Hi @Linda45 thank you for your kind words, and equally I am very sorry to learn of you sudden loss. There are no words to describe it are there? I still very much feel like I am living in some bubble, which hasn’t yet quite burst, and despite the funeral being Friday, still expect him to walk through the door at any moment, like nothing has happened.
How your entire world can change in the click of a finger is truly heartbreaking. I am very up and down, numb, empty, upset, tired, not sleeping, that sinking feeling inside when you wake up ready to relive groundhog day over again, then anxiety, likewise guilt. Its so draining and difficult to make any sense of.
Many people keep saying “you are so strong” or “you’re amazing” but they see the act. They don’t see the sorrow, loss, lonliness and upset when you’re alone to gather and process your thoughts. How are you coping after three months? I can’t imagine being three months down the line.
My fiancee was diagnosed with a rare lung cancer in November 2022 and had a massive operation in December. She put herself through chemotherapy January till April this year. She had the all clear in May. After becoming ill again in September, she very sadly died from brain Mets in October. I miss her so much and blame so many people. She was my all. I’ve never suffered from mental illness, now im on sleeping tabs, antidepressants and suffer from panic attacks. God bless and lots of love to all on here xx
@Mpcarp I do feel your pain and know what you’re going through. I was numb at first and the running around trying to arrange the funeral was a big distraction then. Afterwards, the sadness and pain settled in deeply followed by massive loneliness. I told myself daily to take one day at a time that’s the best I could do to survive - I believe it has helped me so far and I hope & pray it will help you too.
Please take care x
@Angel1309 ya I too have heard that guilt is part of grief. I have some people accept it as fate very easily… and that ways atleast the guilt is less. Somehow I just cannot accept that he was destined to be here for such a short time… and feel something went wrong… and then end up blaming myself. Oh it sucks…
@Mpcarp Thank you . Sadly we are part of a club we just dont want to be in. Yes, just like that on a normal day our life changed. 3 months down the line, I am acting better… or have a better mask, because people expect you to, even I want to try to pull myself out of the deep pain… coz I am scared I might lose it. And also I have 2 kids to take care of, so no choice… I go through the routines of the day - sending the kids off to school, work etc… in some alternate reality it feels like. Some days are horrible, and some days I have sometime… where it feels little better… or like I am used to it, accepted it, but then it all comes back and I can heardly breathe. I dont want time to move ahead, because I feel I am moving away from the time my husband was here. I am trying to do my job, so that it keeps paying me. The support has dwindled from the initial days, but am lucky I still have a few friends who are there always. I am trying meditation and breathing techniques to calm my mind. I cant say its helping yet.
I understand so well those feelings of guilt. When it’s sudden, unexpected, it’s natural to feel this way, we can’t help but relive those moments over and over again, thinking “if only” and “I could have”, “this can’t be right”, “it shouldn’t have happened, something went wrong”, and so on. After three years I still have these moments but I know now after hearing other similar stories, that they are just part of our grief process, trying to come to terms with such a tragic loss.
@Mpcarp … its just horrendous isn’t it… we all know what your going through. I lost my partner of 25 years on 29th October, I’d known him since i was 14!
He was 63 and had a sudden bleed on the brain due to meds he was given, the bleed was in a crucial part of the brain causing a stroke and severe damage with no chance of recovery. I never imagined the night he was taken to hospital he’d neve return! I too am full of guilt thinking what else I could or should have done, and i should have cuddled him more when we were waiting for the ambulance instead of looking out the window waiting. It was 2am so pitch black and torrential rain so i was worried they’d not find us!
I had to get anxiety pills from the dctrs to help me through the following weeks, my heart was literally pounding. I i also got over the counter sleeping aids which helped too. I’ve lost a stone in weight as just pick at food, it’s all very hard and the time of year doesn’t help. But, accept any help offered. Keep looking at this site as it makes you realise you’re not alone. The evenings are worse for me as I’m all alone and will still cry uncontrollably, but I’m hoping once the spring comes and evenings are lighter at least i can go for a walk or something. We’re all here for you so please just shout if you need to, there’s loads of us who will reply and support you x
@Solost - right , on reading about grief, orwhen I talk to my therapist, I feel ok these feelings are normal part of grief, and are just feelings not reality. But then suddenly something triggers, and all those feelings resurface and with the same intensity. The pain added with intense guilt feels unbearable. Was it the same for you?
I had to add my name to the unfortunate list of people in this ‘club’. I lost my husband suddenly and unexpectedly on 7th November. He just collapsed in the en suite as I lay sleeping in the bedroom next door. He was 57. As everyone on here agrees, he was my soulmate, my best friend, my everything.
We still don’t know what happened. The autopsy was inconclusive and we’re waiting for toxicology & biopsy results which could take up to 6 months. It looks like his heart stopped, but they don’t know why.
I did CPR on his while we waited for the ambulance and the paramedics worked on him for 30 minutes but he had already gone. I felt guilty that ‘if only’ I had investigated earlier, maybe I could have done something but I had to share with you some information that I found on the NHS website which I found quite shocking. CPR only works in 2 out of 10 cases (I thought it was MUCH higher than this) so the chances are actually against us in being able to help them anyway. I know this is little comfort but it should help to relieve the guilt a little (it did for me).
I have the added comfort that we both believed in the afterlife (we both had experiences) so I honestly believe that he IS still with me, watching me, supporting me and I’m trying to make him proud. I had a major wobble over the weekend when I was very upset and down. But for nearly 2 weeks before that I was feeling unnaturally calm and at peace - I missed him but it was a dull ache rather than a raw stabbing unbearable pain. I knew that I shouldn’t be feeling this stable and I shouldn’t be having positive thoughts (that are totally not like me) and I’m convinced that he was with me and supporting me because these thoughts were the kind of things that he would be thinking/saying. I lost his support over the weekend (maybe because I was too upset to sense him?) but he is back again now.
His mother thinks I’m mental (she doesn’t believe in the afterlife) but I honestly don’t care because we did. He’s watching and helping and he’ll be there for me when it is my time. Every night when I go to bed I take comfort in the fact that I am 1 day closer to seeing him again. But until that day I’m trying to make him proud and living the life that he was deprived of - with him.
@Lesleyann1968 I am very sorry for your loss. I full understand the pain you must be in. It is going to be a long and tough road, of which many people have told me, and if the last 24 hours are anything to go by, I don’t know how I will get through the next 24 hours, let alone the next 24 weeks, 24 months or 24 years even! Sending you much love and support. Please reach out anytime x
@Linda45 we are indeed part of a club none of should have to be in, especially at our ages. I have already had a couple of people say to me, “you’re only 41, technically you have your whole life to live again, you have a second chance to start over” whilst I believe they mean well, it is a sickly feeling inside, combined with pure terror and dread. I don’t want to be here another 41 years plus with him by my side, we should have had so much more to give the world as a couple and had worked so hard this year to ensure we could really enjoy ourselves in 2024 with so many plans and ideas, we were both so excited at what the next 12-18 months and beyond held for us. Things we had spent all year planning and discussing.
I have been in a total bubble the last few weeks. Yes I have been upset and even after the funeral, reality still not full sunk in, yet the last 24 hours have been excruciating, and I feel my body is slowly starting to tell me to face up to the reality of it all. If this is how it feels at the moment, I dread the feelings I am going to experience when my body fully pushes me into a firm reality.
@Sable I am very sorry for your loss. Not only do you have to try and grief but you have the added heartache of not knowing yet what caused your partners death. Having to awaint the postmortem results which took just over a week was horribly painful enough, and whilst I thought that would bring me some comfort, I was just left with more “what ifs”. Yes, I was told it could not have been foreseen or predicted, it was an “immediate no warning” event, that could not have been undone, but it still leaves you thinking “what if”.
I also understand your guilt. I was equally focused on getting him the ambulance - then getting him into the car to the doctors with the help of a friend that I never thought of holding him, telling him I loved him etc, as I honestly thought we would be back home again a few hours later, even laughing possibly at what all the fuss at the time was about.
I relive those final moments in my head over and over and over again each day. He had so much more to give this world, and it devastates me that he will not experience it’s even continued spin. So so sad.
@Reality … I know my Jimmy is with me too. There have been a couple of things that i believe are signs . I talk to him all the time, plus i went to a spiritual church the week after his funeral and he came through! The medium told me he was telling her I’m writing him a book and that he reads it! …ive been writing him letters in a journal every day since he passed… it helps me come to terms with it and makes me feel closer to him. How would she know that?..i feel he guides me and i often ask for his advice. He’s definitely with me
Yes, I don’t want to scare anyone but I still get these triggers, we just learn to live with them. They become more bearable, the comfort of feeling our soulmates always present helps us overcome these moments, soothing us and giving us strength.
@Reality I am so sorry to hear of your sudden loss, mearly a week before mine. And to hear that only two in ten cases work in a CPR scenario. I was not aware of that at all.
Ironically I had a call this afternoon from the Air Ambulance team that worked on him that gave me more insight that night on timings and what they were doing to him to get his heart restarted. It absolutely devestated me on the phone listening to the information, replaying that evening in my head as it was being fed to me. I thought they only worked on him for half an hour, turns out it was nearly an hour and a half, but for me time stood still and was not focused on anything going on around me.
I have always believed in afterlife and everything you say I support personally, however struggling as a result of this traumatic experience to believe anything, albeit during my calmer moments I start to again, then get upset and worked up and go against everything I believed in prior to his death. I so hope so, I really do, any sign he could give me I would love to feel, sense, see
I know what you mean- I neither accept nor not accept it - and can’t seem to stop thinking about what I could have done to save him. What if, what if & what if every now and then and all I can do is go with the flow…
My counsellor advised that I should take care of my mental health by trying not to blame myself as it’s really not anyone’s fault - so I try to keep very busy to distract myself and so far it seems to help a little.
