Struggling with a 2 things that happened in the immediate moments and hours after My partner passed that just keep coming back into My head, time and time again.
They are too graphic to discuss on here, too graphic to talk about with good samaritans etc
So these 2 events keep just keep jumping into my head without notice, for brevity lets call it PTSD flashbacks.
Has anyone else had disturbing reocurring memories that wont go away about the final moments and moments after the passing
the only way todeal with it is to talk about it. we have seen and heard it all on here and there are lots of people who can support you and help you. it might be graphic for you but i csan guarantee someone on here has gone throught the same thing. dont delete your posts. xx
Hello Tony66,
I’m sure many of us are holding things back that we consider too graphic - I certainly am. I refer to them as my trauma. I have talked about them to some extent with my counsellor. I’m not sure at what point they become PTSD. We have all seen terrible things that can’t be unseen. Extremely shocking things involving our most precious person. Who wouldn’t be scarred by that? It’s a living nightmare.
I’m finding that grief is like suddenly becoming quite seriously mentally ill - I’m depressed, I have terrible intrusive thoughts, moments where I don’t want to live anymore - the list goes on.
I’m sure it’s best to let these thoughts out somewhere and I’m doing this with my counsellor (poor man) - I can’t share these things with anyone else.
I understand completely what you’re going through.
Hi Tony 66,
It was Friday night last night so 33 weeks on. I still relive that night every Friday night. I have flashbacks as well during the week. I have fallen asleep twice in that time on Friday night,only to wake up screaming and crying at the time.
So you are not alone or going mad. Grief and trauma effects us different.
Take care
I have been recalling my hubby’s passing day again and again, every detail, for more than a year by now. I don’t think I will ever forget. Donot want to forget either. Actually I just was thinking about that day just now. Had a cry. Then log in here…
The death of a loved one is traumatic to each and every one of us and the graphic details are personal to us individually but yes the final moments of life are indeed graphic. It is however normal to relive them over and over again as we try to process “death” up close and personal and make sense of that experience. Those graphic details do loosen their grip over time and fade but are never forgotten. What we all have to come to terms with is that death is a natural cycle and process of life, just like birth is. There is always a beginning and end to everything
Tony66
Nothing would shock me or other’s my husband as I have put before was screaming in pain for a week at home under palliative care from local hospice district nurses never came in the night too far away he was begging me to give his overdose of morphine to get him out of pain screaming god why are you not taking me. In the end called a ambulance but nothing they could do got him in next day hospice 20 miles away with consultants and doctors vomiting non stop for 4 days it was horrific. On arrival at hospice put a NG tube in blocked small bowel had perforated so no food or drink even they had problems getting him out of pain including terminal agitation finally he was put in coma 6 days later only way to get him out of pain baring in mind I stayed with him the whole time we were given a cuddle bed so laid with him until the heart stop under my head and the awful death noises will stay with me going back in the room 1 hour later that was not my husband laying in that bed sorry to be graphic but we can only do that on here no one wants to here the ending just good memories my councillor did say your brain eventually will erase it he’s hoping
Dearest Maxandlala2,
My heart is aching when I read your words. What a terrible experience when we watch our loved ones suffering like that! I can not imagine your struggling coping the pain even I struggle to cope my pain of losing my hubby to cancer. Your pain is just beyond words! so sorry for your loss!!
We did the same thing to comfort our hubbies at the very final stage. I also climbed into his sick bed, snuggled up and stroked him face, we driftted into nap when he quietly stopped breathing. when I recall this moment, I feel a wee comfort.
Keep on coming back here to talk when you feel sad. This place is for us. I always do so and feel a bit better when I leave. This is how I get by. Tough life ahead I know. Without our loved ones our lifes because aimless and hollow. I love baking and sewing, but Inhavn’t done any since my hubby gone over 1 year ago, for what?? nobody shares with me, everything is worthless. But I have to cope with daily life, there is simply no choise.
Big hug, and take care, try to think about happy times with your hubby, see you sometimes here…xx
Sorry for you loss. I was with my mum constantly the 2 days before she died and the moment she died. We kept her at home for some family members to come say goodbye to her for 5 hours before she went to the funeral home.
We lost mum 13 months ago. I have had some counselling and done a lot of reading about grief. It’s something I’ve never quite understood until I lost my mum. (Still am trying to understand it). I think replaying the moment and after she passed like what you are experiencing too can be a normal part of the grieving process for some people. Sometimes it comes into my head mostly as I am falling asleep. Think it’s part of what some of us go through to help process and accept the loss of our loved ones.
@Tony66
I lost my husband suddenly to a heart attack 17 months ago ,the night before he had just finished work for the weekend, the Saturday morning he said he felt a bit sick , and. Then passed out , that part I am “grateful “ for I know he knew nothing, I knew everything ,he took the heart attack at my feet and I can still remember the sounds, the body actions etc, to me he died then, but two cruel days in ICU I had to watch them turn off life support and watch him die again, I stayed with him for two hours after he died .
In the early days it was the last thing I saw at night and if I did manage to sleep the first thing I saw when I woke up! I still have the flash backs and pictures in my head , but I try and replace it with an image of him laughing , my comfort is he knew nothing I did , and I loved him so much , I know he will never have to experience the pain of saying goodbye to me , in a partnership only one gets to say goodbye , and only one gets left alone, I am glad he didn’t have to go through what I am , if that all makes sense?x
Hello Jane,so sorry to hear about the painful lose of your partner and the pain of reliving those final moments
The grief many of us who are struggling with is the same for all of us no matter what the cause of death. However, watching somebody die before your eyes, seemingly in slow motion. adds an element of torture that I would rather not have witnessed, no, hold that, So glad I was there to be with Her every step and every second, not that She was aware.
I read your message and then went for a walk around the Marina, thinking this cannot really be, a message that could potentially have a profound effect on how I deal with, not the grief,but the memory of the last moments.
You have allowed Me to turn the whole thing on its head and I realise how fortunate and how grateful I am that She was spared what I went through, I was the strong one.
Mission control would never have copped if the roles had been reversed
The grief process will still run it’s course but going forward, the distracting trauma of the last minutes can now be “boxed off” as We used to say in the military.
@Tony66 Wow my message have an effect , glad it helped , my husband was adopted at birth , and he always said “he came into the world with no one , and would probably leave with no one “ I wish I could of told him he didn’t .
Navigating the grief process is something 17 months on , I am still doing my husband was 65 when he died and he planned to retire when he was 66. I am nearly 10 years younger , and always said to him BUT I will be working for another 10 years why you are not . We planned to move , he hated where we lived , and he could make our new house our perfect home,
Now I am buying a property with my son , after his father my ex husband was also found dead in his flat 3 months before my husband took his heart attack !
It’s exciting and a house with some stunning sea views across the bay , but I couldn’t stop thinking “This is not the life, I had planned / WE had planned”
Last night I was watching a tv programme with Rob Rinder going to India , and he finished the programme with a quote someone made ,
“You must give up the life you planned, in order to have the life that is waiting for you “
I went to bed on that quote last night and thought long and hard of it , I am a massive planner I would book holidays over a year in advance , and trips out etc , my Nicks death was not planned , and this grief is not my friend , our late Queen once said
“Grief is the price we pay for love”
Well then my debt will be high I loved him as he did me so much .
I think we will always be looking for answers , but glad my message helped x
@Jane15 that Rob Rinder quote really made me think. It has been 8 months since my husband died unexpectedly . He was also 65 and was also adopted at birth. He used to say that was because he was meant to meet me. He died very suddenly. Got up on a Saturday morning. We walked 5 minutes down the road . He died in front of me of an embolism, which I found out later. He wasn’t ill ,no warning, nothing. One of my sons was also with me. My husband took his last breath before the ambulance got there, then I had to call my other son and who lives abroad, and tell him. We had so many holidays planned, had both taken early retirement. He worked on oil rigs for many years and sometimes I think that my mind tells me he is offshore. I have relived that traumatic day so many times and am so sad that both of us have been cheated of our plans. We were so close,had been together over 40 years. We basically left the house at 11 am, by 11.45 I was back in my house with a policeman as the death was in a public place and the ambulance man with a bag containing his watch and wallet. Those last moments were awful and I feel constantly mentally exhausted. I don’t know what I would have done without my sons and my sisters. I also have good friends but I he was my best friend.
@Cloudysky I wish our stories were not ditto but they very much are , Nick was my 3rd husband we were together 24 years but only got 19 months of marriage after we secretly eloped to Gretna Green and married on the 27th Sep 2022, after two previous abusive marriages it took me over two decades to agree to marry him , it was simply the best day ever, and I didn’t feel that way with my other two marriages , I was Nicks second wife as Nick came home to a letter his wife had ran off with a younger man and took the kids !
Nick taught me the meaning of unconditional love and I will always be grateful for that .
He always joked about him being nearly 10 years older and he would go first , but not now and not in the blink of an eye !
That Saturday morning he brought me a cup of tea in bed and would always say “made with love “ and I would always reply with “can’t you make it with a tea bag like everyone else “ those where his last words !
The quote Judge Rinder said , was one of Joseph Campbell an American writer , I am thinking of getting that on the wall of me new house ,
Thank you for sharing your story x
@Jane15 so sorry we went through something so similar. I think I may get that quote made into a canvas or something. My husband’s last words were I love you. I think he knew that was it. He was leaning over a fence and couldn’t breathe. I wish I had said it back, I really do, but I was so shocked. I called an ambulance, then my son and it was too late. So many people walked past and tried to help.I am glad that I am going through this and not him. That’s my positive side . He would be devastated about leaving me and his sons. My dad died around the same age and my mum is still here 18 years on. Now I realise what she went through. Xxx