Fear

[frankly]

I'm afraid.  I understand my non stop crying, the sadness, the depression.  The overwhelming panic attacks are getting so bad that I don't know what to do any more.  I'm afraid....of Everything!  Something as simple as a bill coming in the mail with his name on it can bring one on.

 

I'm afraid of my future.  I'm afraid of looking at anything that reminds me of him.  I'm afraid to eat because it is something that he liked, or because he isn't here to share it with me.  I'm so afraid of facing that he is gone.  I'm afraid of believing it.  Afraid to lay down, to get up.

 

My whole world has turned into one big fear.  I fear life now.

 

I just don't get it.  My worst fear has happened.  He's gone.  So why am I so afraid of my own shadow now?

[Alone]

Dear Frankly - I wish there was a way that I could magically make this better for you, but there's not.  I can assure you that most, if not all of us on this site have felt and said and written something almost identical to your post at one time or another.  My Tom has been gone for 6+ months and I still have days like you are describing.  Yesterday I started crying because I was eating chicken and my Tom loved chicken. 

 

Please try to find someone or someplace in your area where you can speak to people face to face about your grief.  This website is a real blessing, but its not the same as talking to someone face to face.  I used the hospice bereavement group to get some one-on-one counseling and it helped.

 

Call friends, family, neighbors... anyone who can just sit with you and listen.   And please call your doctor as there are medications that can assist with the panic attacks and anxiety.  There are also phone hotlines in many areas for people experiencing emotional distress.

 

One more thing... try to breathe... take deep long breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth.  We forget to breathe when we are distraught and that make the panic worse.  I've been saying the serenity prayer many times a day since my Tom was diagnosed.  After all these months of illness and loss, that prayer can now calm me.  The prayer doesn't heal me or take away the pain, but the rhythm of the words has a calming effect.

 

 

 

I also recommend

[Alone]

sorry...

 

I also recommend reading books regarding grief.  There's something very reassuring about knowing that what we are going through is considered normal.  Many of the books provide good guidance on emotional and physical distress.

[Kidgie]

I understand what you mean about fear.  I don't get it either.  My husband passed away suddenly.  We had a normal evening, ate dinner, both fell asleep downstairs in front of the TV.  I vaguely heard him say he was going upstairs to stretch his back (he had back problems) which was not unusual.  Then he would usually call me from his cell phone to wake me up and for me to come up and join him.  Well, he never called that night and around 2:00 in the morning I woke up and the TV was still on and I was downstairs.  I went upstairs and found him lying dead on the floor.

 

It was just me and him -- married for 15 years -- no children.  We were best friends.  Both of us extremely independent.  I was often at home while he traveled for business.  Never afraid, yet I cannot sleep in my house now.  I am now living at our other house (the one we bought for my parents to live in) and took short term disability from work to get all the legal, financial, business matters done.  I am still in shock.  I go back to our house every day to take care of things but cannot bring myself to stay overnight there!  I don't understand it.

 

I will pray for you, please pray for me.