Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sean Casey on June 28, 2011 at 10:52pm

I don't know if I get flashbacks, but I know that sometimes I get really intense recollections of Ariel, especially around the house or places we've been before.  It's not so much of her death but of the good times we had, which seem to hurt worse.  I haven't hit the year mark yet, as this Monday'll only be five months since the police came to tell me they'd found her body.  I don't know if that's still something coming down the line.  I do know, though, that writing that stuff out is supposed to help, as does sharing about it with other people.  I hope that helps.  *hugs*

Permalink Reply by Jillian Margaret Dalziel on June 28, 2011 at 11:12pm

Deborah, Chris has been gone since February 2009 and I still have flashbacks to the moment I found him on the floor in the kitchen and I knew he had gone from me.  I still see very clearly the look of peace on his face and although I am getting used to him not being here with me, it is still hard to bear and I still have my moments when all I can do is sit and cry.  I miss him so much this is the longest we have been apart in 35 years together.  You will move forward in your own time  - don't try to rush it.  There is nothing wrong with you and it is different for each of us.  Although I still have these pictures in my mind, I have found that I am remembering the better times more often now.  Take the bad memories with the good - they will lessen in time.  I found the first anniversary so terrible hard and just locked myself in the house and didn't talk to anyone even my children and they were having such a hard time too.  The second anniversary was not as hard but still difficult.  It is said that time is a great healer, maybe it is and maybe not, but it does make things easier - not necessarily better.  You are going through a normal part of grief.  Please know that there is nothing wrong with you and that the good memories will return in time.  You are in my thoughts and prayers.

 

Permalink Reply by Linda Gabrial on June 29, 2011 at 12:52am

you sound like me .my sister died five month ago i miss her so much. i keep see her in a hospile bed  not wake just lied  there ,i had to tell she  to let go its ok  go to heaven . i can  still  the machine  that was hook to first she stop breath and 5 min  later her heart stop and she was gone ,everytime i close my  i see she lieing there and hearing  the machine beeping and i feel lost and i feel so stuck. i dont   feel like doing anything , iam  just in my house play in my laptop or watching tv that is my life

Permalink Reply by Sue Waxman on July 3, 2011 at 11:39am

My name is Sue. My mother and best friend died 7 days ago. I have no family support = lots of years of family dysfunction. Without television and my computer I'd been REALLY completely alone. Mom suffered from cancer and watching her suffer was crushing. I was with her when she took her final breath. We had a wonderful loving relationship. I have no idea why I have to create a new life for myself. What the hell for????

Permalink Reply by Deborah Dodds on July 3, 2011 at 9:29pm

Sue, your grief is so fresh,  I felt the same way about starting my life over.  Why?  It will always hurt but time heals the heart.  You will carrry on and the sadness will become like waves.  Everyone grieves differently.  I'm sure you feel empty but as we carry on that emptiness will go away.  There is a reason for you living, always remember that.  Your mom would want you to carry on the best that you know how.  I am so sorry for your loss.  With Love Deborah

Permalink Reply by Kelli C. on June 29, 2011 at 8:10am

I'm glad you brought this subject up because that has been happening to me too.  Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch reading and all of a sudden I got slammed with this image of my brother burning to death in the fire.  I don't know where it came from and it hit me so hard, I felt like it was the first day I heard that he had died and I just couldn't shake it for the rest of the day.  Even now I just have this huge sense of emptiness and loss all over again.

I think because the one year anniversary is a "mile marker" - like holidays - and it's a passage of time that tells us our loved ones really aren't coming back.  Everything is just so final and it is hard for our minds to comprehend that because it sometimes seems like they just went to the store or they went on a trip and we are just waiting for them to come back.  There is nothing wrong with you and I think more than you realize it, you are moving forward - it's just at your own pace and how you deal with your loss.  If you look back, you made it through over 365 days.  You got up, you went to work, or the store or any other obligation that you had to meet.  I know they were definitely tough days, but you made it through each one of them - and that is quite an accomplishment given the depths of your loss, and it just goes to show what a strong person you really are.  Just try to remember that, Deborah.  Even though it may not seem like it on a daily basis, you are moving forward as best as you know how in your own way.

Permalink Reply by Deborah Dodds on June 29, 2011 at 12:10pm

Thank you Kelli, Thank you everyone for your responses.  I don't feel so all alone in this and I don't feel crazy anymore.  Kelli, you talk about strength but I don't feel so strong some days...especially the last month.  I'm a mess of tears right now because I had nightmares all night.  What baffles me and what I don't understand is I had it in my mind that on the one year date when me and his mom threw some of his ashes on the waterfall at the park and let the balloons go that everything was going to be ok and it has gotten worse.  Since he died, I feel like I have lost a part of who I am.  I am not the same woman I used to be.  I'm missing a huge part of me.  Right now I feel like screaming "TAKE THIS PAIN AWAY!!"  It hurts so much.  How do we live with these flashbacks?  Do we just ride them out and pray that it will get easier as time moves onward?  I feel like hiding from life today.  I don't want to do anything or go anywhere.  I just want to be.  I want some peace in my heart.  I want my heart to be healed and filled with joy again.  When will that happen?

Permalink Reply by Kelli C. on June 29, 2011 at 8:50pm

Everything you are saying is exactly how I feel too.  But these are exactly the days when you are your strongest because despite how utterly devastated and broken you feel, you still got up today.  And crying is not a sign of weakness.  Crying means that we are so heartbroken that if we don't let the tears out, our pain will consume us.  Some days, it takes strength just to get up and brush our hair and teeth.  And some days strength means walking out the door to face the world - go to our jobs, buy a loaf of bread or pump gas into our cars.  These mundane things are what keeps us moving forward and forces us to pull out those reserves of strength that we don't even know we have.

I feel like you are being too hard on yourself about the one year anniversary.  I think that was a beautiful thing you did with your mother in law.  That was one way of letting go, but in letting go, it also creates a huge emptiness in what once was there.  So, of course you are going to feel that pain and emptiness all over again.  I know it hurts so much and my heart just goes out to you - to all of you that are trying to deal with your losses.  

And you're right.  You are not the same woman because you have lost someone that was your entire life and not only did you lose this person, but you lost him in such a way that is completely unthinkable and utterly crushing.  When we fall and get a bruise, it takes time to heal. But this is so much more.  Your heart and spirit is trying to heal from a devastating blow and there is no frame of time that it will be healed except for the time that is right for you.  Every time I walk by my brother's picture, I feel a jolt go right to my heart and stomach and I immediately put up this huge wall because it hurts so bad, I just want to throw myself on the floor and scream and cry.   I don't know when this pain will ever go away, but I do know that I am here for you and I thank you for your encouraging words as well.  Your words are helping ease my pain and it takes a lot of strength to do that especially because you are going through so much pain of your own.    Bless you Deborah.

Permalink Reply by Sean Casey on July 1, 2011 at 8:50am

As far as the flashbacks go, I recently got to attend a conference where, among other things, they were talking about PTSD.  One of the presenters talked about it with regard to brain functioning, which helped me make some sense of it.  From what he said, the right hemisphere of the brain, which is more artistic and hollistic, is the one that doesn't have a sense of time or sequence and processes memories in their totality.  When the experience gets "stuck" in only the right hemisphere, the memories come up as flashbacks, feeling the whole thing hit again as if it's happening right now.  Part of what they talked about helping with that is using language to get the left hemisphere working on them, the one that can be analytical and put things in a time perspective so that it's not getting dealt with as if it's right now.  Given that, I tend to think that it's great that you're talking about these things, writing them down, and reaching out to people.  It doesn't mean the pain goes away, but it helps put the memories into perspective with regard to when they happened, and what's gone on since.  It helps to get a sense that you've made it this far and that you have been able to live and grow and heal as much as you have.  Hopefully, that'll be something that'll continue to help as you work through all of what you've got....as we all do.  *hugs*

Permalink Reply by Semary Rose on July 1, 2011 at 7:48pm

Sean, how interesting that is.  Was it about grief related flashbacks or something else?  Did you elect to go to the conference or was it work related?

Permalink Reply by Ruth on June 29, 2011 at 1:38pm

Yes, Deborah, I do too.  I already had PTSD before my dad's murder and I've had to limit details and discussions with officials.  I haven't sought much legal advice because discussing enough details to get adequate advice puts me out of commission for days.  Anniversaries, holidays times that should be happy memories are more painful than "normal" days because we mourn what we can't have anymore and the knowledge of what our loved ones suffered pollutes our every waking moment.

 

The other day, I had an insight while starting to write my victim impact statement.  My youngest just graduated from HS.  My kids are very good kids but they're not milquetoasts either.  As they assert their independence, they've indicated that our home environment leaves a lot to be desired.  The physical environment.  I've known the chaos is a reflection of our inner turmoil, so I've been kinder to us all and relaxed my standards a lot, in part because they were so resistant to me trying to maintain routines.  Now they're complaining about the  results in some pretty ugly language.  The point I'm making here?  As above, so below.  My husband and I experienced a violent rupture from my dad, who was our rock, port in a storm, guiding spirit and parenting mentor.  Our time/space continuum has been torn assunder.  No wonder I feel like a bereft child.  The days I seem to do best are when I accept I am torn bare in my psychic pain.  It is.  I am. I don't try to hem it in anymore. I have to let it flow in me, flow out of me.  Maybe that's why it seems to be like waves over a deep, deep ocean of pain.  I do feel helpless and stuck many,many days.  I have trouble remembering if I pray or reach out to those like us here, I can have the hope of one day transcending my pain.  That is my goal now.  I don't think I will ever be rid of the pain. But maybe at some point I can be more than that pain, even if I don't know how to get there yet.

Permalink Reply by Kelli C. on June 29, 2011 at 9:02pm

Ruth,

I just want to tell you how sorry I am for your loss and I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you to have to go over and over this with officials.  Sometimes it is hard enough just trying to talk to family or friends about our loss, so I just can't imagine what you must be going through.  You said that the pain is like waves over a deep, deep ocean.  That is so true.  My pain just overwhelms me sometimes and I feel so helpless and lost, like I am drowning.  I just try to get through it day by day, and sometimes hour by hour.  If I close my eyes hard enough, I can almost pretend that it didn't happen.  I know that is not the best thing to do, but if it gets me through the next wave so I can at least try to function, then that is what I have to do for now.  My goal is the same as yours, and I believe that we will make it.  I just want you to know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.  

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