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Not in pain


BBB

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I love discussions in this group because most of us have a common frame of reference. THe problem with even the closest of family members is that they aren't experiencing exactly what you are in a loss of spouse. Anyway, I'd like thoughts on this from anyone who cares to jump in. My wife had stage 4 cancer. Ultimately she went into home hospice. Basically, that's throwing in the towel and letting the cancer run its course. When cancer goes unchecked in the body it causes a great deal of pain. My job was to give pain meds, oxy, morphine, you name it to keep the pain manageable. After death, everyone says to me "At least she's not in pain anymore". While I am grateful that she is not in pain, I never wanted to see her in pain, I wanted to fix her pain, it sort of makes me feel like a heal for not jumping right on that band wagon. It's not my first thought. Yes, I am also glad that she is not in pain but my heart is now completely broken and my life shattered. When I step back, it's a battle back and forth in my head between the - be grateful she's not in pain and now I'm in all of the pain.

 

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At this stage you can't get past YOUR pain, that is natural, it's part of what this is like, to grieve.  It's kind of jumping the gun to expect you to be at the point where you're happy she's not in pain.  You can relate with your head but your heart is still screaming YOUR pain!  It takes much time to process our grief.  I am glad you have the foresight to see this and recognize that how you feel is right where you can be expected to be, whether any of them get it or not.  They should never argue with you about how you feel.  That's inappropriate and I would tell them so, that's me, maybe others can keep quiet, I'm not one to, I've learned to stick up for myself since George isn't here to do it for me.  ;)  I've had to call out a couple of my sisters more than once for inappropriate things they've said to me.  It's okay to feel how we feel.

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Funny thing Kay is that my mother is the worst offender. As a mother she doesn't like seeing my sad. Then again my Dad is still around so she's never gone through this herself. My counselor likes to quote a book that she tells me I should read - "It's ok to not be ok".

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@BBB sorry to hear of your loss.
my mum is exactly the same so it has made me feel that I have to be different around her and not show had sad I am or the pain I am in, and to look ‘normal’ whatever that is, to comfort and satisfy her. I have just bought it’s ok not to be ok, im only a few pages in but as it’s written by someone who has lost their partner, I’m finding so far that it’s really hitting the mark on how I’m really feeling, much like a lot of what we are sharing in this group. I would highly recommend it.

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21 hours ago, BBB said:

"It's ok to not be ok"

My pastor has quoted from this often!  It's a good book, I highly recommend it.

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