Feeling empty and alone

[Jessrpg]

I lost my husband 8/1.  He was in the hospital since March.( not covid 19 related) a few days before his heart stopped and due to the amount time it took to get him back he had to much brain damage and was on life support. I miss him so much. We have been married 19 years and together 24 years. I feel so empty and alone. 

[Jesse]

Im so sorry for your loss. I too lost the most important person in the world to me on July 24. She was murdered. I feel your pain and your loss.

[Tash B]

I am so sorry for your loss. Grief is one of the most difficult emotions to go through. I lost my fiancé / partner of 12 years 2 months ago and it is the hardest pill to swallow. The feeling of despair and sadness just consumes you. I am so new to this myself but one piece of advice I can give you that has been helping me is take it hour by hour not even day by day. Don’t plan anything and hour by hour just take each emotion and feeling. Be kind to yourself because this world and life is already so cruel. The feeling of loneliness is hard I am going through this right now and the longing for your partner. Sending you virtual hugs xoxo 

[jwahlquist]

11 hours ago, Jessrpg said:

I lost my husband 8/1.  He was in the hospital since March.( not covid 19 related) a few days before his heart stopped and due to the amount time it took to get him back he had to much brain damage and was on life support. I miss him so much. We have been married 19 years and together 24 years. I feel so empty and alone. 

((HUGS)) I am sorry for your loss. I think that the emptiness and loneliness are two of the worst parts of grief.   I know that one of the things I miss the most is having someone to talk to and spend time with.   I wish I could say that those two aspects get easier but even after 8 month I still feel a void. 
 

Our situations are eerily similar.   My husband of 22 years got sick, though it was suddenly and not an extended hospital stay, he coded in the ER they managed to resuscitate him after 2 minutes of CPR.   He spent 6 days in the ICU on life support before they had run enough tests to tell me he had an anoxic brain injury and would never wake up again.  I remember yelling at the neurologist and some other doctor.   I asked them why they brought him back in the ER just to make me lose him a second time.  I remember being so angry.   I hated having to make the decision to take him off of life support.   That decision was and continues to be its own kind of special torture.   
 

Coming here and “talking” to others that understand what it is like to lose a partner/spouse is helpful.   Here you don’t get asked the litany of stupid questions & comments designed to drive a grieving person crazy.   I have also found therapy to be helpful.   Just having someone to talk to that listens and understands that I am NOT ok yet is helpful.   Please know that you are not alone and that there are people here that care.  

 

 

[KayC]

There is nothing worse than losing that person you love.  I am very sorry that you too have experienced this loss, it's the hardest thing I've ever been through.

I hope you will continue to come here, it does help to express yourself and know you are heard and understood by others that get it...this is a safe place to be.

I wrote this article of the things I've found helpful over the years and am hoping you will find something helpful in it now and something perhaps later on, as this journey is ever evolving.  They're in no particular order, some might be for years down the road, some for this very moment.

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 or www.crisis textline.org or US and Canada: text 741741 UK: text 85258 | Ireland: text 50808
• 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.

[Missy1]

On 8/16/2020 at 9:18 PM, Jessrpg said:

feel so empty and alone. 

I feel that emptiness so deeply, one cannot even put into words those feelings of loneliness. It’s like he was that one person who made me feel powerful and alive for the first time in my life, now that he is gone, so has all the magic and passion for life, gone...

Not just has all that been lost but the every day luxuries of having your constant companion there. Today I was eating cherries and carelessly bit into a pit very hard, breaking a molar in half . I was scared, alone and in so much pain, I cried out for him to just comfort me, he would have kept me calm and taken care of the injury and taken care of me. This is life now these things just keep coming. Sorry to be glum, I am sharing how the road can be for some of us.

[paully59]

yea, i get that ,i try not to think about something that will bring up the loss, like i'm running from it . been 2.5 months now , defiantly not content

[Yoli]

Sometimes, well a lot of the time really, I fear that this grief will actually drive me crazy (sorry for the non PC wording).

[KayC]

17 hours ago, paully59 said:

yea, i get that ,i try not to think about something that will bring up the loss, like i'm running from it . been 2.5 months now , defiantly not content

I am very sorry for your loss, that yet another person has to experience this.  I am glad you found this place and want to welcome you here...2 1/2 months is pretty fresh.  I want to post an article I wrote of what I've found helpful over the years...hoping one of them helps you now or later on...I had no idea where to start when I first lost my husband, too young, very suddenly.

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 or www.crisis textline.org or US and Canada: text 741741 UK: text 85258 | Ireland: text 50808
• 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.

[paully59]

thanks , lots of it  i'm trying to  do , do have a pet, the dr. is retiring after having him for a  longgggg time , linda was her dr. when we started up ( 1989 )  yea it'll lessen , thanks for the info 

[paully59]

this part is rather funny -----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.

 throughout the relationship i took care of nearly everything , then the social workers repeatably told me to take care of myself  when linda got worse. always told them i was fine .

i felt that if linda was doing ok/happy that day then it was a good day ,that i could relax a bit . -------- i'm like a wolf who continually guarding over the pack. 

maybe part of the ''now '' is that i don't have that high sense of continually guarding / helping / encouraging/ ..... anymore ------- that's a bit heavy of an  adjustment !    

 

[Benjo]

Grief is a sneaky sly thing, catching me off guard.

[paully59]

i've been with it before  ( mom dad, etc, )  but with a spouse it was completely new . 

hope you have someone to go to , cleaning up the house is the hard thing , have someone to help you with that . don't know your circumstance , doesn't have to be done all right away 

but i guess if it helps then do it all at once . once winter comes for me , i'll probably get more done 

 

 

[Herguy]

the little things now become major decisions. all of life somehow is earthshaking at best and inconsequential at the same time

[Benjo]

I am attempting to pack up my home to sell, but so far all I’ve managed is to create total chaos. The hours just drift away and nothing is getting done.

[Rhonda R]

Everything that everyone describes here is totally normal. You aren’t going crazy, although it feels like it. Your life has been shattered, you are in shock and your body and mind are using every resource you have just trying to try to absorb your new reality. Grief is a serious injury and should be treated as such. We don’t expect someone who has been in a car accident to jump off the couch and start cleaning their house and get back to work after three days do we?  But that’s what the world seems to expect from us. ANYTHING you accomplish in the early stages of grief is an accomplishment. I would have bursts in the early stages. Sad for days and days and then angry. I would get a burst of energy and use it to complete what had to get done. Then, it was back to staring into space for two weeks. This went on for about two years. Yes, grief takes time and patience. Healing is so gradual at times you don’t even realize it is happening. As painful and difficult as it is, that is part of the healing process. I’m 26 months into this and still healing and trying to find my way. The big waves are coming further apart and I’m learning how to ride out the small ones. Im sorry, sorry you have joined this group but we are here for you and we understand. 

[KayC]

Pretty much anything/everything you can feel is normal in grief.  Sometimes we feel two opposing things at once, also normal.

The self-care is something you come to realize more as time goes on,few of us have the wherewithal to do it in the beginning,.  I remember getting severe edema in the beginning, stress, lack of eating & enough fluids I'm sure all contributed.  My daughter would follow me around with a glass of water.

[Gail 8588]

Benjo,

I was, and still am, terrible at sorting through stuff.  

I can start out full of resolve to declutter and dispose of unneeded items. I open a drawer and within 5 minutes, I am moving the contents into piles rather than getting rid of anything.  Two hours later, I have read every scrap of paper, I have 27 separate piles of things to move to some other location and I have only thrown away a bent bobby pin and some old grocery receipts. (I may fish that bent bobby pin out of the trash as it is useful for pushing those little reset buttons that are recessed in a tiny hole.)

It is ridiculous! Absurd!  I get nothing done.  It is like I have no critical thinking skills left.  

I shifted to simply sorting items into 2 piles. One - items I need to deal with now, like bills that need to be paid or something I need to return to its owner.  Two - items that I can sort through later, read later, photos I can look at later.

All the things that can wait until later I put in a box or bin and put today's date on it. 

Then I do my best to deal with the now stuff. 

I have a large bedroom stacked with "later" boxes.  But the rest of my house appears less cluttered and confused. 

When I was selling my house, "later" boxes and excess furniture all went into off site storage.

I am not suggesting this is a great solution. I am just letting you know that this inability to deal with all the stuff that needs to be done is a common side effect of grief.  

Be patient with yourself.

Gail

[paully59]

''It is ridiculous! Absurd!  I get nothing done.  It is like I have no critical thinking skills left. '' 

gail8588 ------ with what you said  above -------for me the stress of the passing , the 2 years or so before that when the alzheimers got worse . did you also find your memory got worse maybe because of the stress, my is , don't know if stress is still there or not. wish i could talk to my doctor  but he recently retired ----- 1 of the very very few people i had infinite trust with . 

[Gail 8588]

44 minutes ago, paully59 said:

. . .   the stress of the passing . . . . did you also find your memory got worse . . .

Paully,

When my husband was still alive and we were blissfully growing old together, we often remarked about our failing memory.  We would be watching a movie on TV and about half way through one of us would remark "I think we have seen this movie before, it's looking familiar" and the other would say "yes, I think so too. But I can't remember the ending, can you?" "Nope"  so we'd laugh and keep on watching.

My husband used to say "we can hide our own easter eggs", because one of us would put down a book, or the car keys, or something and 2 minutes later we would have no idea where we set that down. 

We joked that between the 2 of us, combined, we had 1 functioning brain.

So, I don't attribute all of my memory issues to my grief or stress.  But I definitely feel my ability to make decisions was greatly impaired due to stress/grief following my husband's death. 

Gail

[Missy1]

I understand, I cherish everything from our lives. Sometimes I just sit in the walk-in closet or his garage and touch everything, or smell his jackets and clothes. It helps me  feel connected and close to him, very comforting and calms me when I am feeling anxious or depressed. 
I don’t think I will ever toss out anything of his anytime soon, maybe never. We all have the right to deal with our grief in our way. We are so fortunate to have such kind people on this forum like @KayC and so many others too numerous to name.. 

[Gail 8588]

Missy, 

It's been 3.5 years since my husband died. I have moved twice.  I still have the clothes he was wearing the day he had his stroke hanging in my closet.  It calms me to touch those clothes.  I don't know if I will ever get rid of them.  I don't care if anyone thinks it is odd.  I feel very much like you described below. 

 Gail

8 hours ago, Missy1 said:

Sometimes I just sit in the walk-in closet or his garage and touch everything, or smell his jackets and clothes. It helps me  feel connected and close to him, very comforting and calms me when I am feeling anxious or depressed.           
    @KayC

 

[KayC]

21 hours ago, Missy1 said:

I understand, I cherish everything from our lives. Sometimes I just sit in the walk-in closet or his garage and touch everything, or smell his jackets and clothes. It helps me  feel connected and close to him, very comforting and calms me when I am feeling anxious or depressed. 
I don’t think I will ever toss out anything of his anytime soon, maybe never. We all have the right to deal with our grief in our way. We are so fortunate to have such kind people on this forum like @KayC and so many others too numerous to name.. 

I like to hold his robe when I particularly feel the need to hold him.  I even hold my late dog's coat when I feel the need.  It helps to have something personal of theirs to hold and feel that connection.

On 9/6/2020 at 7:50 AM, Gail 8588 said:

So, I don't attribute all of my memory issues to my grief or stress.  But I definitely feel my ability to make decisions was greatly impaired due to stress/grief following my husband's death. 

I can honestly say that grief hit me so hard that it definitely affected my brain!  I equate it with brain trauma, we wouldn't expect to get over a brain injury quickly, nor can we this.  It has improved somewhat over the years but never did return to pre-loss state.  I feel I was not the same employee I was before, my focus/concentration, ability to think intricately is just not on pre-death level.  I feel it did impair me to some extent.  Maybe it doesn't everyone, I can only speak for myself.

[Rhonda R]

I have to agree with what everyone here has said.  I got lost on the way to my sister's house and she has lived in the same place for 20 years.  For me, it was very stress induced.  Sad induced and just being overwhelmed with everything.  Everything felt like an effort.  My limbs felt like they weighed 20 pounds heavier each.  My memory has improved and my functioning has for sure gotten better.  Right away after he died, I could only recall recent memories.  Now that time has passed, more and more of my memories are coming back to me.  Maybe I just couldn't handle them then.  I think whatever the body does to you, it does so to protect the remaining functions you have.  The clothes my husband changed out of are still hanging exactly where they were when he left for the hospital that day.  The clothes he wore to the hospital are safely preserved in a zip lock baggie.  There is no right or wrong.