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A Way Out!
I know we all talk left handedly about taking our own lives to escape our pain or, in my case, pain and reuniting with Nancy! But, how far have we gone towards actually making our plans for the great escape. I know that in the past few days the level of pain and loss has ratcheted to a level that is virtually unbearable. I am 68 years old and cannot see a future ahead. I see total darkness and that's on a good day. I am not particularly frightened by the prospect of leaving this earth, rather excited by my belief I will see my Nancy again. I have many means at my disposal to expedite my exit and as days go by I think of these more often. At this point, I am still clinging tenaciously to life and the hope I will find some satisfaction here although I doubt it. If and when I would make the decision to "shuffle off the coil" I would do it quickly, I know that! I only address this because we are all so miserable without our soul mates and more than anything are seeking a way to deal with these dark intrusive thoughts and leave the permanent solution to a temporary problem where it belongs...as a non-option! Mel
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by BillT on
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Mel,
Sounds like you and I are in similar places. I am 65 yoa. I do not have any reason that I can think of to go on. Life without my sweetheart is life without meaning. It has been three months since she passed. Nothing is getting easier yet. I have to take it a minute at a time, and the grief will ambush me and rip my heart out all over again.
Prayers to you Mel.
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Mel,
I too have and still feel the tugging at my base level and feel if this life is not worth living then how much worse could it be if I didn't. And then I think “what if”. What if I did that and it was the one thing that kept me from being reunited with my husband. It is a nagging thought. One with not much belief in a heavenly reunification, more one that is much bigger than that, and that has kept me baseline functioning for the past three years three months.
It is a long long time to suffer the pain of grief and Alice is wise in what she wrote. Like her I don't think any of this is really in our control. Not the least of which is death. That somehow this life is written way before we got here and the “what if” we break a contract of sorts might upset the balance of the next level. Does this make any sense?
I ask myself everyday still what is this life worth. In fact about two hours ago my toilet started exploding (apparently because they were pressurizing the sewer lines after a major infrastructure project last year before they top the streets) and there was water literally exploding out of the bowl. As a woman with just enough construction knowledge to get myself into trouble I quickly turned off the valve. I have no idea whether that helped but long story short I broke down big time. I cannot and don't want to deal with the nuisance of living. But I called my sister who did come to my rescue in the respect she came over and gave me some moral support. And then I proceeded to cry it out some more and figure out what happened and what I needed to do. Spent the last hour washing down everything in the bathroom.
This is a much larger mountain than normal but one I had to push around again pretty much by myself. I hate it. I hate every minute of it. But I do it because of the “what if”.
Who knows how long I will deal with the pain of pushing that mountain around. Like you I see total darkness and that too I consider to be a better day. BUT and it is a big but, as time passes we don't get better with the grief but somehow the functioning without so much pain does get a little less and less. When people at first said baby steps I had a different thought in my head as to what that meant. Now I know why it takes a baby about six years to even get a handle on that which we call life.
Even with our maturity (I am 64) it is unfathomable that we are in this position. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how much something could hurt. Never, not this much. But so far I have been unwilling to risk the “what if “so I endure the pain. I read a lot so that I know I am not alone and I write when I get the energy to think I have something to contribute. In the interim I use hobbies and crafts to keep myself engaged (distracted). I have gotten to the point where I can delay episodes of breakdowns longer than before. At your point which if I recall you are just about to experience the one-year marker. You brain is in overdrive, big time. The brain is a very complex mechanism we know very little about. It is projecting into your world (reality) information that we have no idea of its origin. As a radio broadcaster you know how you pick up channels fed by radio waves right? I think our brain is very much the same kind of receiver. The deal is we have no freakin clue where the waves it is picking up are coming from. And right now you are getting them in abundance. Nothing you can do about it.
So choose your channel carefully. Your writings have been inspiring and I know how hard it is to tell yourself that maybe you have something left to complete/contribute before your time comes but for the moment maybe your love, Nancy, is trying to send you some waves by getting you on here so we can help you stay tuned until your time comes.
You know we all care about each other on here because we are all rowing in the same boat. Someday I hope we have more answers to our questions about death and where we all go but for now we just have to take it on the chin. Truly there is no escape. Maybe just a continuation of waves waiting to be picked up by a certain channel and translated into our love once again. Worse would be having to live in static for eternity. We have to believe our beloveds are there, somewhere waiting for us. We just have to wait for the right wave to pick us up.
morgan
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Permalink Reply by Mel Royer on
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morgan, you are a master of the metaphor...One of the most articulate and elegant contributors to this invaluable site. I probably would have been dead months ago if weren't for you, and others like you, with all the straight on, well thought out advice that never fails to pull me out of the pit. I am speechless at the moment but will respond at greater length in a day or two. Thank you for your amazing insights and keep it coming. mel
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I'm living at home and we have serious ant problem, we get it every summer. My sister did to but the tricks she used always worked. None of them worked for me. When stuff like this happens I just want to jump off a cliff. I am already depressed and in despair, then I wash my bathroom walls in Raid and still see ants prancing along. It just gets to be to much to take on top of already being in the state of mind I'm already in.
There is no one to vent to about the ants, no one to help me out with tips or tricks, no one to even laugh with over the frustration. This ant problem feels like my house was destroyed by an earthquake. Everything is just monumental now and I'm tired of having to deal with it.
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Permalink Reply by bluebird on
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I don't know if I will eventually kill myself or not. If I do, I don't know how I will do it.
I do not believe that suicide is necessarily a "permanent solution to a temporary problem", though. My life has been permanently destroyed by my husband's death. Additionally, while I fervently hope that there is an afterlife, in which I will be reunited with my beloved husband, in my opinion there is no proof of an afterlife (I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it's just that so far I have not seen sufficient proof). So I don't know if the separation from my husband is actually temporary. Those of you that have real faith in an afterlife are very lucky.
I also think many of you are stronger than I am. morgan, you mention that you are able to forestall breakdowns for longer periods now. Others (not necessarily in this thread, just on this site in general) have mentioned that as time goes by they find that their situation is at least a little bit less painful for them, they have a few more good days, they feel a bit better, etc. NONE of that is true for me. Perhaps in part because I don't want it to be, if I'm being honest. I suppose I sort of feel that if god or the universe or whatever sees how much genuine anguish I am in, it will either bring my husband back or it will let me die, or at the very least it (if "it" has any sentience, or indeed if it exists at all) will see how absolutely wrong it was to allow my husband to die. But it's not entirely that; in part, it really isn't possible for me. I suppose I don't break down crying as often anymore, but it still hits me fairly often to the point that I do break down crying. Alongside that, though, is a constant level of depression and sadness. I don't want anything, I don't want to do anything, I don't want to be anything, I just want this life to fucking end. That never changes, and for me it never will.
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Bluebird, You always write so honestly. You are such a tortured soul but then so are we all. We all are managing this damn journey we have been chained to the best we can.
When I say I am able to forestall/delay episodes of breakdowns I just mean I am not totally incapacitated constantly as I was for about the first two years. In the beginning I wasn't just breaking down I was immobilized. Now I can walk and get through hours at a time trying my best to function standing up. But I am still breaking down everyday and because I don't have a job where I have to push myself to function my breakdowns can come at any time so it isn't like I am well. And to be very honest the breakdowns now have escalated to a point where the pain of missing him is beyond explanation. Anything that reminds me of loss or suffering, even by another, brings me to memories of my own situation and how much I miss my husband and down I go. And the downs recently again bring me to the same place I was in the beginning. A really bad place. The loss is never ending and I simply don't know what to do with it after this long. Unfortunately that can happen at any time so I really don't know whether I am better, I am just functioning differently. I am managing the differences of how the pain manifests better but the pain is still intolerable.
I prop myself up the best I can and I desire my own end every day. I'm sure there are others who look to some kind of respite by living the best they can but I am only existing the best I can. I believe there is a difference. I try to prop up others providing what I am using to exist but it doesn't equate to much more than hoping someone else might find a small sliver to help them manage their own pain. I guess it's like taking heavy drugs (which I don't do) to minimize the level of pain. I think we all go through it. Each day is another day where we reach for a drug to ease the pain. I will go to science and other people's writings and then thankless distraction in order to do it for myself. I can't honestly say why I haven't put a gun in my mouth other than to say I don't know how to work one so I guess that is one good reason why. I do have my bag of pills and they are at times hard not to dig out but I keep them in reserve but far enough from my reach that it would have to be very deliberate. After my brothers recent death I feel much more acutely the added grief of how doing something that contributes to an early death can also add to what precipitates off the charts trauma. He actually died of natural causes but his lifestyle and choices were probably contributory to his death. At some point in my deliberations about all this I tend to include how much detritus I would leave behind. Right now I am doing my best to consider that though it probably wouldn't totally stop me if I get to an all-consuming breaking point. Who knows at what point that may be. I certainly don't. I wonder every day how I've made it this far.
I hate life too. Every day. I'm not sure what has kept me here and I'm not sure how long I will last. I don't pray but if I did my wish would be today would be my last day/moment. But I'm here and my biology seems to keep ticking and bills keep coming so I push that damn mountain around and hope for relief. The day I hold my husband in my arms again in a different space and time will be a glorious day. Impatient as I am I'm not sure I have any real control over it so I keep slogging my way through this morass. Hateful, impatient but here.
morgan
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I am a firm believer in the second amendment and as such have amassed a fair collection of firearms. I respect their power and significance enough to never even consider using them as a means of self elimination. I believe in them as a protector of human life and a guard against governmental tyranny. So, ironically, I would never used a gun to kill myself even though I own one of Dirty Harry's favorites, the legendary 44 magnum which would certainly do the job quite handily. No, i will troop on and let nature take it's proverbial course. Some days better than others, some days horrible reminders of my loss. This is what i am dealing with today as it is one year since I lost her to the ages. I will wait, always impatiently, but will wait just the same for the day I can see her again, beyond the veil.
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morgan,
I haven't responded sooner or more completely to your post only because I don't have the energy for a long response, but I wanted to at least post and let you know that I read it and I appreciate it, and that I'm sorry you're feeling bad too.
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I think about it a lot. A couple times a day. I don't think there are many people that can understand how insufferable this life is for me in losing my sister. I think most don't see losing a sibling as that unbearable. But for me, it has absolutely broken my life forever. I have organized my passwords for online banking, websites, etc. so if someone went through my papers they had that, but that is all I did in "preparation" of it. I thought about other money stuff but didn't do it. I don't know if I would actually kill myself, I don't have a fast way to do it. I would more than likely take some pills, I can't think of any other way. I can't bring myself to hang myself. But I know I would not want to do that to my parents, I'm all they have left. I know they don't think I would do it and it would really be a shock to them.
Sometimes I want to do it just so my Ma, especially, can see just how much pain I'm in. She thinks I"m "doing better" because I'm functioning. I am a walking zombie. I am 40 and still have to work, and I just get up because I wake up and put one foot in front of the other. It's not because I'm doing better. People have no idea how absolutely horrible it is to be at a job I don't even like have to function and be sociable and productive when most of the time I just want to burst into tears.
BLUEBIRD, I also always appreciate your honesty because it's rare to find it on a grief site. The majority of the time I could give a shit about hope and the future, and don't really want to even talk about how to move on. I can't move on. I have nothing. No husband, no kid, no real life, no friends. I have no purpose during the week, no purpose on the weekends. At least my sister gave me a sense of purpose. We had fun together, we planned things together. She was my go to person, we talked ALL the time, she was the one I went to vent and laugh with. I really have no reason to even be alive, other than for my parents to not be sad. Oh and to watch over the stray cats I feed.
The things that I did want to do feel like climbing a mountain. I want to be a writer and write a book, it feels like climbing mount Everest and there is no motivation. I am doing to good to get dressed and go to work. It's hard to even clean up and shower. I need joy to want to do things I loved. Like, bluebird, there is always a constant level of depression and sadness. I am tired of her not being here, of not being able to talk to her. I am sad all day. It never leaves me and that makes me tired and unmotivated. I don't want to try to reconstruct friendships and a life. Trying to find someone that fits my lifestyle and likes and dislikes.
The more I think about it, the more I realize being dead is a good decision.
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HollowHeart,
It is me - Hope. I do not frequent this website that much as the sibling site is not active at all.
I empathize with you. I am into the 9 months of my sister's passing and I am still overwhelmed by the ambush every single day! I have grief sessions twice a week; my sister and brother talk to me weekly; great support from my boss and friends; I fill my time with volunteer work and classes. At the end of the day, I am still a basket case!
I am like you - my life is gone forever , I never experience joy even one single day since my younger sister's passing. I have no husband, no parents and I am really alone in this life. The house is empty when I go home, I have no one to tease me on my silly mistakes and no way to travel with me to foreign countries. Anyway, even among a sea of people, I still feel isolated.The thoughts of my sister being gone, I will never see again just triggers a meltdown. My sister is irreplaceable, period! The yearning is harrowing.
As long as I am still alive, I strive to be a contributing member of the society to honor my sister. It is not a matter of positive or negative thinking, I have to have a purpose to live to the next day; otherwise, I give up long time ago. My sister did tell me to lead a good life and forbid me to cry. Of course, I fail her big time.
HH, doing routines in a way are accomplishments for us. If you can't move on, you feel depressed, it is o.k. No one has the right to tell us how to feel or we need to express ourselves positively.
Take one day at a time. Please do remember there is another grieving sister who shares the same feelings you have.
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Hope,
Hi, and I"m glad you are still around and pop in every now and then. I know you popped into the other forum I'm on, but I don't go there much anymore. Yet another forum where the sibling thread is inactive. I was posting in the "spouse" thread but I"m kinda tired of being the odd ball out.
Thank you for your thoughts. Did you say you have another sister and a brother? I didn't remember that. I wonder if I had other siblings would this not be so bad, but it would probably still be just the same. But her being my only one and someone I was with ALL the time is just to much to handle. I see it is in some ways the same as losing a spouse, only without the romantic aspect.
I basically do what I have to do--work, cook, take out trash, feed pets. Anything else is a monumental task. I just bought a car and have nowhere to drive it. That also makes me depressed. After work was always a time to chill out, talk and laugh. Now it's all about finding something to pass the time until bed. I still have bad sleep. I did have a routine and I know without that and without a feeling of purpose I just feel like I'm drifting. My ma only wants me to drive her to get something to eat, which makes me angry and depressed and feel old.
It's just a very hard life now and I hate every minute of it. Thank you for responding and I'm glad another sibling out there gets it. I feel we're definitely the grieving minority.
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HollowHeart,
I have brothers and sisters but we do not live in the same city; besides, there are big difference in age - only my sister and I stayed with our parents since our formative years.
Like you, my sister and I were never apart except some business trips she and I took. I never had to look for a soul mate or experienced any hardship in our lives. Both my sister and I had a great life together - we traveled all over the world and always checked out good restaurants, my sister had a very refined taste in life but she was not spoiled, she had a heart of gold - a really angel in the truest sense of the word. We were really partners in crime even our personalities were quite different, we just complimented each other.
I do not know if there is really a light at the end of the tunnel, I will try my best to live for today - not sure about tomorrow.
I really get it - I sometime stay in the office until 9 or 10 PM because I am too overwhelmed to drive back home safely. If I need to value my sorrow on the scale of 1 to 10, it is a 10 plus.
Be kind to yourself and keep on posting.
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