The losses and trauma I have experienced over the last 6 years

I am going to be touching upon a lot here, but you need to know all the tidal waves of loss and trauma I have experienced over the last 6 years to know where I am coming from:

Losses

• Friend and mentor Karen Iwamoto to cancer, 2017 (expected)
• Good friend Gardner Chappell to cancer, 2018 (expected)
• Grandfather I never got the chance to meet (story attached) to serious injury and coma, 2019
• Uncle Doug (maternal uncle) to Lewy Body dementia (history of dementia on maternal side), 2021 (very unexpected, he declined fast after COVID)
• Uncle (in law) Phillip to kidney disease, 2022 (expected)
• Dad, Lewy Body dementia (don't know about any history of dementia on dad's side, know very little about paternal side), 2022

Non-loss trauma:

• All around the same time in February-March 2018 (triple trauma)
  • Finding out grandfather was still living and had started new family (narrative attached)
  • Loneliness of living in Alaska and possibility of long lost sister (narrative attached)
  • Finding out Doug had Lewy Body dementia
• The government shutdown of 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019 (lots of idle time, loneliness, little to no social interaction, in Anchorage during the dead of winter)
• The Bureau of Land Management move out west and the monumental professional and personal stress my colleagues faced, 2019 to 2020 (background info here: https://publicland.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Relocation-of-BLM-Headquarters-2021-05.pdf)
• The pandemic (being exiled from Washington DC back to Anchorage, returning to a different place than I left when I went to Washington DC

I know this is a lot, and it would test the mental limits and strength of even extremely resilient people. My entire world and even what I thought I knew about my own family has been completely turned on its head.

Anyway, here is why I am in this group. The loss of my dad is the most immediate topic, but there is so much more that preceded it.

 

I am sorry for all you have been through. Sorry no one has responded. We do care.
Stay in touch here.
Chris