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What do I do??


Darkangel97

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I, too, have been told, "If you knew then what you know now, you would have behaved differently. But you did NOT know it. You made the best decisions based on what you DID know."  Hindsight is biased, I have been told. But I suppose I am always going to have guilt, but will just learn to carry it. Right now I just push it aside at work and then let it rip when I get home.

I am reading a lot of books, widow books, grief books, afterlife books. I am liking CS Lewis' A Grief Observed, and my counselor recommended A Grace Disguised. 

Someone sent me a book called, "This is Me Letting You Go." WTF? It's only been 2 months. I'm not about to let Eric go.  This weekend I am going to take that book out on the beach and burn it. 

I believe there is an afterlife and my husband is there. I believe he is whole, and loved, and free from sorrow.  I have only had one incident where I felt a connection, it was right before I fell asleep and had this sense we were sitting on the steps of our back porch holding hands. I haven't had any recently, but my emotions and awareness of a long long lonely life ahead is intensifying so I'm pretty sure I am not very receptive right now. My sister and cousin were talking about the experiences they had with mediums--I said, you know what? I am not ready for that. I am still in a state where it might upset me that he is well and loved, and I am in this abyss on this side. I am not in a good space right now for that. But it does give me comfort, that maybe one day I will sense that he does forgive me for not being there when he had the heart attack, and not being able to save him with CPR after he was released from the hospital. 

thank you all for sharing your good thoughts and dark thoughts. I feel I suffer less because I know I don't suffer alone. But I am sorry others are suffering, too. I was thinking about war, and the onslaught of this kind of suffering that must occur at those times--just wave after wave of relentless loss...

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@Azipod this is interesting and comforting.  I did not know this.  I mean I remember apparitions...I've never experienced them until you clarified this.  Yes...eye floaters...he seems so sad in the apparitions...well its like he's trying to return in the physical form but we both know he can't.  Or he's trying to help move forward and experience him at another level. In my practice on the mat when I'm in a deep meditative state he appears just as the experience was in the salt float.  The last salt float I experienced the visuals of my dad and grandma (both deceased for years) kneeling on each side of me doing more of a physical and mental healing energizing unblocking. ...it felt like a Native American healing ritual.  I am not native American.  These experiences are powerful.  I don't understand them but they are happening.   These moments do not remove the grief.  They are scared moments ...a unique energy being given...a connection to our love ones.  They are now our spirit guides. Our angels.  Ancestry healing in their efforts to help us calm the grief storms.  Guiding us into intergrating the grief as we intergrated the love.  This is how I have to approach this experience of a loss of this magnitude,

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Micheline I hope too that one day Wayne will forgive me for not being there when he had his heart attack.  We didn't have the power to stop their leaving.  The guilt is still there and I know it can be traumatizing. I just finished reading "It's ok that you're not ok" by Megan Devine.     Informative and yes helpful.

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33 minutes ago, Sunflower2 said:

Micheline I hope too that one day Wayne will forgive me for not being there when he had his heart attack.  We didn't have the power to stop their leaving.  The guilt is still there and I know it can be traumatizing. I just finished reading "It's ok that you're not ok" by Megan Devine.     Informative and yes helpful.

my friend sent me the link to her site http://www.refugeingrief.com/

and I bought the book for my kindle. It comforts me that I don't have to "let go." That prospect is terrifying to me. 

Sometimes I wonder what my Eric would be doing, if I had died and he was left? I have been "letting" people do things for and to me--simply because I know they need to, and sometimes I need to get out of myself and continue to connect. I wonder, would he do that? would he let people help him? would he go to a support group? what would he do? would he scream and rage, and curl up on the floor and weep? would he go throughout his day with this pit in his chest like the wind is continually knocked out of you? 

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22 hours ago, Azipod said:

One step at a time. There's no rush to do anything.  You can even start with short meditations and slowly billed up.  Or perhaps just do it when you have a better day.  Or simply wait.  You don't have to do it or start now.

I'm having somewhat of a similiar but different issue.  When I lost my wife, I bought so many books that I've been aching to read. However, I really haven't had any time yet because I've been spending my energy in other areas. 

I've realized that it's OK.  Why?  The sad truth is that I'll have the rest of my life to get to these books. There's no rush.  With a life expectancy in the 90's, I'll have AT LEAST 5-decades.  Oh gosh!

My spiritual beliefs are that our past loved ones are full of love and joy on the other side. The last thing they would feel is to be mad at you.  It's nothing to worry about.

You are so right!  No hurry for anything.  At the end of the day our grief will still be there, we have all the time in the world to deal with it.  We ARE dealing with it, the best way we know how, in our own timeframe.

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17 hours ago, Michelene said:

I, too, have been told, "If you knew then what you know now, you would have behaved differently. But you did NOT know it. You made the best decisions based on what you DID know."  Hindsight is biased, I have been told. But I suppose I am always going to have guilt, but will just learn to carry it. Right now I just push it aside at work and then let it rip when I get home.

I am reading a lot of books, widow books, grief books, afterlife books. I am liking CS Lewis' A Grief Observed, and my counselor recommended A Grace Disguised. 

Someone sent me a book called, "This is Me Letting You Go." WTF? It's only been 2 months. I'm not about to let Eric go.  This weekend I am going to take that book out on the beach and burn it. 

I believe there is an afterlife and my husband is there. I believe he is whole, and loved, and free from sorrow.  I have only had one incident where I felt a connection, it was right before I fell asleep and had this sense we were sitting on the steps of our back porch holding hands. I haven't had any recently, but my emotions and awareness of a long long lonely life ahead is intensifying so I'm pretty sure I am not very receptive right now. My sister and cousin were talking about the experiences they had with mediums--I said, you know what? I am not ready for that. I am still in a state where it might upset me that he is well and loved, and I am in this abyss on this side. I am not in a good space right now for that. But it does give me comfort, that maybe one day I will sense that he does forgive me for not being there when he had the heart attack, and not being able to save him with CPR after he was released from the hospital. 

thank you all for sharing your good thoughts and dark thoughts. I feel I suffer less because I know I don't suffer alone. But I am sorry others are suffering, too. I was thinking about war, and the onslaught of this kind of suffering that must occur at those times--just wave after wave of relentless loss...

CS Lewis is great, so authentic!  He was a spiritual great but when he experienced his grief and talked/wrote about it, he was very real, not high and mighty, but just as one of us.  He is very candid about his grief, his feelings, all that he went through.

I have the same gut reaction to "this is me letting you go", what the hell!  I remember when George died and I had to go to the social security office and give them a copy of his death certificate, it was about a week after he died, I did well just to drive the 60 miles there by myself.  The lady "pronounced our marriage ended in death".  What the hell!  I didn't need to hear that!  Who the hell did she think she was!  I never wanted my marriage to end, neither did he, was that "pronouncement" really necessary?!  I could have had a car accident afterwards, I was crying so hard!  I think I would have sued her and the social security administration if I had because it would have been due to her idiocy!  AND she "went over his previous marriages" with me, was that really necessary?  They had access to his marriage certificates and divorce decrees, it seemed pretty insensitive to bring that up!  Like anything I'd have to say would make a bit of difference anyway!  People can be such idiots when they haven't gone through this.  :angry:

I too believe in afterlife and that he is at peace and happy and I will join him.  I haven't "seen" him (apparition) but I think it's great that some of you have gotten that.  Whatever signs we get, they are such a blessing!

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15 hours ago, Michelene said:

my friend sent me the link to her site http://www.refugeingrief.com/

and I bought the book for my kindle. It comforts me that I don't have to "let go." That prospect is terrifying to me. 

Sometimes I wonder what my Eric would be doing, if I had died and he was left? I have been "letting" people do things for and to me--simply because I know they need to, and sometimes I need to get out of myself and continue to connect. I wonder, would he do that? would he let people help him? would he go to a support group? what would he do? would he scream and rage, and curl up on the floor and weep? would he go throughout his day with this pit in his chest like the wind is continually knocked out of you? 

Megan Devine is great too, I've read a lot from her.  She really gets it.  And no we don't have to let go of them.  That's a bunch of BS!  We do have to adjust to the life we have now and work on making it something we can do, but that takes great time and effort and none of this happens overnight or easily.  Like Azipod expressed, we have all the time in the world, we can do this when and as we are ready.

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22 hours ago, Sunflower2 said:

@Azipod this is interesting and comforting.  I did not know this.  I mean I remember apparitions...I've never experienced them until you clarified this.  Yes...eye floaters...he seems so sad in the apparitions...well its like he's trying to return in the physical form but we both know he can't.  Or he's trying to help move forward and experience him at another level. In my practice on the mat when I'm in a deep meditative state he appears just as the experience was in the salt float.  The last salt float I experienced the visuals of my dad and grandma (both deceased for years) kneeling on each side of me doing more of a physical and mental healing energizing unblocking. ...it felt like a Native American healing ritual.  I am not native American.  These experiences are powerful.  I don't understand them but they are happening.   These moments do not remove the grief.  They are scared moments ...a unique energy being given...a connection to our love ones.  They are now our spirit guides. Our angels.  Ancestry healing in their efforts to help us calm the grief storms.  Guiding us into intergrating the grief as we intergrated the love.  This is how I have to approach this experience of a loss of this magnitude,

You are absolutely right. Even when I know my wife is around, it doesn't remove the pain.  I did come across this video the other day.  It makes sense.  I'm sure when we feel better, we can shift our thinking about be happy that our loved ones have crossed, and that they are OK and back at home.  We will all be there one day too, and will be reunited.

 

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Today I had someone tell me I needed counseling for depression. Interestingly, I am fairly well adjusted for someone dealing with grief. I ended up having a conversation about how depression and grief aren't one and the same.

It really hurt as I feel like I've been doing a good job finding a community, getting help, reaching out to people, and really building myself up. I said nothing to her but brought up that his birthday would have been tomorrow, and almost in an attempt to dismiss me, she told me I needed counseling, specifically for clinical depression. It's been two months; I grieve appropriately, I bring him up sometimes but not often and never with the same people... it just hurts to feel this alone. Will his memory die because everyone thinks his memory should be relegated to a therapist's office?

My mom also told me to put away the photo I have of me and him in my parents' living room (I moved in with them after he died). She told me to stick it in a suitcase because it would do nothing but "bring me backwards" in this process and I've made a lot of progress. I answered that I couldn't put it away because he was still a part of me and my life. My sister jumped in and said, "Well it can't be out in the living room that's for sure, this isn't your house."

...Not everyone knows how to talk to us.

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4 hours ago, lovingstill said:

Today I had someone tell me I needed counseling for depression. Interestingly, I am fairly well adjusted for someone dealing with grief. I ended up having a conversation about how depression and grief aren't one and the same.

It really hurt as I feel like I've been doing a good job finding a community, getting help, reaching out to people, and really building myself up. I said nothing to her but brought up that his birthday would have been tomorrow, and almost in an attempt to dismiss me, she told me I needed counseling, specifically for clinical depression. It's been two months; I grieve appropriately, I bring him up sometimes but not often and never with the same people... it just hurts to feel this alone. Will his memory die because everyone thinks his memory should be relegated to a therapist's office?

My mom also told me to put away the photo I have of me and him in my parents' living room (I moved in with them after he died). She told me to stick it in a suitcase because it would do nothing but "bring me backwards" in this process and I've made a lot of progress. I answered that I couldn't put it away because he was still a part of me and my life. My sister jumped in and said, "Well it can't be out in the living room that's for sure, this isn't your house."

...Not everyone knows how to talk to us.

It is amazing that the closest people in your life can be so blind to how you are currently feeling or what you are going through.  Do they honestly believe that you shouldn't be grieving still after only 2 months?  Do they think you can just snap your finger and life will just be okay as nothing had happened?  I know everyone is different and everyone handles things their own way but to just assume that you should be treated for depression cause you are still in the grieving process is just silly to me. 

The picture thing is also silly to me.  Are you just supposed to forget about him?  Is not seeing him going to make you suddenly wake up one day and everything will be just fine.  It is amazing how insensitive some people can be but then I remember that they probably have never felt this feeling that we all are currently feeling or have felt before.  I bring my girlfriend up often, should I not?  Maybe, but she was my whole life so right now life without her is impossible so I talk about her to my peers.  They are more receptive to me than what you are saying but I still feel like a leper at times cause I can tell some people just don't know what to say at all.  I say do whatever it is that make you feel right and helps you and only you.  You are not grieving for the people around you, you are trying to make yourself get through this pain and not to make it easier on them.  

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16 hours ago, lovingstill said:

Today I had someone tell me I needed counseling for depression. Interestingly, I am fairly well adjusted for someone dealing with grief. I ended up having a conversation about how depression and grief aren't one and the same.

It really hurt as I feel like I've been doing a good job finding a community, getting help, reaching out to people, and really building myself up. I said nothing to her but brought up that his birthday would have been tomorrow, and almost in an attempt to dismiss me, she told me I needed counseling, specifically for clinical depression. It's been two months; I grieve appropriately, I bring him up sometimes but not often and never with the same people... it just hurts to feel this alone. Will his memory die because everyone thinks his memory should be relegated to a therapist's office?

My mom also told me to put away the photo I have of me and him in my parents' living room (I moved in with them after he died). She told me to stick it in a suitcase because it would do nothing but "bring me backwards" in this process and I've made a lot of progress. I answered that I couldn't put it away because he was still a part of me and my life. My sister jumped in and said, "Well it can't be out in the living room that's for sure, this isn't your house."

...Not everyone knows how to talk to us.

The person is off base and would do well to not say anything at all instead of saying something inappropriate to someone so early in grief.  You are right on, dismiss what they said, let it go, in one ear, out the other.  Your mom is also off base.  I have pictures of George up and they bring me comfort.  If they won't allow pictures of him up in the living room, which seems weird to me, then put them up in your bedroom.  Honestly, I'd tell these people they are responding inappropriately to someone in grief.  I'm sorry you have to live with them.

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Azipod     The video is excellent.  I understand. I appreciate the share.  I'm not into computer tech much so this guides me to places that our helpful.  The pain though is still so fresh so raw...I know the video isn't saying with are suppose to let go quickly but I don't want to keep Wayne from experiencing the joy...yet ...im just not there yet. if that makes sense.  His soul knows yet I don't always believe people bring this on...the law of attraction.,,,hope I'm making sense.  Hard to put in witing as so many eloquently do on this site.  You provide great resources.

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22 hours ago, Sunflower2 said:

Azipod     The video is excellent.  I understand. I appreciate the share.  I'm not into computer tech much so this guides me to places that our helpful.  The pain though is still so fresh so raw...I know the video isn't saying with are suppose to let go quickly but I don't want to keep Wayne from experiencing the joy...yet ...im just not there yet. if that makes sense.  His soul knows yet I don't always believe people bring this on...the law of attraction.,,,hope I'm making sense.  Hard to put in witing as so many eloquently do on this site.  You provide great resources.

I do enjoy so much of his videos.   It is perfect in line with the spiritual beliefs.  Funny thing is that I did all my learning about the spirit realm all through other sources.  Then, I came across his videos  and then he pretty much summed up everything, easily.    I think his main job is writing books for children, hence all the cartoon and drawings from his explanations.

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On 2/3/2018 at 3:00 PM, lovingstill said:

My mom also told me to put away the photo I have of me and him in my parents' living room (I moved in with them after he died). She told me to stick it in a suitcase because it would do nothing but "bring me backwards" in this process and I've made a lot of progress. I answered that I couldn't put it away because he was still a part of me and my life. My sister jumped in and said, "Well it can't be out in the living room that's for sure, this isn't your house."

I'm sorry you had to go through that.  I have a hunch that neither your mother or your sister truly understands the pain and grief you are going through.  If only people knew.  If they did, they would be more accomodating.

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