declare one, is nothing else in your life will ever be as bad as that. It really puts things into perspective. All your problems now will seem insignificant. I was lucky enough to have a really good childhood and really loving and supportive parents.
Somewhat orthogonal (and thus compatible with) any other faith/religion you may have.
I've found The Daily Stoic to be a good accessible on-ramp for these ideas: https://dailystoic.com/stoic-response-grief/ https://dailystoic.com/how-to-cure-anxiety/
The dead live on, only not in physical form. That is the process of grief. It is the love for that person simply being unexpressed, the love you didn't express when they were alive.
1) it's worse worse when parents have to bury their children (than vice versa). 2) there is sadness to having to say goodbye, but sadness is a beautiful thing. it is a different way to celebrate the love you had.
Tl;dr: consciously manage your relationship. implement a plan to be in contact regularly at a frequency that works for you and them, and stick to it. It will help reduce the "if only I had" kind of regrets. Grief still hurts, but that's normal and ok.