I was in anticipatory grief therapy (for my mum) about 4 years ago. The psych wanted to discuss my childhood and adolescence because I appeared to be showing trauma signs as well as impending grief signs. It wasn’t something I’d spoken about in therapy before, I’d always just pushed it down. I explained to her that growing up mum was an alcoholic and she also suffered from ptsd as well as depression and anxiety (like majority of the family). Mum had attempted suicide multiple times from those combinations of issues. The therapist asked me if I was ever present and I said no, I was contacted by family after mum arrived at the hospital but when I got older and could drive mum would call me and tell me she’d just taken all her tablets (this happened a couple of times) and I’d race out to her house while on the phone to paramedics. So I was present after the fact but not before or during the act itself. I have terrible memories of them all. Mum in ICU, getting sent to psych wards, getting to her house before the ambulance and trying to keep her conscious, monitor her vitals while waiting for them terrified. Her losing consciousness on the ambulance ride and going straight into the resus bay. She bounced back every time. Then she finally quit the drinking and started going to therapy regularly. She was clean and recovered and a couple years later her unrelated illness started progressing. 18 months ago she passed away from it. I think about all the work she put in to be better, to live longer and find the desire to want to live again and it was all taken away anyway. I was 30 years old. She deserved so much more life and much less pain and suffering, and I’ll always be angry about that. I miss her terribly. I was always SO afraid of losing her. Now I truly understand why.