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Grief as a man - why does nobody talk about this
Lost my dad 4 months ago and I feel like Im supposed to be "over it" by now. Everyone at the funeral told me to "be strong for your mom" and I took that to heart. Haven't cried once. But I'm drinking more, sleeping less, and snapping at everyone.
Why does nobody tell men how to grieve? I literally have no framework for this.
Brother, 4 months is NOTHING. I lost my dad 3 years ago and I'm still processing it. There's no timeline on grief and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been through it.
The "be strong" thing is poison. You can be strong AND grieve. They're not opposites. Please find someone to talk to - a friend, therapist, grief support group. You don't have to carry this alone.
The drinking and snapping are your grief talking. Those were my exact symptoms too. I finally broke down in my car in a parking lot 6 months after my dad died and it was the first step toward actually healing.
Grief doesn't have an expiration date. Take whatever time you need.
I found a men's grief support group through my local hospice and it was the first time I heard other guys talk about loss honestly. Game changer. Something about being in a room of men who are all struggling made it feel safe to actually feel something.
Read this last week and have been thinking about it since. My dad died about 4 years ago. The first year I just kept moving — fixed up his old workbench, finished the truck we'd been working on, did all the executor stuff. Year two is when it actually hit. People had stopped asking how I was doing because outwardly I was fine. That was the hardest stretch. Nobody warns you that the grief shows up on its own schedule and not yours.