Don't grieve alone; 14,000 members and growing
I lost my husband we were high school sweethearts we had plans and it was not suppose to be this way we had two kids together and I feel so lost and the pain i feel becuase of how much I miss him…Continue
Started by Nicole. Last reply by Martha Washburn Sep 22, 2022.
For 40+ years we were together…married 39 years….We were to celebrate our 40th anniversary…Nobody who hasn’t been married, and lost a spouse could possibly understand….even though he was into many…Continue
Started by Susan B. Last reply by Connie Sep 1, 2022.
I got married on May 1, 1992 and lost my husband on June 30, 2017. My wedding day was the happiest day of my life and if I had one wish, it would be to go back and live that day over. It has been…Continue
Started by Carol Klotz. Last reply by Carol Klotz May 3, 2020.
I lost my wife on the 25 of March after returning from my Dads funeral. She is everything to me. No matter how bad it got, no matter how much my PTSD drug me down, She has been my light in the…Continue
Started by Shane Hughes. Last reply by Shane Hughes Apr 16, 2020.
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Hello AnneJ and All,
We had an early snowstorm and we lost power here. I was one of the lucky ones, our power was gone for just a few hours while 15,000 people in town were w/out electricity for almost four days. I have been reading your posts, but didn't have the mental and emotional strength and clarity to reply.
AnneJ, what a beautiful and moving way to celebrate the man you love(d), your soulmate by singing Happy Birthday for him and baking him a cake as you always did. The way you described it was gripping. Most of all what I appreciated is that you say that you are lucky that he was born. Indeed you are! I can tell what a very rare and special love the two of you shared!
I, too, consider myself very fortunate to have had my gift in Joseph. The gift of Joseph, of the rare love that we shared, was given only for 19 years. I wish it were 29 years at least, and not 19. But in spite of that I am truly grateful for what I had and for Joseph who graced my life, my existence, my being for 19 beautiful years. We could have never met, or the love could have been less stronger and less poetic. That would have been a great tragedy.
The reason that all of us who are suffering so intensely is b/c the love we knew was great and very fulfilling and brought us immense joy, satisfaction, and deep happiness. Now it's all but a memory.
Lately I've been feeling as if Joseph is still alive, but away from me, from our home, in a distant faraway land. I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be deluding myself with these thoughts. But I can't help it. It's some kind of a new phase, I think a protective shield that my mind has put up to lessen my agony.
Penelope, the wife of the legendary Greek hero Odysseus waited for her husband while he was gone for 20 years. In those days there was no communication of any kind while a man traveled by sea to far-off lands, so she waited patiently for 20 years never giving up hope, never stopping loving him, always remaining true to him.
My mind is creating these illusions, as much as I fight with it, so my agony has become less intense, thinking that Joseph is still alive. Who knows, I may not have to wait for 20 years, maybe my time to go join Joseph will be in a few years from now. Since I keep praying ever so fervently for my death, maybe death will come sooner than I think. That's why I am no longer so despondent; I may not have to wait for 20 years like Penelope did.
I am sorry if I am rambling and not making any sense. But I am being honest and am baring my innermost thoughts here. I haven't told anybody else of this latest stage in my grief: denial. Utter denial. It's sad, isn't it? But that's how it is.
Per AnneJ "But I need to love him. It's not a choice, it's automatic like breathing and blinking." As I've said, "I've been exposed to death - pets, grandparents - but compared to this that was a cakewalk. This is not death because those experiences I can understand. This I cannot."
I cannot understand how something and someone so central to me and is as part of my life as breathing and blinking I'm supposed to be okay without.
Over the past years I have used Photo Booth on my Mac to do videos of my meltdowns. Periodically after one (like I had a little while ago) I might look back at one or two I did prior. I guess it a record for no one or anyone to see maybe after I am gone what this was like. I cry, I don't hold back, I watch myself melt and then I get a little calmer and still talk about my feelings. I say this because I find when I read posts I realize the theme of what we are enduring is recurrent. The reflections as to the effects of the grief is much the same it seems for some no matter the amount of time that passes. It eases a little bit but the core feelings are like Patti is experiencing and I look back at the videos and see myself not getting one whole helluva lot better. Some but it seems SO SO insignificant.
I read Angela's post and I see myself. Sleep is elusive and scattered. I am fatigued a lot. I force myself to function. I try to make some food that I can keep heating up otherwise its eggs, breads and chocolate. The only thing that changes from your post Angela to my situation is I am in a new house, in a much smaller bed and so I have had to numb my senses enough to be able to crawl in every night because the thought of being so disconnected to his body in a foreign bed is surreal. I had a stretch awhile ago where I just got to bed and couldn't stop crying. Horrendous wailing. I was so anxious about going in there because I knew what was going to happen. That has backed off now but I still every morning I just don't want to open my eyes. I will lay there for hours some times unwilling to move.
I keep thinking that if I keep toughing it out it will get better. And it sort of has in the way that the frequency and the shock has worn down but the shadow of his presence and the not wanting to be here without him has not diminished one bit. How the hell am i supposed to live on that kind of thin thread? Is the not wanting to live without him ever going to diminish? If I am to answer now after 32 months of this I can honestly say no. I just find nothing that makes a difference to keep going but the breathing part just won't end.
tangent thoughts pieced together……..that seems to be what we do isn't it? piecing it together…….but then none of it seems to make any difference or sense……..
Guess I should try some sleep as I think I too am rambling……I wish I didnt feel like I constantly need so much help in understanding why my world has fallen part and I hate it so much……..
Rachel, Yes, in answer to what I think the lady who I met whose brother killed himself after Iraq. I think it has everything to do with the fact we cannot connect to normal anymore. All of us.
Like you I have beat my brain to death trying to understand the psychological riddle called death because most of the rest of the riddles of life, like you, I was pretty much able to overcome. No challenge or adversity seemed so unattainable like what I am trying to solve today.
I have some hours now at a stretch where I can function better. I can get up, shower, eat, dress and actually run some errands and do some tasks. That is a damn sight better than the first two years of this hell. But what I am finding is, that no matter what I do, there still is no purpose.
From day one I asked every counselor, every sibling, every friend, even strangers, give me a good reason. Just one good reason why I should want to stay here. So far, that is one of the things no one has been able to do and I can't do for myself. I just don't want to because I don't want to be here without him. It's not like I can't live alone. I've been doing that. It's that I don't want to live without him. Big difference.
I've pretty much given up and I succumb to whatever the day throws at me. Like yesterday, the grief pretty much confined me to bed. I had worked hard the day before and now when I do that I have to take a whole day to recover because I've expended so much emotional energy getting through a day trying to be "normal".
And Tildyc, I think of you daily and now knowing you are approaching these damn marker days I can only repeat what I seem to say when I can't offer anything else……I'm sorry. So so sorry. We who are willing to bear our very heart here know where you are in managing and coping and wish there was ANYTHING we could do and there simply isn't. I guess the best I can say is do whatever the moment moves you to do. I eat a shitload of chocolate. I don't do anything I don't feel like doing so projects/piles/etc seem to pile around me and then I get a moment and reduce and renew. I can't reconstruct. It just a matter of moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic. That's about all we do.
Please everyone, let's all send a little extra energy out there to our spouses and ask them to give us a little peace and to try and give a little more peace to everyone in the world who each day loses someone they love like we do. It seems the world is devolving into a pretty chaotic state and maybe they can send us a bit of clean space……….
Namaste.
A friend of mine who lost his first wife 19 years ago still wishes her happy birthday on her day.
Per Morgan, "Death deals a blow I never imagined. I still don't know how I was so insulated from the severity of what it does." Oh my dear friend, how I agree. I've been exposed to death - pets, grandparents - but compared to this that was a cakewalk. This is not death because those experiences I can understand. This I cannot. I am trying my damndest to but I'm putting together a puzzle that has no fucking pieces! Dido Tidlyc, I hate my life and the universe for giving it to me. My cursed, miserable, obliterated life.
A book I've been reading called, "The ten things to do when your life falls apart" has a chapter called Facing your Defaults. According to this author everyone has a Life Theme which is our psychological riddle we are solving in this current life. Well, fuck. Based on how I grew up, how I've struggled, and still do, to find where I belong, and now losing the one thing that meant everything and finally gave me solid ground to stand on, my theme must be emotional and mental suffering and hell. Just put a bullet in my head and take me out of my misery.
Yea, this depression is not letting up and I feel like nothing this week has gone smooth or easy. Bad fucking day today.
The individual who had the brother who served in Iraq to complete suicide, obviously I don't know what the brother experienced overseas and then experienced coming back to "normal". But I wonder if there was any slight similarity to us in how the way the world's "normal" is something we just don't connect to anymore.
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