Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by HollowHeart on November 16, 2015 at 10:45am

Linda, You are absolutely not a basket case. I'm sorry for your loss, I know it's devastating, but it has been over 2 years and you are surviving. My loss was not a spouse, it was my older sister, but we were together and talked every single day so while it is a different kind of love and relationship, I also can't stop grieving or thinking about her non-stop. We obviously know life goes on, no one needs to tell us that. We have talked a lot on this site of the dumb things people say. They look at us years later and assume we have had enough time to mourn and should be OK by now. I know I may have a Debbie Downer attitude as I know I will never be OK again without my sister and this is not what people around us want to hear. They want the old us back because it makes them comfortable and it makes them feel happy for us that we have 'gotten over it'. They want to believe we have recovered and are OK. It never will be again.

You may feel like you are going crazy at times but that's normal too. It takes a lot to endure every horrible day without the one you shared everyday with. I mean you had an everyday routine with this person so it's not easy to just suddenly be without that. And as you said, every morning is just another reminder you have to make it through the day without him.

The one thing I can tell you is to not rush yourself. I hear professionals say that a lot depends on the relationship we had with that person, yet I also feel like we are expected a 'mourning period' regardless and to move on. Also remember still having good, and bad and horrible days is still OK. Grief comes in waves and they will come the rest of our lives. It's just that the rest of our lives is to long for most to accept.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Engberg on November 16, 2015 at 2:06pm

Thanks so much for the input, my husband and I were soulmates, we had a love that most people never see in their marriage. We were always teased by everyone that we can't do anything without each other, well, that's the way we wanted it so the hell with them. I will never, ever, getting over losing Julian and I just as soon stay by myself and have no interaction with anyone. All I get you should be over, life goes over, you need to start a new life. Well, it is not of their damn business what I do with the rest of my life. I tried a therapist ans she is useless, they go by the old norm live goes on, but it does not for me. God Bless You in your struggles, he sure hasn't helped me. Linda

 

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Permalink Reply by Hilary Christene on November 16, 2015 at 4:33pm

God, My heart breaks reading you two. HollowHeart you are too young to understand so much. I'm so very, very sorry that you were sentenced to hell on earth before you even got to carve out the unrealistically optimistic life for yourself others have had shattered here.

Linda, thanks for posting. I have such a deep bond with D it is honestly bewildering...I cherish every fiber and nuance of him. It's only been three months and I'm hearing the "life goes on" and "you will heal..." It hurts so much to hear those things that I've stopped talking to the people who say them. I had to reach out to a friend and colleague today and I started off saying "please do not say any words, please. The words people say are a re-devastation." My bond with D is my hallowed ground. I believe it transcends the physical existence - FAR TRANSCENDS; I've lived enough of this shit life to know that we're only here temporarily even though we imagine eternity. I didn't expect us to live forever. I hoped we could go out together and I hoped we could have more years of togetherness that I could hold onto should he leave me first...

Once someone has blasphemed against my eternal love I'm done with them forever. Feels good, actually, freeing. I'm just done. I'm so nice about it, they will never know. How many along the way have I so hurt and offended, I wonder. It's my right to withdraw. I thank D for that. Thank you, D, you are forever teaching me and shifting my perspectives. You magnificent creature.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Engberg on November 17, 2015 at 5:52am

Anne, I have to agree with you that I get more understanding from complete strangers than my own family and friends. Once anyone starts talking about closure, I blow them off. Little do they know what agony I go through everyday of my life. It is good to know that there are other people out there that feel like I do. The five steps of grieving is a bunch of baloney made up by society.

I will never ever get over losing my husband and it is my life not theirs.

Thanks for you input, God Bless

And you are right we are living in hell.

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Permalink Reply by HollowHeart on November 17, 2015 at 7:29am

I know I have lost or am losing friends as well and I don't care either. I can't stand this life now. Hilary, I also hoped to have more of a future with my sister. We were supposed to have another 40 years together. When I think of the future I was robbed it makes me sick. Everything I will have to struggle with on my own, it sickens me and also terrifies me. I'm running out of family.

No one understands this but you guys, I wish I could talk to you all everyday. All I get is "be strong for your mom" or "your mom needs you, you have to stay strong" or "what would your sister say?" What? I don't want to hear none of that bullcrap for the rest of my life. I want my sister to live for herself, she is gone to soon. I know what they are getting at but makes no sense to me. I'm tired of people thinking I'm staying to sad or I need to get on with life. What life? It's why I don't even reach out to certain friends anymore. They have dealt with loss in their own way and feel like I need to just butch up and move on because they did. Well, good for them.

People tell me I'm to young to feel life is over, but to me there is no purpose. I have no job I like, no husband, no kids, no sibling to grow old with, not even a car. So yep, what a life!

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Permalink Reply by Linda Engberg on November 17, 2015 at 11:20am

HollowHeart, you said it in a nutshell "What Life??"

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Permalink Reply by davesgirl on November 17, 2015 at 11:42am

I understand exactly what you are saying and feeling. This thanksgiving I really just want to be alone, but my mother will not let me. My family thinks I have mourned long enough and should be trying to move on. Hell no, I am still grieving. Do they think I am enjoying be depressed and hating everything? This is not how I imagined I would end up. We have to be true to our heart.

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Permalink Reply by HollowHeart on November 17, 2015 at 12:14pm

davesgirl, you are so right. And why is it family doesn't get it, of all people? My mom asked me if I was putting up a tree this year. I just mumbled 'I don't know' I have gone back and forth with yes and no but she got all mad cause she didn't hear what I said. Can I get some sympathy? Sorry I'm not thinking about trees and Christmas lights. It won't even feel like Christmas without my sis. She loved the season and so did I. It feels very "what is the point?" right now. Christmas is supposed to be Holly and Jolly.

This is SOOOO not how I imagined my life would look like either. I would have bet every last penny on that. It's not just the holidays but my life is destroyed. I wish it was just for this year. I think the pressure to move on already also creates set backs. Because we then try to force ourselves to be in a certain place emotionally and mentally because that is what society, friends and family are saying we should be. It's like my Mom expecting me to go over to her apartment all the time and do stuff. If her cat wasn't still there I wouldn't go over there at all.

It's extremely emotional for me to be over there but she don't get it or she just don't want to see it. We do have to be true to ourselves because others sure don't care.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Engberg on November 17, 2015 at 2:16pm

Davesgirl and Hallow Heart,

You are both right, I just want to spend Thanksgiving by myself and my little dog Babie J. When I do spend it with family all I see is their happiness and they could care less about how I feel.

Also it it just not the holidays, it is everyday, one day just flows into the next. Each morning I wake up to another day of missing my beloved Husband.

They all want me to come to Michigan, I live in Florida, where my husband received the best care at the Mayo Clinic, I tell them how about someone coming to visit me, oh no, "I can't waste my vacation on her."

So screw them, I have made more understanding people on this web-site, tan I have from my own family.

I will never ever be happy until I see my Husband in Heaven, if there is one. 

 

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Permalink Reply by HollowHeart on November 17, 2015 at 3:45pm

Linda, I hope you are able to do what is right for you. I know those family situations where you have to go out of obligation to the family and the family traditions, etc. I've been there where it is better to go than not go to avoid all the questions.

I also understand being in your own world when your world has not been torn apart, destroyed and blown away in a tornado. My thing is that if people were sympathetic towards you during the holidays then at least that would make you more likely to want to go. When people have the attitude of 'Oh that was over two years ago!' that makes all the difference. Especially if others are there with their husbands and family. Ugh.And that's awful about no one wanting to come visit you. It takes a lot of work and energy to travel during the holidays and that's when you are feeling good!

All I ask for is that people understand that we are still having a hard time be it 6 weeks, 6 months or 6 years down the line, if they have forgotten and you bring it up they can at least understand instead of brushing it off like you're still sad over a DVD you lost years ago. I wish that was case for all of us.

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Permalink Reply by Hilary Christene on November 21, 2015 at 9:31am

I always dread the holidays for the extended period of exclusion

This year, I was going to be D's family. I was actually nervous and timid, hoping to make the best impression and everything. I like his parents a lot and would have met his little brother... I guess I do feel grateful that I at least got to have that feeling once.

davesgirl, you said "This is not how I imagined I would end up." I realized in the last few days that I've been figuring out that this is how I've ended up. Desolate.

I mean in a really dark kind of way, it's almost a relief to know... I don't know how to explain the feeling.

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Permalink Reply by Jane Lock on November 17, 2015 at 7:38pm

Hi Linda,

My husband suddenly died 5 months ago, leaving me and 3 young adult children. We are very close, but I think that my grief is making it worse for them, and then my heart breaks thinking of the way I had wanted their lives to go. I am so deeply sorry that 2 years later you feel this way, not that grief ever leaves, but that you feel this way about life. It really doesn't give me hope that anything will ever feel better. I survive for my kids, and I started to say to myself that time is just an invention of our minds. So, if I die in 30 years, when I am together with my beloved again, I will have forgotten that any time has passed, and he will not have noticed our time apart, because time is only for this life on earth. I feel him so strongly in my heart, and I know , even if this is completely unfair, that I must be alive for this time period , for some reason. I had suffered a lot in my life before this ever happened, with abusive parents, and then very serious and painful physical diseases. I thought I had given my due to the pain department in life, and that this period of my life, at 52, was for coasting. I had believed in God before this, and now think he must really hate me to give me this situation. I have a very uncaring sister who does wrong in her life, and has happy healthy kids and a healthy husband. She has completely abandoned me in this situation. Before I met my husband, I was so deeply lonely, because of not having family, and he became everything to me, husband/brother/father/best friend, my whole family. Why would this happen to me?

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