Death Darkness....

[Missy1]

I am 11 months in, lost my husband and soulmate of  almost 30 years together in marriage  ...I can’t stop thinking about death, where is he, is he okay? I sometimes I focus on on where his spirit is now. I long  to be with him, my heart and soul can only be whole with him in my life.

We were one in life, now I am drifting and cannot go forward and my life before him was bleak.God help me, I feel stuck in time,
I lost my lust for life,  I see pictures of myself a year ago and I don’t recognize that person. Who am I now....

I struggle to write here sometimes because I don’t feel better and don’t feel like I can help others some days 

[SharedLife]

Missy, I'm sorry you feel such grief.  I'm not religious but I've found myself hoping there is a heaven -- because if there is, I know that's where she is.  I sometimes talk to her.  I have said I want to join my wife. I'm alone now and never anticipated how empty the world could feel.  But I'm hedging my bets. Some say it gets better with time.  Maybe if I can stick it out, it will get better.  I'm going to try to schedule an appointment with a grief counselor this week to see if that will help.  I've also done a web search for grief recovery groups and found two churches that have such groups. I'd encourage you to check into counseling or a support group. It may help.

[Gail 8588]

Missy, 

Sadly, I was in that position for quite a long time.  One thing I have really come to believe is that he is still with you and he does not want you to be suffering so. 

Everyone's journey is different based on so many factors in their life.  I was very dependent on my husband in many ways, which I feel contributed to why my dispair went on for so long. 

For me at about three years, I felt I had to somehow re-engage in life.  I could not continue to be in such agony day and night.  I had to find a life of my own and stop longing for the past. 

So just as I resolved to become more engaged in life, the pandemic hit, totally messing up my meager plans.  But oddly, even though I have not been able to do the things I had hoped would pull me out of my depression,  I gradually came out of my depression anyway.  I think I was just finally ready to rejoin the living. 

During my 3 years of despair, I did work through a lot of stuff, such as eventually giving up my guilt for not saving him, shoring up my new single financial situation, getting control over my fear of vulnerability to illness, accident or assault,  understanding, for the first time, how incredibly dependent I was on him for helping me with daily living skills.  Looking back on it now, in some ways those 3 years of dispair were an incredible period of growth for me.  I would have much preferred to have continued living in the ignorant bliss of my happy marriage and never learned all these hard lessons about myself. But alas, that was not an option.

I ramble on too long here. My point is, in my experience,  there will come a time when your mind will choose to accept and figure out this new existence, because remaining in a state of dispair becomes too intolerable.

I don't know any way to hurry that process along.  I think we each have to work it out for ourselves. Just know that you will eventually find your way out of this dark abyss of dispair.

Gail

[foreverhis]

5 hours ago, Missy1 said:

I see pictures of myself a year ago and I don’t recognize that person. Who am I now....

I struggle to write here sometimes because I don’t feel better and don’t feel like I can help others some days 

Hi Missy.  I too feel like I aged a decade in my first year.  Admittedly, I am in my early 60s, so my body and face are changing faster, but I barely recognized that sad, drawn, overweight, old woman in the mirror.  I considered being able to get up, do my physical therapy (it helps delay my auto-immune progression), take a shower, and put on clean clothes to be a big win for a pretty long time. 

I'm not sure how to say this because I don't want you to feel any more hopeless than you do, but here goes.  You're still in your first year, which I've learned is early in our painful journey.  As well, you survived a terrible shock in the way your beloved died.  I can't imagine how much harder that makes every day for you, just waking up and keeping breathing.  And, if I'm remembering correctly, you are alone and rather isolated on top of it.  My gosh, I'd be shocked if you weren't still struggling just to get out of bed in the morning. 

A little bit of hope for you, maybe, is that around 14-16 months I started to realize that I had moments, even hours, on many days when I was able to see those bits of light.  Not just see them, but start to grasp them now and then.  I can't say when or how that might happen for you as we're all so different.  But I am asking, pleading with you to not give up.  Our daughter was talking about the story of Pandora's Box the other day, I don't really remember why.  I had to remind her that when all the ills of the world had been released, there was still one thing left:  Hope.  Right now, my hope is that you will remember that.

I urge you to come here and talk when you can.  Let me emphasize:  Please do not think you should only be here if you can help others.  In the first couple of years especially, we need help and have little strength or ability to help others.  We should not feel guilty about it.  My heart hurts for you, as it does for all of us.  None of us deserve this pain and grief.  I needed and still need the help, comfort, and kindness of the members here.  We're here for you in whatever ways we can be.  All I can really offer you is a big, warm virtual ((HUG))

[KayC]

11 hours ago, Missy1 said:

where is he, is he okay?

I have literally wailed at George, "Where ARE you!"  I believe in afterlife and that we'll meet again in heaven, so I am glad for that hope/faith.  But it's hard for our minds to conceive to someplace we haven't seen or comprehend anything eternal when all we've ever known is temporal.  Some things are beyond us to comprehend.  But I go on my trust & faith.  I do believe he exists and is more than okay.  The Bible says there will be no more tears, no more pain, and I believe their suffering ended with their physical bodies, that they get a new body, one that is more perfect and lasts eternally.  It is us here who are left suffering in their absence.  It seems to go on and on.  We begin to have less triggers, waves, tears, we adjust to some extent, but never does our love and missing them end, that we live with for the rest of our lives.  I think it becomes more bearable with time and processing our grief, coming to understand grief, but I still have those times, esp. when things are really rough (this whole damned year!) and I really need him here.

[KayC]

10 hours ago, SharedLife said:

I'm going to try to schedule an appointment with a grief counselor this week to see if that will help.

I am so glad!  Let us know how it goes, okay?  Don't expect miracles as it takes time and many sessions, but if you feel after a few sessions it's not helping, be candid with your counselor and find another one.  My first one was horrid, he was anything BUT a grief counselor!  He should have stuck to drug & alcohol counseling, that was something he knew about.  I was very fortunate to have found a site with a grief counselor and I have learned SO MUCH from her over the years!  She is my mentor and friend now and I owe her my life!

I've led grief support groups and loved doing it, miss it with the pandemic, can't wait to start back up again.  Some are doing by zoom, but I don't have that capability here in the mountains, internet is poor, data allowance is very limited.

I want to say, too, that I LOVE your profile picture!  It shows/tells a lot about your relationship with each other!

[KayC]

9 hours ago, Gail 8588 said:

So just as I resolved to become more engaged in life, the pandemic hit, totally messing up my meager plans.

It took me years to process my grief (about three?), more years yet to find purpose...the realization that I want/need to be here for others going through this, and more years yet to build a life I could live.  All of our friends disappeared immediately after he died, my two besties even before his funeral!  I made a new friend, we were very close, closer than anyone I've ever had in a friend (other than George, of course), but she moved away ten years later.  No one else has come even close to it but I have made some friends and had some activities in my life that made it livable...and then came the pandemic and took me back to square one with that.  Looks like it could be another year of this before it turns around.  But I hold on for the day when our lives can be rebuilt/resume.

6 hours ago, foreverhis said:

Let me emphasize:  Please do not think you should only be here if you can help others.  In the first couple of years especially, we need help and have little strength or ability to help others.  We should not feel guilty about it.  My heart hurts for you, as it does for all of us.  None of us deserve this pain and grief.

Amen to all of this!

Missy, every time you come here I feel I've run into a friend again.  We love you and want to support you in this, the hardest journey of your life.

[SharedLife]

14 hours ago, KayC said:

I want to say, too, that I LOVE your profile picture!  It shows/tells a lot about your relationship with each other!

Thanks. We were dancing at my daughter's wedding reception. Opposites attract, they say. She loved to dance, I can barely dance. She loved gatherings like receptions (extrovert); I'm an introvert. She was the yin to my yang (well, she was the yang--bright and positive). We went through much joy, disappointment, and difficulty together but she always was at my side, always supportive, always positive. 

She was a nurse and her patients and fellow nurses loved her for her caring, attentive, professional nature.   I couldn't begin to count the number of times she brought home thank-you cards, chocolates or flowers--gifts from patients and co-workers.  About a month before she passed away, she apologized to me for all the care she required (she called me her "nurse in training").  I was able to tell her that her apology was nonsense -- that she was the most precious thing in my world...and she was.  She loved life, loved people, and everybody loved her. That's what I had inscribed on her grave marker: "Those who knew her loved her".

I also often told her a Jack Nicholsen line from the movie "As Good As It Gets":
"You make me want to be a better man."

One illustrative incident that occurred when she was a nurse at a hospital: A family from a neighboring state brought their young daughter (10 or 11 years old) to the hospital for same-day surgery.  The surgeon who operated made a mistake and was going to have to operate again the next day.  Nobody told the family that the doc screwed up. They had planned for the surgery to be completed and drive home the same day.  They couldn't afford a motel room and were going to sleep in their car.  My wife hunted down a hospital administrator and the administrator agreed to provide the parents a hotel room at hospital expense.  My wife told them about the hotel room but did not tell them how it was arranged.  That's who she was...caring, concerned, compassionate.  And I'll always love her more than anything.

[KayC]

Those who knew her were fortunate indeed!  The world lost a lovely person, I can't imagine how great is your loss.

My husband was the most caring person I ever met.  He cared for down and out-ers.  He'd give them rides, a job to do, a meal, etc.  After he died I found a list in his wallet of things he wanted to buy for others, on the list was a tent for a homeless guy...he'd bought the tent, I found it in his trunk.  I went out and searched for the guy (who I'd spotted at his funeral) but never found him, so gave the tent away.  He was always thinking of others.

[LoveNeverDies]

On 12/13/2020 at 10:29 PM, Missy1 said:

 

I struggle to write here sometimes because I don’t feel better and don’t feel like I can help others some days 

Missy, 

Please come here and write , scream , cry whatever you need to do. I find that coming here and writing about everything that is happening is helpful .Never feel alone , We’re all in this boat together .