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Feeling Disconnected...


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I suppose God has a sense of humor. I just poured out my feelings for a half hour only to accidentally push the wrong key and wipe it all out in an instant. :( I'll try to start again.

It starts the day your husband/wife dies...I remember when they (the doctors) started coming towards me to tell me the news. I remember hearing my anguished cry echoing through the hallways of the hospital as I cried out in pain, Not my husband! From that moment on, I was different. No longer fitting into a couples world...yet not fitting in with singles either. This weekend I was at a "Women of Faith" conference and they had us fill out a form...I found I could not check next to married, single, or divorced, so I wrote in "widowed". Why do they try to box us in? What difference does it make to them really and why do they subject us to it? I still have not filled out a new tax withholding form...I just could not check "single"...it'll probably cause me problems at the end of the tax year but who cares?

Someone told me again this weekend how "well" I'm doing? "Well"? How well is it that I don't feel like going to church when I've gone all of my life? How "well" is it that I can't read a book when I used to read myself to sleep every night? How "well" is it that I am depressed and lonely and either don't feel like eating or do mindless eating, and don't even care which? How "well" is it that I live in the most beautiful place in the world and used to live to take my beloved walks in the woods and now have no inclination to do so? How "well" is it that I am angry and both want friends and drive them away at the same time? How "well" is it that I feel like no one understands or cares (barring my friends on this site)? How "well" indeed? Thursday is our 5th anniversary...or it would be if George were alive. I just went through another birthday without him. I suppose I am doing okay under the circumstances, but I could hardly call that "well". He was the light of my world, my reason for living, my sunshine, and he's gone! I miss him so much! Even with all I have gone through with finding out about his drug addiction and problems, I still love him, I forgive him. I feel confused but I do know I love and loved him. How "well" is that? I hear the rain beating down on the roof, and I am reminded that I am starting yet another season without him. Oh my George, how could you leave me???

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Oh, KayC,

"How well", indeed. I know exactly what you're saying when you say you "want friends and drive them away"...I'm so afraid I'm driving my friends away when I don't return their calls, when I don't want to make plans to see them - but I JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE IT, most of the time!!!! I just want to be left alone - but not really!!! What a confusing time this is for us!!!

I used to knit (I'm not a great knitter, but I have made some pretty afghans and scarves) - in fact, every night when Dick and I were laying in bed with the TV on, I would be knitting and he would be reading and/or watching the TV - just 'hanging out' together. I haven't WANTED to knit anything since before he died, August 24, 2006 at 3:50 in the afternoon!!.. I miss him so much!!

I just became a Christian a year ago and I was starting to go to church on Sunday's and I found a church I really liked and wanted to get involved in - I haven't been to church since Dick died!!... and every week I say "I"m going to go to church this Sunday!"

I want to exercise and go to Weight Watchers - and every week, practically every day - I say "I'm going to go to exercise class today" ( there's one every day at the Sr. Center at 9:00am) and I don't go. Every Monday and/or Saturday I say I'm going to join WW and I don't go. Every day I say I'm going to start eating more healthy - fruits and vegies - and I eat cookies and muffins. It's like trying to fill up a black hole in the middle of my stomach. Every few days I say, I'm going to start cooking again - not just for me but for my daughter - and I have yet to cook a meal.

I don't know what to do - except to keep on praying for God to heal my heart, comfort my heart and help me to live life again....

Love, Benita

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Hi KayC,

I used to go out with friends when I lived with my parents, but since they both died last year I have not been out since... I stay in my room and read, rug hook or scrapbook.. I do seem to get out to go to the back twice a month but that is the only time I really leave the house... I maybe made to leave when asked to pick up my neice from school but I had doing that... I have not talked to many of my friends since I moved away from where I used to live.... I pray every day that God will help me get my life back... I do that for the rest of us here as well. Take care Shelley

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Shelley and Benita,

Thank you for your responses...you help me to feel more normal. Sometimes I wonder if I'm slowly going crazy. I guess we just need to force ourselves to do one healthy thing at a time. I do make my cards, that relieves stress, but that's about all I want to do...and I want to be with people but I don't want to go out. I want to know they care but I feel like they don't. They probably don't know what to say or how to be so maybe they avoid the situation, I don't know. But there's others that are just TOTALLY gone. It's so hard. It would have been nice if more of his or our friends had stayed in touch. It's like they want to forget him...but I can't. Even his kids...I don't even hear from them. Sometimes I wonder if even my kids want me to just move on but I can't. I wish I could, but I just can't.

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Kayc,

I also feel disconnected. Before Doug died, It felt good to go to church. After his death, I went to church and I felt nothing. I haven't been back since.

I have gone a few places with friends and I guess it was good to get out but I don't care if I go or if I stay at home. Sometimes, I prefer to just stay home. I just don't find the joy in things anymore. Like spunkye, I used to crochet or do a puzzle while Doug watched tv. I don't do either of those things that I enjoyed before. I have no interest.

People have told me that they are happy that I am doing so well and that I am such a strong person. If they could see me at night when I cry until I sob and feel sick to my stomach they wouldn't think so. I even had someone say to me how poised I was at Doug's service. I hardly remember who was there and who I spoke to. I was a wreck--just on the inside I guess.

Every year at this time Doug and I would take a drive to a state park just north of us on Lake Ontario. We would take the dogs with us and walk through the park and collect pinecones and acorns that I would use for crafts. I was telling someone this and he said "go anyway". I said, yeah I could but it just would not be the same. People who have not been through this just do not understand. The thing that made the trip so special is that we did it together. It wasn't about where we went or what we did when we got there. It was about doing it with the single most important person in my life--my husband.

I'm going to try to add an attachment of a poem I found on another site. Perhaps you have read it before. I can really relate to this poem.

Terry

Forever_Changed.doc

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KayC,

I know what you mean when you talk about the boxes. The part I hate is when they lump Divorsed and widowed in the same box. It infurates me that they can put those two together. They are in no way even close to the same meaning. There are a few things that I liked to do that I haven't done much of after Karen died. We used to use our pool a lot during the summer, and I think I only got in it 2 times this year. Carson used it more often with his friends so at least it is getting some use. I just got back from South Carolina, and it was so different going there without her. During the week my dad and step mom had to go to work so they weren't home during the day for some of the week, so it was kinda of wierd finding things to do without asking someone else what they wanted to do. I did do one thing that I throughly enjoyed. I was in contact with Shell and I went and had dinner with her and her brother on the way back home to Texas. We had a blast, it was a little out of my way, but I couldn't pass up the oppurtunity to finally meet someone from this web site. To finally talk to someone in person.

Got off topic but I had to throw that in there. Kay, I wish I could do something for you that would take your pain away, my heart aches that you have to fgo through this. From talking to you on this site I can tell you are a wonderful woman who deserves to have someone to be there for them. I will keep you in my thonughts and prayers.

Derek

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Derek,

Thank you for your reply. I'm glad you had a good trip, even though I know it was different this time. I'm so glad you got to meet Shelley, how cool is that! I wish all of us could meet! Well, who knows?

Today was tough...I had a long discussion with my John tonight about my anger...the cause and what to do about/with it. I wish I could have talked with him some more about it but his cellphone's battery went dead...maybe later. He has good insights. I have been feeling angry lately and I don't want it to change me in a bad way or ruin possibilities or friendships, so I do need to figure out how to channel it for the good. I do feel I am doing better than a year ago, but I've had so much to deal with since then, it seems like centuries ago. Even when I FEEL alone, I know I really am not, it's just we want someone here in the flesh and that's not the case.

Well goodnight dear friend, I wish you pleasant dreams and a good day tomorrow!

Edited by kayc
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Kay C,

I have written in widowed or when they asked for the babies fathers info at the hospital I wrote in deceased. I dont like to say I am single either because I didnt chose to be. I never realized how hard being a single mother was and my sister liked to compare me to her for a while. She would say remember when I had Emma (my niece) I was alone and It took alot of effort not to say to her you had chosen that route not me. The beginning of your post makes me realize I am not the only one who relives the day it happened. The worse day of my life. For some reason I cant think of the good times yet. All I replay in my head is the day he died. My reaction how the doctor told me etc. I wish in I way I could erase that memory. I know how I feel when people say I look good or whatever they think I look like. Of course we dont go around crying all day. I Think people just expect us to drag ourselves along the rest of our lives and look miserable. If I looked how I felt some days they would have me committed. I am always thinking of you and everyone on here and I will keep you in my prayers.

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KayC

You made me smile in your acknowlegement that you want but don't want friends. When Paul died I had 30 messages piled up in my voicemail that I would listen to over and over while not returning a single one. When the phone stopped and I had no new messages, I thought "No, I've been abandoned!" - and I cried and cried. It still baffles my mind as I try and determine "Did they drop me or did I drop them? Or did these once-close bonds just break down on their own?" I think now that my life revolved so much around Paul that I have nothing to talk about - and that I won't until someone new. Friends will come back after this. And if they don't ... ? They're not who I'm really missing, are they?

I remember dealing with systems and bureaucracies too. Paul and I had a video account that we shared which had some minor unpaid fines. When they asked, as they did, if I was Paul or Roy, I was touched by the memory and I sentimentally explained that, no, Paul was gone. "Oh, in that case, we'll forgive the fines. Let me just erase him from the computer" they said, and on the click of a mouse it was over! I was so upset I walked out into traffic coming home - confused and disoriented over the question of how "My Pookums" could not be here, any record of his existence / our association obliterated. I tossed and I turned though that whole night trying to devise some kind of subversive plan that would have him reinstated. In time, I accepted this additional loss and I just stopped doing business with them.

It seems to be one thing after another of letting go of the life we shared and praying for something ... someone, somewhere ... to rebuild a life around. They say nothing is ever lost - that it's only displaced - and I hope they're right! In the meantime, perhaps, we can cry together for the friends we don't want who aren't there for us.

It's confusing and upsetting.

Roy

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I had just said yesterday (11 months) that we would take our dogs and walk in this field beside the river. Each season would bring something new to look at and when we were there the world would go away. He would feel well for a little while. He loved walking with his dogs (beagle and foxhound). It was peaceful. Yes, I could go to the field but I don't want to. I would be looking for him and so would his dogs. Its just not the same and I want my old life back. Deborah

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Roy,

I had a similar feeling to what you felt when they "wiped out his name" at the video store. I had an appt. with the social security office less than two weeks after he died. The woman announced that my marriage ended in death. I left there crying so hard I didn't know how I was going to drive. I never asked for my marriage to end and as far as I was concerned, it hadn't. I didn't see how death or anything else could separate us when we were always so inseperable and had been since the day we met. But rest assured, that their click of the computer in no way wiped him out or erased him, because Paul will always live on in your heart, looming bigger than life itself. At the video store I go to, the owner is about 45 and has been widowed twice...when she learned of George's death, she talked with me for quite a while about it and she didn't delete him from their system until I told them (over a year later) they could. It makes such a difference to run across sensitive people...and those people are usually those who have gone through it themselves.

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