Worse now?

[BBB]

For any of you who have this amount under their belt -

 

Was there a period of time you hit where it actually became harder? I know many people say that over time, it gets a little better....slowly. However, I'm finding myself 7-8 months in now and I'm having a tougher time of it. It's sort of like the shock/numbness element has worn off and I'm left to deal with something that I can't believe happened. Anyone that had a tougher time as time elapsed?

 

[Gail 8588]

BBB, 

We are all breaking our own new trail on our grief journey, due to our own circumstances. My path had challenges that yours won't have and yours will have challenges that I never experienced.  But for me the first 2 months were awful.  I couldn't stop crying. I hid in the dark in our closet a lot. My chest and head hurt so much I thought I would certainly die. 

Then I spent about a year and half being really busy, trying to ignore my grief. I sold our house, which involved tons of work decluttering, fixing up, painting etc. My sister-in-law and a few friends helped me immensely.  I moved twice in that year, while still working full time. (Though I must confess I was not a great employee as I couldn't think or concentrate very well.)

During that "busy" period, I went through the motions of living, but had no connection to life.  I felt nothing except for when I would fall through an emotional trap door into the abyss of my grief. Then I would feel the pain of my loss again. 

After my second move, I retired and was no longer "busy" at anything.  I was a zombie, going through the motions of life but not actually living. Everything felt pointless.  There was only numbness with intermittent waves of grief and dispair. I was losing my mind. 

I think that entire 3rd year got progressively worse for me, because I could see I wasn't getting any better. (My first grandchild was born during this time, which I knew should bring me great joy. But even with this I was numb - disconnected.)

During this time I was learning things about myself, that later helped me to better understand why I was having such a hard time doing things.  But during the end of that 3rd year, I was really at my lowest. 

Beginning my 4th year I was determined to become re-engaged in life.  I could not continue as I had been.  I was at the end of my rope. 

When the pandemic hit it felt like all my plans to change my life, - to find a life, were smashed.  But to my great surprise about halfway through 2020,  I could tell I was actually getting better. 

I am in fact much better. I still miss my hubby and I still have waves of grief that can knock me down at times. But in between I am no longer a zombie.  I feel a whole variety of emotions. I really do want to live.  These feelings are fundamentally different from my existence for the first 3 years.

Life is much harder for me alone than it was with John. And I will always love and miss him.  But I am finding a way to live again and be happy.

I don't know if this information helps you, or depresses you further.  My intention is to give you hope.

Gail

[BBB]

It's great feedback Gail though I agree that each of our journeys are going to be different. I think that in 4 years from now, I'll either be dead or much better adjusted than I am now. Right now I feel like my life is ruined. My wife was my life. In retrospect, that was not the best way to position our relationship given what happened but there is nothing I can do about that now. I feel totally lost, cannot focus or concentrate worth a spit. Speaking of bad employees, I've become just that. Doing barely enough to not get fired....for today anyhow.

 

I've taken my wife's death extremely hard. Everywhere I turn there are memories. Even if those memories aren't around, there are memories in my mind. Places that I think of going and then pausing and remembering that I'll never get to go back to those places with her. Heck, it can be as simple as going to the downtown market in May or IHOP for breakfast. I miss doing all those things. This is killing me.

 

 

[foreverhis]

Hi BBB.  Absolutely there are times along the way when my grief has suddenly become harder to bear.  I don't just mean all the special days we have to navigate, especially the first year.  I mean just when I'm thinking, "Okay, I can do this.  I can handle more and I'm figuring out how to live some semblance of a life without John."  WHAM! and here come the deep waves of pain and despair that knock me flat.  It's like my grief is a living entity over which I have little control--a spoiled brat of a child throwing tantrums out of the blue.

You're at 7-8 months, which is right in the range of time when most (who knows, maybe all) of us have a big setback.  We often talk about it as "around 6 months," but there's certainly no specific thing like a timer going off and saying, "Hello.  You're at 6 months in now.  Think you're taking little steps forward?  Guess again!"  Here are a couple of recent topics that include this:

Crashing, 5-6 months

Pain, 6 months or so

In a way, I felt worse at around 5-6 months than I did right after he died.  Many of us speculate as to why, but I'm convinced it's a combination of many things.  For me, part of it was that I was starting to really see and feel the bleak future ahead of me.  One of things that helped me through those months was reverting fully to "one day, one hour at a time."  I had to force myself (and Lord, I am a stubborn...you know what...sometimes) to stop imagining what the next 5, 10, 15 years would be like without my one essential love.  It's just too painful and frightening for me to try to picture "the rest of my life" alone. 

Even now, more than 2-1/2 years after we lost him, I try to focus on the here and now, the immediate future.  I am able to make plans for a few weeks or even a month from now.  I can see and hold onto small joys and little bits of hope that, though I know I will never be happy in the way I was before, I may just figure out how to be a little happier than I am now.  Looking back, I know I have taken steps forward, carrying my love, our life, and our memories with me.  The pain of losing him much too soon used to be all I could see and feel.  Time, a small, loving, caring circle of friends and family, and the members here help and support me as I take my grief and guilt and make it part of the whole of my life, instead of the all-encompassing, crushing weight it was for the first year or more.  That's not to say it doesn't get heavier at times.  Of course it does.  But those times do not come as often or last as long and they aren't usually as deep.

I miss John every minute of every day, but now that isn't the only thing in my heart and mind.  I no longer feel every smile or laugh is a betrayal of his love, especially when that smile or laugh is because I'm talking about him with someone who loves us/me or when I remember something wonderful or silly or even just one of the small things we often take for granted as we live day to day.  Where before all I could see were his last devastatingly painful months, now my mind's eye is able to once again remember the first time I saw him with his blue eyes twinkling and all crinkled up as he laughed at someone's joke.  I hear his voice on the phone when he asked me on our first date.  I see his loving face as he slipped my wedding ring on my finger.  It's all part of the thread of love that has never broken and never will.  Remembering that helps me get through the dark days when they inevitably come calling.

I hope it helps you to know you are not alone.  ((HUGS))

 

[BBB]

Thanks forever. This is one amazingly difficult journey. 

 

[LMR]

@BBBI am so sorry for the pain you are going through. I am in exactly the same place. It has been 5 1/2 months since my husband died and it has definitely become harder to live with. In the beginning I think there was always something in the back of my mind that said he would be coming home. My subconscious wouldn't let that go. Now I have this voice in my head that reminds me I will never see him again, never hear his voice or feel his touch. It is unbearable. I am crying even as I am writing this.
Also I think the new year has played a part, it makes me feel I have got further away from him.

[BBB]

Yes, I'm sorry that ALL of us have to suffer through this. I never realized so many of us deal with this gut wrenching part of life. It is brutal. Some days I don't want to even get up out of bed.

 

[Sparky1]

4 hours ago, LMR said:

I am crying even as I am writing this.

I am crying reading these posts. At the heartache that we are all going through, and the fact that soon it will get worse for me as some of you have said about the 6 month setback. I'm at about 3 and a half months and the last couple of weeks haven't been easy for me. The emptiness in my heart, the loneliness, just realizing that she's not here anymore, it all takes a toll and I break down easily.

[Diane R. E.]

I can also totally relate to this. Saturday it will be 4 months since my husband passed away, and I am having his memorial service at the 6 month mark. I think it will be helpful to be surrounded by my family, but worry about the aloneness afterwards.  

[KayC]

https://www.griefhealingdiscussiongroups.com/topic/1866-memories/?tab=comments#comment-11175
http://nurtureyourjourney.net/blog/2018/8/15/milestones-on-the-grief-journey

I think a lot of people thought after the first year it'd be better too but found it was very hard in the second year, perhaps letdown of expectations?

[BBB]

I don't know. As said many times here, everyone has a different journey. That said, I am finding the 6 month time period to be really difficult.

 

[LoveNeverDies]

I lost my first husband Steve in 2005,he died after an 6 month battle with brain cancer. My grief was different then, I had an 8 month old baby to raise by myself. Everything seemed like a blur, I was numb, but I also had friends and family by my side helping me out.Around the 2 year mark was when my grief softened when I came out of that dark cloud of grief and I got through somehow. On 11/27/2020 I lost my love, my soulmate, Terry. I’m not sure why, but this grief is different, it’s so raw , it’s painful ,it’s lonely, it’s an emptiness that I can’t even describe. What I’m trying to get at is every grief journey is some what different, my guess is it depends on what point it your life you’re at, your support system, and of course the person who you are grieving for. I don’t have the support that I had back in 2005, but I do have this forum and I’ll be forever grateful for the people on here  ...

[Joannecs]

I was wondering the same. My husband passed 7 months ago and for the past month or so I have been feeling much sadder, having little energy. I was thinking it had to do with the fog lifting and I see others here have had the same experience. I have been giving myself pressure to get on with it  but grief has its own timeframe and cannot be rushed.   With covid there is the additional isolation we feel due to limited social contact. I just found this site and already I have received affirmation that many of you are experiencing the same thing and I’m not going down a bad path. 

[KayC]

@Joannecs  I am glad you found your way here and hope you continue to come and read/post.  Around 6 months or so is one of the hardest times as reality has set in, people have gone back to your lives while you're left floundering with yours destroyed.  It took me years to process my grief, years more to find purpose, and years more yet to build a life I could live...and then Covid came and set me back to square one.  I really feel for anyone going through early grief/loss during these times.  No you aren't "going down a bad path," pretty much anything/everything we can feel is "normal" in grief. 

I want to share an article I wrote of the things I've found helpful over the years, in the hopes something will be of help to you either now or 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 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.

 

[Joannecs]

Thanks so muc.