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Tired Of Being Strong


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Yep!  One day at a time.  You're in my thoughts. & prayers.

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I am approaching 7 months mark in two days. I too, am still numb.  Been dealing with the Obamacare Health Marketplace which has been a nightmare over 19 hours on the phone trying to resolve first one and now three different insurance issues.  They keep disconnecting me after holding for a half an hour or more.  Each person gives me a different answer.  Than Saturday I get out water and sewage bill and it has my wife's name on the bill.  I called today to have her name removed because she has been removed from my life.  It is just a part of what life is now.  I'm just trying to face life one day at a time, one hour and even one minute.  I press forward, by God's Grace.   Shalom

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I'm sorry you're going through so much bureaucracy. I know how frustrating that is.  It feels like a dagger to the heart to continue seeing your spouse' name on things...OR to see it removed.  :(

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I hope it gets better for you.  :(

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Just finished reading this topic and I am so glad I have found this page. I can relate to so many experiences and situations. I feel alone with my grief at times. Most of my friends (in early 30's) have not experienced a major loss in their live, they do not know what it is like to loose their partner, or how to comfort someone who is grieving. I have to admit, I wouldn't have had a clue myself until a few weeks ago. 

Scba, I hope you are feeling a bit better.

 

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I hope you are having a better day too scba and with you all the way George as always.

It is Friday evening in Brussels and something about Friday evenings I find breathtakingly hard. I don't know if it is because 7 short weeks ago on Friday evening was our last evening together (he died on a Saturday) or if it's because we would do a little grocery shopping after work and then I would prepare a relaxed meal for the 3 of us (we have a 16 year old son) nothing special happened just our little family together.Everything hurts and everything aches. My son and I managed to get through his 16th Birthday together. I only broke once and that was when my son was out of the room but there is something about Friday evenings. It's the silence and the love and companionship that I treasured so much, all missing. I feel so empty without him

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Dear Debi...

Mark and I, too, had a Friday ritual.  Nothing special, just our evening to have Whataburger hamburgers and watch "Gold Rush" on Discovery channel.  I had always LOVED Friday evenings; weekend was ahead of me, and the work week was done.  Now I just am glad my work week, and brave face, can be put away for a few days.  I am still working on giving myself more "quiet" time...but it is difficult sometimes to sit with the silence.  Missing my companion goes without saying.  He took great joy in feeding French fries to the fur babes.  I don't think I have had a Whataburger since he passed.  Just keep doing what you are doing, day by day, minute by minute.

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We did too...I found the weekends incredibly hard as that was our time together, and everyone else was still enjoying their spouse.  

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after very difficult weeks because of my birthday and THAT anniversary, today I felt fine. I signed up to go to the gym, I had breakfast with a friend and I had dinner with friends. I was told something very common but it kept me thinking longer: "i know you did a big effort to come tonight. You know, life goes on". This thing, life goes on..... Sure, life continues outside of us. But what do you think that life goes on to US, the bereaved? this sentence keeps resonating in my mind looking for a meaning. Maybe my question is just nonsense and there is no meaningful answer. Life goes on, we are alive, and it is what it is. I have the tendency to analyze what doesn't need to be analyzed.

 

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Maryann Thank you so much for your encouragement, your Fridays sound so cosy and much like ours. Kayc you are so right about weekends. I have noticed people (at work) start to say 'have a good weekend' and then stop halfway as they remember. I think the fact they stop is harder than th efact they say it.

Scba 'Life goes on' is a mindless statement to the bereaved It is more like 'TIME marches on' but life? OUR lives as we knew them? No that is the bit that doesn't go on and we so dearly our lives BACK. The one we had before the horror. I find some statements so mindless that they are as much use to me as shingle on a beach. You can't walk on it in shoes and if you walk barefoot they cut your feet. What is the good ?

Today it is 2 months since the nightmare of switching the machines off. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago and other times like yesterday. I woke up with panic and it has stayed with me the whole day. Should I have kept the machines on for longer?  Would he have kept the machine on if it had been me? Could a miracle have happened? Could I have done something? How could I not KNOW this was coming?

Now we managed to live through, my son and I , his 16th birthday, I realise that never again can we say 'this time last year he was here' time just falls away and the memories of him decorating our living room with helium balloons everywhere - Max's 15th - will fade because we can't say 'last year Daddy spent hours decorating the living room'...It will become 'remember when...?' I never want to say 'Remember when'

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scba,

Life continues for us,but not the same as before.  For us who have outlived our spouses,nothing is the same, not the quality, not our day to day existence, nothing about it.  A statement such as that can feel invalidating of our grief.  For OTHERS life goes on, but for us, nothing about it is the same.

We make effort, day after day, trying to find our purpose, trying to find meaning, trying to be useful in something somewhere, but it feels we are swimming up stream sometimes.  People who make that flip remark can''t possibly have a clue.  What that says to me is "we want you to get over it, stop grieving, be like you were before" none of which we can do.

Debi,

I don't think anyone ever stopped themselves from saying "Have a good weekend" to me, but I can understand how hard hitting that must feel to you to hear them stop in the middle, as if they suddenly realize that for you and your son, it won't be.  There will be good weekends ahead in your life, but it may be some time before that happens, and it probably won't be all of the weekends, but more like when there's something special to look forward to, whereas when George was alive, every weekend was special because he was part of it.

I've learned to live alone.  I find nothing special about that.  Sometimes I feel very alone.  Like when you're out on a limb  and there's no one to catch you.  I can value solitude, I can enjoy some aspects of it, but to me, it's like comparing apples to oranges, there's nothing the same as before and I'd trade everything for one more weekend with George.

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It's been a week that I've been doing well. I was able to go to the gym three times, to go to classes and to study, to focus on my embroidery project, to make progresses in my mood and to feel some sort of "peace". I wonder how long it will last....however, a question suddenly arrived: "does it mean that I can be fine also "without him"? It's strange because it seems that while I'm hurting, there is a link between us, and if I am not, it looks like that "I can go on (well) without you".

Oh grief.....

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Scba I am delighted you have had a good week. This is a milestone and you so deserve it. You will survive without him and you will go on. You are an individual with an individual contribution to make to this world. This does not diminish him in any way. You will wobble as we all do, but I have no doubt he is helping you one step at a time. Personally I feel the link when you are able to function well is even more there because he is helping you to do that. That's my theory anyway.

 

Debi,

.  Like when you're out on a limb  and there's no one to catch you.  

Kayc this is a perfect description of how it feels for me. Like you I would give everything to have one more weekend with him. I feel like my life has been interrupted and what has taken its place is so alien to me I don't recognise this new landscape at all

Kayc

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had an exam today, the first exam since a long time. I decided to go back to college so as to be able to focus on something else, to challenge myself, to persist. I have been a good student. I failed the exam. I studied so hard, it was a difficult exam. I feel I am total failure. I feel lost. I broke down in tears, I thought I was going forward. I feel I will never be the one I used to be and I am devastated about it. I feel it is me who is dead. Where is my old self? Nothing will survive from tragedy? I want my boyfriend back, I call his name in despair. I feel so stupid for crying for an exam.

 

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i'm sorry about the exam. You are not a failure though. you are pushing forward to make the best of what can only be described as the most painful time in your life. You are not a failure. 

I cry...all the time...over nothing...over stupid things.... over everything. 

never feel bad for crying. I am also back in school. it's hard, because in grief our minds are clouded....not clear like they used to be. so i don't retain information as well as I used to. Same thing happens to me while I am at work. 

I am exhausted..emotionally and physically by the end of each week, but that just reminds me that I am trying and i haven't given up on life....it's not the life i want. it's not the world i want. and it is completely unfair..... but it is what it is. 

virtual hug.jpg

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I can relate to both of you.  I was just speaking to someone at work here about this same subject.  I miss my old brain, the one that could multitask like crazy, and not get irritated because someone wanted me to do something besides the task at hand.  It is not like I have something specific on my mind that interrupts my focus.  It is just empty.  The music that plays on my radio just seems to bounce around inside my head.  When I took my permit test, I left sobbing because I could not complete it because I had the wrong paperwork.  But I dug down inside and found a bit of the old Maryann, the one who hated giving up and I went back.  Failing at something now seems SO MUCH WORSE than before.  But in our way, we get up and dust ourselves off, and take another step forward.  Today is my first week working 5 days, and to say I am exhausted is an understatement.  But I am somewhat upbeat because it IS Friday and I made it through with no major gaffes.  To some that is normal; to me it is a BIG accomplishment. 

Don't EVER feel stupid for crying.  We have been through one of the most life changing things that can happen and we shouldn't beat ourselves up for wishing things were as before.  I, myself, have to learn to not do that.  Tough lessons.

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When I listen to those who are further along grief's path, I find hope when things seem so hard a climb. I am reminded of my grief counselor when she first came to my home to help me. She told me a story in passing of how eight years earlier she lost her husband. I thought how here she was having endured what I am going through now but she told me more. She was getting her masters to become a grief counselor and struggled to get through. She had just lost her husband and yet she struggled on. It was her goal and finally she received that letter and when she opened it not knowing the results, she was emotionally ecstatic when she saw she had made it. She held up the letter and showed it to her husband saying "see?" Extraordinary lady.  She helped me from that day forward. She spoke to courage.

Sometimes when things seem insurmountable, I take a lesson and keep going. You can do it if just to tell that special person you love "see".

 

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Please understand that this is not a reflection on you, but it is the grief.  It is very hard to focus when you are grieving.  Things that used to be easy for us now seem insurmountable.  I hope you don't let it defeat you.  Start with one class you enjoy rather than going for something big and difficult, and proceed from there.

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  • 5 weeks later...

"I cannot bear those who say "but” for death or violence. "but it was predictable", "but he/she provoked it", "but it could have been worse", "but there was no possible cure", etc. I have been one of them. One of those who think they know more than the other one about what to think or how to deal with. I have learned to respect, without “objection”. No one needs a lecture on something as human as pain".

I have read this today and I wanted to share it.

On days like this when the world seems to be a darker place, I cannot stop thinking "please come back, please come back to me". 

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 No one needs a lecture on something as human as pain".

 

I hope to see a day when people I know no longer feel the need to fix me. Granted I am broken, no, I am shattered. But for right now I cannot be nor am I interested in being fixed. 

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We did too...I found the weekends incredibly hard as that was our time together, and everyone else was still enjoying their spouse.  

that's how I feel with my sister. I lived for the weekends, not just because it was the weekend (because yay!) but there were things to look forward to. Our shopping, our movie nights, just hanging and talking. Even things I did alone, cleaning up, video games. Now there is nothing to look forward to and anything I did do alone I have no motivation for anymore. 

I can't believe I hate the weekends now and look at how many more I have to look forward too. I think 'how will I do this every week?' The constant feelings hollow and empty and alone. I know I can't blame other people but I hate hearing about anyone else and their happy family time now. I want my life back.

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I think it is hard for any of us for a very long time to hear about other people's lives and they things they are doing that are fun and have meaning for them.  I still get angry and jealous at times.  But I also realize I did the same because it wasn't my life that was derailed when someone lost someone dear to them.  It's a totally normal reaction.

As for wanting your life back, we all do and the harsh truth is we can't and what we have now is our life.  To me that is the hardest part of this struggle.  But, again, totally normal.  I wish I had some insights that could ease the pain for you, but there really are none.  I hate this change, but I have to live it.  So I cry and scream a lot.  It has to come out.

the very fact you could write the above post shows you still have life in you.  It may be all you do for the day, but sometimes it is enough.  To see we are fighting to survive even if we don't see it.

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I agree with you Gwenivere.  We all mourn our old life which was composed of the person who left us.  Its not the objects or things, but the silly things we cannot even begin to explain to another human being, even on here.  The people who haven't been through it don't understand even if they do have the best of intentions. That is how I picked my name for here.  A week after my husband died, I was told this was my new normal.  Truth yes, harsh oh boy.  To hear my own sister in law tell me I am young, that I have a chance to meet someone else, totally in kindness, well....no words.

I have had to tell myself many many times be grateful they don't understand.  To wish this upon someone else, well is inhuman. 

I struggle even as a Mom-I see my daughter and son trying to bravely go to concerts or football games-My first thought is "how can you do that?"  My second thought is pride that they are trying.  They have their whole lives ahead of them and it is different for them.  Their life is just beginning.  For us, our life is on pause-

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