Lost my partner

[clouds47]

I lost my partner not too long ago. I still see their twin sibling every day, they are very similar in personality.

It hurts to see their face every day. I'm not sure how to complete the grieving process.

What do I do?

[KayC]

It has to feel triggering, but I wouldn't cut them out because of it.  That's a hard situation.

I am so sorry for your loss.  It's been 18 1/2 years for me but I remember it like it was yesterday.  We were always together when not working, so close, he was my soulmate and best friend.  

It helps to come here to read and post. Even if all you do is vent, it's a good place to do it as we all get it and understand.  We're all going through this together, different timelines yes, but I've heard it said, and it's true, grief has a beginning but not an ending, but it does evolve with time.

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]

My heart goes out to you on the significant loss of your partner. For all of us here, losing our partners and spouses is a continual hell that we spend each day dealing with. So many of us continually wish we could just see our persons one more time. We're overjoyed if they come to us in our dreams...but here you are, living with your partner's duplicate every day. They're not your person but it must, at times, feel as if they are. I'm just not sure how you deal with that...the same look and also similar personality?!

I imagine their twin must be devastated at such a great loss. I'm going to assume that you speak to each other every day. They must be aware of the unintentional hurt their appearance has for you...not to mention the awkwardness of all of it.  Have you been getting grief counseling?  Would you be able to share more of your experience with us? 

[clouds47]

7 minutes ago, DWS said:

My heart goes out to you on the significant loss of your partner. For all of us here, losing our partners and spouses is a continual hell that we spend each day dealing with. So many of us continually wish we could just see our persons one more time. We're overjoyed if they come to us in our dreams...but here you are, living with your partner's duplicate every day. They're not your person but it must, at times, feel as if they are. I'm just not sure how you deal with that...the same look and also similar personality?!

I imagine their twin must be devastated at such a great loss. I'm going to assume that you speak to each other every day. They must be aware of the unintentional hurt their appearance has for you...not to mention the awkwardness of all of it.  Have you been getting grief counseling?  Would you be able to share more of your experience with us? 

They know, they are deeply hurt by their twins death. They feel upset by my distress.

We are both grieving and hurt.

I'm waiting to get grief counciling. It's just so hard to handle. I really don't know where to go from here.

I wake up and I see them but it's not them. I feel empty. I feel love and I feel nothing.

I need to get out and live my life but I find it difficult to leave the house at the moment. It's hard to know what I want or who to turn to.

They were always very fragile but also very sweet, they never thought about themself as worthy of love and I wish I could have made them see that before they died they were.

Their twin is much the same. 

I don't want to leave them to deal with this by themselves, especially as that would lead to other issues (I'm their carer as they are disabled).

I feel stuck I guess. Stuck in a place where I don't know if I can move on but also in one where I'm being swept away by the tide.

[DWS]

I definitely can see the hurtful but also strange circumstances this has left you. I imagine you are committed to not leave but at the same time, feel that your healing process is being hampered within this scenario. Hopefully, some counseling can help you sort this out. I wonder if, in the meantime, you can come to some understanding or some sense of peace that perhaps seeing their twin isn't slowing your grieving process. Can you picture yourself without their twin there? Does that bring more pain? Grieving is slow and there often is no end to it. Those of us here live with our grief...we eventually learn to carry it. It's, for sure, heavy at times but I wouldn't want anyone to take it from me now. I blame it on love. 

[Griefsucks810]

On 1/6/2024 at 10:13 AM, DWS said:

I definitely can see the hurtful but also strange circumstances this has left you. I imagine you are committed to not leave but at the same time, feel that your healing process is being hampered within this scenario. Hopefully, some counseling can help you sort this out. I wonder if, in the meantime, you can come to some understanding or some sense of peace that perhaps seeing their twin isn't slowing your grieving process. Can you picture yourself without their twin there? Does that bring more pain? Grieving is slow and there often is no end to it. Those of us here live with our grief...we eventually learn to carry it. It's, for sure, heavy at times but I wouldn't want anyone to take it from me now. I blame it on love. 

Sorry to see that seeing your husband’s twin is affecting you. The twin is a living part of your husband which you can cherish.  
It has taken me 4 years just to start living with my grief - I have to fully accept that my grief is part of my life that I have to live with cuz there’s no getting around my grief; it can show up at any given time or when I least expect it.  

[Griefsucks810]

I lost my spouse/my life partner 4 years 5 months ago due to an accidental drug overdose cuz he was given a bag of fentanyl laced heroin. Losing my spouse to addiction was shameful to me during the first year after his death.  There aren’t hardly any support groups for families that lost a family member to addiction.  I found a website called Shatterproof 2 years ago. This website specifically focuses on educating the public about how the stigma of addiction is affecting our society and the devastation that addiction leaves behind; and, their ongoing fight to have mental health facilities, doctors, nurses and medical staff have narcan more readily available to reverse an overdose as well as having more resources available to prevent and treat addiction. They also have a memorial page which is published nationally where you can write about the loss of your family member. I uploaded a good pic of my husband and wrote about a couple of paragraphs about him and of about us and how he died from an accidental drug overdose. I learned a lot about fentanyl and how deadly it is to a person; just a pinhead size of fentanyl can kill a person instantly. It was a relief to know and comforts me that my husband’s death was quick and he didn’t suffer.