I’m doing it now, even as i write this and i can’t seem to control it.
Lately i’ve realised that since losing him i’ve been doing these things, some very small and some more noticeable. I’ve been doing things that i know are probably not good for me but i do it regardless. These punishments, i feel to call them, began with not letting myself eat properly. Then going on to observe the area where his accident took place every time i walk towards our home, staring at the spot where he was found. I mean it’s unavoidable considering it’s right where we live. I stop myself from sleeping knowing full well that i’m exhausted until my body can’t take it anymore. Atleast 2 days in the week i will not sleep the entire night and the rest of the days i will sleep at almost 6, 7, 8am in the morning. I’ve stopped taking medication which helps manage a condition i have and go about life indenial until i can no longer pretend it hasn’t happened and i break. I went pretty much my whole life without touching a thing but now i vape daily, i don’t know how bad it is for you but i just tell myself i don’t care.
Writing this out now, it’s 4am, and i know what im doing but why is it i can’t seem to stop? I feel like i know exactly what people would say but there’s this part of me that really is just so unphased. It’s like being two people in one body, there’s who i was and who i am now. There’s the rational side of me who questions things and knows when something isn’t right and then there’s this side. This side i just don’t understand.
Hi Sultana,
Reading your post, I do understand why you feel like you’re ‘punishing’ yourself. It is another part of all the horrible and painful sides of grief.
Losing someone who is the closest person in your life is one of the most traumatic things we can face.
When I lost my husband five months ago , (he had a cardiac arrest, it was very sudden, no time to say goodbye ), I was in total shock, didn’t eat for days, didn’t drink and didn’t sleep, at first it was because I just couldn’t but then I thought , I don’t want to, I’m not going to, I can’t live without him , I just want to be with him. I didn’t care about looking after myself, nothing mattered anymore, I just wanted to curl up and die, sometimes now I still do, on the darkest of days, but I had to change and force myself to look after myself, I’ve got three daughters and three grandchildren and I couldn’t do that to them, they need me and I need them.
I can totally understand how you are feeling.
Please take a day at a time, try to eat , sleep and take your medication, by doing this you will feel stronger and will be able to deal with things more.
Hopefully in time you will have easier days, I know it’s hard and at the moment you probably think ( I don’t care, I want to feel stronger) but by looking after yourself, you might see some light in this darkness.
Keep posting on here, by talking to people about your feelings will help you so much, it has helped me and I know I would be in a much darker place without it ,
Thinking of you
Take care, Steph x
Hi Steph,
It’s been 7months and it honestly still feels as raw as the first day if not worse now that im isolating alone in our home. I can’t help but think how much easier it would be if he was still here.
I feel so much guilt that i wasn’t there that night. Just that one night i was not there and now im this nightmare with no closure, nothing. It doesn’t seem right or fair that he isn’t here. I’m nowhere near how he was as a person, he was so good and giving and none of this makes any sense.
Im just so tired of this pain, it’s all day every day, so desperate to get back to the life we had together.
People say as time goes on, it gets easier, but I have found as each day passes, it hurts more because it’s further away from seeing him, I miss him so much and I don’t think life will get any easier, we just have to learn to live like this. Life is so unfair and cruel. My husband was 56, I’m 51 and to think we could have had maybe another 30 years, just kills me.
This lockdown is making everything so much worse, we can’t just go out and occupy our minds, or see friends and family, it’s just another cruel blow for all of us grieving.
Have you got people around you you can video chat?
Keep in touch on here, you are not alone, we are here for you, reach out and there’s always someone that will get back to you x
I completely get what you mean when you talk about the time you could have still had together. I was 23 and he was 30, our whole lives were just ripped away from us. I think about the fight we put up just to be together and then to have him stolen away the way he was, it kills me. Watching everyone else in my life with their partners and their children, their happiness and their smiles, it’s like a stab in the heart. But it’s one i have to take quietly. I don’t want anyone to think im not happy for them because i am, i’m just hurt for us, for the things we never got to have. My husband was like pure heaven on earth and he deserved so much in life, so so so much more then he got.
I’m so sorry , you’re both so young, it’s just so cruel , what have we all done to deserve this, my heart breaks for you. I know what you mean when you see others being so happy , laughing enjoying life, I feel jealous when I see couples, I feel hatred inside, and I’m not that type of person, but just can’t help feeling this way. Our lives have changed and been snatched away in an instance, I think it’s normal to feel like that, people probably looked at us in the past if they were suffering with grief.
Your husband sounds so lovely, I’m so sorry, think of all the love you had for each other and the luck you had that you found your soulmate, trouble is that makes it so much harder to carry on, but carry on for your husband, he wouldn’t want you to suffer like this.
A day at a time x
See, i don’t know how to even begin carrying on. All i’ve done so far is either be in complete indenial or put on an act when im out or at work in order to get through my shift. Those moments where i really let it in it hits so hard. It all comes flooding and i have a million things going through my mind at one time. Some i can’t even put into words, alot of it is feelings, memories i can’t describe. The images i have in my head, the smells i can still remember from the hospital, all these sensory things that haunt me have stuck with me and stuck so clearly. I can’t seem to let myself get to sleep like tonight, i haven’t had a wink of sleep. If i had work i would have had to take some antihistamines in order to knock myself out, for me it’s that or go to work with no sleep.
I just feel like i lost myself when i lost him. I catch myself just thinking what the hell is even going on? What’s the point in any of this? Im just dragging myself through the days but my mind isn’t in it anymore, my soul is gone.
I think we all are in denial about what’s happened. I sometimes try and think Tim’s at work, it’s silly really but it’s another way of coping and try to forget it’s real. I can’t accept it, if I think about it , I can’t deal with it, the pain is just too much, but someone said on here - we’ve got to face it and not push it away, but it’s easier said than done .
I can’t play music, and certain tv programmes I can’t watch , there was a song that came on the tv the other day, I just got up and cried and cried, there’s no way of getting away from things, everything in life is just a reminder.
I think we’ll all be dragging ourselves through our lives now, I feel dead inside without my hubby, but must carry on with the pain inside.
Sorry to sound so down, it’s so cruel having to live like this .
We are all in this together, and we can help each other x
Don’t apologise x
Everything you were saying, it’s what we feel. Sometimes it’s not even visible on the outside the simple things that now bother us. I’m the same, i can’t bare to look at certain programmes or hear certain songs. I can’t even look at an emergency vehicle or certain types of cars on the street. I don’t say much but i find that i have to look away. The simplest things can almost make me feel physically sick, it triggers all these memories.
Hi sultana can relate so much to your post I lost my partner unexpectedly last November and since then I feel worse every day and keep having flash backs like you I’m not taking my medication correctly I think what’s the point not eating sleeping to much or not at all can’t watch certain programs I’m putting on a front at work no one can see how I am walking through the front door crying which I have been doing every day usually with a glass of wine which I know does not help I don’t know why I am hurting myself my Nigel would not want me to all I can think life is unfair
It’s kind of crazy. We know how much they loved us, we know they wouldn’t want us to do this to ourselves but we do it anyway, why? My husband was the one who really took care of me, i have my family but honestly he was the only one who really gave his all to make sure i was ok and that i was happy. It does just feel so unfair.
I wonder sometimes how i still have tears left in me. Like you i cry every day for him, the tiniest thing can trigger it off. I look back at all our messages, our photos.
This message was one of the last things he sent me, just before his accident.
“Babe, don’t tell anyone but I think I know how we can be a power couple. What I want to actually do with my career as a passion. Tonight I think I’ve find out for me and you 
me and you Sultana need to have a long discussion 
so many blessing in our marriage alhamdullia 
”
This message… i just miss him so much.
So so sorry what a lovely message I’m the same keep reading last messages looking at birthday cards etc kept them all from our years together the ironic thing thing about it all he was worried about me I was at the go on the Monday he passed away on the Friday while I was at work yes life is unfair thoughts with you
What a lovely message from your lovely husband,
Thinking of you, try and keep strong x