Where do we go emotionally with all the mental anguish, trauma and fatigue that is caused by constantly dwelling/reliving/dissecting events regarding our loss. These feelings add sharp, jagged edges to
Our grief and everything becomes so much more painful. One member brought up a possible PTSD element - how true I feel this is.
Hi Tina, your post as made me realise something, thank you.
When Helen, my wife, died I was first overwhelmed with it all. I felt so completely at its mercy that I got scared. When I wasn’t just swept along I tried to fight back, denying to myself what had and was happening. Both being overwhelmed and fighting back are so utterly exhausting. I have now realised, at least for myself, that I have to accept many things not keep on fighting them. (And yes a lot of them are of the “if only” variety.) I have to accept, whether I like it or not - it’s a no choice situation. Owning my grief is best I can put it.
I cannot say it makes me happy, and it is not trying to pretend to be “normal” again, but I can step aside now and then and get some perspective on it all. I’m still all at sea at times but I can smell that there is land out there somewhere.
Alan
Thank you for your comments Alan, wise words indeed.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing,Tina - any wisdom in my post I would gladly trade in to have my Helen back. Hope you are having one of this Community’s better days - as indeed I hope everybody else is. Alan.
Hi Tina
Found your post and Alan’s good reading very thoughtful thank you.Last week I went to see a spiritual healer and had a healing session and counselling.This was the same guy who did Heather’s funeral with 28 years experience.In his belief we all have a set day to pass and nothing can change that whatever the circumstances as it was all decided before we came into this world.I could go on but I don’t want to sound as though I am preaching.The visit helped me as I have become more spiritual and Heather read lots of books on the afterlife she was a great believer.take care Steve
Hello Steve
Thanks for the comments, they do provide some comfort and make interesting reading. I lost my husband to a heart incident as well. I woke today feeling the worst I have ever done for a long time to find your reply and another member have been thoughtful enough to send me replies, so thank you for your timely comments - ,they have helped.
Hi Tina
That’s ok like to think I am helping someone.I have always been an optimistic person but this horrible experience has given me a hammering.Sometimes I feel guilty for still being here with the grandkids but I know Heather wouldn’t want me to feel like that.Its all the plans we had for retirement gone out the window leaves me waking up in fear.Its not that we had shed loads of money but it was the freedom of pleasing ourselves.
Hope you are feeling a little better,January is a nasty month it gives me the blues at the best of times.Have you got family close by ?
Thanks for reply Steve. I understand the comment about you feeling guilty for still being here. We feel our partners should be experiencing the same things too - opportunities, sunshine, family. That’s something I particularly grieve about. I can understand you feeling so cheated as you were to approach a time in your lives when you could have spent a lot of time together. I was so distressed I had to leave our home the day after my husband passed away to stay with family 25 miles away as I didn’t really know anyone that well. I haven’t been back to sleep yet, just afternoon visits. It’s sad though, life in the neighbourhood is going on as normal - so why can’t we be. It sounds like your visit to talk about the afterlife brought you immense comfort and a degree of inner peace. That means a lot doesn’t it. Dennis and I believe in the ressurection, I don’t know if that’s what you mean by afterlife. Once again, thanks for your helpful comments and I wish you an easy afternoon. Kindest regards Tina
.Dear All I have not posted anything on the site for quite some time but have been reading all the comments. I lost my husband suddenly in August he had a heart attack he was only 61 and had been for a run. I thought he was healthy, did not drink, gave up smoking 20 years ago etc, so it was a huge shock to me and my family. I can relate to so much of what you say. We lived in Doncaster, but 3 days after Kevin died I went to my sisters in Hampshire and have been there ever since. I went back to the house for the funeral and have been up to overwinter it. I have put the the house on the market as I can not bear to live in it. It reminds me too much of Kevin and how we were so happy there. I am moving closer to my family who are all down South.
I also grieve that Kevin is not going to enyoy his retirement, he was so hard working and we were talking about where we would retire to and what we would do. I feel he has been cheated and this makes me very sad for him, it really hurts.
Also I think what if I had found him earlier? Would he still be alive. As soon as I found him I knew he was dead. The paramedics were brilliant but it was too late. I hate the thought that I did not get the chance to say goodbye and wonder if he was aware.
I am seeing a counsellor and she says it is not a case of getting over it, as we do not have an illness. We all cope in different ways and I think I am frightened of the future without Kevin, we were together 28 years and knew each other so well.
I have very bad anxiety, not all the time but it frightens me. I have started yoga and went to the cinema with my sister last week and managed to stay in the moment for a while which was good.
I just plod along day to day and hope that one day I will get some peace. I get a great deal of comfort from you all as you have experienced what I have and I do not feel so alone and I can put on the site what I really feel.
Thank you
Annie
Hi Tina
Just wanted to say how sorry i was to see how unhappy you have been feeling today. January as has been said is a horrible month. The lighter mornings and evenings are coming though which i feel will lift my spirits and hopefully yours as well.
Mel
Dear Mel,
Thank you for your reply, yes, January is a horrid month anyway. Hopefully lighter mornings and evenings will make us feel better,
Annie
It’s so strange that you popped in my mind this afternoon and then I logged in and saw you had posted. I think I had been thinking about how many of us had suffered bereavements that are heart related. Your post truly says it all. The overwhelming sense that our husbands were taken before their time and the related thoughts that go with that. Take care Annie.
Hello Mel, thanks for your reply. Our paths haven’t crossed before but I read your posts. Kindest regards Tina.
Hi Tina
Sorry just read your reply as I have just come home after visiting my sister.I am fortunate to have my 34 year old son still living with me but can understand how empty and silent a house can be.Like you say life in the neighbourhood goes on but there must be hundreds if not thousands of people out there in similar situations to ourselves up and down the country.
By afterlife I mean the time between lives and reincarnation,of coarse time is non existent in the afterlife.Our love ones know what’s going on and can be anywhere they want to be all at once.It does give me some comfort and inner peace helps a little.kindest regards Steve
Dear Mel,
Thank you for your reply, yes, January is a horrid month anyway. Hopefully lighter mornings and evenings will make us feel better,
Annie
Dear Tina, That is odd that I popped into your mind. I don’t think time heals as such, we just don’t feel so raw. I am very up and down I expect you are the same. I am just so glad we have this site and can write what we really feel. I just find it so hard to get up in the morning and I am sure a lot of us feel like that.
It is a whole new life and one we did not expect, which is very scary. Let us hope we get the strength to move on.
Love Anniexx
I cannot get over the suffering that my poor Sally endured in the last 15 months of her life. I definitely have PTSD because of what I witnessed in her last months. She almost choked to death in front of me on two occasions and on others she had severe seizures that just went on and on and on. Apart from suffering two strokes. It is her suffering that keeps my pain alive and I wish it would stop. It just won’t stop. It’s been nine weeks since she died and it won’t stop. i don’t know what to do. I couldn’t care less if I live or die to be honest. I just want it to stop.
Hello Haycups
I too hated what Helen, my wife, went through, on one occasion when she was choking I tried the Heimlich manoeuvre which was awful as her lung cancer had spread to her ribs and I just caused her excruciating pain - she never eat after that. Three times she was rushed to A & E with lung infections/ breathing crises. On one of those times we had the local Fire Brigade in attendance at home as they were thought to be the nearest with breathing equipment ! And Helen’s last few hours were very painful with her breathing
.
This was over a few months but you were a carer I believe for seven years. The impact on you must be tremendous and, forgive me if I am intrusive, it would be good I think for you to get some immediate counselling. It might be a good idea too to see your GP, sometimes medication can help, especially if you are not eating or sleeping. Contact Priscilla direct too.
You are not alone, I and others on here feel your pain too, although we may not have gone through the exact same circumstances - and for those whose loved ones suffered much pain we all hated what it put them through, life can be so cruel but I do not think it is all cruel.
Keep in touch, there will be many thinking of you.
Alan
Thank you Alan. Lost for words today. Thank you.
Hi Steve, I like that - about our loved ones knowing what’s going on and being anywhere they want to be all at once. Sometimes I feel that my husband is near, other times not here at all. Probably just my imagination but it helps. I talk to him and call to him sometimes. Occasionally odd things happen and in my desperation I attribute them to Barry, my life feels so strange at the moment.