Treading lightly - funerals, schizophrenia

Hello,

Recently, my mother in law and father in law passed away. They died within a few days of each other. Both were elderly and quite unwell. I miss them, but their deaths were not unexpected, although their joint passing was a shock.

My husband is in a care home. He has schizophrenia and autism. My eldest son is in supported living, close to my husband. He has the same diagnoses as my husband. I live with our youngest son (23), who has a cluster of mental health issues, including GAD and an eating disorder.

My husband is an only child, so I am arranging the funerals and seeing to other things. I am not the executor of the will, so at least I do not have all that responsibility.

I am just popping on the forum because I am finding things a bit difficult (which is quite expected), but I cannot really let this show. For example, my husband does not really believe his mother and step-father are dead. I do not know whether arranging for him to view the bodies would be helpful. He also seems to be obsessed that I am going to ‘disappear’ and I think this related to him processing his loss.

My eldest son seems very flat in his emotions, but he was not too close to his grandparents, so I can understand this. He wants to attend the funeral, so I will arrange this.

My youngest son reacts quite badly to changes and any stress, so I am trying to support him.

As I said, I am just posting to get rid of some of these feelings.

Thanks for reading

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@Janet_1601 this sounds very tough. You are having to support three complex people whilst dealing with your own emotions and the funeral arrangements.

You might find this useful:

Janet, that sounds so tough, whilst you are being so considerate of everyone else’s feelings you are probably bottling up your own. Do you have a counsellor to support you through all this? Is the executor working with you as far as the final arrangements are concerned? Is husband going to attend the funeral? If so, will staff be supporting him?

Hello,

I am just updating to say that the funeral went as well as we could have expected. My husband and eldest son came and coped with the service very well. I am dealing with any additional administrative stuff.

My husband is still concerned about people (especially me) disappearing. However, he can be reassured. I think the funeral gave him a little closure.

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Well done, now hopefully relax and recover a bit.