Fear and anxiety

[cowsaregreat]

Please tell me the fear will subside...it's been 6 weeks and I'm not coping. Others seem to be but I'm not. Emotional outbursts and panic, constantly. Weird sensations in my chest, pains in my chest. But mostly fear. About everything. I don't know how I'm going to get through this. I feel like I'm going crazy.

My situation is complicated. He was abusive but very mentally unstable. 3 weeks after I left, he accidentally passed. Of course, I'm blaming myself. The therapy tells me not to but my emotions are in control right now. I actually feel like the therapy is making me worse. Retraumatising me. But apparently it's all part of accepting it. I know I forget to breathe. I feel so alone and sick and scared. Please tell me it gets better.

[DWS]

1 hour ago, behindthedunes said:

I actually feel like the therapy is making me worse. Retraumatising me. But apparently it's all part of accepting it.

I imagine your therapist's goal is to help pinpoint your fears because that's really what is needed. Seeing the end of our loving companion's lives will make all of us question everything and that can cause worry and fear. I had to keep the lights on in that first week after my partner's passing. I was scared...not sure what of but I was scared of a world...a universe...that took his life so quickly without any warning. I was scared for myself. What did I do? Why did this happen to me? I've always been a good person so why take this one slice of happiness from me??

I'm not quite sure what eventually calmed me. I remember finally turning off the lights to sleep a week later. I did it slowly...a couple lights still stayed on. Then only one. I think it was my determination for control again. My fear turned to sorrow and grief which is what I needed to deal with his absence. I think trying to understand your fears right now...to narrow it down...may make things easier to cope. Not everything is to be feared. There is good in the world. There is good within you.  

Many years ago, I came across the book "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie. She discovered a self-healing set of four questions that she calls "the work" and it can be helpful in conquering fears (although I wouldn't recommend it for grief and loss because I'll be damned if I'll ever love what happened). You write down a specific thought (or fear) and then ask the questions:

Q1: Is it true?

Q2: Can you absolutely know it's true?

Q3: How do you react...what happens...when you believe that thought?

Q4: Who would you be without the thought?

It's always the second question that helps me. Is what you're thinking absolutely true? It's like narrowing it down in a court case and making sure there isn't some other explanation. I love the question "who would you be without the thought". 

 

[cowsaregreat]

Thank you for that 🙏 I'm still sleeping with the lamp on 6 weeks later. I have intense emotional outbursts where I can't make sense of it and I can't handle it (hence my post last night). I'm trying to ride the wave, as they say. My fear is the simply the fact that he's gone. Forever. So I'm experiencing my own fear of mortality too. The finality of it scares me. All of it. My whole situation and experience. The trauma from the abuse too. Feeling guilty because I'm complaining about my trauma when he's the one who's gone. My brain is obviously in overload. It's overwhelming.

Thank you for your kindness and suggestions. Your support means a lot right now ❤️

[Robert D.]

Behindthedunes

I'm very sorry about all that you are going through. All of it is what, to some degree or another, we are all experiencing in here. The fear...the lights...the finality of it all...the emotions being all over the place....you are not alone....all of this is what we are all going through with you. I can say, in answer to your question...will it end etc.....I am now coming up on 4 months...and...as I call it...the big elephant in the room...the elephant we all have now. I.e., what.all of us in here have lost who have lost our beloved loved one...

.....that elephant (of sorrow, grief, fear, etc..) is not leaving our rooms....but....but....we are all learning to 'manage' living in the room with him ...living our lives, day at a time, and learning little by little at a time how to live with our new reality....those waves (the elephant in the room) that rise up on their own and make us sad and afraid etc. I am learning...truly...as hard and dark as those waves are ...and can be...that we can...will...learn to go on, move on by degrees, and stop being afraid. We will learn to manage our new reality....a little at a time...a day at a time....and learning along the way to accept what we need to accept, be thankful and grateful for what we need to be thankful and grateful for....and smile that we still have, as long as we are here, something that is truly precious....life itself.

God bless!! Praying for you!!

Robert

 

[KayC]

22 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

The therapy tells me not to but my emotions are in control right now.

Just remember, feelings are NOT "facts!"  And it's natural therapy/counseling can stir up the feelings so you can deal with them, otherwise you bury them in pretense and never get anywhere.  I knew of someone from my other grief site whose fiance died and he buried it for 20 years...when suddenly it all came with full force long after he married and had kids!  We can't outrun grief.

Early grief is really tough.  Grief doesn't leave us but it does evolve in time, but time alone does nothing, it's what we do with it.  It helps to get professional help, go to grief support, read books on grief and articles, videos, come here to read and post...it all helps.  I remember driving out in the woods and screaming at the top of my lungs!  I'm sure I scared away the bear and cougar!  (No one would dare approach with that formidable scream!).  Walking helped, being in nature.  Everyone else's life moves on...everyone but your own.  We lose our identity when they die and have to re-create one or rediscover ourselves, just us, alone...that's tough, it took me years.  But running from grief, that doesn't work.  Neither does trying to "replace them."  That can't be done either.  Oh God, I went through the gamut of emotions!  My heart goes out to you...

[cowsaregreat]

Thank you 🙏 I'm having another hard day. Fear, anxiety, sadness. I don't know how to get through this. Or live with it. It's all too overwhelming.

[DWS]

10 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

My fear is the simply the fact that he's gone. Forever. So I'm experiencing my own fear of mortality too. The finality of it scares me. All of it. My whole situation and experience. The trauma from the abuse too. Feeling guilty because I'm complaining about my trauma when he's the one who's gone.

The finality is scary...and a curiousity as well. I find it to be a mystery...how can they truly be gone? They were such a large, important, everyday presence in our lives. How is it they are now absent? The important, brazen dynamic that their presence played in our lives is central to our identity and that's something that nothing and no one can ever take away from us. I think I also have felt some guilt for being distraught about being left alone. I don't want to be without him and sitting alone on Saturday evenings....but it's love that is making us pine for their presence and that's nothing to feel guilty about. 

[ThirdG]

Behindthedunes.

I think abusive relationships leave behind a knot. I’ve realized that with my still-living father, although he‘s in his nineties and lives far away. I’m one of nine siblings, and seven of us have arranged to call him on rotating days. When I was growing up, he was unpredictably violent. In a kind of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde situation, he was either a loving, caring man, a good teacher and a good provider for the family. Or he was snarling, violent and terrifying. Indeed when I think of the word “terror,” I think of him; insulting denigrating words accusing me of subterfuge and lies. In the midst of this, he’d sometimes grit his teeth and grab me by the collar, shaking me violently (and I was quite young) or he’d start to slap or hit me all over. In his worst moments it would be with a stick. I mistook all of this for “love” and would feel intense guilt that I couldn’t live up to whatever his ideals were. Finally one day, he charged at me and I threw an empty glass at him, hitting him in the eyebrow. He went down on his knees, which I found quite scary. But he hadn’t really been hurt much. He got back up and punched me a few times. However, he never did it again. Thus the physical abuse stopped, but the mental abuse didn’t. Even now, he’ll try to start arguments — I do my best to deflect with humor.

As it turned out, both Amanda and I had one abusive parent and one distant parent, kind of mirror images of each other. In her case it was her mother. What we gradually learned was that because of this “model of love,” we’d sometimes goad each other into fights. Since her unexpected death (which I talk about elsewhere), I’ve wept for her but I’ve never been afraid of the dark. I’ve slowly started to change the condo around, but a few weeks ago somebody told me, “It’s as though she still lives here.” That surprised me. I felt security in having her possessions around, yet at the same time they vividly reminded me that she wasn’t here. When I hear that you like to keep the lights on, it sounds a bit like me, but with a twist. I hear very clearly that you miss him, but at the same time your memory of him is also of fear, and — much as you miss him — you want to protect yourself. I would too. 

[cowsaregreat]

" I hear very clearly that you miss him, but at the same time your memory of him is also of fear, and — much as you miss him — you want to protect yourself. I would too."

Exactly.  Thank you for putting that into words. It's interesting you said that, he used to say that fear isnt love, because I told him I was scared of him. But I did love him, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed so long and tried in vain to work things out (i.e fix him). In the end, he self destructed but I'm blaming myself. It's complicated grief and it's painful beyond words. The other day I thought 'there's nothing to fear now' because he's gone. But the fact that he's gone is the fear now. So it feels like I'll never escape it.

Thank you for sharing your story and for giving me a new insight. That last sentence was very powerful 🙏

[Ronni_W]

2 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

[...], he used to say that fear isnt love, because I told him I was scared of him. But I did love him, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed so long [...]

Dear behindthedunes, loving yourself and/or loving the other people you love and care about is equally important, significant and meaningful on this planet. That is, for me, I can indeed fear for my own (emotional and/or physical and/or spiritual) safety and well-being while at the same time fearing the next person's goodwill and good/positive intentions towards me, and their mental stability. (If they don't have mental stability, they can be a real threat.)

For me, it's not necessarily true or accurate to say, as just a blanket statement, that "fear isn't love". We most certainly can also fear the things that we feel-perceive threaten or jeopardize or put at risk our own Self on Earth, or any other people or things that we love, or need for our own survival on Earth. (Like, we can fear a volcano's or a typhoon's impact, but doesn't mean that we don't also love Nature, and it's sunshine and life-giving rains.)

The seeming inherent oxymorons and contradictions that this life seems to want to force us to confront, contemplate, consider...these things are precisely what makes it all so difficult (at least, for me).

Just because we did love them, doesn't mean that it was always easy or the most constructive thing for us to do, or in our own highest/best interest to do. Also though, doesn't mean that we did not love them. Because, yeah...we also did love them, even with all of their own faults and failings and mistakes that they made. It's all very 'oxymoronic' and contradictory and confusing; this whole life is; at least, it is for me, at this point.

[ThirdG]

3 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

So it feels like I'll never escape it.

Behindthedunes, Again, I see myself in what you say. For the last four years, I was Amanda’s primary caregiver, seldom going out or wanting to. She suffered from deteriorating coordination that eventually left her bedridden. Her mind remained clear and with occasional help from a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant), I was exactly where I wanted to be. But things wouldn’t stay that way. I was hospitalized with a broken femur caused by a cancer called Multiple Myeloma. As cancers go it is not as dangerous as lung cancer or pancreatic cancer. However, it would result in three surgeries and and stays in hospitals that kept Amanda and I involuntarily separated for six months. During that time she was cared for in a respite center, but started to deteriorate faster. Soon enough she started suffering panic attacks and convulsions. And whenever we talked she asked when we would be reunited. The doctors told me I just didn’t have the strength to take care of her. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was tell her this. Finally it seemed the ordeal was over. I finally got to see my beautiful love again. We hugged and kissed — even tickled —- like two teenagers. I still wasn’t quite strong enough but that day made me feel so good that I knew it wouldn’t be long. I walked on air. Two days later I got a phone call. She was having another seizure. Then in a second phone call, a doctor told me she’d just died.

I’ve gone through many emotions since then, but the one that’s troubled me the most is guilt. What could I have done or said that would have prevented all of this from happening? What was my responsibility in her death? Would I ever escape my guilt? What would I do now? I’ve since learned that feeling guilty like that does nobody any good. I can’t bring her back. I can hurt myself or others with the guilt. Worst of all, feeling guilty makes me think I had a power over the situation I never really had. There was no way that I could have anticipated what actually happened. I would learn that guilt is a common symptom in unexpected death. I’m neither the first and certainly not the last person to experience it. Instead I must learn to get on with my own life, the thing that I have the most control over. I think now that both Amanda and physically I reached the limit of what we could do together. Neither of us anticipated what would happen to me, and thus couldn’t anticipate what would happen to her. I still miss Amanda and part of me always will, but guilt must not go on causing anybody more hurt, especially when it won’t change anything. We are not perfect beings and death is out biggest reminder of this.

We get into all kinds of relationships, and we don’t always realize why. I don’t think we need to hold that against ourselves. Better yet, it shouldn’t prevent us from learning and maybe doing things differently when there’s a next time. We’ve suffered big adversities, and I think it will make us all more careful drivers.

I hope you have a good week.

[Ronni_W]

13 hours ago, KayC said:

Just remember, feelings are NOT "facts!"  [...]

Is that not just a different way of devaluing (or suggesting or asking us to devalue) our own personal-individual feelings or felt-sensed reality, though?

By which I do not mean that it is not actually a fact that "feelings are not facts". They are, indeed, not. But is there a kinder, more compassionate, more empathetic way to say it to people in trauma and grief and confusion, that they need to, or would do well to, go further into their own feelings/emotions?     Is always going to be my point.

[KayC]

23 hours ago, DWS said:

how can they truly be gone? They were such a large, important, everyday presence in our lives. How is it they are now absent?

Oh my gosh, I asked these same exact questions when earlier in grief!  Never got any answers but I asked.  It's a mystery to me how they can be such an integral part of our lives and then just not!

 

16 hours ago, ThirdG said:

Thus the physical abuse stopped, but the mental abuse didn’t.

I went through this with my mom.  She was controlling and tried her level best even when we were grown.  I think I was in my 40s when I finally got help.  These books helped me tremendously and I bought them for my sisters as well!
Emotional Blackmail
Toxic Parents
Adult Children of Alcoholics (dad)
Boundaries

I think they can all be found on Amazon.
I never realized how much my dad had affected me as well, we try to find one "good parent" esp.. if we have a horrid one.  But in actuality if you have a horribly abusive parent, the other parent has also let you down by mirroring escapism or lack of standing up to the other, let alone coming in your defense.  My husband George went through this as well.  The TRUTH is they both let us down!  As adults we have the power and prerogative to find our inner truth and strength on how to best handle them.  I finally did.  I remember when my kids were young and we went to a restaurant and my mom interfered with my disciplining my children...including the kids I babysat for.  I gently but firmly told her that she would not have appreciated that had her mom done it to her, and she got furious and left.  She didn't speak to me for a year.  I was dead to her.  It was a quiet year.   What I'd done is set a boundary and let HER own her consequence.  It worked.

15 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

he self destructed but I'm blaming myself.

Are you hearing yourself clearly?  HE self-destructed, and YOU blame yourself!  But it's not your blame to carry.  Be your own best friend, come to your defense, treat yourself kindly and with patience, understanding, caring, listening.  

Have you heard the saying "You have to create your own closure," well the same truth applies in abusive relationships, maybe not closure but outcome.  YOU are in charge of how you take this from now on, rather than letting it haunt you, be the person you want to be, including your reactions.  Does that make sense?  Like with my mom, when I grew up and matured, as I began to learn how she/her life affected me, and also the fact I married two men rather reminding me of her only I wasn't conscious of it at the time, I had the power to decide how I would handle it going forward.  Even though he is now dead and you miss him, you have the power within you to be/do/respond however YOU choose!  sending you many thoughts and caring your way.

[KayC]

Have you hear the saying "You have to create your own closure," well the same truth applies in abusive relationships, maybe not closure but outcome.  YOU are in charge of how you take this from now on, rather than letting it haunt you, be the person you want to be, including your reactions.  Does that make sense?  Like with my mom, when I grew up and matured, as I began to learn how she/her life affected me, and also the fact I married two men rather reminding me of her only I wasn't conscious of it at the time, I had the power to decide how I would handle it going forward.  Even though he is now dead and you miss him, you have the power within you to be/do/respond however YOU choose!  sending you many thoughts and caring your way.

[cowsaregreat]

On 12/5/2022 at 11:19 PM, KayC said:

Are you hearing yourself clearly?  HE self-destructed, and YOU blame yourself!  But it's not your blame to carry.  Be your own best friend, come to your defense, treat yourself kindly and with patience, understanding, caring, listening.  

Have you heard the saying "You have to create your own closure," well the same truth applies in abusive relationships, maybe not closure but outcome.  YOU are in charge of how you take this from now on, rather than letting it haunt you, be the person you want to be, including your reactions.  Does that make sense?  Like with my mom, when I grew up and matured, as I began to learn how she/her life affected me, and also the fact I married two men rather reminding me of her only I wasn't conscious of it at the time, I had the power to decide how I would handle it going forward.  Even though he is now dead and you miss him, you have the power within you to be/do/respond however YOU choose!  sending you many thoughts and caring your way.

Thank you for this. It's what I needed to hear and I've saved it to reread. I can't control what anyone does. I know blaming myself is a natural reaction but I can't live like that. I've never treated myself like a friend. Never. And the things I'm saying to myself now...I'd never say to anyone else. I have to remember what is and isn't in my control.

I've just had a mole removed for biopsy and it's suspected melanoma. I'm a mess, I'm anxious waiting for the results. On top of my anxiety and fear from it all recently.

I'm really not coping and I'm thankful that I have this forum and such kind people who genuinely care ❤️

[Ronni_W]

11 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

[...]   I've just had a mole removed for biopsy and it's suspected melanoma. I'm a mess, I'm anxious waiting for the results. [...]

behindthedunes, sending all Cosmic-Universal for the very best outcomes. We/I do care how it turns out, so, if you're up to it when you get the results, please let me/us know.

Yes, there is a part of "I create my own closure", (or, "I create my own happiness") that is true, or can potentially maybe be true...but, at the same time, these physical-earthly words can also make it sound so easy and simple and uncomplicated that...well, when we can't do it quite so easily or quite so immediately, then we can just end up feeling like a "failure" (again), and as if we can't do something that comes "easily, normally and naturally" to others.

For sure for sure we have absolutely no control over what other people think or do or say, or how they interpret what we think or do or say. But also for sure, at least for me, while they tried to teach me trigonometry, they never even tried to teach me how to be my own best friend. We, some of us, need to learn how to be our own best friend, and it's okay to take our time doing that, and not just give up after all of our first attempts, while we're still figuring it all out; or doing our best to try to figure it all out. It's like trig...doesn't make any sense until it starts to feel more 'natural' to us, and then it all starts to make more and more sense, and feel more natural.

In the meantime, sending all Cosmic-Universal 'angels and vibes' your way. ❤️. Ronni

[Robert D.]

Behindthedunes

I just prayed to the Lord Jesus for you concerning the mole/biopsy. God bless!! 

 

[KayC]

22 hours ago, behindthedunes said:

I've just had a mole removed for biopsy and it's suspected melanoma. I'm a mess, I'm anxious waiting for the results. On top of my anxiety and fear from it all recently.

Ha, I just went through this yesterday!  I'll have to come back (120 mile round trip although yesterday's was greater as I had to go to the eye doctor too) and get a wider swath removed, snow coming in tonight, tomorrow, etc. as far as they predict.  Missing all Christmas fun.  I tried to call the doctor at 4:43 pm to ask about how to shower with this (on my wrist) and it goes to voicemail, no one called back.  Sigh....medical care is not what it used to be.

So my take is we can only do our best.  I could try dish glove and rubber band but if water seeps in, it gets wet.  IDK.  Good luck to you on yours!

All my life I had taken care of others...when George died I had to learn to take care of myself, my protector and advocate was gone.  Do practice it.  Pretty soon you will learn to nurture yourself.  Make yourself a special coffee, take a bubble bath (after the lesion is healed), take walks, eat healthy, go to bed early, make something good to eat.  I am thinking of you as you begin to be your own best friend.   Saying a prayer about your mole.  God will see you through this.  (((hugs)))

[ThirdG]

BehindTheDunes, yipes it seems I have yet another thing to share.

I got my cancer diagnosis in February of this year, as I was falling down the stairs. My right femur had just snapped, a result of a cancerous  lesion that left a large hole in the bone. I knew as I was falling what it was, having read about it. I would learn two days later that I had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. Now i’m mostly OK with it. As cancers go it is unpredictable. One doctor told me I had about two years. Another that it might be twenty. My current oncologist tells me that the course of treatment “won’t become unpredictable” for five years. My problem is twofold. The jump from “young” to “old” now seems to be so quick. Five years at my age could as well be the length of a light sleep. I’ll be 76 then.

I feel very mixed emotions about this. I share with all of my fellow humans — indeed all of my fellow vertebrates — an instinctive fear of death. I also know that because I am alive, I will someday die — no matter what I say I want. It’s just the way things are. On this I feel perfectly resigned. As I’ve learned with Amanda’s death this year, the hurt is for the living, not the dead. Her suffering ended on August 12. Mine began.

This leads to the last part of my saying anything about guilt. Amanda several times told me that she didn’t want to outlive me. I’ve spent lots of time worried that perhaps I made my condition sound even more dire to her than it was. However, try as I might, I can’t penetrate the veil of death to ask her. I’ve talked about it with as many people as I can. They tell me that during her life I had no idea what the effect of my words *might* be. So I’ve come up with this. Amanda and I lived together for 46 years. At the end of it, things happened to both of us that made it our last possible year together. Before then, neither of us could quite know what was in store. I’m still in that bind predicting my own future.

I wish for the best outcome with your situation. I hope that regardless of what it is that I and the other people who post here can help you absorb it. And I think everybody is hoping with you for good news.

I here it’s late spring in Oz. Up here its — um — late fall…

[Robert D.]

Third G

You made some very good points in your earlier post on self-guilt over things that we cannot anticipate or control.... I do appreciate your very incisive wisdom and understanding on that issue....and it is very helpful!! Thank you!!

 

[KayC]

15 hours ago, ThirdG said:

They tell me that during her life I had no idea what the effect of my words *might* be.

While this is true, I would hope that it didn't affect her outcome...I didn't want to outlive my husband either but here I am, yet I'm thankful he didn't have to go through what I have in the years since.  I'm sorry you have that "C" word hanging over you, my MIL also fell because her bone broke due to cancer having spread from her liver to her bones, originally breasts...she lived a few years beyond although bedridden...bones don't heal if they have cancer that's eaten through them.   She was my best friend back then, I took care of her until her death a few years later.

I am glad you have so much awareness and understanding!  Wishing you the best in your life in the years ahead. 

[BohoKat]

On 12/3/2022 at 8:33 AM, behindthedunes said:

Emotional outbursts and panic, constantly. Weird sensations in my chest, pains in my chest. But mostly fear. About everything. I don't know how I'm going to get through this. I feel like I'm going crazy.

Behindthedunes,

I am so sorry for the overwhelming experiences you are having. Before I met my husband, I was in an abusive relationship for 5 years. It is truly a deep struggle and your conflicting feelings are completely understandable.

I have bipolar disorder and suffer a lot of related anxiety. Deep breathing and other techniques I have relied upon were absolutely useless when my husband passed last year. The grief totally wiped out my concentration. I felt so bad about having to take extra medication but my doctor was very sensitive (shocking, right?) and told me to keep in mind that when I was ready I could cut back again. Meds are not for everyone but don’t suffer unnecessarily. There is no shame in seeking help if you are struggling.

Peace, BohoKat 

[Ronni_W]

Very wise, BohoKat, and comforting and encouraging. Thank you so much for sharing. 💕. Ronni

[KayC]

9 hours ago, BohoKat said:

There is no shame in seeking help if you are struggling.

Good advice.

[Ronni_W]

On 12/9/2022 at 6:16 AM, KayC said:

Good advice.

I think that what BohoKat shares is much more than just mere "advice", though.

It's "weird", isn't it, when we don't even realize that we always want to have "the last word", as if that'll make us seem or be taken as "the most wise" or "the ultimate expert or authority" on whatever topic is under discussion?

I always have fun, messing with that. Or, at least, try to be cognizant of it, and try to consciously mess with it. 🤣.