Strange, How The Mind Works.

[janemariesayed]

So I heard my Dad died last week as you all know. I still haven't cried or felt anything at all. But get this weirdo event that happened to me.

Just as I was falling asleep I got an image in my mind of a young girl doubled over. She was crying really hard and I said out loud as I was dropping off 'why is that girl crying like that?' It was really strange to see in my mind's eye. Later I realised she looked a bit like me when I was younger and it must have been me in a dream I was just going into.

So if we don't let out our emotions in our waking hours, do you think this was me letting out my emotions in my dreams? I still haven't cried or felt sad. I thought I would be devastated when he died. Despite all that he had done. Yet, my Mum cried and I thought that she would be not upset like I am feeling.

Has anyone else felt disassociated from a family members death and how did you deal with it? I just can't cry?

 

[Peacelily]

Hi Jane, sounds like you could have experienced a half-sleep/half-awake episode of "hypnagogia" where we hallucinate visual images and auditory sounds when we're halfway asleep and halfway awake. It's very common. That actually has happened to me a few times over my life. After I visited a sleep clinic, I was told that was what was I was experiencing. A lot of times, this can be caused as a reaction to a lot of stress. So, it seems with your father's recent passing, the stress may have caused you to experience that brief hypnagogia. Just a guess anyway.

My father was emotionally vacant and emotionally abusive to me. When he died, I felt disappointment that he rejected me as his child; that he didn't even like me or want to spend time with me. While everyone around me was weeping and recounting what a wonderful man he was, all I could think about was how he emotionally neglected and abused me and I cried for the father I never had, but wanted. I'm sorry to hear about your father's passing.

I don't think it's abnormal at all not to cry at a loved one's funeral. We all grieve in our own way, based on the type of relationship we had with the deceased person. When one of my good friends died young, I bawled my eyes out. Other times, at relatives' funerals, I didn't really cry but did reminisce in my own way about each person. There is no 'right or wrong' way to grieve someone's death; it's purely based on how they treated you and how you felt about that, when they were alive that matters. If you see a counselor, discuss the stages of grief with him/her as you may go through the different stages out of order. Again, grief is unique to each person.