Going through our stuff.. Sex, old pics, etc.

[Kinuan]

Married at 19. Wife died at 26 in car crash. It's been 4 1/2 years. I was doing really good staying in motion starting to wonder if I was over it. Moved into a new place recently and the feelings have returned. It's all a waste of time. The rest of my life is a blank slate. Everything we planned together will never happen. I had everything I wanted, now nothing is appealing. I am still in love with a dead girl. Nothing sounds fun. I have no interest in family or friends or sex or women or work or food or tv or music. I slept with 3 women since she passed, basically one night stands with more/less strangers and was thinking about her everytime and it always felt wrong. I have not pursued any new romance/relationship since she passed. I have not had sex in over a year. I almost never masturbate but I dream about sex with my wife still and sometimes wake up masterbating. I spend a lot of time in the garden most of the year but I dont enjoy anything like I used to it all feels like a waste of time. In the winter I wind up alone with my thoughts. I've spent most of this last month alone laying around with the lights off staring into space, regretting, reliving our last conversations, crying, talking to her and myself, not eating or sleeping for days, or sleeping all day when I have things I need to do. The neighbors think I'm cooking drugs or something. Turning my phone off for extended periods blocking out the world.

Breaking down at work when I'm by myself. For awhile I thought I was not able to cry anymore but the tears have been flowing freely every day. Never hungry have to force feed myself. 

And going through all our stuff again. It might have been the trigger. Boxes and pictures and buried treasures. Its all gone by so fast. She used to send me naked pictures while I was at work I still have them. What do you do with that. I don't think it's healthy to look at. I haven't looked at them in a year or two. I used to masterbate looking at them sometimes but afterwards I felt even more depressed. I remembered them today and wondered how anybody else has dealt with this. I can't bring myself to get rid of them or look at them but the thought of someone especially family finding them if I died seems so disrespectful..

[Kinuan]

I don't really know why I am posting this. This is my first time on the site. I'm not looking for advice i guess I just want to talk. It's been helpful reading everybody's experiences maybe this can help someone.

I feel alone I can't talk about any of it with anyone. Nobody gets it not at my age. I reached out to her sister the other night and spewed like 100 paragraphs of texts about so much random stuff because she is the only person who knew her as well as I did. But she never knows how to respond. I've been dumping it on strangers when they ask me how I'm doing. Thought I'd be dead by now. 

[Kinuan]

At least I thought it would get easier somehow I was kind of hoping to be dead by now. I have never imagined being with anyone else. I can't stand thinking about it. I have no plans for the future, I can't envision myself anywhere with anyone doing anything. My family expects me to be fine they only see me on rare occasion on good days when I'm trying my best so they think I'm ok. They don't check on me. Months will go by nobody worries. I can tell they think I should move on. Or maybe assume I did. But when I think about our last words to each other it's like it was just last week. I still get these weird sudden impulses to call her it's really bizarre, it comes and goes in an instant but for a brief moment my brain glitches and forgets she is gone I can feel this chemical reaction a flare of excitement followed by a deep sinking feeling. I dream about her every night that I sleep solidly and wake up f***ed up from it. I wear her clothes everyday, I wear her ring, I hold on to the last rolls of parchment paper and tin foil she used, I save all the little pieces of paper with her name on it, junk mail, I keep her robe and blanket in a box and pull them out just to smell them because they still smell like her. I hang on to everything and I can't even handle looking at it yet. Every time I have to dig for something or go through our stuff I avoid all of it. I've been trying to set up my new house and am realizing why I can't. I started going through her stuff last month and it has sent me down the spiral again. I bought a giant picture album today and put most of our loose photos in it. My family does not miss her. Some of them forget her name when they talk about her. I can't talk about her to them. I moved thousands of miles away after she died so none of my friends or people around me now knew her, it's just some fairy tale to them. I don't know anybody who is widowed. Usually when I tell somebody about her their first response is about how they lost their brother or mother or something or it's so depressing they shut down or try to walk away. I lost my soulmate. She was everything I wanted in this world, my sacred treasure. There is nothing to look forward to coming home to. In the summer I sleep in the car in the woods more than my bed. We had lots of awesome hobbies and I still do them but it's not magical anymore it's just killing time. Go drive 500 miles for no reason. Go walk until my legs are numb. Nothing is exciting. Go to work, go home lay on the couch. Life is not worth living. I miss her like water I revolved around her. It is finally hitting home, she is gone, and the acceptance right. Wow. There is really nothing to look forward to. It's been a blur. I remember looking out at the world on the plane when I left and this feeling of despair came and has never gone, there is this whole world I can do/see/have anything I want in it, but she is not there. What a waste of time. 

[Kinuan]

It's all selfish thinking I know it's not good. This is what goes on in my mind. Just putting it out into the ether. I don't remember much of the first 2 years after she passed. I was just trying to keep the kids alive. It was miserable. I talked openly about suicide everyday. We lived in a homeless shelter for over a year. I tried moving back to stay close to her family at one point, into an apartment we used to live in and it was too painful, too many memories I could not cope so we left again. My in-laws got mad at me called the government and they eventually took our kids. Her mom especially has been trying to get them ever since she died. And they are the only people I can talk to about my wife at the same time. I am still trying to get my kids back. 2 of them came home for a while last summer but they took them again because I still freak out sometimes and now I see them once or twice a week for a few hours. When we are together everything is worth it. When they are home everything is ok I do so much better I have my fire back. We stay very busy and have lots of fun oh yeah but my kids don't have a mom everything is so bittersweet and f***ed up and you just have to hold it in because nobody gets it. Everybody judges you, assumes youre divorced or something. They'll say "my mom is dead" and people think they are joking. Had another psyc eval and depressed mood was on there everytime. It's like everything at once all the time though. Hold on we are almost getting the really hard parts. This is a lot of info to be putting out here you go fk it

[KayC]

Your posts sound so lonely....so very alone.  Kind of how I feel only now I'm 70 and my husband died when he was barely 51, all too young, he never got to retire. 

I am so sorry for your loss!  In here is a picture of a baby....yours?  Does the child live with you?

I'm afraid I can't help you with the sex part...I've kind of resigned myself to that part of my life being over...maybe one of the men can help you.

Grief Process

This is not a one-size-fits-all, what strikes us one day will be different a few months/years from now, so please save/print this for reference!

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 its 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.

 

 

[DWS]

10 hours ago, Kinuan said:

Wife died at 26 in car crash. It's been 4 1/2 years. I was doing really good staying in motion starting to wonder if I was over it. Moved into a new place recently and the feelings have returned.

My heart goes out to you for the very traumatic and sudden loss of your wife and everything else that you've had to deal with afterwards. I have no idea how most human beings cope when someone is taken from them so violently but after all of this time, I imagine you likely could be diagnosed as having symptoms of PTSD. Now that you're living in a new place and as you say, doing pretty good, lingering thoughts and emotions over her death have some room to surface. That's the lousy part of all of this...that once we re-gain some strength after being knocked down so viciously, unresolved issues from the past tend to return now that we're strong enough to deal with them. 

Professional counselling would be very helpful if you're able to afford it. You mentioned a psych evaluation which is no surprise to reveal "depressed" because you have every reason to be that. You're still dealing with a very tragic and life-altering event that unfairly happened to you and your loved one. If anything, I hope you're able to find somebody on this site to communicate with. For so many of us here, we need companions in our grief....another person who sincerely gets it. I'm much older (61) and coping with the fact that most of those in my life don't have the slightest clue how tragic and lonely it is to lose a spouse and partner but I can't imagine how much more difficult it is to lose someone at your young age. I'm sorry to hear that your family is not there for the emotional support you need. It's sad that they're not aware of or respecting how much of a loving, caring soul you possess. In some regions, there are bereavement support groups for adults under 40. Maybe you'd have some luck finding something like that but in any case, feel free to keep baring your soul on this site. I hope you're able to find some sense of peace and solace. 

 

[KayC]

8 hours ago, DWS said:

Professional counselling would be very helpful if you're able to afford it.

Insurance sometimes will cover it, and there are other counselors (like Casa) that charges income based.  
Depression vs symtomatic depression in grief
Grief specialist

[Jcon32]

I'm so sorry man, reading this broke me down because i feel what you mean. I sleep with my girlfriends hoodies and i still hold on to her robe too. I also have been sleeping every night with her favorite pillow. This is all so hard and I'm sorry these feelings have came back to you so hard. I also have zero motivation to keep going, i was planning on marrying my girlfriend. I was 100 percent ready to be with her until the day i died and i did not expect this day to come already. I've been trying my hardest not to hurt myself but its all i ever think about is just ending it all and being done with this life. I wish everyday i died in the accident with her and i feel like I'm being punished by surviving it while she did not. I don't understand why this had to happen to us. I don't know if I'll ever have the strength to figure this out and keep going. I miss her so much and look at our pictures everyday. It's nice finding someone who has gone through something so similar to me, losing someone so young and unexpected is the most unfair f***ing thing i can think of. Your wife and my gf did not deserve this and i carry this anger with me now. I tend to snap on simple things and freak out, I'm so frustrated and mad at the world. I don't know if ill ever find another woman, the thought of that doesn't even sit right with me, I just want my girl back so bad, there was nobody like her and our connection was on another level i have never experienced before. Ugh man idk I feel like a large part of me is dead and I'm just a shell of a man I used to be

[Kinuan]

I am a little nervous what to say. Whatever it takes bro and as much time as you need for whatever you have to do to make it through a day. She wants you to survive. I don't know you but I want you to survive too. Whatever you have to do every day. There is really not much that has helped me besides having someone to hear me and prioritizing survival above all else. I have never made it to work on time since. The kids have never made it to school on time since, maybe twice. The anger is not gone away for me. I lashed out and broke down on anyone who came near me and still do. It is destroying my life and I am still struggling with it. I am not sure what all to say here, there's no words for any of it. I hate all the words and clinical bullsh "greif" "mourning" "depression" "trauma" "ptsd"whatever. I did all the classes all the groups and circles. There are no words and it comes down to survival. Straight up bro chances are low. I am nervous to make things worse for you or anyone by sharing, I think I came here wanting to see whats it's been like for others and I hope what I say can help you because I can feel the anger too and it is sick that you have that story to share and in that twisted way thank you for sharing it helps me to figure out what is "normal" and hope it might help you a little to know that what you feel right now is "normal". I will be back later I'm supposed to be working. take care keep your vessel alive at least the bare minimal nutrients and water 

[Jcon32]

Thanks man i appreciate you sharing with me, I'm trying my best to survive. The groups and the counselors haven't helped me at all either, seemed like a waste of time even though I was really hoping things would help. This site and talking to people such as you has been the only thing to make me feel slightly better. I talk to friends and family but they don't understand, they can't do much for me and some people just put me in a horrible mood because they say all the wrong stuff. Reading your experience has definitely made me feel somewhat normal, i know everyone will have their own experience and ways of dealing with it but talking about it with someone who truly knows seems to help in some way, at least more than anything else. I'm really trying to not end it all especially for her and her family and my family.  Also don't worry about making it worse for me by sharing, hearing you and everybody else on this sites emotions and stories has been helping. I'm just hoping with everything in me it can get any easier. I don't know how I'm going to survive, ive been sleeping on the couch everyday because I can't be in our room. My body is getting a bit better physically but my mental is so beyond broken nothing even really seems real and I don't care much about my body. I'm just so scared because I have so many years ahead of me and I don't know if i can do this. Just trying to wrap my head around how permanent it is f**ks me up so bad, i just want things to at least make sense but of course it will never. Thanks again for talking with me man you have been someone with the most related experience. I know this is going to be a very long road but the fact you are still alive gives me some hope that i can keep the suicidal sh*t at bay.

[Kinuan]

I still sleep on the couch I hate my bed. I spend most of my time on the couch. Still not used to sleeping alone. Every song ever on the radio can please stop existing now. I am still doing counseling and it doesn't seem to help much. It helps me when I need to vent and get my thoughts out and be heard sometimes but I never feel understood there, it feels like a trap and one of the only places I can't talk about certain things like driving us all off a cliff. I used to threaten to do that. Im scared of the internet it's hard to put it all out here. 

[Jcon32]

I understand, things can be real hard. I just started driving again and i catch myself wanting to head into a tree or rock on the side of the road. I'll even slowly drift into it a bit but i end up pulling out. The music is very hard too, almost everything makes me start crying. I was never a very emotional person especially with sadness and tears. I've lost a few close friends within the past 2 years but those don't even compare to this pain. I cant even watch tv anymore and anything that would bring me joy just feels blank now. You don't have to put anything you aren't comfortable with out on here either just talk about whatever you want that feels good. The sleeping alone thing is something i can't get used to at all either, i wake up some times expecting her to be near me and get hit with the realization. It's all such b.s and not fair, i just want to put this anger into something, I want an enemy but I have nothing other than myself. It's just not fair

[Kinuan]

I don't know how I made it this far. There is a ton of consecutive crises and background tragedy that I don't want to talk about here yet but it is impossible to tell my story without at least hinting towards it sometimes. I'll be nice and just say that we both come from broken impoverished families and generational curses and never had any traditional family supports to fall back on. 

I can't really remember the first week or two, and there are only bits and pieces of the first year. The rest is there but it is blocked out right now. Our kids were 1, 3, and 5. The youngest 2 do not remember her at all.

The police were trying to find me they couldnt find our house. I was taking care of the kids wondering where the hell she was. Getting scared then pissed then worried then pissed and worried. Phone going to voicemail. Nobody knew where she was. She died in the morning about a mile away from our house. She was pinned inside, the car was crushed and in a ditch. A drunk killed her. People were trying to help her and they couldn't get her out. My mother in-law called and told me the day after it happened. So then it was all shock. I started chain smoking right then and have not stopped. Next thing I remember I am doing a bunch of paperwork at the bank and the police station and then we are burying her in her hometown. I tried hard to be strong and make her proud. I dug her grave and washed her face with my tears. Cleaned her up and dressed her up with her mom and sister and I put her in the casket and stayed with her family for 2 weeks sitting by her grave as much as I could and none of it seemed real at all and I wept the entire time. I piled rocks on the spot where she died and made a little memorial.

Then I laid on the floor in the bathroom with the lights off for like 2 months, it did not seem real at all for a long time, it took months and even still it came in waves. I don't remember anything but suffering and darkness there. I think the kids survived on frozen chicken nuggets the entire time. My brain had to adjust to not having her around, I was so used to her being beside me it took a long time for the impulses to go away (they still are not gone completely) All the questions that come up I can't ask her. I didn't eat at all for over a month there. I came out only to keep the kids alive and smoke and went back in and laid on the floor intently praying to die wishing we all went out together or I could trade her places please somehow. Kill me god. I don't want to be a coward please don't make me live through this don't make these kids live through this. The days melted together and I lost sense of time, I wondered sometimes if I was dead I was very out of it. At some point I got the cops to give my number to the guy who was driving behind her and saw it happen, I remember sitting on the porch asking him every possible detail. Did she hit the brakes? Was she speeding? Did anybody try to save her? He tried to help her there was nothing he could do. They could not get her out. 

Time passes, nobody came to check on us. We flew far away to stay with a few different family members and it was a disaster. I left most of our stuff behind and I never found out what happened, I think almost all of it was stolen or somebody threw it away maybe. We lost almost all of our pictures and special family stuff. Our family could not help us and pretty quickly we wound up staying in hotels then got in to a shelter. I started losing my sh big time right about then. Taking a break brb

 

[Kinuan]

Ok so it's month 3 or 4. We are out of money and somehow I get a job at this place. A few people were really compassionate and left me alone but I carried this black cloud around and it effected everyone. A couple guys started to pick on me, this one guy would tell me to cheer up all the time and make weird faces at me and stare. One day he came around the corner on a forklift heading straight for me and I just stood there and he barely made it to a stop almost crushed me against a wall. I was laughing. That freaked them out they all talked about it but nobody said anything to me. So we're in the homeless shelter. I am losing it completely. I start cussing in front of the kids and throwing stuff, putting holes in the drywall and breaking things. I smashed my phone in a rage and lost even more pictures, all her voicemails, all of our texts and most of our contacts. I was freaking out on everybody. My default responses at the grocery check out to "How are you?" was "my wife died". I avoided everyone close to me except 1 or 2 people. They start threatening to kick us out so I am trying my best to hold it together and we hide from the world all winter. We did not visit anybody and nobody visited us. A few people were coming to check on us in that time, mostly to see if I had actually done it yet there was really nothing else they could do. The kids were confused and traumatized but they were ok and healthy. I missed a lot there just zoning out and crying, I would come home and be totally unresponsive sometimes. The shelter was similar to a jail, you had to be in by 9 pm and do all these classes and stuff and it was a tiny one room setup, pretty much a bunk bed, dresser, table, stove, shower, sink and toilet. It had this whole program I had to complete, and then we got into another program there were still strict rules and classes but more freedom and we started going camping every weekend by ourselves and just sleeping in the car. It was more like just driving around all over trying to get as far out in the middle of nowhere as we could.

The first summer after she passed... We picked all the berries and made wildflower bouquets for her. We looked for gemstones and fossils  everywhere and admired all the beautiful plants and animals and panned for gold and swam in all the rivers and caught trout and bluegills. We went to almost all of our awesome old secret spots we used to go to when we lived there years before and sat in the same places and picnicked like we used to and it was all extremely sad the entire time. Everything had already changed all the trees had grown, trails had overgrown, things had moved around, people had destroyed a lot, the rivers had moved over and the beaches were different so I made rock piles and markers at our spots. Sometimes we would drive all the way out somewhere and I would end up just breaking down completely when we got there. The memories became too overwhelming, the sheer happiness. Eventually it became less therapeutic and more painful to go to those places and we started exploring more and just went all over the place on the weekends staying as far away from everyone as we could. I brought my guitar and would sit by the fire all night until all the weird stuff in the bushes made me go in the car. Sometimes when the kids were asleep I would walk around in the dark and just scream as loud as I could, just screaming and cussing at everything in the middle of the night until my voice went out. I was highly attracted to bridges and stood there getting dizzy thinking about it, it was something to think about for sure, my kids always ended the thought. I remember standing on this bridge in this canyon way out in the woods and screaming at the river down there like all night, throwing **** in it just foaming at the mouth and we woke up in the morning there was all these people camped out all down this canyon I did not even care. I was walking around in my underwear all the time the kids were more or less having a lot of fun everywhere we went I think. I was trying to run from reality the whole time. This is when the dishes and laundry started not getting done they are still not done to this day.

Work was miserable I destroyed the moral of that place. But it became a place to escape in a way, it was loud, fast paced, chaotic and full of angry divorced alcoholics that always had something distracting going on and always wanted to fight. Working hard and making them a lot of money management never bothered me but showing up several hours late everyday and randomly blowing up like complete freak outs smashing stuff and storming out (to go cry in my car) gave everybody else a reason to start screwing off and messing with me.

I had lost a lot of weight fast and started looking like a junkie or something. My body started to hurt in weird ways from not eating. I stopped brushing my teeth and showering everyday. We got really sick all the time like we caught every cold and flu there was. I spent most of my time on the couch staring at nothing. We never had a tv or computer or internet. I left the radio on some apocalyptic talk news channel 24/7 and heard none of it. Responsibilities became overwhelmingly stressful. I had a hard time filling out forms and making payments and deadlines. Everything turned into a trigger. I listened to the same few songs over and over sometimes, just random songs on some random CDs that came from somewhere I didnt even really like them but everything started feeling so intense, like there was all these bizarre synchronicities happening it was like a weird dream. I started having drawn out conversations with the guys begging for money outside the grocery store and giving food to everybody. 

Mom and I used to sit out on the porch after the kids went to bed and talk and giggle late into the night pretty much every night which turned into me sitting outside smoking and staring into space. So we're at like month 6 (?) now. Break brb

 

 

 

[KayC]

5 hours ago, Kinuan said:

I still sleep on the couch I hate my bed.

TBH I haven't been able to sleep in our bed since he died, I sleep on our reclining love seat with Kodie (dog) next to me.  

 

5 hours ago, Kinuan said:

I never feel understood there

Maybe try another counselor, I found that to be my experience as well with the one "counselor" in town (I can't even call him a grief counselor although he said he was, hell no!)  the grief counselor from my other forum has been there every step of the way and with her experience and articles, I haven't needed another, over the years we've become friends.  She's amazing.  I don't know what I'd have done without her.  I have learned so much from her!

Wow I read what you shared of your story!  Wow.  I am surprised the police couldn't find your home to tell you!  That you learned the next day.  Everything you went through in the months that ensued...you had your kids with you all this time?  I assume so because you say we and us.  For what it's worth you've found us now and we're listening, caring...

[Kinuan]

I cut my hand open real good at work and start laughing hysterically, it was the first time I genuinely laughed since she died. It was f*****g hilarious I had to have surgery and then I was in a cast for a long time trying to change diapers and do everything one handed. I could not drive because I was on pain pills so we were stuck at home for 2 or 3 months. Some people did the dishes for me once or twice. 

I started talking to myself and my wife all the time. The anger takes over. The internal conversation becomes incredibly toxic, I go into fits of rage and regularly destroy things, cuss at my wife and myself and start yelling and cussing at my kids. I can not sleep at all for days on end. They are threatening to kick us out all the time now and there are people coming to check on us a lot. The government starts knocking on the door to check on the kids. I can barely function. I am alluding to suicide in every conversation at this point. A therapist starts coming over every week, he had given me the guitar and he was a good friend to me. I completely lost it on him every time he came over. There was nothing we could talk about that would not set me off. 

I go back to work and it gets worse, the forklift guy really starts trying to mess with me and thinks I'm on drugs so he's like following me in the bathroom and spying on me on my breaks. I started acting kind of goofy, joking around half heartedly, acting the exact opposite of how I felt. I started laughing hysterically at everything and vandalized the entire surface of every work table with doodles and hilarious caricatures of all my coworkers in situ. 

I started growing some plants on my window sill, some mint and succulents. I still have them today they are huge now. Time melted by and all of a sudden it was the anniversary of her death I remember it being a horrific milestone, wow this was only one year. Can I possibly survive another. We took the day off of everything I don't remember what we did. I can't remember that period right now it is a total blank. We were just going through the motions.

We finally got into a real apartment a couple months later it was in the worst neighborhood ever. Meth labs in the back yard and bullet holes all up and down the siding. Constant sirens and chaos all around. I quit my job and stayed home with the kids for a month or two with no ambition to do anything. I found a mellow office type job on a farm and at the interview realized it was run by an old friend, and he has been very compassionate to me since. 

Within a week of starting there somebody stole our car. I got another car they stole that too. I got another car and it was spring break, the spring break that never ended because of covid. They closed the schools and daycares. They started looting the grocery stores down the street. I quit my new job and we went to stay with my in-laws (thousands of miles away).

We stayed in an apartment we used to live in next door to her parents'. It was brutal I felt immobilized and stayed in bed most of the time. I relived everything. The first 14 days were quarantine. After that I sat by her grave a lot telling her about what we had been up to and all about our kids. I sent up a box of gemstones we had collected and put them all over her grave.

My in-laws started trying to keep my kids at their house, buying them extra toothbrushes and trying to give them baths, asking all kinds of questions about me and stuff messing up their hours on purpose to make it hard, and I'm like, no way stop. So they call the government and the government shows up and starts knocking asking about the kids and I was cool at first but they acted like they were going to take them and I lost it on them and they started a whole thing and next thing the cops are in my driveway and then they are doing their evaluations and interrogations on my kids and then the government disappears everything is back to whatever and I don't hear anything for a few weeks.

Ok so... when my wife had passed away I did not know how to do any of the legal processes and was out of it. My mother-in-law got the police to send her my wife's purse from the car. It had her phone and wallet in there, etc. I did not even think about it until weeks had passed and asked her about it and she had told me she would send it to me but never did. I bugged her for it all the time she always made excuses.

So I get around to asking her for it while we are there and she says she's not going to give it to me. So I go book our plane tickets to come back home for a week out. (We had been staying with them for almost 2 months but I was still paying the rent on our other apartment where we had been living). 

The day before we left the government shows up makes me sign a piece of paper saying my sister-in-law can come in our house anytime to check on us and we will do counseling. we were leaving the next morning and I didn't say anything. Well I signed the paper and they left, and we left the next morning without saying anything to anyone.

We get home and our car is stolen yet again. I call and text and tell the government where we are. They don't even respond. We quarantine for about 12 days and I haven't heard from anyone and i can't take it sitting inside anymore. We go buy another car and go camping for 3 days. Get home late at night there's a card in the door from the government. First thing next morning they show up with cops and take my kids and I lost it, I was threatening all kinds of crazy violence and insanity on them and getting in their faces spit flying. Well we did not get to see each other for 6 months during which time I lost it every time the government called me to talk about anything. I waited around for my kids to come home for months before I realized it wasn't going to happen. I spent the second anniversary of her death driving around in my underwear. Around then I got hired back at the office-type farm job and worked there since. It is a refuge with very few people and I sit in silence mostly by myself and meditate and reminisce all day and I am very glad I found that place I've only lost it on 2 people the whole time I've worked there.

I started sleeping in the car in the woods all the time even on weeknights. So from 2020 that's what I've been doing. This guy let me start a big garden in his yard it gives me somewhere to escape to when I need to get away from my life and helps me look forward to something tangible and attainable and stay sane. The government made me start doing a bunch of classes that were supposed to fix me. I did them all and a bunch of extras. They did not help, it was all a massive stressor for me. It has almost been 3 years of my kids being away and the system running my life and I am still doing several types of classes and therapy and there is no end in sight. In October 2022, I was 2 weeks away from them coming home for good and being done with the entire system but I messed up and yelled and threw dishes and scared them and they took them back. So now I am on my last shot at this I have to really figure this stuff out which is really why I am here be

 

 

[KayC]

Well at least you're articulate.  It's been quite a while, I hope you can get your kids back and do okay....

[DMB]

This is one of the saddest stories I've read on here.  I am very sorry for your loss, Kinuan.  As traumatic of a time you've had I can't help but think you are suffering from PTSD and I'm so sorry to hear no one has helped you with that.  I will leave you with just a couple of thoughts.  Only you can fix you.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage to pick up the pieces and keep going.  Sometimes all you have to do is breathe and take it a moment, a minute, an hour, a day at a time.  It seems you have tried and tried and keep ending up in the same place.  Now you don't have your children.  I wonder what your late wife would want you to do.

Best wishes.  Truly. 

[Jcon32]

Good luck bro I'm sorry you are dealing with all of this on top of the death. The fits of rage is something I've been dealing with my whole life and i wish i could help, I didn't have the best temper to begin with but with my gf dying my fuse has been cut wayyy shorter, i end up breaking things over the smallest inconvenience and just losing it. I really really wish i could give you help on that, but I can't even help myself. My best advice would be is to start thinking of your kids and your goal with them as soon as you start feeling that anger boiling, try to cut it short or even find a spot outside to bug out. I really wish i had a better answer because I'm pretty sure this anger is going to be what ends up making my life even more hell too. I do very regrettable dumb things when i lose it, and once i start i have not once been able to figure out how to stop it quickly. I usually go until my body is damn near throbbing with anger and exerted all my energy. I'm really hoping things work out for you and you can get your kids back. All that extra stress is the last thing anybody needs but definitely stay focused. 

[Gail 8588]

@Kinuan

I am so sorry for all that you have gone through.  It is clear that you love your kids and that you want to be a good father to them.  

I hope that somehow the agencies you are dealing with can provide you with the support you need to be reunited with your children.  You are the one that can keep their mother alive in their hearts. I am sure she is proud of you for trying so hard to get your kids back.

Gail

[Kinuan]

Thank you all. Thanks for reading. It is really weird and comforting to be able to talk to people who know what it's like. I never realized until reading people's stories here that all of the feelings I have felt through this whole experience and the ways I described or thought about them are universal, like its own language. I tried to leave a lot of the raw emotions and descriptions out of my story because you all already know. I am still figuring out how to talk about everything meanwhile I am still sitting here trying to figure out what happened. Therapy would help if we had time to actually get into anything, it would take an entire session to get that much info out though and there's no way they would have let me finish the story uninterrupted. It is amazing how much time it takes to think about and process everything. You guys are the only people I've encountered yet who seem genuinely interested in listening. I have never got to tell anyone the full story. I really wish I had found this place sooner it never occured to me that a place like this existed and I wish I had time to really respond to everybody. I have read all your posts over and over. Thank you. I did not have internet until they took my kids, I had to get a computer and internet and on my phone too for the first time to do all the classes and stuff. I wanted to talk about the last few years too but I haven't had time to really get into it yet. 

Reading through my story is pretty embarrassing at the same time I am not ashamed at all. Writing that I was trying to focus on myself and my experience because I have been hyper focused on my kids since they took them and not dealing with any of this. They were right next to me every day the whole time until they took them. Like within a few feet all times I wasn't at work It took me a few days to be able to tell them that their mom was gone. For a while we all slept together on the floor it was weird that there was nothing weird about it. I left a lot out. There's a lot that doesn't need to be said. I've been trying not to say it but they kept me alive some days for sure. I really wish they had never seen me freak out but they saw a lot of it, more than anybody else. 

 

Somehow throughout this whole thing I was doing it all, reading, teaching, brushing their teeth, potty training, cooking, cleaning, taking them to the park. I don't remember any of it. They were always playing and having fun they could never stay sad long. My youngest was attached to my side through most of it.  They really want to come home they tell me every time I see them and it sucks because I am the problem and I am just figuring that out.  

[KayC]

1 hour ago, Kinuan said:

Reading through my story is pretty embarrassing at the same time I am not ashamed at all.

And you shouldn't be ashamed, it's like your life unraveled and happened to you and you're looking back and telling your truth, nothing to be ashamed of. I sincerely hope and pray you get your kids back!  

Your story could be told to a therapist...you told us in increments, you'd do the same with them, and a good one will not interrupt you when you're flowing.  IMO

[Jcon32]

I'm glad this is helping you, this site was something that actually gave me my first glimpse of hope to push through it. I was totally losing my mind but being here with everyone, gave me some place to talk and it feels like im getting some of this pain and energy out. You get to really think about what you want to say and have no rush to let it out on your own time. I'm not the best at talking about my emotions and what im feeling but here I feel i can at least relay it out in a way i feel better about. You seem like a good father bro i wish nothing but the best with you getting that situation figured out, don't give up and give it your all. You did a lot for them and they'll admire how you pushed through for them in the darkest part of your life.

[RichS]

Kinjuan: You mentioned therapy. From my own experience, I think it would be helpful; but it will probably take a number of sessions. It did for me and I'm glad that I stuck with the second time (the first time, I didn't think it was necessary for weekly visits, but I was wrong). As for belongings, I've barely touched my wife's things. I can't bring myself to donate anything of hers because I feel that I'm giving away a part of my memories of her. Years ago a friend of mine passed away and his wife admitted that even after one year since his passing, she couldn't even have the will to go into his closet. That's where I am right now so I'll let things alone. There's no rule that says I have to do something with her belongings by a certain time. Hope you continue to benefit from this board as much as I have.