melina

I have been in deep despair today too, like others here. It started when I got out of bed and worsened when I talked to my son about his grief. I also have this incredible sense of deep loneliness. I've never felt anything like it before - like being locked in a dark room. Calling friends or family doesn't help. I talked to two of my sons today and one friend, but that black, hollow loneliness just gets bigger and bigger. I know that it's because I can't talk with the one person I really need to talk with, and I'll never be able to do that again. I miss my husband so much I can't stand it.

I just can't stop sobbing. Is it normal to have days where the crying just goes on and on? I feel like I'm losing my mind, and long to feel normal again. I wonder if that will ever happen.

Melina

I've been feeling horrible today as well. Yesterday I almost thought I was getting through this grief. Things weren't too bad. But I've been sobbing on and off all day, ever since I got up. I can't imagine there are any tears left. I'm hoping this is an all-time low and that things will turn around. Let's hope we face a better day tomorrow.

Melina

Our oldest son called from the states to say he's putting his Masters degree on hold for a year. He just completed his Bachelors and was about to start a graduate degree, but found he wasn't able to concentrate. He wants to work for a year until he's through the worst of the grief.

I supported him in his decision, talked about the grief, and advised him to find a counselor to help him through it, plus told him he could call me anytime day or night. I finished the conversation, and when I put the phone down, I couldn't stop sobbing. With anything involving our kids, my husband and I would talk it through. Now I have no one.

I'm not sure why - but I feel I've failed my kids. We didn't give them a normal life. This son is 26 and married, but I look around and see all these people even my age who still have their parents around. My kids won't have a grandfather for their own children. At least not on our side. I feel so bad for them. It brought all my own grief up to the surface once again, and now I'm almost panicking. Why on earth did this happen to us? It's unbelievable. Why did we "win" the lottery - the chances that my non-smoking husband would get lung cancer were so small - yet it happened.

Again - I'm turning to this group. It's been my godsend.

Melina

Thanks Ron - and all of you - for the support. I'm sorry to have been a worry - but am relieved to hear that I seem to be progressing. It is hard to notice that myself. Every day is an effort, but I suppose I'm slowly getting through it - as are we all. Ron - I hope you find that shared life too, with all its ups and downs.

Melina

I wish I could share your faith and the feeling of comfort that comes from a sense that your spouses are with you. I still can't find that. I wonder if my feelings of guilt and the trauma of his sudden death just blocks that possibility out. I ask for comfort from God, from my husband, ask for signs, for anything that might indicate that someone is there - but I don't know what to look for. I still feel terrible grief and loss.

Melina

I've always had a sort of fuzzy religious faith. I'm not a church-goer, but I do have hope that there is a higher power, and now especially I'm hoping desperately that there is a life after death where I will see my husband again and we can be together. My grief counselor is the hospital chaplain and she, of course, has faith in this.

But I can't help worrying that it won't happen after all. How do we know? For those of you that have faith in God (call him what you wil) - how do you keep this faith in the face of all we've gone through.

When my husband was first diagnosed, I prayed every day for God to make him well. But of course that didn't happen. Now I'm torn between not knowing if God exists, and being angry as hell at God for taking such a beloved husband and father. I have found no signs, no signals to let me know my husband is here - or that God is here. I feel no comfort.

Any comments would be appreciated. I just want to feel some sort of comfort that in the end - the very end - it will be all right. Because right now, it certainly isn't.

Melina

I'll try to tackle one thing at a time. I wouldn't mind being able to redecorate and fix things up but I have neither the money nor the carpentry skills my husband had. It's sort of that drowning/being overwhelmed feeling that grabs me all the time.

Melina

Now I'm posting again. Sitting here at the kitchen table alone. This is first day I didn't feel awful when waking up - partly because I remembered a bill I had to pay and ran downstairs to do it before trouble ensued. But after about an hour, with the rain pouring down outside - the grief crept up on me and I'm sitting here crying again. I know we're supposed to take one day at a time - one minute at a time, but I can't help thinking forward - to Christmas, to graduations for two of my sons, to summer vacation alone, to a lifetime alone. All those things we were going to do together. I'm so miserable. I try to focus on little positive things during the day, but this huge sorrow and emptiness just overshadows them all.

Will I make it? I'm so tired of the constant pain. It's exhausting.

Melina

It seems to me that even though I force myself now to either walk or run every day with the dog, I have no energy for anything else. I have to make dinner for my youngest son, and I have to put the dishes in the dishwasher and I have to wash his clothes. But apart from that, I don't want to do anything else.

We just bought and moved into this house a month before he died. There are so many things I need to do around here, but they were things we were going to do together. Now it just seems pointless. Who cares? I haven't cleaned the house since my husband died a month ago. My clothes are all over the floor in our room because I can't handle opening the closet and seeing his clothes.

Our third son comes home on weekends now and then, and I should fix up his room so it looks more cozy and lived in, but I just can't get going. A lot of our stuff is still in boxes.

Will the energy ever come back? I owe it to my sons to give them a home when they need it. If it were just me, I might not do anything at all. I'm already dreading Christmas too. Imagine the energy it will take to get through that. It's like having chronic fatigue syndrome.

Melina

August is my horrible month - and I still can't bring myself to name the date. I have no family close by either. I live in Norway and my mother and siblings live in the states. But they wouldn't have been much help had they been here. I have a sister-in-law and her family about a three hour drive away, but they'd only help out in a big crisis. My husband was my rock - the one I leaned on and told my worries to. Now there is no one I can lean on and I suppose I'll just have to become stronger and hope that what I decide to do is right. I figure I'll be making a lot of mistakes. I miss my husband desperately - and just talking through everyday worries is one of the many things I miss and took for granted.

I understand your worries about getting sick, but that won't necessarily imply that you'll end up in a nursing home. Do you have kids or family you can call, even if they're not nearby?

Melina

I've started running again. My son pulled me out of the house to run with him. It helped to get out of my head for a while and get my body tired instead of just my mind.

Melina

I've been on sick leave since my husband died a month ago. Today I saw my doctor and she gave me another month of sick leave. I'm not sure what's best to do, but I was dissolved in tears at her office, so she probably thought it best I waited a little before returning to work.

I should probably mention that I work as a psychologist, so being at a job where I'm expected to help other people is completely impossible for me now. In fact, I'm wondering if I'll ever be able to do that again. If I'm incapable of helping myself - how can I help others?

Had I not had to work with people, it might have been best to return to a job and keep myself busy during the day, but as it is - I can't see any other option than to stay home. On the other hand, I know that being alone all day and night is going to be hard too. I used to be thrilled to have days off and the day all to myself and work from home. Then I'd wait for my husband to come home - knowing we'd spend the afternoon and evening together. Now no one is coming home.

I do have my 19-year old son, but I feel I have so little to offer him. As I said in another post - all I have are hugs and food. I try to talk to him about other things - but we're both grieving and finding it difficult to think about anything else besides the person we've both lost.

I have this overwhelming sense of injustice. The "Why Us?" bothers me day and night. I spoke to another widow nearby - a friend of a friend. She lost her first husband to cancer in her twenties. Then remarried, had twins, but one twin died during the first year. Then three years ago her second husband died of a heart attack while out jogging. Her sons are now 17 and 22. She's able to work and be social. But she did say the first year after each death was hell. Still - I think going through this twice - or three times - would have knocked me out long ago.

I'm rambling again. Thanks for listening.

Melina

I also hate hearing about other people's plans. I still haven't returned to work and am on sick leave, so weekends and weekdays are all pretty miserable. I do have to go to the store now and then. Just seeing families or couples together, talking about their weekend plans or vacation, reduces me to tears. I can barely get through to the cash register.

I understand it must be hard being alone with young children. I have older children - the youngest is 19, but seeing their pain and tears and talk about their father is like a knife in my stomach. I so wanted him to see them finish their educations. They wanted to show their dad they could get their degrees, get married, have him be as great a grandfather as he was a father. Our youngest son is still at home, and I worry I'm going to be a depressing mom to be around. We're both grieving and I have little to give him apart from hugs and food.

It hurts so much to think about this - even writing it is painful. Life does seem meaningless right now. We can only hope things will get a little easier.

Melina

Thanks - you guys have been life-saving.

Melina

Melina, dear ~ It's important to remember that grief is not a pathological condition. It is a normal response to significant loss. Loss creates an emotional wound, but it is an injury that can be healed. With help and understanding, the pain of loss can be transformed into a challenging new beginning, and your grief experience can become a healthy, positive and healing process. To make the process of grief a healing one, you must go through it actively, which means moving through it thoughtfully and working with it deliberately. Expressed grief can be worked with and released, but suppressed grief will torment you in ways you cannot control. Healthy, normal mourning is a process of honestly facing the reality of your loss, coming to terms with its impact on your life, learning to access all available resources for recovery, finding meaning in your loss and continuing to live productively in the years that follow. Certainly it can turn into a complicated grief reaction, in which painful emotions are so long lasting and so severe that you're unable to function normally ~ but given the fact that you are here with us, seeking information, finding available resources, reaching out for support and responding to our efforts to help, that is not likely to happen.

As for your concerns about using alcohol, the fact that you're "not even usually a drinker" and you're "not the type to use sedatives and sleeping pills" tells me that you don't have a history of substance abuse, so it is unlikely that you will suddenly develop an addiction to alcohol or drugs. On the other hand, when you're suffering something as devastating as the death of your spouse, the lure of taking something to dull the pain can be very seductive. Common as it may be, this strategy for avoiding pain only serves to aggravate it ~ especially in the case of alcohol, which acts as a depressant and often leaves you feeling worse. See this article, Alcohol Not the Answer.

Marty - I wonder if I might turn out to become one of those comnplicated grief people. I have all the risk factors. Also - when I say I'm not usually a drinker or a drug taker - I've been regularly using alcohol and oxazepam since he died. The same thing happened after we got his diagnosis a year ago, but when we received some positive news that they might be able to beat the cancer or at least control it - I was able to cut out the oxazepam and reduce drinking to a glass of wine a day. Then he suddenly died - and we were completely unprepared. Even the doctors were surprised.

Now I've been taking up to 25 mg oxazepam a day, plus drinking from the afternoon until nearly bedtime. As I said, yesterday I drank at 10 in the morning, which I have never done before. I feel it's definitely out of control, but if my pain is this bad WITH drugs and alcohol, imagine how it will be without anything to dull the pain. It will be torture.

Right now I feel like I'm drowning and am not sure I'll be able to cope. I have a grief counselor and a psychologist I can call, but otherwise little support. I'm on Lexapro - an antidepressant - which hasn't done a thing for me despite being on it for a year now. I'm terrified I'm not going to be able to take care of my 19 year old, let alone myself. I even forget to feed the dog. Luckily my son remembers.

For me - it's the guilt at not appreciating my husband more when he was alive. I was burned out from all the stress during his illness - caregiving and working full time. Now I can't work or give care to myself.

I'm so hurt too at the lack of compassion from my mother and siblings. It's when you face your worst crisis ever that you see how people really are. My sons are troopers but are of course hurting too - and I try to be strong and supprotive for them when talking to them, but can't do the same for myself.

Sorry for rambling here. People on this site seem to be coping so well, in spite of it all, but I'm just not sure I can manage. I feel like everyone else were so wonderful with their spouses - sitting at their bedside day and night if they were ill, or being 100% loving spouses up until they were suddenly killed. It wasn't like that for us, and I have severe guilt that just won't go away. It really does feel like drowning.

Melina

My take on it is that if we dull our pain with alcohol or drugs, we will never really face it, and life will never really get better. And I can finally honestly say it really does get better. However, I don't doubt that the occasional use of either if fine; we just have to be cognitive that it should remain 'occasional'.

Hugs,

Korina

Korina, how long did it take before you noticed it really started to get better?

Melina

It's nearly a month since he's been gone. I'm sorry for posting again so soon. I am really bombarding people with stuff here - but I have no one else to talk to. This group has been my best friend and saving grace through this whole mess. My kids are great, but they're going back to school now and besides, I don't want to unload my misery upon them when they have their own grief to deal with and school to manage. I want them to live as normally as possible, find pleasure in life and do well in school.

I wish I had family I could talk to - but they don't understand why I haven't moved on by now. My brother just e-mailed me and told me to stop being so melodramatic. He says I should just find pleasure in a good book, a nice meal, a walk in the woods or some music. He said that after a long hectic life raising four sons, I should enjoy my time alone. This feels almost sadistic. They just don't get it. Enjoy my time alone??? And how can I possibly concentrate on a book? I have to force myself to walk in order to get some exercise, but I find no pleasure in food or music either.

Now it's the weekend. People are off doing weekend stuff with their husbands and families. My friends, all married with families, offer to have me come over, but I don't want to be with couples or happy families.I feel so utterly lonely. I used to look forward to weekends. Fridays were fantastic. Now it's just another miserable day alone.

Jeez I sound depressing, but it feels like this will never end. It's really a nightmare to end all nightmares. Maybe I'm still partly in shock. I can't believe this has happened. How could it happen to us? We were so normal.

Melina

It's been terrible and bumpy ride so far. Yesterday I wasn't too bad - at least not after I saw my grief counselor. This morning I drove our eldest son and his wife to the airport so they could return to their studies in the US. I've had all four kids plus one daughter-in-law with me this last month. We were all at my husband's bedside when he died. I made the trip fine, was able to concentrate on the road, say goodbye without too many tears and drove home again. Altogether a four hour trip.

I got home from the airport, and collapsed into tears. It was early, so the two sons left at home - at least for now - were still asleep. I took a sedative, then a glass of wine, then one more glass of wine. Nothing helped.

I never drink in the morning. I'm not even usually a drinker. Nor am I the type to use sedatives and sleeping pills. Now I'm wondering if I'm headed down the road to addiction.

The overwhelming guilt, thoughts of regret and most of all the deep grief, loneliness and longing are eating me up inside. When does grief become pathological?

Melina

Cheryl,

I'm sorry about your new griefday. It's trite to say - but think of all the great times and close love you had.

I envy you that you had such a close relationship. We were close, but the last year with my husband's cancer has been difficult, and our marriage on the whole was not always on an even keel. Yet we weathered the crises and I grieve all the more for the things I didn't get a chance to tell him or show him.

I only hope they can hear us and that we'll see them again. I keep asking for some sort of sign or feeling, just to let me know he's there - yet I get nothing.

Melina

I've started off with a very bad day. Have been lying in bed crying for three hours now and can't seem to get up. I've got kids downstairs and appointments to reach, but everything just seems so overwhelming.

I just can't believe this has happened to us. I feel so bad for our kids. I know they're grown - the youngest is 19 - but they deserved a father too and a grandfather for their kids. It's so unfair when I see other older, and not very nice men who live long healthy lives.

I'm so scared to be alone - probably forever.

I hate this so much.

Melina

The posts I've read from people in deep pain several years after their spouse's death scare me too. It could be, however, that some people have had trouble working through their grief, while others are just having a bad day when they post.

Melina

Good advice, Cheryl, but how long did this take? I mean before you began trying to re-enter the world? I'm soon at the one month mark and still feeling pretty raw emotionally. I've never been a social butterfly, and always felt I had enough with my husband. Now I realize I should have built up a stronger network, which I will probably need at some point. Being completely alone is actually pretty scary.

Melina

Kayc,

What a great perspective you have on life. I wish I could feel the same way, but right now I feel only envy and bitterness that it's not me. Hopefully that will change someday.

Melina

Eventually I will have to go out into the world again, but right now it feels like the world is basically populated with happy couples leading normal, busy lives. My sister-in-law and her husband were going to stop by with their daughter and son-in-law, and the thought of just seeing two happy, intact couples was too much. I asked them not to come. The friends I have are all married. This was great - as long as my husband was here and we were one of those happy couples. But now I'm just a widow. I feel like my identity has been stripped away with my happiness, leaving me just a sad, single, empty, middle-aged woman nobody wants.

Today I've missed him so badly my stomach hurts. We would have had our coffee together this morning before going off to work, discussing stuff in the newspaper, agreeing on who's stopping at the store on the way home, what we'd have for dinner.

Anyone else feel out of place with couples? It's a combination of longing and envy, I think. It hurts too much.

Melina

Thank you for all your supportive comments. To say I had a really bad morning is a major understatement. Then a friend took my four sons and I out in a sailboat to spread my husband's ashes on the water. It was emotional - but went well, all things considered. I was fairly calm until now - going to bed, alone. His sweatshirt is here in bed with me - the only item of clothing that still carries his smell. Probably not a good idea, since it wrenched me back into the agony, the loneliness and pain. This is the most horrible thing that has ever happened to me. I sincerely wish I had died instead of him. I won't kill myself, since I know I have to be here for my kids, and future grandkids - but I seriously don't want to live either. It's going to be a long, dull, painful life without him by my side.

Apart from my sons, this group is my only true source of support. I am so disappointed and hurt by the lack of understanding and caring from other family members. And friends, though they want to understand, just don't get it. But thanks for being there for me.

Melina