Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by loui gae on February 28, 2017 at 8:14am

trying to have good memories but only the memories of the last say remain in my mind only someone who has lost someone to cancer can appreciate this it is difficult to watch and to  know there is nothing you can do   the reality of this is that they can send  a man to the moon but if he returns and gets cancer he eventually has to  die hard to believe

 

Permalink Reply by morgan on March 1, 2017 at 10:17pm

Michael T,  I wanted to respond but yesterday got away from me.  Rough one.  

In particular I wanted to let you know that the tears for me just keep coming. They are different than they were in the beginning and during the years the crying has changed.  I think it is hard to fathom that at two and half years you would still be a zombie but I can relate because I felt the same way.  It was like I kept questioning myself.......how can I still be like this?   Constantly grieving, crying, staying away from people, erratic sleep and eating schedule, sometimes ravenous and sometimes have no inclination to eat.  I have never been so "messed" up in my entire life.  

Nothing is normal still.  I have no routine and although that was never my strong suit, my husband kept me focused more often than not, I was never so uncaring as I am now.  I could give a shit.   About anything.  And yet for the few things that I do sort of care about (my sister, my deceased cat, my deceased youngest brother, a good friend) if I run into anything where I think I might lose them I go bonkers.  I also feel the same sometimes if if I hear of a strangers loss.  I am not good with loss anymore , at all.

This grief is the wackiest, hardest, most unpredictable roller coaster of emotions that I have ever encountered.  I still have yet to go beyond two days in a row without "something"  finding its way into my head and boom........down I go.  

And the silence.  the having to accept that this quiet, this aloneness is forever as long as I live?  I don't know.  I just don't know anymore.  I think before just recently I kept waiting for a break.  Thinking that certainly this cannot persist.  I was wrong.  For me, I still have days where I drown.  I want his arms around me.  I just want that feeling once more.  And in my head I know it is not going to happen.  Horrendous.

And diabolical?  Yes, the most twisted, polarizing, incomprehensible reactions to feeling him being gone.  It's like it has now taken up residence as an absence of a proportion that I cannot even try to measure and wrap my head around.  A huge boulder that I drag around with me.  He's in my head but nowhere to touch.  Horrible, absolutely horrible.

And one last thing, I used to be nauseous on a daily basis.  Never could tie it directly to anything specific but i battled it quite a bit.  It has eased up in frequency but I still get it enough as a reminder.   Don’t know if it was related to food or stress or whatever but yes  I had it too and still do just not as often.  Another of the stresses to deal with........:(

Permalink Reply by Michael Thompson on March 2, 2017 at 8:34am

Morgan, Thank you for your comment, I could not have put it better myself.  There is a certain comfort in routine, when something happens to slightly alter that routine, all those negative feelings come flooding back.

Tell me, have you seen a doctor ?

Michael

Permalink Reply by morgan on March 2, 2017 at 9:56am

I have not seen a doctor.  I have lived a very holistic life and can recognize symptoms of the root cause.  The root cause of my physical regressions are solely based on losing my husband.  the nausea, the anxiety, the liver spots increasing, the hair falling out, the erratic sleep patterns........all of it.  The only thing that I need to see a professional for is a tooth that has recently decided to start to show signs of discomfort.  

Other than that there is nothing a professional is going to do for me that I have not tried to do for myself by trying over and over to minimize the crying and the pain of the loss.  And as for taking drugs to help that I am not a good pill popper to being with  and so I have decided to tough that part out without dulling my senses.  That's just me.  

All I can do is wish for everyone else to find what works for them.  IF drugs, god, dogs, cats, children, b=neighbors, social activities, shopping, anything that does ntoharm others works to help them with their grief I say, take it.  But I know my life is changed forever and I do not like the fact that I am still alive as I find it meaningless.  But I still breathe and so I must do what I can to manage my grief.  

I wish it was anything else.

Permalink Reply by Michael Thompson on March 5, 2017 at 12:25pm

Morgan, How long ago was it your husband passed away ?

Permalink Reply by morgan on March 5, 2017 at 3:56pm

Michael,  It's been four years plus since my husband died.  It took me three years to get a handle on functioning.  Having just passed four years I am not in constant turmoil like I was but when I do go down it is like nothing else I have experienced yet.  And even when I am not in total meltdown I find I just cannot find any real reason or motivation that leads me to believe that living without my husband will create any joy, happiness or further any experience that I didnt already have.  

Bottom line is I am existing to pay bills because I breathe.  I just don't know any other way to see it.  I can go for a full day now (and that is a pretty recent  event) without crying but it doesn't last for more than 24 to 36hours it seems. It is my coping strategy/tool /technique.  I cry.  I have a widow friend whose coping tool is "I don't know".  She says it about everything and nothing.  She repeats it as her way of coping.  I can have a conversation with her and every other word is "I don't know".  She is as messed up and confused about the loss of her spouse as I am and she is about to hit five years.  I think we all find different ways to cope but that's all it is.  Coping.  

I was reading through some of the articles I have bookmarked over the years last night and I read a couple that really sum up where I am.  And it is not unusual to be where I am.  I will never be able to summon the desire, energy or need to do more than exist.  It's just how it turned out for me and my inner soul.  

He's gone and I cannot live without him in any way shape or form that society expects out of me so I am arranging what I can to have little to nothing to do with it all except for limited interaction.  For as long as I am alive I will want to die.  Pretty simple.

Permalink Reply by Maria on May 11, 2019 at 11:53pm

I feel the exact same way. My husband passed away 7 years ago. The world wants me to feel differently but I don’t know how to, I can’t do it. I could care less about being alive, like you said... I just exist. Thank you for being so honest about how you feel inside.

Permalink Reply by Michael Thompson on May 12, 2019 at 2:29am

This is terrible, as soon as I wake up in the morning anxiety takes over.  I dont want to feel like this for the rest of my life.   I too, just exist, whilst everybody in my locality who my wife and I knew, live their own lives as if nothing has happened, albeit this I can understand.

My problem is within me, I dont know if others in my situation feel the same because everybody handles things different, but is anxiety a bedfellow to all widows and widowers ?

Feeling eternally lost is another feeling, as though im living on a desert island.

Nothing I do brings me any satisfaction, I just go through the motions, and decision making is another one, I basically couldnt care less about anything any more, but I know that I should care because im alive.

Michael

Permalink Reply by Joe Kelly on May 12, 2019 at 10:49am

Michael

I lost my Love on January 21, 2018.  This year would had been our 50th wedding anniversary.  We were together since we were 16 years old.  She was my life and when she died, I died.  I'm just stuck here waiting to hopefully reunite with her when this body of mine finally expires.  I too wake every morning with the horror that she is not here and spend every day hoping it's my last so I can be with her.  I go to the cemetery everyday because being close to her physical remains in a way brings sort of a painful comfort to me.  It's hard to explain.  Everyday is like the day she died.  Everyday, I wish we could go back in time.  We had a wonderful life together and still would had that wonderful life going if the shocking surprise of her one day throwing up led to a diagnosis of cancer throughout her body.  She was always the healthy one of us two.  The cancer was everywhere except where they look for it during her annual medical checkups. 

My anxiety is ongoing all day long everyday.  It will never be better.  I know that because life without her isn't living.  I'm just stuck here waiting.  I can't feel any happiness and have to kind of hide the way I'm feeling around our grand children.  Our children understand my feelings but as we lost our parents at one time, we know for them, life goes on with their own nuclear family.  Even when I'm with them, I feel alone without her with me.  I isolate a lot and I too see others just going on merrily with their lives and just say why couldn't we had gone on the same way.  I wish I could give you some comfort but know I can't except perhaps to know that we will spiritually reunite with our Loves one day.

Joe 

Permalink Reply by morgan on May 12, 2019 at 5:30pm

Michael, 

You seem to have the same feelings I do and I could add others.  I could call it anxiety but what i meet every morning is a mountain to climb.  It takes me a good two hours each morning to get out of bed.   My digestive system has to have time to listen to my brain as it slowly wakes up.  I need to distract myself by catching up with the news that has happened while I tried to sleep because that pushes me beyond knowing that I am waking up alone.  If I get going too fast I inevitably end up crying so I pretty much try to wait out the morning process.  

I too don't want to feel like this for the rest of my life but I am pretty sure there is not going to be a ton of change that moves me to care that I am alive.  I am actually more moved by a growing sense of desire to join the next level of incarnation not that I have any idea what that is.  I just know I think alot about how anxious I am to experience whatever comes next beyond earth.  There was a time I would not have been so ready to die.  Now I ache to be released from here.  I am not sure I wont take it into my own hands but for right now I have remedied my craving by talking through my despair for death with a good friend my husband asked to watch over me.  He continually tells me its not my time yet.  And I listen.  I am just not sure how long I can sustain this pain.  

Permalink Reply by Ginger on April 17, 2018 at 12:39pm

I lost my daughter to cancer almost 2 months ago. I felt if I let myself go and laughed I would be forgetting about the memory of my  daughter,but recently I began to laugh at jokes but then I would pull back and remember my daughter and what happened and the tears would come  again. This has been going on and on. This feeling drives me crazy,but maybe it will be easier to handle with time or maybe this is something we have to live with.