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Comment by bluebird on February 4, 2017 at 5:19pm

morgan,

I know it's horrible for you all the time, as it is for me. It just seems to be worse for me in the morning. During the course of the day I can slightly distract myself...not really, just slightly, just enough so that I don't start crying. But it takes time to sort of gird myself for the day, to the very slight extent that I am even able to do so, and when I first wake up in the morning I am completely unguarded, and so it fucking slams into me again that my husband is dead and my life is hell.

It's good that you have your friend / your husband's friend to talk to, good that he listens. I understand what you mean about wanting someone to know how hard you've tried, especially if you decide not to try anymore. I am not in that position myself, as I do not and will not try to make anything of my life, but I can see why you feel that way.

As far as pills, is it that you can't swallow them, or does your digestive system not deal well with them, or what? For me, there's no way I could get by without them. I cannot sleep at all if I don't take something. I also have Xanax for when I get a panic attack, although I don't take it that often. But at night, I would get literally no sleep if I didn't take something. The few times I've tried I've ended up sleeping for about 15 minutes at a time, continuously waking up moaning and rocking.

You're absolutely right that it's a crappy hand we've been dealt. This is no life.

Comment by morgan on February 4, 2017 at 4:07pm

Bluebird......I was so distraught last night when I wrote that I forgot one thing.  The same thing happens to me in the morning.  It seems I distract myself better during the day (that has been a slow process of doing things that help distract me) but as long as I don't think about my husband while I am doing things I seem more able to steer away from the crying.  Its when it gets quiet and I know I don't have anything more left to distract me.  Thats when I go down.  

That's not to say I cant go down during the day still but over the years that has gotten a bit better.  In fact just a little bit ago I tried to find a happy birthday song for one of my closest friends online and I ended up in tears because what I was attempting to listen to and send (a meaningful one) got me going.  Those are the times I am now so tired of having. 

I had a long talk/cry with the person who has watched over me since my husbands death.  My husband had asked him to do so in case something ever happened to him.  I think he was feeling his diabetes was getting the better of him.  Anyhow, I cried and cried and cried with him last night on the phone (he is 3000 miles away).  He tries very hard and is very good at being my therapist even though he is just a good friend and he has listened to me for many hours.  He is about the only person who really gets where I am.  I shared with him how after so many years the clarity of what my life holds for me is pretty desolate.  I want at least one person to know that if I simply cannot bear the pain any longer that someone knows how hard I tried.  

So that is my long way of saying how I am bereft I can be morning and night more than I am during a day but none of it has any meaning and purpose.  For the time that I have been enduring the grief trying to either prove to myself or to others that I gave it everything I had I am coming around to a sort of awareness that I  better find something that I can hang my hat on because since day one I haven't felt any "feeling" for my present.  Everything has an association with my past and when I really think about it (which I try to avoid) I end up in my hole.  As I said to my friend, this isn't life.  No one can call it life.  

I have a hard time taking pills.  They kind of make me sick.  I have taken some ibuprofen PM and some melatonin but I wake up feeling hung over.  So I tend to avoid although if I get to 4am and I'm still not sleeping I'll take something.  Its really just a crappy hand we've been dealt.  As lucky as I am for many reasons I should be grateful and yet the one thing that ever mattered I cannot have and have no idea where he is.  I have yet to figure out how to wrap my head around that.  And so it goes.......

Comment by bluebird on February 4, 2017 at 3:31pm

morgan,

In this we differ. I don't know why, but for me going to bed isn't the worst part. Of course I desperately miss my husband, but maybe the Benadryl or sleeping pill helps, and I think that knowing I will be unconscious for at least a few hours helps. Also knowing that nothing will happen for those few hours, nothing I will have to deal with -- it's as if I cease to exist, during that time.

For me, it's waking up in the morning that's horrible. Each day I wake up and again have to face that my husband is not here with me, that my life is empty, and piled on top of that is all the daily life crap (I have to go to a job I don't want, my mother's health isn't great, financial issues, etc.). For at least the first year after my husband's death, every morning I woke up moaning and rocking, having started doing so while still asleep.  That doesn't happen every day anymore, but it does still happen. 

Comment by morgan on February 2, 2017 at 11:17pm

I get to this point every night when I know I need to go to bed and yet I don't want to crawl in their alone.  And everything is so quiet.  And all I want to do is cry.  And  so I do.  Why is the universe making me live?  Why am I still here?   please don't make me stay here.......

Comment by Linda Engberg on February 2, 2017 at 3:12pm

Comment by bluebird on February 1, 2017 at 3:08pm

John T.,

Agreed. Looking back, I have realized that I've had OCD since childhood, and anxiety at least since middle school.  The depression I never really had until my husband died. That is, I have had times when I was depressed (when my parents split up, when my childhood dog died, when our -- mine and my husband's -- female cat died), but in response to the actual situations, and it dissipated.  This depression now, though -- it will last for the rest of my life, because my husband will be dead for the rest of my life. 

You're right that such profound loss does exacerbate these sorts of problems.  I find it almost impossible to function, between grief and anxiety and depression, on top of regular life problems (financial, parental health, job, etc.). 

Comment by John T. on February 1, 2017 at 2:59pm

So true, Michael.  My dad died in an accident at work when I was nine. I had a problem with depression since then and no one recognized it until I was in my 20's.  Back then it didn't seem possible for a child to be depressed.  So I buried the pain.  That's how I became interested in psychology.  I realized other kids go through the same things and are told to get over it, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and the killer, be a man.  As if any of those statements were helpful.  I reacted strongly to John the Dragon because he violated this safe space where everyone could talk about how they feel without sugar coating it. Loss always hits me incredibly hard to the point of feeling completely dysfunctional at times.  The losses get harder.  This loss, though, is beyond anything and completely overwhelming.  My wife helped me through so many losses over the years and she isn't here to support me now.

Comment by Michael on February 1, 2017 at 2:39pm

John,
Ive had several depressive episodes in my life, usually following loss. The more you have, the more prone you are to another one. And this is of course the worst.

Comment by John T. on February 1, 2017 at 2:36pm

Bluebird, I've had a problem with anxiety and depression all my life.  It seems that a profound loss like we have experienced really exacerbates those problems by intensifying them incredibly.  Along with devastating grief, trying to function with the rest on top of that is... I don't know how to describe it.

Comment by John T. on February 1, 2017 at 2:10pm

I hate Peach Snapple Ice Tea.  My wife loved it.  Here I am, over two years after losing her, with tears in my eyes because I saw it in the store and couldn't buy it for her.  And I feel guilty for telling her I thought it was terrible.  I am never prepared when these sort of things hit me.

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