Harder vs Easier?

[BBB]

Anyone experience this? I am coming up to the 1 year anniversary of my wife's passing. The last month or so I have found things to be harder mentally, missing her more, feel like screaming NOOOOOOOO! I thought things were supposed to get better? Do things get worse before they get better?

 

[KayC]

Every journey is unique so I don't think anyone can answer that for you.  I can say the anv. of death can be hard to get through, often the anticipation of it being worse than the actual day.  
Anniversary of a Loved One's Death
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[SDC]

I think the first death anniversary is especially brutal (I hit that mark in April). Not only does it trigger memories of when your person died and the horror of the early days of grief, it signifies a full year of miserable firsts without your person---first birthday (yours and hers), wedding anniversary, holidays, blah blah. You survived all those firsts and here you are, facing another year without her. I was relieved (for lack of a better word) to have all the firsts behind me, but then my mind shifted to unhelpful, obvious things like "This is the second June B has missed." I think the concept of doing "better" in grief is often clobbered and destroyed, but that does't mean you're stuck in the worst forever. Be kind to yourself as you face and get through this first anniversary of her death. 

[Gail 8588]

6 hours ago, BBB said:

 Do things get worse before they get better?

BBB, 

For some people yes, for some people no.  There is no particular path we all follow. 

I have known people who have moved in a straight forward path of resolving their grief.  I took the long and twisted road myself. 

I'm not sure I got worse, but I certainly didn't get better.  At 3 years I was at my lowest point, mostly because I had not gotten any better and I felt I could not endure this any longer. 

For what it is worth, you are not alone in not feeling better at the one year point.  

Gail

 

 

[chincube]

12 hours ago, BBB said:

I thought things were supposed to get better? Do things get worse before they get better?

For me it got bad, better, worse, better and then on and on.

It's a bit more than 2 years for me, in general direction it is not as horrible as 2 years ago, but there sure are bad moments. Right before both 1st and 2nd anniversary it was very bad, the 1st I kind of expected it, the 2nd paralyzed me a bit. I went back to therapy to help cope a bit, and now it's gentler.

The "getting better" part might not be as direct as you would hope, but eventually you might come to term that there are time you'd have feelings like now. However in general it probably would get less hurt over time too, a bit by a bit.

[BBB]

Well, that is true and something my therapist says " each person has their own journey ". My journey has gone from disbelief and shock to getting slightly better to getting worse again. I get angry because I find it hard to function like this and I just want to get better because I know there is nothing I can do to change what happened. Frustrating.