Pain

[BBB]

I know that everyone's grief experience is different, is their own, is personal but just as a poll of sorts, how long for each of you that have been dealing with the loss of a spouse for year did the intense pain last? Weeks, months, years? I know it never goes away but the intense pain where it's hard for you to think straight or even function.

 

[Yoli]

Yes, I need some perspective on this too. Some days I think I am doing ok (ish) and others right back in the pit of despair. I am pretty sure that I will NEVER reach acceptance.

[DSA]

My husband of 52 years died 2 months ago. I recently spoke to a close friend who has gone through this. I asked her when I’d feel normal again. She told me this was my new normal. I know it will get better, that I’ll have good and bad days. Right now there are few good days.  The current isolation imposed on us undoubtedly makes it harder to have the good days. What I did learn is that until you’ve walked in these shoes, it’s impossible to know what it’s really like.

[Gail 8588]

I really do think this varies greatly from person to person depending on their individual circumstances.

Having young children that need care and affection can shorten the period of intense grief for some people simply because they have to deal with the very tangible demands of the children in their care.  Some people by their own personality and character deal head on with their grief and reorganize their life.  Some people stumble into a new loving relationship with a partner. 

I didn't have any of those, and really I avoided dealing with my grief for the first 2 years by staying really busy.  Year three I was retired and had tons of time to be mired in my grief.  Then the pandemic hit and further limited my opportunity for a more healthy engagement in the world. 

I think this pandemic is making it more difficult for folks grieving a loss to find a way forward. 

But to more directly answer your question, the episodes of intense pain when I actually thought my heart would burst and I would die any minute, for me they were just in my first year.  The numb feeling where I wanted to die, saw no point in living, continued for another 2 years.  

This 4th year,  I clearly want to live, but I still miss my husband tremendously.  I think I would be doing better if we didn't have Covid-19. 

I hope this answer isn't too depressing for you.  I do think your experience will be different than mine because we all have unique situations.

Peace

Gail 

[widow2020]

It's been 8 months for me and still feel like I'm in pain more than good days.  My usual activities of volunteering, social meetings are not happening so this makes it worse.

[BBB]

Man, is there anything worse than this? Not sure if any of you saw the latest Rambo movie where Stallone literally cuts the guy open and rips his heart out but that is what this feels like. Except for us, it's every day.

 

[foreverhis]

On 9/9/2020 at 7:21 AM, BBB said:

I know it never goes away but the intense pain where it's hard for you to think straight or even function.

For me, the constant, pressing intense pain, both mental and physical, lasted about a year.  I say "about" because it was such a slow process that I didn't notice a difference until about 15 months in when I realized that the weight of my grief wasn't crushing my every waking moment.  No, I don't think it will ever go away for any of us here.  We're the ones who were lucky enough to find our one true love.  They (whoever "they" are) say the deeper the love, the deeper the grief.  That seems true for me.  I know my grief will be with me always.

Yet, I am learning to pick it up and carry it, along with all the joy and happiness, as I step forward bit by bit.  It took 2 full years before I was able to really say that I've made progress on my journey.  I can smile and laugh now without feeling it's a betrayal.  I can tell stories about our lives, about him, without breaking down or losing it all the time.  I have hope that down the road I will be able to say I'm happier than I am now.  I am definitely finding bits of happiness that I couldn't see 2 years ago, though I doubt I'll ever be happy in the same way I was before.   Even while he was fighting his cancer, when things were at their worst for us, I was happy just to have him with me and alive.

But the first year?  I couldn't think straight and didn't care.  To be honest, I'm not really sure how I made it through, how I survived grief that really did feel at times like it could kill me.  Still, I got out of bed nearly every day.  I kept breathing, washed up, got dressed, made a meal (not always healthy!), and often pretended to function, even while I also spent days just blankly sitting, staring and not taking in much at all.  I still mostly take it one day at a time, though now I can look forward into the near future and don't panic.  I can make plans for next week and can even look forward to some things a little bit down the road.  I don't stare far into the future though because that is too painful and scary for me.

I was a voracious reader my whole life, an English major with a career in technical and scientific writing who wrote poems and stuff for fun.  Though my husband was a CPA and consultant, he was a language dweeb like me.  We used to read stuff to each other.  That first year, I think I read four books total and I couldn't even tell you what they were or what they were about now.  It's a painful blur.  Now I am able to pick up a book by a favorite author, enjoy reading a few chapters, and remember what I've read (usually, but that's related to my own medical conditions).  I've read a dozen books and re-read a few others during the months of covid isolation.  Still not as many as in the past, but more than 2 years ago.

Just recently I "tested" myself while listening to a music channel.  One of the orchestral dance suites from West Side Story started playing.  We're musicians by avocation and met in the theater.  That dance suite was the first thing I played for my husband on what we knew would be his last day.  For the first 2 years, I couldn't even bear to hear the opening notes of it or anything from the show, especially the short song "One Hand, One Heart" that gave us our private vows to each other.  But now, while I teared up, I could listen and was able to bring up good memories along with the painful.

I am very fortunate to have an excellent support system, both locally (really local, as in neighbors on our block or close by who are our friends) and at a distance (family and long-time friends who are family).  It helps immensely that they try to understand and are so supportive.

Have hope that while it's different for each of us, I think almost all of us (I won't speak for everyone) find that change comes slowly over the first few years.  Bit by bit we take steps forward and don't realize it until we look back.  For me, the unrelenting pain started to diminish after a year and is noticeably better now after 2 years.  It's still hard, but not as much as in the beginning.

20 hours ago, Yoli said:

Some days I think I am doing ok (ish) and others right back in the pit of despair. I am pretty sure that I will NEVER reach acceptance.

Your ups and downs, back and forth, are completely normal, at least in my experience.  I still have them, but the dark pit isn't as deep for me and I'm not down there constantly.  When I think of my grief as a road I'm on, I see twists and turns, unexpected hills to climb, and even circles back that make me walk the same path more than once.  But I know absolutely that I am further down that road than I was in the beginning.  Your own journey will be unique to you, but it can help to remember that when you are here, you are not walking it alone.

If by acceptance you are talking about the "five stages of grief," go ahead and forget that.  That study was for terminally ill patients and looking to see if there were common phases or stages that patients experienced after receiving the news.  It was not about those of us left behind, those grieving the loss.  There are more than five stages of grief and we can go back and forth, circle around, skip over, and not even realize some of them.  I might have 20 stages of grief and someone else might have 10.  Some might be the same and others different.  What I go through in my early 60s is not going to be the same as what someone experiences who is in his or her 30s or 90s.  We have much in common, but there is no single straight path for grief where we go through set stages and come out the other side.  It simply does not work that way.

As for acceptance.  For me it means that I have come to fully accept that my soulmate is gone from this world.  I hope beyond hope that he is waiting for me in the next one, young and healthy and strong again.  Acceptance will never, never mean that I accept his death was fair, right, or just because it wasn't.

[Lars M]

My grief time has been very short but already at 8 weeks I find myself thinking more of the great times we had with out crying uncontrollably. Don't get me wrong the eyes water up but it is not gut wrenching today. 

To Foreverhis i loved that play " once a Jet always a Jet from my first cigarette to my last dying breath."   

[foreverhis]

@Lars M  Yes that is a favorite.  It is one of the quintessential musicals, especially for a trombonist like my husband.  So often, the strings, woodwinds, and high brass get most of the "fun," while the low brass sit there staring at 300 measures of rests before they get to come in for the final flourishes.  Shows like West Side Story are heavy with low brass start to finish.  He was also a music director and conductor.  He filled in conducting it once and loved it.  Actually, he was one of my two favorite conductors ever.  He was just excellent as an instrumentalist and as a conductor.  The only "hard" thing for me was that we made a pact early on.  If he was music director and conductor, I would not audition for a main lead.  We didn't want any resentment of favoritism from others and we decided we didn't want to bring home the inherent conflicts between director and actor.  The upside of that was that I always knew I'd be cast in the ensemble and with a small role, maybe a little solo here and there.  That made auditioning for his shows less stressful.  Plus, I got to sit in when the production team had their casting meetings--as long as I sat quietly with my mouth shut.  It was fascinating.

The lyric we took from "One Hand, One Heart" was from the end of it: "One hand, one heart.  Even death won't part us now."  I live with the hope that we can keep that vow.

[Lars M]

Wow it sounds like you two hand such an exciting life what wonderful story's you must have. Move forward with him in your heart. .   

[foreverhis]

1 hour ago, Lars M said:

Wow it sounds like you two hand such an exciting life what wonderful story's you must have. Move forward with him in your heart. .   

I don't know that we had an exciting life, but we did have a full one together.  It was an adventure, that's for sure.  Early on, he bought me a hat so that he could say, "Get your hat.  We're going for an adventure."  That could be anything from just winding our way through back roads for a while and then having a picnic to driving to the city (San Francisco) to go to the park to have tea and cookies at the Japanese garden and visit one of the museums or the science center (we had an overall membership back when that was affordable for the average person).  We had many challenges and many joys.  He is in my heart and soul forever.

I'll tell a little story that kind of captures his impish spirit.  His last few weeks in the hospital, things were dire and we had less and less hope.  But he kept fighting, trying to get to the next treatment.  (In truth, I wish I'd asked him sooner, "Honey, do you want to go home instead?")  Because his cancer had spread, he had two little lesions on his spine, so the doctors prescribed topical patches there. 

One day he was overly fatigued and in pain from trying to do his physical therapy.  It was time to change the patch so his nurses (who were wonderful) said it was okay for him to not sit up again, he could just roll to one side and they'd take care of him that way.  I was standing on the other side of the bed and as he started to roll over, I put out my hands and said, "Hold on to me, love.  Just hold on to me."  I was wearing a scoop neck top that was one of his favorites.  With one hand, he grabbed my hand and with the other he reached into my shirt and grabbed...something else.  Even through his pain and fear, he had on his little "heh-heh-heh" grin with his eyes twinkling.

His nurses busted up laughing and I smiled and said, "Well, I told him to hold on to me."  Then I looked at him and said, "You're still here, aren't you?"  He smiled and I smiled with tears in the back of my eyes realizing that through everything my sweet, silly love was still there.

He was special.  All our loves were special.

[Lars M]

That is a wonderful story that sounds like something I would do. We could not keep our hands off of each other even when we got a little older the spark was always there. Thanks for sharing. 

[foreverhis]

4 hours ago, Lars M said:

That is a wonderful story that sounds like something I would do. We could not keep our hands off of each other even when we got a little older the spark was always there. Thanks for sharing. 

Isn't that amazing that the spark remains?  Sometimes I couldn't believe he'd still find me so desirable as time, life, and my own health issues took their toll.  But he did.  And then I consider that I always found him attractive too, regardless of wrinkles, grey hair, and gravity.  He was mine and I was his, and that was everything.

[widower2]

The good news is that it does get easier. The bad news is it takes so damn long. And as others have stated it varies a lot, depending on a lot of things, so it's understandable but pointless to look for even a ballpark timeline or compare yourselves to others. A support system is huge. I had virtually none, so I think that among other things prolonged my being "stuck." It can really help ease your transition I think. It's important to try and stay active too, either physically and/or mentally...harder thanks to covid of course but still feasible. Even if it's something as simple as watching a movie or reading a book, the point is to have your mind focus elsewhere. Give yourself a break from the grind that is that damned grief. You deserve it and what's more you need it. 

[BBB]

Man the pain is just unbearable some days. I mean it literally and physically hurts beyond emotionally

[KayC]

The first year was intense but it's by no means ever over and many think the second year is harder, so it's very individual.