Just when I think I'm starting to be okay - WHAM!

[jmmosley53]

In 2 days it will be 6 months since my husband's death.  If anyone had asked me this morning if I was doing okay I would have said  - yes.  I do still cry most days but they are brief bouts of tears.  Then this afternoon that same 6 months that I knew about this morning suddenly slammed me in the gut and I became so over whelmed with sadness and grief I could not breath for crying.

I can not stand this lump in my throat and my chest heaving as sobs escape me.  Does it ever get any better?  6 months seems like a long time for him to be gone from me - but the pain is like yesterday.  I'm falling apart.

[Who am I now]

My husband passed three months ago.  I don't have much experience with this grief either.  I have those bouts of crying and awful sadness.  I kind of expect them now and let them come hoping that when the crying is done I may be ok for a little while.  They still happen but now I feel like it was necessary.  Somehow cleansing. They don't think they make me feel better but I am able to deal with something else for a little while, after the tears.  Never knowing when it may happen again frightened me before but now I know they will end at some point. One day at a time, I can do no more. Sometimes one moment at a time.

[Gail 8588]

Jmmosley,

I am so sorry you are suffering like this.  These waves of grief continue for quite some time, but they do become less frequent.

I referred to them as trap doors, as I often would not have an expectation of having a bad day. (You expect a bad day on a anniversary of some event. Trap doors were always unexpected, hearing a song on the radio, running into someone who didn't know my love was dead, etc)

There are still times when my grief is overwhelming, but at 3.5 years out they are much less frequent.

Hugs

Gail

[foreverhis]

I don't really know why and there are many theories about it, but the 6 month mark seems to be a setback for most of us.  It was for me. 

I was just feeling like, "Okay, I can do today.  I can go outside the house.  I can talk to more people.  Maybe I can even smile and laugh a little."  Of course I was and still do cry every day at some point.  Some days, deep sobbing bouts and other days, little trickles that come and go.  I don't cry as much as I did and the overwhelming waves of pain don't come as often.  But I felt I was making little steps forward.

Out of what seemed like nowhere, WHAM!  I felt thrown back to that first morning when I woke up alone, truly alone.  Maybe it's that the shock is wearing off (regardless of if it's sudden or from long illness, it's always a shock to our hearts and minds).  Maybe it's that the bulk of the legal "stuff" is generally resolving.  Maybe it's that people have gone back to their own lives and we see them moving forward, largely unchanged and with their partners.  Maybe it's that we start to try to stare into the future and it scares the...you know...out of us.  It's likely a combination of many things.

Regardless and I know it won't help just now, you are not alone in having a 6 month setback.  I got through it by reverting to just getting up in the morning and fumbling through the day.  After a couple of months, I started being able to retake those baby steps forward and now, more than a year after that, I'm able to see that I have moved forward, bit by bit, taking my love, my grief, and my pain with me.  But now I am better able to co-exist with it, to carry it, instead of it smothering and burying me.  I still have bad days, many of them, and I still end up in the dark pit, but not for as long and not as often.  As far as I'm concerned, that's enough for now.  I still don't look far into my future because it simply hurts too much and is still scary.  I can look into the near future more often, which is a huge victory for me.

We're here.  We get it in ways others cannot.  ((hugs))

[Yoli]

Some one told me a month or so ago that things would get worse. I thought to myself Yeah Right. How could they possibly get worse? But she was right, the pit is deeper and darker. I still try each day though, make plans for the next week, get up, shower, go to work.

[Who am I now]

Today is a beautiful fall day. My husband and I were married in Sept 46 yrs ago on a beautiful fall day.  Our anniversary just passed  3 months ago and he wasn't here.  My  sadness is overwhelming.  Your responses help me know that it will get better and I wish for that.  I try to look at the happy pictures of all the wonderful times that we spent together. I never thought that those times would stop but they did.  I'm not really sure what my future holds and some of my tears are because of that.  There  are so many more tears that will come for other reasons. Our love was deep and I didn't realize how deep until now,  when I no longer have him by my side.  I carry him in my heart and we will always be together.  

[KayC]

On 9/29/2020 at 2:04 PM, jmmosley53 said:

Does it ever get any better?  6 months seems like a long time for him to be gone

I've heard time and again that this is the hardest time so I'm not surprised, it's when support dries up and reality sets in.  People expect us to be back to our lives by then, nope, nothing is the same!

I'm sorry you're hit so hard.  Just come here and pour out your feelings and know you are heard by us.  We can relate...

Yes it gets "better" in the sense that we begin to adjust and cope better but not "better" as in "well" as life for us has changed.  At 15 years I can assure you it does not stay in the same intensity of pain but time alone does nothing to heal us, it's what we do with that time.  Do we read articles and books, get grief counseling, attend grief support groups, go through our pain, cry our tears, memorialize them?  All of these things can contribute to our processing our grief.

http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2014/08/grief-understanding-process.html