annew

Thank you, so much AB3, sometimes it's just got to come out. Thank you for being one who get that. <3

Beyond all, the toughest part is just allowing all the hurt, the loss, the pain, the fear to be felt and not repressed. The more I squash it, the more it finds other ways to get out and be free instead of shoved back into the closet. And, I am a highly sensitive person, so this is going to be felt so deeply, whether I want to feel or not. Today, I dropped a small plate and here it comes the same feeling of being shattered all to pieces when he died so unexpectedly....and no way to put all those pieces back together, none at all. So the last three years have been an adventure in creating what I can from the ashes of what was. So far, so good. And I just cry now, not so afraid it will pull me under and completely destroy me. I MISS HIM SO MUCH. Thank you for being the hearts that hear and allow that. You are a real miracle....and though we have never met, it is so easy to feel your hearts. <3

Found this, hope it helps healing..... A PRAYER FOR THE OVERWHELMED Oh, sweetheart. Life is overwhelming for you at times, l know. Don't listen to the ones who call you over-sensitive or too weak for this world. Your sensitivity is exquisitely beautiful! But you must learn to stay close to yourself. You must learn to breathe. To invite curious attention deep into your body. Allow yourself to feel overwhelmed, and you won't be overwhelmed, I promise. It's just a feeling. A precious part of you longing for love. It will pass when it's ready. Let it stay awhile. Don't pretend to be strong, the one who has it all 'figured out'. There will be time for answers soon enough. Now, simply give 'the overwhelmed one' safe passage in your heart. Drench the feeling of overwhelm with gentle attention; bathe it in overwhelming love. It's okay to feel overwhelmed sometimes, it really is. Even the strongest feel overwhelmed, for their strength lies in their vulnerability. Your sensitive nervous system is perfect, and l love you for it. And it's all okay, here. It's really okay, here in the arms of the present moment. - Jeff Foster

Thanks, Marg...you make some good points. Going out was no big deal to us either, a trip to the grocery and cooking together was happy for me. So in cooking for me now, I still love that. Just miss the good company he was. He's still here, still in my heart and I can really hear him....and he is well now after ten years of escalating illness that really took us both down....My adult son is now my roommate and we both sit in front of the tube and share about the world events and some meals. I am very blessed he has been here or the breakdown with the loss might have finished me off.

I love the way the support for how we all choose to cope and live with grief shows up in this thread. Dr. L. and Patty, thank you for your support and you have wise words here and so does your therapist, Patty. I like what she said, it really is how I feel too. It's not painful to be still and with me and my higher self, The grief is it's own thing and I can do it now with less fear. So I will quit thinking I should feel differently than I do. Not looking for another partner, just maybe the kinds of friends you are being for me.

No, we cannot compare....I am naturally a home body....and cook for myself, which beats fast food hands down. Don't know that I will ever date myself, as it is companioship I really want when/if the time comes. I've got being on my own down...spend most time alone and work from home, too. I am glad of the support to do things in my own time and not push myself into what does not feel good....going in my own time always works much better and the reminders of that felt so heavenly. Thank you all for supporting and allowing me to be where I am.

Thank you so much, Maire, it feels so very good to be heard and encouraged.....I will be kind as I can and keep doing it....maybe I will be ready some day...

Thank you so much, Gin.....so good to say how I feel to those that really get and don't try to fix me....god, I hate that.

Awww, geez, Mitch.....what great and kind words of encouragement and support. I am so touched by your understanding of how loss works. Thank you so much for responding, you made me feel like I am ok the way I am and how I feel matters.

Hello everyone, It's been three years and it still hurts/makes me cry to think of going out without him. Every time I think about it, I start crying....even just to take a walk in a park nearby or take myself to dinner. I can't bring myself to do it even though part of me wants to. What has been your experience at this point....seems three years is a lot and yet it hurts so much when this comes up. I have done really well on all other counts with self care so far....may be slow but I am doing well. Thank you all for listening. AnneW

Thank you, Kay. I am always, always lifted up by your care and encouragement. You are a great gift in this group and I feel blessed by all you give.

Dear Insidious Foe........I have found it most useless to fight you. So go ahead and tear my heart to pieces again. I give up, if you kill me with pain, you kill me. You can take all my time and energy and the work I love, you can take all the joy. You can bring on more abandonment and loneliness beyond words. You can take it all as you know you have. I will never believe I deserve this or that it is my fault any more. One thing I learn from you is that enough is enough. If suffering is my life now, so be it. You can't destroy the love and if that is all that remains I will learn to know that and be glad of it.

I feel better emotionally...some. But now I am physically exhausted all the time, no stamina....a trip to the grocery can take all the energy for the day.....I really am not sure which one of us died. And the loneliness, my god, I have never been so alone in this life. I have no desire to go fix it, find others, be someone else I never wanted to be. And now, I find I need more empathy, compassion and love for me.....more comforting and nurturing and there is only me. I am very blessed to have resources, at least for a while....

Yes, I am listening Marty....when I finally get around to admitting to myself and others that I am hurting myself, I am listening. Feeling angry at me for repressing myself but not in a danger to myself way....just makes sense. Thank you for hearing, too.

I have to admit though the worst rejection about my grief really comes from me......I shouldn't blame others for not being there when I don't want to feel it, don't want to walk this road....resent it and blame it. So angry that I have to do this.....and that it takes so much out of me....I resist, it persists.....It needs love and empathy and I am pushing it away....and of course, that hurts more. I just don't want to feel all this any more. I am heartless to me.

Since this life after my partner died (still can't believe it really happened) two and a half years ago, I have constantly been amazed at the amount of courage it takes to face my life now. It seems, so far, I am capable of doing it, taking care of it all myself, no matter how painful/joyless it is. I AM grateful for that. I am grateful to me for taking care of me and caring enough about myself to go on from what I am still not sure is actually suvivable, emotionally. Still feeling abandoned, still blame myself for not being good enough to save him, save us.....still angry and hurt beyond words. I am able to tell myself now that I am sorry for this happening and how scary it has all been. This is the only place I can share these feelings, scares the bejeezus out of others, so I don't say anymore. I am grateful to be able to say, "no, I am not over it, you don't get over a wound like this, at least not yet. Not because I am unwilling to heal as best I can but because an entire life and way of being and wanted companion and partnership just evaporated in a most unexpected way. So I forgive me for taking a long time and still hurting so much. I am worth the time and resources and energy it takes. I am worth caring into healing, whether you understand or not. This is not about understanding.....this is about surviving what can never be put into words for those who have not felt it. It takes so much courage to go on when that is the last thing I want to do. And I love me for caring enough to allow me to feel and say and know that." I know you here don't need to hear it, you already know. Thank you for being willing to listen and share it.......it takes a lot of courage to be so vulnerable and devastated and be seen like that.

Most deeply heartbreaking open for me in the past 2.5 years.....and oddly, as I recover from the shock and process of resurrection, I don't feel much changed at all.......I wonder how that can be....I am not dissatisfied, just kind of surprised, I am still just me. The change is in maybe I just value Me much more. I really have been there for me.......I have never been so devoted to caring for myself in this life as I am now. The loss just had to put me first and maybe that is what feels so very strange......not being so selfless any more and really wanting to just be there for me no matter what I feel. No one knows how this is, what it feels like, especially when the loss was so very unexpected and sudden and I broke into tiny bits of shattered heart. I am a feckin miracle just to be BEing. And once again, I am SO very grateful to have a place to say exactly what I feel without being corrected as though feelings are right/wrong.

I think this is why I feel so stuck, it is the unknown, the cluelessness makes me feel sad too, even after nearly 2.5 years, I am wanting to move on some and have no idea what that is. Guess I just have to surrender to the clueless and sad more.....sigh.....and maybe to stop fighting my feelings. Thanks Joyce, feels good to be heard.

And further I think I lost me, that me that was all about him and wanted it that way........until the last couple of years when I wanted more of a life for me and with him, not just all about him. So maybe this grief is about losing that old me who died with him and having no clue who I am now....or what I want........and way too much time....hmmmm.....

My dearest angel and great love of my life, I feel and hear you in my heart, almost as though you never left.......and still there is this excruciating loneliness. As time goes on, I feel only the love we shared then and share now than the enormous difficulties we confronted....and still the days seem so empty because you are not here to share the little moments of laughter and challenge that mean nothing really but loving bond. I don't like living alone and there are others that can fill that you shaped crack in my heart. What is it all worth when there is no one to share all the new with, all the new that came with your leaving. Sometimes I can feel you so close and know you still exist and still love me so very much and still the loneliness is there, every morning, no one to share the moments with that really knows me. I find I must find a way to live with all this sad that seems to never end and just accept it never will. Making a life worth living in that is so damn difficult, it feels really hopeless to imagine I can be healed.

You're right Kayc....it's just life....and grief has a life of it's own....

He was/is the love of my life and showed me how valuable I am, how worthy of just being loved. I still feel/know that love and it is what has gotten me through the horror and shock at his dying so fast and so young. I cannot break that loving bond, nor would I want to. I can let go of the last 10 years as he got sicker and sicker and less able to enjoy his life but I don't ever have to let go of what he gave and what he left. It is ours forever and nothing and no thought or feeling can change that. He will always be the love of my life. I realize a lot of others don't get me because they never had a love like this, one so completely all in that it feels like you died with them and that I wish I had in many ways. I don't want to get over that love, I am grieving, I am not insane. Before I met him, I had one foot out of this world myself, there wasn't much I wanted here and I felt my heart ask me if there was anything else I wanted and I thought "well, I have never been loved for who I am." I met him two weeks later and he spent the next 25 years showing me that kind of love. Yes, I miss his presence and yes, I am glad he is happy and well now and still loves me so well. I have been so blessed to have a love like that, that never dies, even when bodies do. Not everyone gets to know that kind of love, so unconditional, so complete, so utter committed.......all or nothing.....and still is.

I believe, really know there is life after life and can really hear him speak to me in my heart......and still the pain is so strong it makes me angry to keep hurting like this over something that does not really exist. I don't understand why I keep hurting so much and just don't want to feel it anymore.

For me, it feels like I just have this pain that never really goes away and that I can no longer share even with close friends. I get treated like I am holding on to the past or something else is wrong with me, when it is they who don't care....and want to fix me. They just don't get it and it hurts to feel so unheard. I don't blame me....except for when I want to deny and push away how I feel myself. We have a culture so in fear and denying of death that no one knows how to hold a space for those of us who need help healing, so we have to do it here. I am glad there is a "here," and at the same time sad society is so brutal to vulnerable feelings that are completely normal and healable. That just take time and loving awareness and hugs and listening really. We deserve that.....and more.

JC, so sorry for your loss and all our losses......yes, those that remain with us, as my adult son has, are a huge help. The first year, I was not very functional and he helped keep me going some. And I have a new normal which is pretty much "whatever" most of the time...it keeps me more at peace just to surrender it all.