Cloudyday
Member
Hello,
My brother passed away this week after an infection caused by Parkinsons Disease. He also had severe depression for 25 years and was cared for by his wife and he did not accept visitors or venture outside much. Before he became ill he was in the armed forces and was abroad and this means that I only knew him properly when I was a child.
I have Asperger's Syndrome and ADD and I don't travel much, so this caused even more space between us. I feel so sad. My childhood days are coming back to me as little memories but after that is a long gap and then suddenly his death in his fifties. The funeral will be in a couple of weeks. He was very alone just as over the years I have been very alone but he did not do people at all. Once every three or four years we would meet at my sister's house.
We had much in common, being cut off from others, but at the same time we could not find a way to connect. I've received old photos from my mother and this helps me to remember how we were. I was almost mute as a child and very 'in my room' and absent. My brother was very outward and soldier-like. We were not angry with each other later in life. It was just that his illness made him stay alone. I suppose I wanted to go out and get involved, it's just that I felt so separate to other people.
There is no simple formula for working through grief. It is a natural process but odd in this case because so much has seemed to have been edited out. I miss my brother, but I miss him mainly as a child, because that is how things have turned out.
My brother passed away this week after an infection caused by Parkinsons Disease. He also had severe depression for 25 years and was cared for by his wife and he did not accept visitors or venture outside much. Before he became ill he was in the armed forces and was abroad and this means that I only knew him properly when I was a child.
I have Asperger's Syndrome and ADD and I don't travel much, so this caused even more space between us. I feel so sad. My childhood days are coming back to me as little memories but after that is a long gap and then suddenly his death in his fifties. The funeral will be in a couple of weeks. He was very alone just as over the years I have been very alone but he did not do people at all. Once every three or four years we would meet at my sister's house.
We had much in common, being cut off from others, but at the same time we could not find a way to connect. I've received old photos from my mother and this helps me to remember how we were. I was almost mute as a child and very 'in my room' and absent. My brother was very outward and soldier-like. We were not angry with each other later in life. It was just that his illness made him stay alone. I suppose I wanted to go out and get involved, it's just that I felt so separate to other people.
There is no simple formula for working through grief. It is a natural process but odd in this case because so much has seemed to have been edited out. I miss my brother, but I miss him mainly as a child, because that is how things have turned out.