Loss due to addiction, dying family member, scared

I lost my father before he turned age 70 to a fentanyl overdose. Before he died of it, I never even had heard of it. I knew he was struggling with alcoholism, I think there is a lot my family didn't tell me, I think there were other substances too. We had an intervention for him when I was early 20's up until then I was basically grieving his loss. My mom is an alcoholic. I don't think she'll be around much longer. Last year she broke her wrist, I guess a fall from drinking and was lying on the floor for a couple of days. We did not discover the broken wrist before my sister went to visit her. My parents never got her her greencard so she didn't have insurance. Whole situation with my parents an alcoholic mess. The only person I really had who was stable was my grandma. She was far from perfect and could be extremely critical but I know she loved me and did her best for me and my sisters. Trying to help us because she knew our parents were so unstable. She's a tough cookie but she's dying now, she is 99 so it is not surprising. I spent Christmas holding her hand watching the dying process, it looks scary, for her. I am having a lot of anxiety right now, off and on, and I've been self isolating, I haven't been connecting with friends, I guess I feel guilty for not being the perfect grandaughter although I spent so much time with her this last year, flying back and forth to see her. No one really seems to understand why I am upset. Or maybe that's my interpretation. They don't get it. That this is my parent. My parents were an alcoholic mess. They were never there for me. My grandma was my parent. I think that's why this is hard. I wish my friends were more supportive. Or maybe it's me. People ask me to do things but I decline. I have a tendency to self isolate. I'm just waiting for the call I know it's coming soon. She turns 100 on Tuesday. I think she is holding out for then. I feel alone and scared. I always feel alone. It's frustrating. I feel like I give and give but never get back support when I need others. I've been trying to support myself, I feel like at some point I should be able to have someone be supportive towards me. People just don't care it's shitty. It sucks being a caring person in a world full of uncaring people.

 

It's funny I just posted this because my sister called while I posted. My grandma just died. I reached out to friends no one responded.

 

I'm sorry Catlover123. I hope you are doing okay. I had a similar upbringing with my grandparents being the foundation and parental support more than my own mom and dad were. I was close to my mom, even thought she did struggle with addiction and could never get herself to a stable place. I took care of her after she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. She had no where to go and I wasn't going to let her live in the streets. My grandparents (her parents) were already in a nursing home and this was during Covid so I couldn't visit them as much. They were in their 80s and mentally had already started to decline, but I did get to visit my Poppy one last time in the hospital before he passed a month later in April 2021. He didn't remember me, but he was a sweet person and treated me like a friendly stranger. I'm so glad I had that last visit with him. My Mimi was well into her dementia the last time I saw her and she also didn't remember me, but same friendly stranger visit. My mom's cancer eventually became aggressive and she passed in the apartment I got for the two of us in January 2022. My Mimi passed two weeks later. My siblings where with me and we've supported each other in our grief, but here I am three years later still feeling like its a fresh loss. The three people who mattered most to me in my childhood were all gone within a year. I'm single and live alone with my cat, where my siblings all have families. I'm also the oldest so maybe it's that I had more time with them, but the absence of their presence in my life, the "home" I could go to when I needed it, it's just gone. I've been doing better, but this time of the year, the anniversaries of their deaths and their birthdays are all at the beginning of the year...it just hits me and I have to wallow in the pain for a while. I still don't know how to process everything, but I'm trying. Not sure if any of this helps, I do remember how raw I was when I first lost them. I isolated, I drank, I avoided everything. It took some time to get to a place where I could function again. I hope you find a good way to process your grief, that you find some support and that this website helps. I'm hoping it will help me as well. Take care. Oh, I love cats too.