Keeping busy. It’s what they all tell me but there is a limit.!
I’m coming around to a feeling of “fxxk it” to a lot of it as I’m so tired of feeling low and sad. What upset me today was I remembered Bridget saying to me during her struggle with dementia, “do you hate me?” Really?
To imagine that she felt I hated her is really upsetting. I said to her “ of course not, you can’t help it” and so it went on. Day after day of forgetting, of not recognising me. I felt I was having a nervous breakdown but had to keep going to care for her, until I couldn’t anymore and she left here for a care home.
I keep busy I suppose but a memory will suddenly stop me and I cry for her. I miss he company so much. Just doing stuff together.
I’ve just been thinking, following my last post, that mostly all of the grieving, sadness and longing we do on our own.
Sure we post here, talk to like minded people ( if you’re lucky), Samaritans’s, a counsellor, Cruse
( if you can get through), read grief books
( I think I’ve read most of them now and thrown some across the room), but all this only helps a bit, the main part stays with us.
And, unless we decide to end it all, we have no choice but to keep going as best we can. My heart aches at times wanting her back just for a little while, please, because I can’t accept the finality of it all. I had 30 years with her and I thank her for that. Bless you Bridget
Hello Harriet. I’m sorry you have joined our group but we are all in the same boat. My Phil died a year ago (on 19th September) and this morning I found myself in floods of uncontrolled tears, just hearing a song again that we loved. I never imagined last September that I’d still be so upset a year on. I’ve had plans to sort the house out for past 6 months, but just don’t have the energy or the will to do it. I’m struggling without his support (we were together for 50 years) especially with the government inflicted changes to my income this winter. I went out with my dog this morning and collected kindling for my open fire, that’s how bad it’s getting. I’m glad Phil not here to see the way our country is going or how I’ll be spending all our savings on the bills, rather than being comfortable in retirement. I guess I’m saying that grief will hit at the most inopportune moments, but just let it in, as I was told it’s our loved one dropping by to say hello.
Rant all you like- I’m like you and I wonder why they all think I getting over it( whatever that means?) and just tiptoe round the elephant in the space and not mention Bridget at all.
Reasons perhaps they don’t…….don’t want to remind me./ don’t know what to say for fear of upsetting me/ don’t care/ feel embarrassed/ can’t empathise at all.
Anyway, we have to get on with it and not fill our time up with thinking about those who can’t help us
@Dutchman this new life of ours is very hard and sometimes I think I would be better off not being here with all of this pain. I was with my husband for 30 years. He died at the age of 53 years old so could and thought we had many years ahead of us. Keeping busy can be exhausting and sometimes I think you need to have time to yourself to process the grief and face it.
You sounded like you really cared and looked after your wife with her illness. As we know people who have dementia do say things that they don’t mean, it’s the cruel illness…your wife loved you very much and it sounds like you were lucky to have each other. Take one day at a time…our emotions are like a rollercoaster with massive waves.
Take care xx.
Having read everyone’s experiences it only goes to show how grief unites us. Different for everyone yet the same bottomless feeling of despair.
10 weeks for me since the love of my life, my soulmate, my lover and my best friend left.
I’m lucky I have daughters and sons in law who check on me daily, come and help me with the garden and are always there if I need them. Grandchildren who love me unconditionally.
Problem is - I’d rather lock the doors and not let anyone in. I’m not lonely as such, just totally bereft and I just want to be alone.
Took all his medications back to the chemist today - totally reduced me to tears in the car park as it meant admitting he’d never be here to need them again. Almost as if I were being disloyal. How ridiculous!
Hope you didn’t mind me hijacking your posts but you all sounded similar to how I feel. Thank you.
Today has not been a good day.
In fact this week has been ‘challenging’.
I got a letter last weekend that made me think that sadmin I thought had been sorted out in July, had actually not been sorted.
Due to other problems, I could not get to dealing with it until today.
I only managed to get through to someone on my third phonecall.
I talked to a lovely lady, who when I explained everything, was as puzzled as me!
Anyway, fingers crossed she is on the ball as she sounded:crossed_fingers:t2:, it had been sorted and the letter should never have been sent to me.
I decided to go out for a little while to have a break.
While I was out I saw a couple walking arm in arm, similar in age to me and my lovely husband. You can understand how that affected me.
This Sunday, it will be 26 weeks, so half a year, since that dreadful day he died suddenly and unexpectedly.
I miss him every single day.
I will light the candles on Sunday for him and other much loved and missed loved ones.
Thank you for letting me share this with you.
Sending much love and very big hugs xx
I had to sort out some sadmin that I thought had been dealt with in July.
Sorry that you’ve not had a great week Rose.
I find it’s not getting any easier too.
I’ve been invited to 2 separate events this weekend by neighbours who aren’t even able to speak to me since the death of my husband, and I find it so upsetting that they think they can just pretend nothing happened and that I’ll be fine going along and socialising.
I know I’m extra sensitive but I’m starting to think I am going completely mad. I think only me and my kids seem to remember him - everyone else just wants to forget.
I seem to be the only one who mentions him and I am not going to stop!
That includes his family, many of whom avoid mentioning him.
I have a neighbour who will do everything she can to not make eye contact and rush into her house.
Her husband was originally the same but quite a few weeks ago he started talking.
He was walking towards me and couldn’t really avoid speaking.
He now speaks and has a conversation.
Thanks Rose. Just having someone else experience the same really helps.
Some of my neighbours are getting better and do chat to me now but one set were friends and they have avoided me all year - even before my husband passed.
I know I can’t change that but I think in time I will sell up and move somewhere that I can be just me - and not that poor widow with the 4 kids.
I’ve entered a pickleball competition tomorrow and I’m quite anxious about it now. The people I’ve entered with don’t know I’m a recent widow as I only started playing in April and it’s never really come up. But it’s going to be 5+ hours long and I’m not sure I can hold it together for that long. I can still only tolerate other people for a short period of time before I need to escape.
I hope I don’t start sobbing half way through a match. I struggled the other day when one of the players was moaning about their husband.
Wish I could moan about mine - not that I ever did.
I just wish I didn’t feel so very sad all the time - and also didn’t have everything remind me of him and happier times.
Anyway - sorry. Moan over.
I hope you all sleep as well as you can tonight
Sending love and a huge hug. Xx
Roni52 - I know how you feel. I struggle in social situations. I managed about 3 hours but am so relieved to get home to my dog. Today I was expecting to go to a BBQ that I was dreading as people there who knew my husband that I’ve not seen since last August. Late last night I heard it was cancelled and the relief was obvious as I relaxed immediately. I’m a year into this grief now but still dread going out with people. On Monday I’m going to lunch with a couple we’ve known for 50 years, who were very close to us. Sadly they dropped me after the funeral so this will be my first contact with them since then. So many so called friends have just left me alone, not even a call, which makes me wonder if they only liked my husband - that does nothing for my self confidence either! If it wasn’t for my daughter, son and 2 grandsons I’m sure I’d have joined my love, but they give me a purpose each day.
It would have been our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday. A neighbour brought some flowers for me and I immediately lost the plot - tears everywhere. My stepdaughter sent me a lovely flower arrangement. My next door neighbour phoned and said she was going shopping - would I like to go with her for a change if scenery. I accepted the offer, although I didn’t actually want anything. She bought a lovely plant and asked me to hold it on the way back. I handed it to her when we got back and she gave it me back and said “it’s for you”.
This morning I am in floods of tears that just won’t stop. I loved my Bill SO much. I don’t want this life anymore, I want to be with him. I won’t do anything silly, I’m not brave enough but I just want to go to sleep and not wake up.
It’s coming up to 10 weeks since Bill passed away and I feel ten times worse now than a few weeks ago. Mornings are the worst. I see him coming down the stairs on his stair lift - making a joke of the speed, saying “ground floor” when he reached the bottom, sitting at the table for our breakfast - now it’s all gone and will never be the same again
I’ve come to conclusion that people just don’t know what to say to someone who has lost someone.
We are completely untrained to handle this. We avoid the subject of death these days as though if we don’t talk about it then it won’t happen. Was it any different in olden days, I don’t know.
We’re emotionally inept at doing the comfort in death conversation. Now life is promise, opportunities, live for the moment, celebrities telling you that you can look like this, look young if you follow me.
Never mind the increase in health issues and strain on the NHS. Even there in hospital I was given a pack to read by a nurse as Bridget lay dead next door. Even she couldn’t look me in the eye. What hope for us ordinary people?
I feel the same. It has been 12 months since my partner died. Our relationship was not always perfect but we were always together and I am so lonley without him. I am forgetting things like you and still am all over the place. I do not have a family and have lost the few friends I had as they do not understand what I am going through so it is only me and I do not have any motivation. I think people who have not been through this think that you should be able to cope after a year but for me it is not getting any better. I now suffer from anxiety and depression.
I was asked did I want my husbands wedding ring ! The nurse took it off and I was handed a “bereavement pack “ along with his ring and they unlocked the door at the main entrance to the hospital as it was now 3am in the morning and off I went into the night .ICU are offering a Christmas service in December for people who died in ICU where we can ask questions they said it is the first time they have done it , I will go I feel I owe it to my dear Nick to attend for him x
xx
