Given Up On Life Overwhelmed by Grief

I lost my 23 yo daughter to schizophrenia in 2011. I tried desperately to keep her alive, she was persistently suicidal. For her entire lifetime, I parented her solely as a single mother by choice. Her father was emotionally unavailable and, even though I had an open door policy for him, he never bonded with her. From infancy, I used all my education and considerable ability to deal with anything in life to give her the safest, most stable, and happiest childhood. It wasn't easy, she was a "difficult child" who presented many challenges. But aside from the underlying problem which I saw, which I knew was there and couldn't identify, and for which I tried to find mental health professionals not one of whom ever saw what I knew was there, she was a loving, brilliant, creative, kind and amazing girl.

I stopped four suicide plans, one of them an outright attempt. She was hospitalized four times, diagnosed schizo-affective in 2010, was on Respirdal and anxiety medication. Unfortunately, the class of drugs mood stabilizers caused a deadly rash so she was unable to take what was then probably the only medication that would have changed what happened to her.

I put myself into the psych ward the day I lost her. She got away from me that day, I should have known better, I should never have given her the keys to her Jeep, I have no idea what happened to my hyper vigilance that day. I have no psychiatric disorders, I have rarely even been depressed during my long life and those times were always situational and I got myself out of that frame of mind. I was in the psych ward for three days, in a safe place, and didn't want to leave. They sent me home with a psychiatrist, a therapist, and three short term medications, all of which most likely saved my life.

I then embarked on many years of travel through Europe, five times; took two long cruises; learned to ride a horse; sold the house I had purchased with her in mind, a totally renovated 100 year old house overlooking the Hudson River, after selling the house I had purchased in 1982 and in which she was raised. I couldn't live in it after losing her. I moved into a luxury apartment building (it's luxurious by the upstate NY standards) for people over 62. I had my daugher when I was 40. I was 64 when I lost her.

About four years ago, things began to change. I began to withdraw. The people in this community I have very little in common with. My life has been largely counter culture, independent, highly educated, successful in my field of expertise, owned two houses as a single woman, had a radio talk show, had and raised a child as a single woman, grew up in Manhattan and world traveled, I really have very little in common with women my age in this Village and in this community. Plus the burden of having lost my daughter in an enormously tragic way and being left literally alone in the world with not one friend or relative is an experience quite unique from the majority of women.

I'm starting to fail emotionally and psychologically. Physically, after a lifetime of wonderful health and stamina, my age is catching up to me and I'm experiencing some very stressful and upsetting things like intestinal issues that have caused a lot of weight loss this past few months. I've been abandoned by literally anyone I ever considered a friend and especially by my daughter's paternal relatives, none of whom actually knew me as a person but all of whom saw me as some sort of enemy, because of things he must have said to them that were untrue. So I am literally facing the end of my life totally alone without any assistance.

I'm starting to give up. I feel that I've ended my life in a way I couldn't even have imagined; so much effort, so much courage, so much strength, so much determination, and the enormous amount of love and effort I gave to my daughter, all for nothing. Nothing. I have a psychiatrist who is an excellent neuropsychiatrist and wonderfully intuitive and caring man, but medications don't agree with me and there doesn't seem to be anywhere to go with it. I have a wonderful trauma therapist but this is beyond healing, this loss is so profound that it has virtually erased me. No amount of therapy for almost 13 years has even come close to helping me change the impact of losing my daughter.

I don't know what to do. I can't move. The pandemic propelled the real estate market into a financial horror story. The $ I got from the sale of my home wouldn't even cover 50% of the cost of the same house now, it's OUTRAGEOUS how that pandemic has been used against the average American. I'm stuck in this building and I don't like it. I'm stuck in this village and I really want to have a view of the beautiful countryside, another securely fenced property so I can have another dog, my independence and freedom to do what I wish without having to answer to anyone, and I can't do that, ever again. I'm starting to realize that I'm not going to be able to get too much older because I have no one, no advocate, no assistance, and I can't stop what aging does to a person.

I cry all day every day. I have disturbed sleep patterns. There's no hope and there's only one thing to look forward to, and those are the wrong words because the thought of dying terrifies me, it always has, since early childhood. But that's all I have left, dying. I miss my daughter more every year. The thought of being in yet another pointless "new" year is devastating. I lost my faith in god totally. I no longer believe in anything. I'm angry, I'm terrified, my life has been lived for nothing, absolutely nothing. And I don't know how to change this. I don't think it's possible to change it.