Feelings of Guilt; loss to addiction

[ReneeC]

Hi, I’m brand new here. My fiance passed away last week due to an accidental overdose. I was unaware of his substance abuse issues until just prior to his death.  I found him passed out in my house and tried to revive him through cpr. I have tremendous guilt for not seeing the signs sooner and for not understanding the signs of overdose so that I could have saved him. Has anyone dealt with feelings of guilt like this? I’m also at a loss as to what to do with myself going forward. He was my life; I don’t have many close friends and I feel so empty and lost. 

[Billie Rae]

Renee,I'm sorry for your loss.
Yes,no matter how our loves passed most of us feel guilt,my husband left in January due to pancreatic cancer and at times,more so in the beginning,I thought what if I would have insisted the doctors take him off his blood thinner and do the tests sooner?Could I have made his suffering less?why wasn't I at the hospital The moment he passed?Why did I get so angry at him the year before?And even did I wish him dead?
Along with guilt came anger,at him,the doctors and the friends and family that were not there(now I realize he didn't want anyone but me).
Then there was shame that while he was sick in the end I wished his suffering over.
There are so many emotions in this sad sad journey and each one is valid.
The thing I can tell you from experience is addicts are also masters of deception,they can hide it and convince people that they are okay.Getting high is the priority so they can lie and deceive and many addicts are high functioning and can behave as if all is well.The guilt is not yours,it is on the drug that takes over,but you will feel it anyway.
Stay here with us,we understand and get the emotional roller coaster you are on.
We are a safe place to be.
As my husband was basically a hermit I also have few friends and my family is far away so this place has given me understanding,love and encouragement.
Love and one moments peace
Billie

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Grieving.com mobile app

[ReneeC]

Thank you, Billie Rae. I’m sorry for your loss and feelings of guilt as well. It must have hit really hard due to you not being there when he passed. I appreciate your kind words and am glad to have found this place to talk to others who are grieving. I do understand that even if i had been able to save him that day, its likely that it would have happened again due to the addiction. There are so many questions! Do they go away after time?

[foreverhis]

17 hours ago, ReneeC said:

I have tremendous guilt for not seeing the signs sooner and for not understanding the signs of overdose so that I could have saved him. Has anyone dealt with feelings of guilt like this?

Welcome.  Billie Rae is right that you've found a good place to be.  We are all different in our losses and grieving because it's a singlular journey, but we are all on the road together.  We all know what it is to lose our soul mates.  We have many similar feelings and experiences.  I cannot say I "know" how you feel, but I know how hard it is because I am there myself.

The answer is that yes, almost all (if not all) of us have feelings of guilt, anger, and frustration.  We feel betrayed by life, by the universe, and in some cases by God.  Some members have discussed their anger and resentment toward their lost loves, whether it makes sense or not.  Grief is not logical and it is not a straight line, no matter what society tells us.  Grief like this is the hardest thing most of us will ever have to face.  It's natural that we would feel guilt, if only because we are the survivors.

Billie Rae is also right that addicts are very good at hiding their addictions, no matter how bad things get.  One of my friends lost a partner to addiction.  None of us saw the signs.  When he died we were shocked.  Later, my friend discovered several devastating things that shocked us again.  In some cases, I think addicts may feel ashamed; in others, they may simply not want anyone to interfere or try to change them.  I'm sure there are a hundred reasons, but I've never had to face that situation from either side and can only guess . 

The bottom line is that you could not have foreseen his overdose because he must have hidden his addiction so well.  Whatever guilt there is belongs to him, not to you.  Now, I realize how easy it is for me to say that and how hard it can be to accept.  In my own grief, I'm on the same side you are.  My husband died from metastatic bladder cancer and to this day, I spend time asking myself, "Why did/didn't we...?"  "How could I not have known?"  "Why didn't I/we push the doctors harder when his symptoms changed?" "I should have insisted that my love do this-or-that." "If only I was a better person, he would not have died." and on and on.  I am not angry with him because he did nothing wrong.  But I am the one still here, so I am the one who goes around and around in my head wishing for a different outcome.  I have felt overwhelming guilt at times believing that I should have been able to save him, that I should have been a better person or a better wife, or that it should have been me.  I am trying to shift my feelings of guilt to those of regret because the logical part of me knows that I do not have the power to change the universe.

I'm a bit more than 1 year into my own grief journey and can say that I do not expect to get over it, ever.  No, I do not believe that the feelings we have now go away, but my pain and unrelenting grief have started to soften with bits of light peaking through.  It takes time and there is no easy way ahead, but time will almost certainly help you work through some of what you're feeling now.  I know it doesn't seem so now, but you will find your way forward, a little bit at a time.  After my husband died, I realized that it's true we can only take it one day, one hour, and even one minute at a time.  Feeling lost and empty is something we all understand.  You are not alone when you are here.  Finding this forum turned out to be a huge help for me because I can talk to people who "get it" and who won't give me platitudes.

Right now your grief is so new, so raw, and so shocking that I understand why it might seem as if you'll always feel this way.  You may not get answers to all your questions and you will always carry this grief with you, but in time your love and your grief will become part of you, rather than being the all-consuming pain they are now.

I urge you to come here to rant, to question, to ask for help or just a comforting word.  And I urge you to go ahead and talk to or even yell at your fiance out loud in private.  Tell him what this has done to you and your life.  Let him know how you feel and what is happening.  We can't know if he will hear you, but the important thing is that you will have allowed yourself to voice it.  Keep in mind that any anger, frustration, or guilt you feel in no way takes away from your love for him or his love for you.

We are here for you and we are listening.

[KayC]

22 hours ago, ReneeC said:

Has anyone dealt with feelings of guilt like this?

Renee, I want to welcome you here, although I wish none of us ever had need of this place...since we do, I'm glad it's here.

Guilt is common in early grief and can often continue.  It helps to see a grief counselor and learn what we can about grief.  Most of us go through all of the what ifs, guilt, I think it's an effort to find a different possible outcome, but really there is only one outcome and that is the one that happened.  Most of us did not possess the power to change what happened.

As foreverhis has said, it helps to express yourself...I talk to him, even all these years later.

I hope you will read these articles on guilt...
http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2012/12/grief-and-burden-of-guilt.html
http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2012/03/guilt-and-regret-in-grief.html

And I want to leave you with this article I wrote of the things I've found helpful, hoping something in it is of help to you now or later on down the road.

TIPS TO MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH GRIEF

There's no way to sum up how to go on in a simple easy answer, but I encourage you to read the other threads here, little by little you will learn how to make your way through this.  I do want to give you some pointers though, of some things I've learned on my journey.

• Take one day at a time.  The Bible says each day has enough trouble of it's own, I've found that to be true, so don't bite off more than you can chew.  It can be challenging enough just to tackle today.  I tell myself, I only have to get through today.  Then I get up tomorrow and do it all over again.  To think about the "rest of my life" invites anxiety.
• Don't be afraid, grief may not end but it evolves.  The intensity lessens eventually.
• Visit your doctor.  Tell them about your loss, any troubles sleeping, suicidal thoughts, anxiety attacks.  They need to know these things in order to help you through it...this is all part of grief.
• Suicidal thoughts are common in early grief.  If they're reoccurring, call a suicide hotline.  I felt that way early on, but then realized it wasn't that I wanted to die so much as I didn't want to go through what I'd have to face if I lived.  Back to taking a day at a time.  Suicide Hotline - Call 1-800-273-8255
• Give yourself permission to smile.  It is not our grief that binds us to them, but our love, and that continues still.
• Try not to isolate too much.  
• There's a balance to reach between taking time to process our grief, and avoiding it...it's good to find that balance for yourself.  We can't keep so busy as to avoid our grief, it has a way of haunting us, finding us, and demanding we pay attention to it!  Some people set aside time every day to grieve.  I didn't have to, it searched and found me!
• Self-care is extremely important, more so than ever.  That person that would have cared for you is gone, now you're it...learn to be your own best friend, your own advocate, practice self-care.  You'll need it more than ever.
• Recognize that your doctor isn't trained in grief, find a professional grief counselor that is.  We need help finding ourselves through this maze of grief, knowing where to start, etc.  They have not only the knowledge, but the resources.
• In time, consider a grief support group.  If your friends have not been through it themselves, they may not understand what you're going through, it helps to find someone somewhere who DOES "get it". 
• Be patient, give yourself time.  There's no hurry or timetable about cleaning out belongings, etc.  They can wait, you can take a year, ten years, or never deal with it.  It's okay, it's what YOU are comfortable with that matters.  
• Know that what we are comfortable with may change from time to time.  That first couple of years I put his pictures up, took them down, up, down, depending on whether it made me feel better or worse.  Finally, they were up to stay.
• Consider a pet.  Not everyone is a pet fan, but I've found that my dog helps immensely.  It's someone to love, someone to come home to, someone happy to see me, someone that gives me a purpose...I have to come home and feed him.  Besides, they're known to relieve stress.  Well maybe not in the puppy stage when they're chewing up everything, but there's older ones to adopt if you don't relish that stage.
• Make yourself get out now and then.  You may not feel interest in anything, things that interested you before seem to feel flat now.  That's normal.  Push yourself out of your comfort zone just a wee bit now and then.  Eating out alone, going to a movie alone or church alone, all of these things are hard to do at first.  You may feel you flunked at it, cried throughout, that's okay, you did it, you tried, and eventually you get a little better at it.  If I waited until I had someone to do things with I'd be stuck at home a lot.
• Keep coming here.  We've been through it and we're all going through this together.
• Look for joy in every day.  It will be hard to find at first, but in practicing this, it will change your focus so you can embrace what IS rather than merely focusing on what ISN'T.  It teaches you to live in the present and appreciate fully.  You have lost your big joy in life, and all other small joys may seem insignificant in comparison, but rather than compare what used to be to what is, learn the ability to appreciate each and every small thing that comes your way...a rainbow, a phone call from a friend, unexpected money, a stranger smiling at you, whatever the small joy, embrace it.  It's an art that takes practice and is life changing if you continue it.
• Eventually consider volunteering.  It helps us when we're outward focused, it's a win/win.

(((hugs))) Praying for you today.