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Hello, I'm very sorry for your loss. I'm not sure how to express the following so I apologise in advance for my lack of good narrative. This is a community primarily based on love, comfort and care. People on here is in pain by the absence of what constitutes a part of their being. It may sound depressing to still be in agony after a long time, years too, but please remember grief is a unique and individual journey. And maybe we are those who will still be here to comfort those who have nowhere to go cause "it's been too long". I am at year 6 and I miss and still cry. However, I have a new life weather I choose it or not. I work, I do households, I have a regular life but I coexist with my grief. I have survived. I see the sun and notice seasons. Doesn't mean I'm restored. Unfortunately that cannot be done after loosing my soulmate. Whatever happens in my new life, one day I will be gone too and I will see him again in Heaven and live a life that will never end. I hope your strong faith will help you to rebuild a new life. I have seen it helps tremendously in grief. And I have seen too those who seem to do pretty well and fine as if nothing has happened, perhaps they choose to hide their pain, silence it, or simply cancel it and put a stone on their past. Whatever, it is to be respected. This is a painful road and we cope the way we can. Here we are free to express our painful ache independently of the time that has passed. I lost my boyfriend 6 years ago. I was 35. I kindly disagree with Marg, it isn't a matter of age and youth. People with expertise in psychology can explain how age affects grief and "recovery". I don't have that knowledge. Peace to you and again I'm sorry for your loss.

I do and I don't at the same time. I've googled some people from the past but never contacted them. Whoever searches on Facebook would only see sunset pictures. That's the only thing I have posted in the last 6 years. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light".

I'm so sorry Gwen. I don't know what to say.

Dear Tamera, what you wrote is very touching. I shedded tears. I had the same questions back them. I read them now and they were mine long time ago. I don't have any answer. It breaks my heart cause I wish I could offer a glimpse of wisdom about "that". I can't. All I can do is to tell you that I understand. I'm sorry about what I'm going to say but for today, what's been in store for you is that you got through another day. I know it is of no consolation, your pain is there and will be there tomorrow but for your family and friends and for those who care about you it is. The only words that helped me then were: One day at a time.

Because outsiders don't know what is left in the place were you feel so much pain 24/7, five years later. There is an emptiness, a void, an absence, a nothingness, a silence filling that space. And you experience that, "feel" that. It's horrible.

That reminds me of the last scene of the movie "Jackie" and what the priest told her about the search for answers. That is a good movie about grief. I stopped asking questions. I buried the "what ifs". The word is right, you surrender. I fought and struggled a lot. Was going around in circles. There is nothing more "out there". Just a mistery, an invisible veil we cannot see through. But sometimes I do make questions just to feel a sense of freedom of spirit. There is silence, but my spirit is still free to ask. If there is an answer and an explanation, I wouldn't care. My love would be gone anyway. So I ask and I turn and walk away.

I'm so very sorry for your loss. I lost my boyfriend 6 years ago, we were in our 30s and we were together for 4 years. I too should have moved with him right away but I rented an apt with my best friend instead cause I valued my independence and etc. I should have married him right away but we wanted to wait for his health to be restored. I should have done this and that, but I didn't. He died and our life, our dreams and the life as we knew it died with him too. His funeral was my funeral. I didn't feel him being there. I saw myself as a ghost who could barely stand up and stop crying. I remember each person who was there, each word I said. Years later I gave myself forgiveness and an absolution for not knowing that we had little time to be together, for what I didn't know and we didn't expect to happen. I say it in plural, cause I felt that he would be so sorry for not knowing too.

I'm so sorry Gwen. My heart breaks at reading about your dog. I don't know what to say.

Give them back

Of course you don't want to hurt anyone but you are feeling hurt and grief hurts very bad. I remember being so afraid to be abandoned by my closest friends because of my acute pain. I still feel that in some way. People was like what's wrong with you! I didn't dare to confess them that I woke up wishing to be dead to be with my boyfriend. With time only we reach to a place in which we can forgive ourselves, forgive others, and think differently about people in pain. That's what I meant to say. It is a slow process. Right now it's ok to not be ok.

I'm sorry they said you that. In my view, that kind of statement put blame on survivors. There is something that they did to "deserve" it. To love someone too much? And what about our beloved ones? What is the lesson to a mother who lost his son? I'm sorry but I cannot coincieve any of that, and to be said to someone so young. Having said all that, I think we can choose what to do with our pain. We can be vindictive, careless, selfish, cynical, bitter...or we can show compassion, affection, care and respect to those who struggle and suffer. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lessons_b_5260513

I lost my boyfriend too. We were in our 30s. I totally understand how you feel cause I felt the same. I felt I was the only one whose life was destroyed, I was suffering so much also because widowhood was about old people and nobody around me understood. My relatives told me they found happiness in their children and grandchildren. We didn't get to be parents. I was also suggested that I could meet divorced men. As if we were going through the same experience. I was very lost and alone with my feelings, which I didn't understand. These aloneness and unvoiced grief made a scar on me that didn't heal. But there is hope. It's been 6 years and I learned to live with it. I was very young, in pain, with no tools. I found this site. So my advice is to look for a place where you can express yourself with no judgement. This is one, also counselling, art, writing, support groups. Look for a space to voice your grief. Don't let anyone dismiss it cause you are young, unmarried and etc. You and your feelings are important and they need to be attended too. In your own terms. The expectations on us young adults are that we will find out our road and be our old selves again (soon, preferably). In our culture Loss to death in young adults is treated as a sad break-up. It is not. Don't let anyone put you under pressure to feel better X day, reach X place, do X thing, think this or that way. We will survive. I did and you can do it too. But the journey hurts. We are few youngers in the tribe, yet you don't walk alone.

Powerful verses.

I have my father and I love him so much, but we are apart today due to the pandemic. He is a loving father. I lost my paternal figures. My grandfather at 11yo, he bought me my first bycicle (red) for Xmas. My uncle, mom's brother, I was 28 yo. We laughed so much together. He took me to Disneyland twice. My uncle, dad's brother, who introduced me to reading, history and political science. Most of the books in my library were his. And my fiance....he wanted to have a family, to have children or adopt them. We made plans. He had that dream with me at his side. He never doubted of it, I did sometimes cause I was scared, not because I didn't want it..... It won't happen, his vision is gone with the wind that took his ashes away...our children won't ever exist. Big hugs to all of you today Ana

We are standing by you dear Kay. I understand your feelings.

Me too Mitch

I haven't written on my thread for almost a year. I'd like to write how it's going, and perhaps someone identifies with it too. I've read many times that a part of me left with him, that it feels like an amputated leg, or like you have to learn to walk and breathe again, to talk again.... I lost a part of myself but I struggle to believe it. Cause it cannot be true..... I have realized that I have been struggling with the idea of a new me. Who am I now without him? But why do I have to be a new someone? And so, I tried to sort of go back to the past and to be who I was or recognized as such: a good student, a curious someone, a top worker, always trying to do more, achieve more. To be someone who had a future ahead, you know. and so I started to sort of run a race towards my old self.... because I must be somewhere, because some of that must have survived. Somehow if I went back to my old me after all all it would mean that this didn't damage me. But it was all wrong. I'm struggling with low self steem at the moment cause I cannot achieve what I would like to while I witness my pals playing the match. Like you don't belong here anymore. I have no idea who am I and what is my value in this world. I need someone to tell me that, truly and sincerely. But that unique voice has faded in Heavens. In the end all I have been doing was to try to be strong to still be myself and 6 years later I feel completely lost. I don't know who I am and I feel I have been thrown to a existence I never wanted to be. It is unfair. Whether I like it or not, it's just One foot in front of the other. Ana

Oh, I'm an early bird. I cannot stay in bed for more than an hour. I generally don't fall asleep again. My thoughts start racing (to nowhere) so I get up. I'm thinking at your question, what I would need to change to be a better person.....

Excelent article

This is so real. So true. I totally relate Marg

You will survive. Trust this. Trust this when the storm is all over the place. It is one day at a time. You did it today. You'll do it tomorrow. One foot in front of the other.

Yes. Find a place were you can express yourself freely without judgement. Were you can cry. Therapy, grief group. This forum. This is a scary thing to write but your journey has just started. We all here have been when you are today, but you don't walk alone. Not here. Your friends won't get it and those who will stand to witness your pain are going to be few. I lost my boyfriend 5 years ago. He was 31. This is the most compassionate place ever.

I expect a set back and be all locked down again.

Me too

The big bed expanded the feeling of loneliness and abandonment. Back then I had too much on myself at the time to go to bed while I was staying with my parents. I couldn't add more painful feelings. If I had been a Greek God, I would have set fire to all, our bed, our clothes, our apartment. two weeks later after he died, I had to move out. I will never, EVER, forget the moment when I closed our bedroom door and left our home for the last time. I have survived to all that. But I'm carrying too many scars, too many wounds, too many burials, to many left behind. As long as I'm alive, my pursuit is serenity. I have no big dreams anymore. I have downsized my expectations. I have downsized my bed. Perhaps that's the reason I never attached myself to anything else.