Stuck in the mud

[oceanz4me]

To anyone that wants to listen.

I spose I just want to get some things out and I just came across this site and thought that this is as safe as any...

I'd like to tell my story and my wish is is that there is someone out there with a simalar one that could give me a seed of hope.

I met my girl Ange about four years ago in a rehab of all places, and we pretty much hit it off straight away but didn't enter in a relationship for a year later because of the work we needed to do on ourselves.

Our relationship was one of honesty and authenticity, a relationship that Ange and myself had never encountered before in our lives, the level of deepness that we operated out of was one to be seen and many of our friends remarked on.

Just over a year ago from now, we decided that we were a strong enough engine for a for a family and before we knew it, Ange was pregnant and we were both just overjoyed! in fact, when I saw its little heart beating, I wept with joy for the first time in my life.

Ange got to about the three month period and unfortunately, we lost the Baby and we were heartbroken by it but we carried on in our lives loving one another and supporting each other through this.

We still very much wanted a family and had this in mind until Ange went to the Doctors for what was just a lingering cough, but later turned out to be stage4 non small cell lung Cancer..... we were gutted, to say the least.

In the process of getting diagnosed, we also found out that Ange was five weeks pregnant (Docs thought it was a Tumor) and this just topped things of for me, Ange on the other hand reacted somewhat calmer and with a little more acceptance.

So, with an agonising process, we decided to terminate the baby because the Doctors really didn't think Ange would live long enough and the idea of Chemo wouldn't be an option if she was pregnant...this was so hard, the hardest decission I'v ever had to make in my life, and for poor Ange, well, she wasn't even feeling the simptems of the Cancer at this stage so it was tough.

Without going into explicit detail, Ange really started to taper around March this year, it was fast, and really didn't give her a break at all, if it wasn't high calcium levels, it was the secondary and other speading Tumors that plagued her with discomfort and later pain like I never EVER want to see someone go through, and as her primary carer, this has really impacted me in a way I wasn't prepared for.

Today, I look back, its been three months since she past away and it feels like yesterday...... it feels like everybody stopped to check out the event, but seems to be going about there business as usual and I'm just stuck.....I'm still in it!

I just can't help it, every day just seems to be the same if not worse, the images that keep floating through my mind, plus the huge pain of loss and the anger toward God for ochestrating this.

Today, I need hope, this I do know that I without, but I just can seem to find it anwhere, and I'v been looking!

I'v managed to go through all our things and moove out of the house that we both lived in and I'm just couch surfing for the moment, not attatched to anything because I just don't feel like I belong anywhere.

I see councilers once a week and have just started on Antidepresants because of an episode that I had two weeks ago which frightend me.

IFor the last Eleven months I'v been in the most amount of pain I have ever been in my life and I'v had enough! it just doesn't let up and it just is getting worse..... people keep saying to me "give it time" but time is giving it to me!

I'm stuck in Mud ......I need help, but just can't seem to find the rite sort.

[val]

Hello, my name is Val and i hope i can offer you some hope my friend. first, this is a great website to release your emotions too. Use the chat room too. My story is similar to yours in how i met my husband. Jerry and I were in our alcoholism and addictions when we met. We had chaos in our lives, He got sober and clean and supported me through three years of continuous relapses till I got sober and clean too. We didn't meet in a rehab but we rehab'd each other. Our relationship blossomed into the most beautiful flower i've ever seen. We moved from AZ, the place of chaos for us, to PA to be close to my family. Jerry was always a CA boy at heart though and so loved the ocean. He was 58; i am 52. at one point, i too had to terminate the pregnancy of our child because i was drinking using and the doctor said i had complications. i wasn't ready to have our child in my condition and at my age. it was heartbreaking but jerry was strong, he cried,having already lost an infant and having an older son who wrote him out of his life while jer was using. I know you are looking for hope and here is what i can offer you - my husband jerry died in his sleep at age 58 just on July 5 2012. I went to waken him with his coffe and looked at his face and he was blotchy, i immediately dialed 911 where (no coincidences here) his best friend Tony works. well tony happened to take my panicked call and instructed me on cpr. it was too late and i still don't have a final death cert. the autopsy was inconclusive. they are running toxicology reports but I KNOW there was absolutely no alcohol or drugs in our house. so i too am in great pain, i feel lost, abandoned, and like i lost my recovery partner. I go to a lot of AA meetings and grief support groups and have been seeing a psychiatrist (antidepressants too here) and therapist for years now anyway. their support is critical to me right now.

Cancer is a devastating disease. My brother has it. What you went through i can only imagine. Continue seeing the therapist and taking the antidepressants. you know from recovery that "time takes time". i too just wish it would hurry up. Pray, pray alot. pray for comfort from your pain, pray you don't pick up. Don't pick up. here's the hope; as bad as i feel and i know a drink would relieve the pain , i haven't used or drank. I use my sponsor alot. don't forget all the tools you have in your toolbox you learned at rehab. i too am getting angry. not at god so much but i just ask why, when we were on the right track of life again, things were so happy between us...just WHY? I MAY never know why. remember your Serenity prayer and say it often. turn to God again. don't use. i am making it and it has only been since july 5. there is no time limit on grief and everyone is individual. allow yourself to go through the stages of grief and if you don't know what they are, ask your therapist or read at sober.org. i wish i could take your pain away; it comes through loud and clear in your post. WHY did we go through hell and back, make a new life, a good life too, only to have it pulled from us? i do not know. but i pray. It will get lighter over time. but you've heard that before i'm sure. i wish you some peace and tolerability in your journey of grief. pls post back so we know you're okay. peace, val

[oceanz4me]

Hi Val

Your words of comfort and stregnth really hit me, I have read them over and over again and feel like I have been understood, my pain has been heard from the perspective of a recovering addict who has had to rebuild and re-invent ones life.

As for the stages of grief, I'm quite aware of them as I'v had to deal with loss on many occasions in my life and am starting to realize that this may be the reason why I am having such a hard time with this all...without getting too far into my story, it's somewhat of a re-occurance throughout my life.

I believe myself to be relatively well versed in the mechanics of all of this but it's all quite heady really and the ability to drop into my heart leaves me a tourist in this world, well so it feels anyway .

People throughout my life have always expressed to me how strong I am and how much of an inspiration I am to them because of the things I'v gone THROUGH in my life...and indeed I have been that person but now I feel that I'v been delt with something that has brought me to my knees ......something unfathomable, now I know intellectually this is the perfect opportunity for ultimate growth to perhaps pass onto others that are suffering, but the fact of the matter really is is that I am just too fractured by this to fit the roll that others see me as (just quietly) at the moment, I hate that people look up to me ..... I really don't see what they see and just wish I could own it rite now as I could before when I could stand in my own power and say "I am" after all i'v gone through.

When I hold the hands of other recovering addicts and say the Serenity prayer at end of a meeting I feel fake whilst mouthing the words "to accept the things I can't change" because I just can't!.

In the past four years Val I'v given my life to service in my community and Ange knew this to be who I was, and what I was about.....what I thought I was about.....and through all of this , what I became with Ange totally and wholeheartedly .

Val, I live in a place called Byron Bay in Australia, a place that's well know for healing and well being, this is the place that Ange and I met, a rehab called "The Buttery" a place where you find yourself and gain a sense of who YOU really are ....a true gift that Ange and myself had really found personally and further down the track, as a couple....without the hangups of co-dependant behaiviour ....I know I should feel gratitude for this, but rite now I just don't, how can this be?I am a very gifted person living in a land of opportunity and I wollow! I live in trauma and grief, and can't seem to get wrid of the images and feeling of what I'v just been through.....to whatch my beautiful Ange slowly detiriorate in front of me and die.....so slowly but yet so suddenly.

I have always had a faith throughout my life, in fact I think it's what has kept me alive all these years and brought me to recovery, but now that's been shacken to the core and I just don't know where I am in this world anymore.ote name='val' timestamp='1345624120' post='90272']

Hello, my name is Val and i hope i can offer you some hope my friend. first, this is a great website to release your emotions too. Use the chat room too. My story is similar to yours in how i met my husband. Jerry and I were in our alcoholism and addictions when we met. We had chaos in our lives, He got sober and clean and supported me through three years of continuous relapses till I got sober and clean too. We didn't meet in a rehab but we rehab'd each other. Our relationship blossomed into the most beautiful flower i've ever seen. We moved from AZ, the place of chaos for us, to PA to be close to my family. Jerry was always a CA boy at heart though and so loved the ocean. He was 58; i am 52. at one point, i too had to terminate the pregnancy of our child because i was drinking using and the doctor said i had complications. i wasn't ready to have our child in my condition and at my age. it was heartbreaking but jerry was strong, he cried,having already lost an infant and having an older son who wrote him out of his life while jer was using. I know you are looking for hope and here is what i can offer you - my husband jerry died in his sleep at age 58 just on July 5 2012. I went to waken him with his coffe and looked at his face and he was blotchy, i immediately dialed 911 where (no coincidences here) his best friend Tony works. well tony happened to take my panicked call and instructed me on cpr. it was too late and i still don't have a final death cert. the autopsy was inconclusive. they are running toxicology reports but I KNOW there was absolutely no alcohol or drugs in our house. so i too am in great pain, i feel lost, abandoned, and like i lost my recovery partner. I go to a lot of AA meetings and grief support groups and have been seeing a psychiatrist (antidepressants too here) and therapist for years now anyway. their support is critical to me right now.

Cancer is a devastating disease. My brother has it. What you went through i can only imagine. Continue seeing the therapist and taking the antidepressants. you know from recovery that "time takes time". i too just wish it would hurry up. Pray, pray alot. pray for comfort from your pain, pray you don't pick up. Don't pick up. here's the hope; as bad as i feel and i know a drink would relieve the pain , i haven't used or drank. I use my sponsor alot. don't forget all the tools you have in your toolbox you learned at rehab. i too am getting angry. not at god so much but i just ask why, when we were on the right track of life again, things were so happy between us...just WHY? I MAY never know why. remember your Serenity prayer and say it often. turn to God again. don't use. i am making it and it has only been since july 5. there is no time limit on grief and everyone is individual. allow yourself to go through the stages of grief and if you don't know what they are, ask your therapist or read at sober.org. i wish i could take your pain away; it comes through loud and clear in your post. WHY did we go through hell and back, make a new life, a good life too, only to have it pulled from us? i do not know. but i pray. It will get lighter over time. but you've heard that before i'm sure. i wish you some peace and tolerability in your journey of grief. pls post back so we know you're okay. peace, val

[val]

Hello again - it's val. I am so glad you were able to identify with my words and they brought you some hope. That is what we're supposed to do as recoverying people, give back what was so freely given to us. I try and do this everyday. you see, i work as a case manager in a community mental health facillity. it's been rough going though over the last few weeks, with lots of part days. Because i know right now i am in a crisis and need support. Yes, I am so sorry for the loss of Ange and baby. Embrace if you can the fact that you had her, God gave you each other for a special reason. You got sober together, something you already know is a miracle. Recovery from a cunning disease. I have made it through thus far without drinking or drugging in spite of the intense pain because it would dishonor my Jerry after everything he went through with me. And because I want to deal with this all in my right mind. When was the last time you hit a meeting?

I am going to one today. the support i have found there is overwhelming and that, along with this website is getting me through. also, my sponsor gave me a site called www.sober.org which has a whole section on grief that is well worth reading. pls check it out. i have to go to church right now (another good place) because we have FAITH or wouldnt have gotten this far, rely on your Faith, and pray alot, I go to bed hugging a stuffed Turtle, my nickname for Jer, and just telling Turtle, 'we will always be together, always'. Ange is watching out over you so honor the time you spent together , the hard work of getting sober..honor that time by staying sober. Until later, val