I'm not coping

[1050_harley]

It's messed up when the only thought you have is to drink to get rid of the pain. I won't do it because I promised someone I wouldn't but it'll end up killing me and I know people care about me so I won't just wish that I could make sense of how I feel and at least try to accept it but it seems impossible 😔

[1050_harley]

I've been drinking like every day heavy excessive drinking and I know it's ruining my body and it's also ruining my mental health it's so.. I drank so much the other night it almost landed me in a hospital bed I'm glad it didn't thought. It's really messed up to think that alcohol is always the right answer when it's really not.

[1050_harley]

Thanks 

[DMB]

2 hours ago, 1050_harley said:

I've been drinking like every day heavy excessive drinking and I know it's ruining my body and it's also ruining my mental health it's so.. I drank so much the other night it almost landed me in a hospital bed I'm glad it didn't thought. It's really messed up to think that alcohol is always the right answer when it's really not.

It is so hard.  I feel for you.  For me, if I start I can't stop sometimes til I pass out. I don't like the way it makes me feel the next day.  I do believe my health has suffered some as well.  I have a Dr appt. coming up so since I'm out of wine I am now finally committed to not drinking in hopes that my lab work will all be in within normal ranges (especially my liver).  There are many days I can have one or two and leave it alone.  With stressors around though I found that I was doing more than normal, especially when I feel the headache the next day I know I over did it.  It has just gotten tiresome to keep saying I over did it, and try to do better.  Nope, this time I'm just leaving it alone. At least during the week.  Of course last night, do you think I slept?  I might try the melatonin again.  I used to take that and I think my GI tract was having a time processing just 5 mg.  I've been better since I stopped taking it.

Please hang in there! 

[1050_harley]

Good to see you have made that all important step to just stop I'm happy for you and yeah I feel those feels I know it's so difficult to stop drinking especially when it's the drinking that seems to help but what we are not realizing is that alcohol is killing or numbing a lot more than just the pain.. I will admit I didn't drink just to numb pain I literally abused alcohol It got to a point where I started to become immune to it and hardly be effected by it now I drink straight from the bottom real strong stuff and sometimes it does nothing so I've cut down heaps but still drink excessively... Another thing alcohol did to me was made me push away my family and my close friends without even realizing it so it's a head F for sure . But I'm glad you stopped or have at least slowed down it's good to hear.... 

[Valerie Lockhart]

Dear 1050_harley,

I'm so sorry for your loss. I commend you for not turning to alcohol to cope with the pain. In order to overcome feelings of helplessness and sadness, you must be able to feel you are in control of your feelings and behavior. Alcohol may cause you to lose control. When frustration daily dominates your emotions and crushes your capacity to solve problems, it is easy to believe things are out of your hands. However, alcohol or drugs are not the answer. Having a supportive group to lean on, one can draw help from them. Don’t keep all your worries and stress bottled up inside. You will find much relief in ‘getting it off your chest.’ This forum is a great place to gain support from people who have experienced what you're going through. I've also found that although many people today do not take their relationship with God seriously, communication with the Creator—who is certainly “larger than you are”—can help you to cope with feelings of helplessness and sadness.  I have been helped with stress by pouring out my feelings to God, who hears the entreating cries and prayers of distressed ones.—2 Chron. 6:19. Remember, God is available 24/7 to listen to your prayers, and He will strengthen you and help you to cope with your loss. 

[Lost7]

I agree with Valerie 1950...harley. And I am lifting you up in prayer... I am so sorry for your pain. You are worthy and loved..hugs Loss7 

[KayC]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:29 AM, DMB said:

I am now finally committed to not drinking in hopes that my lab work will all be in within normal ranges (especially my liver).

I am sorry you are going through that...Keto is great at healing cirrhosis of the liver.  I've been able to heal mine with it, although mine was either from fat, parasites, or Rxs, but I got off the Rxs and have gotten my weight and diet under control.  I wish you well with your tests.  My friend is doing it for her cancer and the Rxs had ruined her liver so she is reversing the damage with Keto, an oncologist specialist told her to.

On 8/23/2022 at 5:39 AM, 1050_harley said:

I will admit I didn't drink just to numb pain I literally abused alcohol

And that admission is the first step so I'm proud of you!  TToday is a new day!

I also agree with Valerie's post.

 

[Ronni_W]

On 8/23/2022 at 12:48 AM, 1050_harley said:

It's messed up when the only thought you have is to drink to get rid of the pain. I won't do it because I promised someone I wouldn't but it'll end up killing me and I know people care about me so I won't just wish that I could make sense of how I feel and at least try to accept it but it seems impossible 😔

1050_harley,

Hey, mate, my friend. I know what you mean! Today - 25 August - is the date that is listed on my now-dead husband's 'Certification of Death'. I decided to go out and buy myself some alcohol. (Like you, I'm also very careful to not have too much of it in the house at any one time, I'm also trying to quit smoking {regular cigarettes}. But. Then I also gotta do what I gotta do to be able to {try to} keep myself sane in my insane 'reality of a world' that I'm currently living through, enduring and experiencing -- so, I think that we - you and I - are kind of in this same kind of hell, but also not exactly the same, but also still kind of the same. Yeah?)

Mate, in a different thread, KayC gave you, specifically, some very informative insights into diabetes, and what and how the medical profession (and staff in hospitals) are failing their diabetic patients/clients. So. Please, my friend, do not take on the blame and the burden and the failing that belongs to them and not to you!

How much it all sucks...there are no words for it. This thought or idea or imagination that we might have been able to make some kind of difference, and then our loved one might not have died and might still be here. And then, we also know that these are irrational thoughts and ideations...but they still won't leave us alone, and still haunt us. How much this sucks...there are no words for it. (But, at the same time, go back and look at what KayC said, and know that it is NOT your fault!!! You are NOT to blame!!! And, at the same time, please do know, my dear mate and friend, that it doesn't matter to me, either -- people can tell it to me all day and all night long, until they are {and I am} blue in the face, that it is not my fault and I am not to blame; they can tell me it; but it makes no matter at all. I still -- you and I still -- somehow feel that we are somehow 'responsible' and that we could somehow have made some kind of a difference, even though, at the very same time, we also do know that this isn't really true -- we ALSO do, internally know, that these thoughts and assumptions and guesses on our part are wrong; are merely delusional on our part, are a fallacy, are incorrect and not factual. We do know, deep-down, that we could NOT have made any difference at all, to the final, ultimate outcome. Yeah, mate? Not a single iota of a difference.) How much it sucks...trust me, I know how much it sucks!

Love to you 1050_harley; and strength. (I know that 'comfort' is out of the question, but only because it is out of the question for me, also.)   Ronni

[KayC]

13 hours ago, Ronni_W said:

Today - 25 August - is the date that is listed on my now-dead husband's 'Certification of Death'

(((hugs)))

[Ronni_W]

On 8/26/2022 at 8:50 AM, KayC said:

(((hugs)))

Thank you so much, KayC.

This matter of "coping" with the death of our beloved partner, I also sometimes feel, as 1050_harley said, most to the point, in his thread title, "I'm not coping" (emphasis mine).

But, of course, there is also a whole different level on which we each are, indeed, coping, only and just to different degrees at different hours on different days.     We are coping, because otherwise we'd not be here to tell our tale, nor to support, inspire and encourage each other...is why/how I also know that I am also coping, even when that feeling is very faint; or, sometimes, feels totally absent.

So, two (2) years -- twenty-four (24) months -- later, I was *finally* able to "cope" enough to move Hubby's clothes from the main bedroom into the "spare room" closet. MAJOR WIN for me...but absolutely unable to even consider it at the beginning of last week!  By which I mean to convey, for those of us whose loss is far more recent... it's okay; and you're coping; and it's perfectly fine just exactly how you're doing it. Self-compassion is also a thing. Even if -- perhaps especially if -- our remaining loved ones don't get how super-difficult and destabilizing and traumatizing our loss is, to us...for us...on us.

Love and hugs, everyone!   Ronni

[KayC]

Sometimes I feel I've found a way to not deal with a lot of it and there it stays...all the stuff in the shop I avoid and over the years the mice have made a mess.  I've killed the mice but the mess remains.  Same with my spare room closet (not mice)...I find if I shut the door on it I don't have to see the clothes I kept of his...I got rid of the preponderance of them, but have sweaters, fishing vest, etc. in there.  However, his bathrobe is in our living quarters, on the closet door, where I see it every day, and that's not likely to ever change, just as my Arlie's coat is on my chair in the family room and it's also likely to stay...like I'm going to take him for a walk.

[Ronni_W]

KayC, yes, exactly!     The link that you posted in another thread a few days ago -- which thread I cannot, right now, for the life of me find!  But it was from GriefHealingBlog, about delayed grief. And the author speaks exactly to that: Of us emotionally "putting away" stuff, and not prying, and trying to avoid thinking about or looking at it again.

It was super-helpful for me, because I decided to (try to) look. And, I decided to imagine the worst that my husband might have gone through, through his last weeks and hours on Earth. (He was by himself, so no-one will ever really know for sure, how it all went down for him; what he experienced; and was he comfortable and at peace and went in his sleep...or all of the opposites of that scenario.   But...it was is my not knowing, that is the worst for me, and that I haven't yet even wanted to think about/consider. So, I'm still working on how to even start working (aka "coping") with this not knowing.

Like you, I haven't "shut the door" on everything...some of his things are still out in the open. But also, it changes. When I can't handle to have to "cope with" some certain object or memory...it gets moved to a different part of the apartment...until the next time.

Love and hugs, KayC, and thanks. ❤️.   Ronni

[KayC]

@Ronni_W  Is this tthe one? Delayed Grief