I'm exhausted from pretending to be strong

My beautiful daughter Bonnie passed away 7 months ago after a 15 year battle with primary progressive MS. I was blessed to take care of her all those years and it gave she and I the gift of time to have meaningful conversations about how we will never truly be separated and I will never have to worry if she knew how much I love her and how fortunate I am to be her mama. I acknowledge the fact that I had years to know I would lose her so I didn't have the shock of life being fine one minute and devastating the next but I now know my heart wasn't ready.
The day of her memorial my mom fell and broke her hip so I immediately turned my attention to taking care of her. Also, a month before Bonnie passed my husband was diagnosed with Nph and the neurosurgeon said he needed two surgeries but since then he has had other issues and three surgeries and still will need the original two surgeries when he heals from these. My point is I have had these distractions and continued being a caregiver since the day after my daughter's memorial. For a while it kept me from having to truly deal with my feelings. I felt like it was protecting my heart and mind from facing the depth of my grief but I can feel it is not working anymore. I can no longer stuff it down and I am now feeling the unbearable grief.
My two daughters and grandkids are very understanding and supportive of me and understand why this is happening now but my husband and my other family members act like they don't understand why I'm struggling now and that it's selfish because my husband needs me now and my focus needs to be him. They treat me like I knew I would lose Bonnie and she's no longer suffering so why am I crying? I have rambled with no point except that I feel misunderstood and very alone.

 

I am sorry for the loss of your dear daughter. Caring for her only made the bond stronger between the both of you, so it is impossible for other people to truly understand. They know you are hurting and say things that they think will 'fix it'. Nothing they can say will fix it. Unfortunately you will have to walk down this difficult road of grief, but you are not alone. There are people here who understand what you are going through.
Why are you crying they say. You are crying because someone very dear and precious has been taken out of your life and it is like someone reached down into your heart and pulled a part of it out. It takes times to heal from such a tragedy. This is not something one 'gets over'. Things will not be the same as they were before, but you can very gradually adjust to your 'new normal' life.
Your focus at this time, needs to be on taking good care of yourself. You don't want to sacrifice your health for when a better time eventually comes.
Don't let your family members dictate how you should feel. What you feel is what you feel. At a time like this there are no good or bad feelings, just feelings.
When you need understanding and it isn't available from your family, you can continue texting on here. There is also a chat room where you can talk to people in real time and their are grief groups you can join on this website.
If you need to meet in person, check out the website for 'Griefshare'. They have a list of groups meeting in your area. There is no charge to attend.
If you need help getting started with any of these things, just ask and I will be glad to explain to you how to go about joing in any of these.
I don't know if you have a relationship with God, but He is the greatest source for strength and healing.
We care. Chris