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Comment by bluebird on July 19, 2015 at 6:44pm

rachel_michelle,

Thank you for being so understanding.

Comment by bluebird on July 19, 2015 at 6:44pm

John,

I agree with you -- there is nothing to be "learned" from this hell, and if there is, it's not worth it. Anyone who is actually going through this knows that. 

Comment by bluebird on July 19, 2015 at 6:42pm

morgan,

I feel the same, when I see a post from you. As for "society", it can kiss my fat ass if it thinks it has any insight into this, or any say in how I am or how I feel. BS, indeed.

I always have the terrible nights sleep, too. Sleeping pills or Benadryl help, but not enough, and not always. I have an online vintage shop (my husband and I used to go to flea markets, buy vintage items, and resell them in the shop), so I understand what you're doing. Me, I want to get rid of all the vintage stock I have, as I have zero interest in doing it anymore, without him. In any case, it's interesting that both you and I have been in that "world".

Driving is dangerous for us. I am constantly thinking about how quick it would be to just slam into a pole or whatever. I don't do it, because our cat needs me, because I promised my family I wouldn't, and because I would never want to endanger anyone else in the process, but I think about it every time I drive.

I get it, about the cooking. Nothing tastes good, plus I don't want to be alive so why feed my body? In my case, I lost a lot of weight after my husband died (weight I actually needed to lose, so I hit a healthy weight a few months after he died), as I had zero appetite. In one week, I would eat about the same amount a normal person would eat in one day.  Eventually, my appetite reasserted itself even though I didn't want it to, and I gained back all the weight I'd lost plus more. Now I am definitely fat, and I just hope it gives me an instantly fatal heart attack at some point. But I still don't enjoy food, and I really don't enjoy cooking anymore (that was something I enjoyed doing for my husband and me together).

I don't really know where my husband is, either. If there is an afterlife, I know that he will be in a good place in it (I don't actually believe in a "hell", anyway), as he is the best person I've ever known (not without his faults/flaws, as we all have, but still an amazing, giving, loving, generous person).  The signs I've received, I hope they are from him, but I cannot help but doubt. I don't doubt my husband, I doubt myself and my own perceptions (because I was SO fucking wrong in thinking that god, if there is one, would never do this to us). I know what you mean about imagination, I worry about "wishful thinking" on my part. Feathers and coins and such are not enough for me. I don't need fucking parlor tricks, I need my husband. No offense to you or to anyone else who accepts or believes signs; hell, I'm envious of you.  Like you, I am beyond fragile. I just want this life to end. I can be mean, too, in that I have no patience and I don't care about anything going on in anyone else's life. That's part of why I isolate myself, so as not to hurt others.

The nurse who was there when your husband was diagnosed is a fucking idiot. There is no proof of god, and even if there were, there is no proof that her particular version or view of god is correct, and even if it were, she had no right to try to inflict it on you. Maybe she was trying to be comforting, but if so then she was going about it all wrong.

I do not believe, as some people do, that we all "plan" or "chart" the major events of our lives beforehand, in the before/afterlife. And if we do, I fucked up royally and I want OUT. But there's no way that I would EVER have chosen to have my husband die and have me keep living, nor would he have chosen that.

 

Comment by rachel_micele on July 19, 2015 at 12:02am

Bluebird and John T - absolutely no need for apologies for expression. I welcome it and appreciate the rawness and realness of it! I find it comforting, for lack of a better word as comfort and grief in the same world feels like an oxymoron. I thank you, I thank all of you, for your openness.

John T - I was/still am hopeful for you when you said you were going to see a counselor. I'm on my 3rd one, only because my first 2 were short term therapies so I've had to switch, but I'm finding all of them have been/are helpful in different ways. They have been my rope from falling off the jagged cliff. However none of them have said anything about what I've learned from this experience and my reaction would of been the same as yours! I agree with AnneJ, you said it all so very well ... maybe when a person is finally through this hell can that question even be considered.      

Comment by morgan on July 18, 2015 at 5:48pm

It's always a relief when i see a post from you Bluebird. Since we are about the same time in this damn journey I always relate to what you write.  At this point society would say we should be well beyond and gaining strength moving forward.  What BS.  

Here's my example of how my grief goes.  This morning I finally got up after another terrible nights sleep which seems to happen about three nights a week.  Terrible means I really never get any REM.  I snooze and wake, then rinse and repeat.  So uncomfortable.  In the past I never had problems sleeping.  With his body next to mine why would I? But I digress.  So I got up, tired, and decided to go to the swappers meet.  I am attempting to price things that I have bought to go out and turn them so I wanted to take aother trip to compare.  In Sept 2013 when I went there for the first time I could barely move around.  Today as I walked all I could think about was how alone I am and how much I hate it.  Saw a couple of things that I might have bought except I already have done a fair share of thrift retail therapy through the past couple years and I have no more room.  I cannot let myself become a hoarder.  So instead I bought a huge zucchini and some giant scallions.  

I left and as I drove back to the house (I can’t call anything a home anymore) I thought about how much I hate life once again while driving.  Driving from nowhere to nowhere to do nothing that I care about.  Wondering if that telephone pole would finish me or just screw me up.   

Once back to the house I decide I am going to cook something so I have just finished making a curry coconut zucchini soup and zucchini fritters and a panini that I cut up and will make into three meals.  I can freeze the soup and the fritters I'll pick at tonight. Here's the rub.  Again I could care less.  Sounds good but who do I have to share it with?  No one.  I sat down to rest, opened my computer to see if anyone else has been on here writing which has become a routine for me attempting to drown myself in distraction.  I look outside and see the world as it is here in this location and all I want to do is die.  That's it.

In the last week or two the crying has abated. I am going some days for two dyas without crying.  Now I am just destitute.  I long for death.  I keep cutting calories and my physique looks cachexic.  Maybe I do have cancer. It would be welcome.  Every moment now I am sad. I hate living. I keep borderline eating because I am trying to force my body to collapse.  All I can think about is wanting to die.  Not in a desperate way as it was in the beginning but more because I am determined to shorten my life.  

I have no idea where my husband is.  I haven't gotten any "messages" that I would construe as him connecting with me.  Just a fertile imagination twisting a feather or a found coin into a "sign" when I know damn well it could just as easily be otherwise.  Not to diminish others signals but I straddle a fine line now between needing proof and giving myself a little room for projecting what might be.  If I don't I would definitely be taking the pills.  I'm beyond fragile now.  I am counting days and biding time and wondering when that day might come.  I just hate life so much now.  Nothing helps me smile.  Nothing makes me want to engage beyond a cursory exchange and in many ways I am getting really mean.  Not offensively but if someone presents me with an obstacle and I feel slighted by their actions or words I have no qualms about coming back at them.  I used to be able to ameliorate just about anything.  Now, I have nothing left to lose. I lost it all.  He was my everything and no one can help me.

Lastly Bluebird I am SO with you on the whole dog thing.  I mean really.  I've not been much for the dogma for forty years and to get it of  my chest here and now I had an nurse's aide in the hospital tell me that I needed to trust in dog.  My husband had just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and she is telling me about the "plan". She was lucky I didn't deck her.  Instead I think I remember saying something like "get away from me and stop with your garbage."  I had just been slammed into a wall going 100mph and she's telling me to trust in dog.  Wow, I think if I saw her today I would deck her.  Sorry if it offends others but for me to hear talk about myths and fables I go nuts. There is a universe, in fact there may be many of them, but it has nothing to do with some deified phantom.  Taking my husband from me and not "planning" for the both of us to go together has to rate as about the dirtiest, most low down maneuver from that side of the aisle of belief.  Not going there.  Just remember, though, this only my take.  No one else needs to agree.  Periodically I just need to get it out there.

See what I "mean".

morgan

Comment by bluebird on July 18, 2015 at 4:48pm

For me, there is no way out, other than my own death. Clearly I haven't killed myself, though that may not always be the case. For now, I stay alive because I need to take care of our cat, and because I promised my family I wouldn't kill myself. But once our cat's life is over, all bets are off. I cannot and will not live for years without my beloved. I refuse.

The "stages of grief" thing, while useful for some, doesn't apply to everyone. I am constantly in all of the stages except "acceptance", which I will never be in. Every day I think about my husband, about the raw deal he got and about how horrible my life is. Virtually every day I think about suicide, even though I have no immediate plans to go through with it. For me, every second of existence does feel like a nightmare from which I am unable to wake.  My husband died at age 40, one week after our wedding. So any god which allowed that can fuck right off, as far as I'm concerned.

I know what you mean about living on that "distant planet of grief", and feeling no connection to this planet. That's how it is for me, too. I have never been a patient person, but I am much less so now. I isolate from everyone, I can barely be with my family (whom I love very much), and I have NO time or energy or fucks to give for anyone else.

As you said, everything was obliterated when my husband died, as it was for you when yours did. There is no life to put back together, no "me" to put back together, nor do I want to do so. You're lucky that you feel your husband with you.  I have had some possible signs that may have been from my husband, and I have recently been to a medium who I do believe is legit (that is, I think she genuinely believes in what she does; I still don't know if there is an afterlife though), but I don't really feel my husband with me, and we were & are SO in love and SO close, so that fact that I don't feel him makes me terrified that it means he no longer exists.

The worst part, for me, is not knowing if my beloved husband's beautiful soul still exists, and if he is still him (not some amorphous spirit or part of god or some shit). Also horrible, though, is that even if there is a wonderful afterlife in which he and I (and eventually the rest of our loved ones) will be reunited, we will never have THIS life for the 80 or more years that we should have, and to me that is unforgivable (if there is a god, I will never forgive it for this).

I'm glad that your counselors and this website have been of some help to you, and I hope they continue to help you. I'm sorry that my own post has been more about me than about you; I have found that I have become much more selfish since my husband's death. I'm sorry.

Comment by rachel_micele on July 17, 2015 at 1:42pm

Thank you Jo B for your comment. I am so sorry for your loss too. This is such a lonely road when you must mix with those who can't understand. 

Comment by dream moon JO B on July 15, 2015 at 3:51pm

yea i do its so confuzn it can be dad died in 2012 so mush loss on top so mush funrelss in cremtoem u cud say 

frinds dnt wnt 2 no us or cross st wen thy sea us sum still do im 1 of thes iv alway pt evry 1 1st slf lst i hav 

so sorrry for yore loss i fogt 2 say as well wen we get loss/losss we nt prson we wear 2 yrs or 4 yrs go we not