I look at medication like a crutch when you have a broken leg. When the leg heals you throw the crutch away. There has been so much negative news about SSRI’s. The old journalist expression comes to mind. “Good news is not news”!! It became very apparent to me before I retired that so many who come for counselling need medication. Not just in bereavement but in all the other ways our emotions get out of hand. It dulls the pain initially, but more importantly it gives one the chance to look at their situation with less emotional response. It’s long term medication that may cause problems. You can only be guided by your doctor in that respect.
Some are farid to take meds in case they get hooked, and rightly so. But if you have a good doctor they will know you and what they feel would be right for you.
Once again this topic is surrounded by controversy and it still remains an individual choice. I feel that if anyone can cope without medication then fine. But if not don’t deny yourself some little relief but only from your doctor. Self medication can be dangerous. Take care all.
I wont touch anti depressants because i have MS and MS affects the brain, brain - stem…
Pat…
… i am not the strong lady - person that people keep believing i am…
Anti-depressant can be a life saver. It can transform a person life. I don’t take personally them but I have seen many lives transformed by them. Don’t believe everything you read online about them.
Firstly it was NOT media hype or found online it was an article from an NHS psychiatrist who I would have thought knew what he was on about. It was also on the News warning people about the dangers of becoming addicted to them. They are apparently meant for short term use only, a few days. I have no doubt they might help some people but I would rather not take the risk myself. I worked in the NHS and saw first hand the dangers. I have seen the struggles that people have had to go through to get off them. How I wish there was a pill that could take away this grief and can see where the temptation to search for a helping hand comes from. I can’t say I’ve not been tempted.
Good luck and god bless
Pat xxx
Jackie love, don’t you believe it, what you are having to cope with is so very daunting, but you are getting through each day and you will survive. I am full of admiration.
Love to you
Pat xx
I still prefer the science side of it than the opinion of the odd doctor or two. The pills don’t take away the grief, they prevent the reuptake of endocrine hormones which occurs with stress and anxiety. I find after five weeks of taking them I am calmer and less prone to act on my impulses. One of which was the desire to end my life so I could join my sweetheart. At one point a week or so ago I was literally 60 seconds from certain death. Something stopped me and it was too early to have been the medication, they take 4 to 6 weeks to have any noticeable effect. Most people take them for 4 to 6 months. I sleep a little longer too, which is beneficial.
My partner was a nurse so naturally distrusted doctors, I learned from her that you never take anything without fully investigating it. I did a whole lot of research before I asked for them.
Right now in conjunction with a lot of support from some very kind and understanding people it’s working for me. I still feel the grief and the pain, I went to a church service yesterday afternoon for the departed, I still cried after I lit her a candle and when I went for a private prayer. The medicines don’t take that away, nothing does. I was told this morning by a lady from a bereavement charity it takes most people at least two years before they start to feel better.
I’m only at seven months and I miss her more with each passing day. Even with the medicines I pray to God to take me to be with her.
I was adamant I wouldn’t take drugs, but I promised people I wouldn’t kill myself, when I knew I was at that point I did something about it. I asked for help. I’ve never asked anyone for help in my life but I knew I would break my promise.
Although we’re all dealing with grief we are all different and have to do what feels right for us. I post here to let my feelings out and in so doing hope that it helps someone else who was in the same desperate state as I was.
Take care everyone, Carl.
Where does all this stuff come from? How does it all get in here? The thoughts running through my head as I was cleaning out my old backpack this morning. Then an old sachet of coffee fell out and I was once more over whelmed with grief. Such an ordinary everyday thing reduced me to utter tears.
The day I put that in my bag we were both in our favourite place getting ready for a lazy day sitting round the pool. I was getting really impatient waiting while she got things ready, sun block (for me as I always burn easily), our books, sunglasses, towels and the free complimentary sachets of coffee from our room. Ever the practical one she insisted we put them in my bag and ask for hot water so we didn’t have to spend more than we should. This all came back to me in a massive flood as I held that ordinary looking sachet of coffee with the hotel name printed across the front.
How I wish I could somehow find the words to describe how much I loved her – still love her. But in another way I’m glad that I can’t. To do so would mean I would have to define it. Give it a value and in so doing that would diminish it. But I do write her letters and poems when the mood takes me. This is my therapy I guess. And being able to share those thoughts with you guys on here is another.
Hi there Carl. Your choice, your life. You find what help you can and I wish you luck, I really do because I also have felt such despair that I have just wanted to shut myself away and hope this pain will go away one way or another and not particularly bothered how. Just a short time after losing Brian I found myself in hospital having an op. A curse of our family which killed my father at a young age. I thought I had escaped it with a healthy lifestyle. I had never been ill or even had a hospital appointment before. How could God be so cruel to throw this at me as well, I was at my lowest and I cried so much during the night while in that hospital bed. I wanted Brian to hold and help me. During the op I was wearing a locket with his ashes in it. They was kind enough to let me keep it near. So I know that despair.
I too distrust Doctors and very suspicious of their need to give out tablets where they can probably be avoided. You did it sensibly and searched for information and if your happy with the outcome then I am pleased for you.
God bless and good luck. xxx
I’m not happy with the outcome Patti, I would still prefer to die and be with her. Nothing has changed my feelings. What the medication has done is restored some of the old me that was lost in despair. The me that is calmer and slow to anger, the me that doesn’t get irritated and frustrated in an instant. I was reacting to others in ways I didn’t like and know to be wrong. I am still on a short fuse but it’s a little longer than it was a couple of weeks ago. More importantly I am not going to walk back to the place where I was intending to end my life and stood there just seconds away from doing it. For a passing impulsive, selfish moment I put my pain ahead of other people I’d made promises to and may have grieved over me, and even if they don’t have the same level of grief they would feel guilty for not noticing how bad I felt.
I fully believe nothing cures the pain of losing a soulmate but my faith tells me one day we’ll be together again in paradise. I’m sitting here crying remembering her last day, I told her it was time for her to do what was right for her, she’d fought so hard and we would all be OK so not to worry. I will swear in spite of the sedation and the ventilator tube she tried to smile at me. Later that day I gave the doctors permission to stop the drugs keeping her heart beating. She passed about two hours later. I thought it was the worst day of my life until I found out the days get worse not better.
Prayers and best wishes Patti.
It doesn’t take much Chris to open the floodgates. Although it’s good to let the tears flow and bring back those good memories. I find that really hard, I know we had good times but I picture them in my head and immediately the horror of the last six weeks of her life come flooding back. I can’t stop it replaying.
Words can’t describe true love, my partner was my only friend in the world, the only person I ever fully trusted, my lover and the most beautiful woman in the world. It was the two of us versus the world, there was nothing we couldn’t do together. We did achieve the impossible, I should never legally have been allowed into the country where she lived so I went there illegally and stayed for 20 years. We knew each other for 22 and were together as a couple for 21. I gave up everything to be with her, I had two boxes and a suitcase when I left the UK never to return. Because she passed so quickly from complications caused by cancer we never had time to put anything in order, as a result I had to return to England with more or less the same as I left with. I’m 64 with no job, no income and back in my mother’s house. None of that matters, I don’t care about me, I feel worse for her. She was kind, loving and caring, she worked as a nurse. God should have spared her and taken me. I asked him to. But even that is a selfish thought because then she would have been grieving me.
I know in my heart I should be grateful, I had over 20 years of love, some people never know true love, what it means that you would sacrifice everything, including your life, for another person. That’s special and we should be grateful, but it’s also why it hurts so bad when one half of the whole is missing.
Take care,
Carl.
My dear Carl, how I feel your pain. You write so beautifully, yet your words are sad. I don’t know what to say, so I won’t as there is nothing that will take away your pain, I can see that.
Yes when they go it does seem like the worst day of our lives but we have no idea what lies ahead, do we.
I too cry daily remembering his pain and how hard Brian fought. It was this time last year, this week. I prayed and cried and did my best to look after him. The last food we ate together was boiled egg and soldiers, exactly a year ago. He woke and said he fancied it to eat, this was the last time he ate anything. I relive each day, was it really a year ago, it seems like yesterday. My ,love and pride for him grows each day.
My thoughts are with you Carl.
xxx
Dear Pat , my heart went out to you as i read your post as that awful first anniversary approaches for you.
Who would think so many memories could be bound up with boiled egg and soldiers !! Yet it’s those simple everyday last things we did together that mean so much now . Reliving those final hours so hard.
Thinking of you xxx
Hi Chris, I haven’t stopped thinking about your posts - I truly hope that you are managing to take some tiny steps in a positive direction. Sending you a big virtual hug from Australia - Maggie x
Thanks so much Maggie. The messages I’ve received on here are overwhelming. Not in a bad way. Messages like yours go a long, long way in helping me get through.
It’s hardest in the small hours when I wake up often with the fading echoes of a dream about her. It’s always the same. In her hospital room, her words telling me she’s tired and had enough. My immense anger as I stare at the clock on the wall. Ohh, how I wanted to rip it down and stamp the life out of its cruel indifferent, relentless ticking heart.
Sometimes, the only sound I can hear, is the ticking of a clock, hour after hour. The sound reminds me that I am alive and he is not. Unintentionally, my glass kitchen clock was smashed to pieces after being altered recently…just like my heart. Sometimes enough is enough, never completely understood until now.
Thankyou so much, Yes I can remember that last ‘meal’ we had together as if it was yesterday. I can remember getting him downstairs to a hospice bed that had arrived and thinking ‘this is the last time he will ever sleep in his own bed’. These memories are small but stay with us don’t they. Oh yes those final hours will haunt us forever.
Love Pat
My kitchen clock also got knocked off the wall just after Brian died. He loved that clock and would have been annoyed at me to damaging it. I still have it but it’s no use. I just can’t bring myself to throw it away.
You can resist the tears,
The weight of loss,
Become good at smiling – a thin coat of gloss.
Behave very well in the hard hours of grief,
Hiding glass shards,
Where there is no relief.
Until someone makes you a friendly sign,
And the memories flood back,
Of when you were mine.
Or you notice a flower in bud yesterday,
Suddenly blossomed,
In a colourful spray.
A letter floats down as it slips from a drawer,
And everything collapses,
Laying you low to the floor.