It’s been 9 months life has moved on but I still feel it was yesterday. I broke down yesterday so badly that I told my 16 yr old daughter I just can’t go on she cried and said if I go I will leave her all alone. I feel so awful for what I said but I really feel like I can’t go on with this pain each day?
My lost my husband last February and like you I feel that I don’t want to be here without him. We have 2 grown up children who have their own lives but I keep thinking if I wasn’t here I would be passing on further pain and grief to them. They would have lost 2 parents and they still need me.
I feel life will hold no joy or happiness ever again and I am heartbroken. People tell me time is a healer but I don’t think so. My life will never be the same and I will never be the same person again.
I miss Jim so much and I am not sure I will ever reach the point of accepting his loss.
Ann, you are not alone in how you feel and from reading the posts on this forum I understand my feelings are very normal, as are yours.
You daughter needs you, your guidance, love and support and our husbands would what us to be there for our children 
Sending a virtual hug and I am so sorry for your loss Ann. X
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@Miller1 I’m sorry you, that you are really suffering with the loss of your wife. It is nearly eight months for me.
Have you tried talking to your doctor and asking for something to help you get through this time? There have been several recent topics as people have discussed what prescription drugs have helped them, you might want to read through those. Also have you contacted Cruise or Sue Ryder and asked about counselling, for you and possibly for your daughter?
If you can access help for yourself, it will help you with supporting your young daughter through her grief.
I hope you can find some positives to get you through another day
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Hello Miller1,
I’m so sorry to hear you are feeling overwhelmed.
I’m glad that you’ve been able to share how you are feeling here, and I hope that you find the community a good source of support. Everyone here has experienced the loss of a loved one and will understand some of what you are going through.
Sue Ryder offers an online bereavement counselling service. This is a free service and sessions are held via video chat so you can attend from home. There’s more information about this service here: www.sueryder.org/counselling
If you are feeling so desperate, at any time, The Samaritans are always there 24/7 if you need to talk (116 123, or jo@samaritans.org). Shout are also contactable by text, 24/7. You can text SHOUT to 85258 and talk to them about anything.
Your daughter will also be grieving, she may benefit by contacting, Hope Again, they offer support, online, to young people with bereavement. She can also contact Childline, they are on Facebook or by calling 0800 1111.
Take care,
Audrey,
Online Community team
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No pills will take away the pain you and your daughter are going through you have done the right thing by talking and getting it off your chest please if you bottle all your emotions up it will make you ill and your daughter is right if you go she will be left alone and how will your poor daughter cope with the loss of two loved ones i lost my wife 4th of February this year my mo was amazing we have 5 children and we miss her so much she was or rock our world i deal with her loss by going to her grave in the morning and in the evening i talk to her light her candles i break down sometimes and cry my eyes out but i know she is watching over us so take care and give your daughter a big hug and kiss and tell her everything will be ok it might take time but it will xx
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Hello @Miller1 I never thought I’d say yes to drugs of any kind but since my husband died I’ve been gobbling them like there’s no tomorrow, well there wasn’t going to be a tomorrowfor me actually, so i figured it was worth a go.
My grandmother has breast cancer that could maybe be treated but chooses no treatment. She is in agony and won’t even have so much as half a paracetamol because it’s against her religion.
Mental pain as many of us now know is just as life threatening. Prescribed drugs won’t take away your grief but can help with the mental illness clinical depression that is brought on by grief. Don’t be like my Grannie unless it’s against your religion too. It’s hard enough already so please talk to your GP to see what they recommend. Life can never be the same we know… its really hard but very surprisingly to myself since I said yes to (prescribed) drugs it’s no longer impossible.
You could think about maybe filling in the form for Sue Ryder counselling just to get in the queue too. It’s quick to fill in with only a few questions. Then if you change your mind you don’t need to accept their offer when it comes you have time to think about it, its not like you press the button for counselling and immediately get it.
It’s just awful dealing with this pain. I couldn’t cope (and still cant) but I can see now that I might cope in the future and am working towards that. I needed all these things even though I couldn’t imagine at all they could help at all… so far they are doing. Good luck, please take care of yourself.
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Hello Anne3, I didn’t ask for any pills as I was quite into avoiding added chemicals of all descriptions previously. I don’t know if asking for them makes them less likely to give them or maybe it depends on the doctor but it was around 2 months after my husband’s death at the insistence of family I booked a GP appointment regarding frequent panic attacks, all kinds of pains, heavy trembling, reoccurring daily flashbacks of my husband’s death over and over, inability to eat and that kind of thing. That doctor told me to take diazepam for a week several times to try and calm enough to sleep and eat. I didn’t want to as I felt my husband (and me of the past) didn’t agree with medications like this.
Anyway in the end I did take the diazepam. I felt calmer, shaking and panic reduced. I did sleep and eat. After a week or so I ran out and they gave me more but said I needed to reduce the dosage per day and work towards only having one when I felt really really unable to cope.
Around 4 months after my husband’s death I was now having counselling and my counsellor asked me to talk to the GP as she thought I had ptsd, severe depression and severe anxiety disorder brought on by grief.
They did over the phone tests with me (asking me stuff like how often I think about killing myself, how I sleep and eat, I downplayed it a bit as I wasn’t sure where they were going with it) . They agreed with her and afterwards they prescribed 20mg citalopram. One pill a day. I actually spoke to 3 different Dr’s as I thought is this just not grief and how it has to be… I was still trying to resist chemical treatment despite the good experience with the diazepam.
Eventually against my better judgement I took the citalopram. It took around 2 weeks to have any good effect, it was not a quick fix like the diazepam, these pills made things worse before better with physical and mental side effects at first but it was worth it now I see. After around a month I started to feel a bit like me again. I still cry (have been today) about my husband but that’s not all I do now. They help me to function at a low level that I’m building on. I’ve been on them 6 weeks tomorrow and have to be on them minimum six months and then gradually reduce dosage apparently to come off them but some people stay on them for life (including my therapist it turns out, it was her who convinced me to take them as she seems really together and not like how I thought someone on anti depressants would be)… Anyway so far so good at least… I hope to come off them one day but if I end up on them for life that’s OK too.
I am sorry you are going through this. Take care.
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Thank you Anne3, it’s just horrible isn’t it… it seems to be that this time when we least have extra mental capacity due to extreme grief, that life asks the most of us like in your situation having to sort your living arrangements in addition to the multitudes of horrid admin forced on us by losing our closest people… we do need all the help we can get.
In a burst of trying to continue to live and desperation I applied for counselling with the NHS GP, Sue Ryder and thirdly Private BUPA counselling (free through my job that my work strongly suggested to me as they didn’t know what to do with me crying all the time).
Like you I felt like I could use help every day, even though I didn’t hold much real hope that it wouldn’t be more than useless guff. However even once I made the decision to go for counselling, it seemed to take a very long time to come through and I almost gave up again.
I was a bit shocked and it made me realise how people have no option to kill themselves sometimes as deciding to get help is hard enough but then getting it is not so easy either! This is why I recommend starting sooner than later down this path as you can drop out if it comes too early but it coming too late it is obviously… well… too late…
It was the private one that came through fastest but even that was an ordeal to find one. I spoke to the BUPA counsellor helpline work had given me for more than an hour then they said they couldn’t deal with me. I didn’t like that counsellor on the helpline anyway though and was going to put the phone down as I felt frustrated that she was not understanding me so I was almost glad that she said I was too mental for her!! (not in those words obviously!!) and referred me to psychotherapy.
They gave me 8 to contact and i emailed them all bit by bit (cried too much on the phone usually then to string a sentence together within half an hour so email worked better!!).
The first 6 or 7 had no availability (for 6 months or more in some cases) due to the extra strain on services of people worried about covid/lockdown and if course the many thousands of extra bereaved people…
Luckily when I’d almost given up, one contacted me to say she had one appointment slot the following week on zoom video call or phone. I cried through that and had another one week after. I’ve now had around 12 usually weekly but sometimes bi weekly when she didn’t have availability.
Luckily my work paid but the cost generally seems to be around £35 -£50 for 45-55 mins. It helped me so much I’d find the money if I had to if work stop paying. I have around 12 sessions left so I’m planning to reduce frequency soon to eke out the remaining to last until autumn /Christmas as I am dreading that time of year and the anniversary of his death.
The week I got my counselling Sue Ryder also came through with an email saying I could have an appt a few days later as someone had cancelled and I was next in the queue. I declined that one then.
The NHS counsellor called me but she really upset me and I didn’t like her. She was a trainee and sounded young. I think its the luck of the draw whichever option you choose as my therapist now is on my wavelength. She let’s me swear without a large intake of breath (and sometimes I can’t describe it without swearwords!!) she feels honest. She even cried with me once. She has helped me.
Wishing you a better day today.
Sorry for bad typing as I’m on my phone in bed! take care.
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Hello Anne, you’re quite right once a fortnight doesn’t seem often enough to me either for the first sessions. Those first 3 sessions probably it was the only hour of each of those three weeks where I wasn’t in mental agony. My therapist did it on the free zoom videochat software so we could see each other. Indeed I cried throughout the first ones (and periodically through all of them until today I had the first one where I didn’t cry at all).
The first session I was telling her why I was there at all as she didn’t know anything beforehand. The second still the same. Me alternating between loud shoulder shaking weeping/snotting the full shebang or machine-gunning her with all the stuff that now was wrong coz he wasn’t there. She would send me things to read afterwards by email (some I posted on here), for example one of the first things was her trying to get me breathing and sleeping as my only goal for each day and she taught me breathing exercises to calm down when in panic attacks and went through science of how its normal to not sleep and to accept that but try to stop the loops of thought by playing games in my head to occupy my brain (I wrote about that on here in more detail too). The thing I liked about her was that she asked me a lot of questions about my husband, sometimes it was even nice things like how we met and these things brought him back a bit for me and let me remember some things whereas previously I could only think of his dead face that didn’t look like him overruling everything.
I can’t remember why I didn’t use Cruse, I did go on the site and read some things, it might have been they said they had no availability.
I know what you mean about the NHS. I feel a lot of anger towards our GP surgery. I expressed it a bit to the doctor that spoke to me and maybe that is also why he decided to give me drugs in hindsight as he could not answer me why his colleague gave my husband 100 pain killers when he presented himself with what I have since learned from a nurse relative is a “Red flag symptom” for heart problems and he also had a heart scan previously that showed heart problems but they didn’t tell him!
My husband is Dutch and I am positive if we’d lived in the Netherlands instead of here he’d be alive because when my husband lived there still he worked in a hospital and I remember thinking it was very futuristic and amazing years ago when I used to go to meet him and our local hospitals here in Wigan/Warrington are still not as good as that now almost 20 years later.
Have you thought about trying Samaritans maybe if you have some very lonely moments? It’s not the same I know and they are all called Jo which personally I find irritating but I hear good experiences from others on here and at least it’s a reall human. The loneliness makes everything even worse. I never knew what loneliness was until my husband died. Please keep in touch on here too, it helps sharing ideas.
Dear Anne3
I feel the same. I feel so alone. Even though I have our kids, I too am missing the one person who gave me assurance and made me feel everything would be ok. I return home from visiting our son and family - my daughter does not live local - and sit for hours just staring at his place on the settee. The silence is awful, I really don’t know how I am going to be able to keep going.
Take care.
I know what you mean Sheila. I have one of my adult children here with me but the feeling of being alone is immense. Even if my husband was in another part of the house, he was here. Now the house just feels empty.
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Dear Jules4
I have kept myself busy doing the gardening. Never my job and I am sure that my husband would be looking down telling me off for not cleaning the lawn mower before putting in the garage. But I just try to do the best I can. I have several workman coming in this week to finish jobs that my husband did not complete as I need it signed-off for building regs. The inquest is also looming - everything just adds to the stress.
Our daughter is not coping and that made me so angry today - it was my husband’s hobby that took his life and since his death I have to watch and see the awful affect on our kids every day and me as their mam cannot even see to myself so am useless to them. I can honestly say if anyone comes up to me and says that “he died doing what he loved” I will not be responsible for my actions. My heart is just aching.
Take care.
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Dear Sheila,
I have been gardening today as well. I enjoy it but we used to do it together. He did any of the heavy stuff to save me straining my back, which I’ve had problems with. It’s aching after today and it just makes me sadder because I know he would want to help to protect me but he can’t because he’s not here.
My husband just went out for a run and collapsed- we don’t know why yet - so I have no reason to be angry at him. I just don’t understand why he would be taken when he is so needed and so loved here. It hurts so much. Take care
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Dear jules so sorry about your loss you are like me and probably like everyone else i lost my beautiful wife mo on the 4th of February this year to covid it was so quick she was rushed into hospital on the Saturday morning and passed away on the Thursday morning and with covid i was not allowed into hospital i got the phone call Thursday morning and they told me there’s nothing we can do i got to be with my wife the final 30 minutes with my 4 sons and daughter and there partners and sisters and brother i held her hand all the time talking to her and singing our songs we loved i visit my wifes grave in the day and in the night to light her candles i keep myself busy in the day but at night when i come home from the grave i walk into our empty home and then it its me sitting alone looking at her pictures i talk to her tell her am going to bed take a picture of her her up with me and say good night see you in the morning it is lonely at times but has long has i see her pictures i know she is with me we were together 42 years 38 years in love and married i miss her so much but with the help from our families friends and talking to all the people who put their troubles on this page we can all help each othe take care and hope everything will turn out right for you xx
Thank you for your kind words. Every morning I just wake up and think, I don’t want another day without him, what is the point? Then I think how many days there might be like this and that’s when I start to panic. I can make my way through each day, but for what? I just want my time with him that we had planned - to do ordinary things, to travel, just to be…
Thank you. It’s rather hard to not think ahead though, isn’t it?
Dear Jules
Yes the panic is just dreadful and I still have panic attacks if I let myself think of how many years I may have to live this life without my husband. I am just trying to focus on getting the outstanding jobs done in the house as we need Building Regs signed off and I want to get everything in order.
My husband was killed while out on his motorbike and that is the focus of my anger. I do not think this will ever subside. He had everything to live for, our kids and beautiful grandson - with a new grandson joining the family two weeks ago.
The sudden loss of our loved ones even robs us of an opportunity to say ‘goodbye’.
Take care.
Sheila