I’m fine is what you say when you don’t have the energy to explain the chaos in your head, when your chest feels heavy but you still manage to smile when everything inside you feels like it’s falling apart, but no one notices.
It’s easier than saying you’re tired of pretending, tired of over thinking, tired of missing someone you can’t have anymore. It’s the kind of lie you repeat so often, you almost start believing it yourself.
But the truth is some of us have mastered hiding pain, hoping someone would hear what we don’t say.
22 Likes
Oh how very true every word of that is.
Saying “I’m fine” or “okay” . You are right it’s just easier because it’s so exhausting explaining why not.
3 years 7 months on …. Literally noone can understand why I’m still not okay , or accept that I never will be.
And painting that smile on, leaving the house, carrying on….. it’s all such hard work. No one that hasn’t walked in our shoes can possibly understand.The sheer exhaustion of grief, which is on a level incomparable to anything else….
Love hugs and strength to you all
11 Likes
All so very true.
I think we’re all guilty of wearing our grief mask when we go out bit people don’t see what we’re like when we get home and drop the pretence.
There’s an interesting and accurate acronym of FINE:
F**ked up
Insecure
Neurotic
Emotional
I’ve started saying I’m fine today but yesterday was a different story.
9 Likes
Such true words. Much easier to say that than explaining how you really feel.
It’s like asking someone grieving if the are ok. Much better to ask something like how had your day been today ? At least then you feel they have thought their words through
Deborah
2 Likes
Like that definition of “fine“
You could use ‘ numb ‘ for n, and ,’Exhausted’ for e.
But I especially like the f….Because that sums it all up.
Maybe next time someone asks how I am ill just say “f……d up”. Be interesting to see the reaction to that 
5 Likes
Frazzled, insomniac, numb, exhausted.
I am okay. As is “I no longer know who I am” kind of okay.
I do say, “it’s hard”. They say “I know”, but they don’t really “know” they just know I am having a hard time. Only other widows and widowers “know”.
We should all just say “it’s a shit show”.
Love,
Peaches
6 Likes
Thank you for articulating this - I too no longer know who I am but I hadn’t put words to this feeling and I’m grateful to you for doing so. Half of me (my mother I lived with for 58 years in this case) has gone and I feel unstable (my rock I leaned on for so many years has gone from under me) and for the first time I actually feel really old. I also worry for the future as having had to fight so hard 24 / 7 to ensure my mother was properly treated and given what she needed medically I ask myself who is there who can do that for me should I need it in future? The way the NHS treat the old is appalling and while I was able to ensure that she didn’t suffer and had what she needed, my God it was a fight and it really took a toll on me.
2 Likes
Tryingtokeepgoing, when my mother passed only 2 years after my father, I suddenly felt old and orphaned. My foundation was gone. I felt abandoned. I get it.
My husband died 18 months ago, we had no children, so I too will be at the mercy of strangers and no advocate.
Your loss is Earth shattering. I can only describe my father’s death as “horizon shifting” the world seemed tilted and it never corrected itself. I suffered serious depression for a long time.
Do not do what I did which was to keep my mother’s things in my house for 4 years. Don’t do that. Let it go. Keeping it only made me sadder. Once it was out of here, I didn’t think about it again.
Same with my husband’s things. It was only 3 weeks ago that I was able to let go of his clothes.
We are not the same person we were. Our entire life changed. Now, we struggle to create a new one with this strange person we have become. It isn’t easy. I am no longer a daughter or a wife. It’s just me and I don’t know this me at all.
What you are feeling is normal. You are wounded and traumatized. You will be okay.
We learn to live with the loss. Life will never be the same, but it will be good again.
Love from across the big pond,
Peaches
3 Likes
Yeah. All of that and, “isolated” for I too
1 Like
Get all that. I am a completely different person. And I don’t even like the new me very much. I miss the old me.
I often say, “I’m okay that I’m not okay”
2 Likes
It is a sh*t show for sure! I say that to myself sometimes. I know that no one had even a little idea of what it’s like till it comes to them. I had a patient in indep. living where I worked who lost his wife (he was a physician by training) who turned to alcohol due to his grief.. One day I was in there and he said “Everyone gets their turn.” I just remember that and now I get what he was saying. He kicked alcohol fortunately.
2 Likes
Thanks so much peaches - it helps to find others who genuinely understand and also who can help articulate what I’m feeling without entirely understanding why I’m feeling it. That point about no longer being a daughter really hit home as so much of my life (particularly recently when I’ve been caring for my mother increasingly over the last five or six years) has revolved around my mother. Even as the role changed in recent years and I gradually in some things became a parent to my mother it still was a huge part of my life. The person I am now like you I do not recognise and somewhere on my list of things to do is to work out what do I actually want out of my life going forward. I’m not there yet, still too much admin to do to find time and still too much grief to want to contemplate it, but I know my mother would want me to go on so I need to decide how I want to do that. I also am fairly close to having the possibility of retirement if I want to retire and that is another huge life shift but one step at a time. Thank you so much to everyone on this list because as we all muddled through as best we can it helps so much to share experience and knowledge gained. J
3 Likes
For those who are able to smile, I am pleased. I am not able to smile, and I am not sure that I want to.
4 Likes
Well said
1 Like
For me; My Grief equates to My Love
2 Likes
F
1 Like
Dembro, the smile will come back. Just not yet. I had a RBF for a year at least. (resting biotch face)
You are okay. It will get better. I promise.
Peacehs
Thanks for your post @Arti
Not sure what you’re trying to tell me by posting F.
1 Like
I never said “I’m fine” when asked, because it would have been a lie, and helps nobody. I didn’t believe it, and neither did they. I used to say something like, “it’s been s**t, but I’m determined to continue making it better”. Then most people see the need and offer to help in some way.
2 Likes
Sometimes people type “F” to mean, “Follow” so they get notifications from a thread (or could also be hitting post by mistake).
1 Like