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I agree. It's OK not wanting to celebrate Xmas this year, or the next one or ever again. It's OK to feel angry at God/Jesus/ and feeling no gratitude or devotion. You are grieving. Traditions will always be there when the moment comes and you may feel able to participate in celebrations again. Our advise would be not to be pushed by the need from others to fix you for the Holidays (ps. They mean well, but they may not be able to understand the extent your pain). Be kind and vocal at the same time about your needs and wishes. And even if you change your mind at the very last minute and you need to take part in them, go with it. Whatever you do, should be your own decision.

Ciao V That song from Lady Gaga, and the others from the film, are so powerful and touching. What a movie, what a soundtrack. It brings tears, right? Even their performance at the Oscars was so well played. I watched them and thought that I would never get that loving look again.... and it is still true. Ana

I truly believe that the numbers of years loose their significance. If its 6 or 7 it's the same. Touching the void, as we did, freezes time. It's going to be 8 years for me in 2022.

I've decided to write the following here: I've had the idea, not even the plan, but the idea and purpose to book a flight and travel abroad to visit the country where my boyfriend and I lived. Meet my in laws after 4 years of separation, visit old friends and spend Holidays with them. But it wasn't possible to make it true because of budget, because of new restrictions, and so I couldn't travel, and may not be able for another year. When I was putting back the clothes into boxes, returning back the suitcase and the big winter coat, I couldn't stop thinking of the fact that I have been putting into boxes stuff, projects, expectations since he died. I thought how my world got smaller and smaller and the pain was growing on my chest. That very familiar pain that comes and goes, but comes back nonetheless. Maybe I should be better off living with no expectations since apparently the Universe is going in that direction. I expected to improve my job position, my salary, find new opportunities. When I moved I bought a large table, a large couch and set of dishes and kitchen stuff because I was going to host large dinners and friends would come to visit and stayed. That has happened only once in 6 years. For some reason I feel that these outcomes are my fault. That the place where I am now is my fault. There must have been something that I missed, or did wrong or choose not to do. This is a very familiar feeling for survivors. You search and search faults to explain why they died. This is another way of trauma expressing itself. Ok I get that, but what can I do? My heart is heavy and shattered today.

I can relate. I'm having a hard time lately. I'm feeling drained, exhausted, unable to make good things for myself. I'm feeling angry, bitter resentful and sad. I don't know where these are coming from. Is it my ptsd back? Is it the stress from end of the year? Is it the pandemia? Is it grief? Is it all of that and messed up? I go to yoga twice a week and last time I couldn't held the positions, I couldn't stretch my body as the week before. I did as little effort as possible but 15 minutes before ending the class I stood up and left. I wasn't even breathing as it should be. My body was off. I went home and reflected on the many ways I could still care for myself: take a shower, now rub your hands with essential oil, sit down and breath, listen to soft music, put a pillow below your feet...... And then something fell down..... that was a combination of survival kits. Why do I have an essential oil in my bag? I should have my love, my boyfriend, our life here and now instead!!!!! I felt sick, wounded at the realization that all that remained is a survival kit to end the day. I should be raising our family, I should be planning trips. My friends are with their families and I'm alone with a prayer book to help me. Why God did this?

I'm very sorry. I know and totally understand, we would like to avoid the pain, I have been there. It is too much, we want to run away and do anything to stop feeling it. But it cannot be. Its impossible, unrealistic. The pain from loosing your soulmate is something that we cannot control or avoid and if suppressed it may turn into an unhealthy behavior. A book that helped me to understand what was going on was It's OK that you're not OK from Megan Devine. Your description from the funeral brought similar memories. I see myself seated and feeling "this is the funeral of a life that will never be". His parents celebrated his life. I didn't feel any of it. I didn't feel my boyfriend being there. I was very young, I was very thin, I was wearing a very simple dress from one of our dates. I went to the hairdresser for a shampoo. It was a sunny day. I was numbed until I arrived to the memorial site and OH NO this is real! He is dead! I felt totally empty and dead inside. I was hugged and hugged and I cried and cried. When they spreaded his ashes, I kneeled down and expected the earth to open and swallow my body. It was real. He died. But I didn't. I was killed and have been left alive. Numbness is totally normal. The brain and the body are doing their job to keep us functioning. We have survived. Trust you will do, in your own time and terms.

Hello, I'm very sorry for your loss. I too lost my boyfriend 7 years ago. The fact that we didn't marry left me in a very vulnerable position. I lost my job and our home. One day at a time may not be enough. If I may, my advise to you would be to find a place that is safe to express yourself (ie. a journal, a friend who is a good listener, a forum like here, an in person support group). Consider counseling if you can afford it. What is going on right now is a normal expression of grief, and I'm sorry to tell you this but I don't want to lie: those feelings might not go away any soon. You will learn to adapt but it may take a long time. That's why I strongly suggest you to find a safe place to pour your love and your pain because if you keep pretending that you are OK (and why you should be?) you will stop talking about your feelings, you will hide, and you will start lying. That's what I did and it was wrong. I know how all this sounds and this is not to frighten you, but to give you hope that such place exist and that you may find some sort of relief in being yourself for a moment instead of pretending you are strong. This is one of those safe places. We understand.

Unfortunately that's pretty much normal reaction from outside for any kind of suffering. And that's why people who suffer stop talking. And start hiding. And start lying. I was so young and so afraid of loosing more people. I stopped talking about my boyfriend and about my grief. People mean well, but they've no idea how to deal with suffering. Someone told me in the early days that he would be upset to see me like that (a total mess) and I felt soooo guilty. I was hurting my dead boyfriend! I was making him unhappy, disappointed. I was keeping him here and preventing his soul to fly to Heaven and rest in peace. I wasn't able to celebrate his life and his memory. I was being selfish. This should never ever be said to anyone who is going through so much pain, without the only person who we want to be with. I'm sorry you feel this way. I understand.

Dear Kieron, I'm sorry to read that you are feeling sad. Did you meet your counselor? Did you feel better afterwards? Sometimes it does feel that we are going nowhere and that we haven't made any progress. I have come to a strange conclusion: because we are battling against the "nothingness" (because death is definite, it cannot be changed, they aren't here (physically, to start with) and there are only our thoughts with us..... it feels like it is all pointless and we remain defeated at the end of the day.... cause they are still gone. And we are still where we were. But perception is not always the truth. My therapist told me that I have made progresses and I was like: what? It cannot be true. My brother told me the same, you look better. My reply was: you don't know. Are they wrong? I don't know. Maybe a question would be: what exactly is "change" in all.of this? Myself at year n.7 would say: I owe this, my love and my pain and my wounds, I """"accept"""" this is part of me and who I am and shapes what I do and think everyday.... and to that I would add: and I don't need to explain or excuse myself to anyone anymore. I am able to choose my battles or maybe not, because I'm already busy with the biggest one. I do the best I can in the present day, when possible. Others can conquer the future on my behalf. It's too late in the evening and I wrote a "word salad". Sorry if I rambled and wasn't able to address your point.

Marg. My heart and thoughts will be with you tomorrow. Allow me to tell you that I've written down a quote you mentioned time ago in my journal, it is this one: "do not speak to those whose feet haven't touched the flames". The quote from Rose Kennedy is in there too. Like you, there is a draft email which was never sent, it is in my mail box, addressed to my BF's doctor. In there, I asked her how should I prepare our home for the moment when he would leave hospital after his surgery. For some reason I didn't send it and he died 4 days later. He didn't leave hospital. I had to leave our apt 3 weeks later. I don't dare to erase the email. It is a testament for the future that was about to die too. A future that was never ment to exist. A testament of the young woman I used to be and finds hard to believe in anything again. I haven't read the email again. You are very valuable here in this forum. Thank you.

Dear Elizabeth, I'm so sorry for your loss. I've read your post and I wanted to comment on this. Of course this journey is as individual as it can be, but here we understand the place you are right now, because we all have been there in our own ways and circumstances. There're songs I cannot listen to again, I can't read his messages without feeling the need to melt down and cry and ask why I lost HIM. There are places and memories which are painful to visit. And when I do, I do it with the awareness that I will feel a mess inside of me and I will have to face it. My mind is set up to rationalize almost everything, but loss and grief and feelings from death cannot be. It's a battle against yourself that would leave you drained, and it's pointless. Our beloved ones are still gone. It doesn't make sense. It's not OK. We are not OK. Unfortunately, and I'm not saying this as someone who has been enlightened by any of this, we were forced to navigate the journey of grief and this path has little, if anything, to do with a logic process. It's a very confusing and messy one, full of traps. What has helped me, apart from this site, is to read about grief and believe that I wasn't going crazy from the waves of pain, when a minute I was able to cross things from my to do list and in the afternoon I spent hours crying on my bed wanting to be with him. The daily tasks felt like I was cheating myself. Hang in there. We understand what you are going through. Be kind with yourself because this is really a matter of a day/an hour/a day at a time.

Hello Ruby, I'm very sorry for your losses and welcome to this place of compassion. Feel free to share your feelings and experience because here there is no judgement. Just understanding. In my experience, what has come with time has been adaptation to grief triggers, incorporation of the loss of my soul mate into my life (his absence cannot be changed), acceptance that because of the gift of true love and the admission that it was a privilege to live that, without it/and without him my life is and feels incomplete and some places will always remain empty. And last, coexistence with the contradictions which come with grief. I cannot accurately explain how I have achieved this state. When I can't convey words I would say: there's no choice but to keep walking. I have been walking through a major transitional and transformative process, against my will (here, I say it). This place has been a great support and relief when nobody understood. Trust, you will survive. One day at a time.

That's me, too. I take pics on my trips, but I don't look at them when I'm back. I don't have albums. My pro camera, which I bought in hopes of taking pics of both of us, has pics stored from my trips. But No pics of us in there. Didn't download the pictures. I should because all in all I enjoyed those journeys. Don't know why I do this. I never take selfies and I don't ask people to take a pic of me for souvenir. There's something about the past of this present life which I don't look back. What I see is what I get.

Dear Elizabeth. I'm very sorry for your loss.

I'm not American and I was on the sourthern point of South América when 9 11 happened. I too remember where I was when I heard the news. I didn't believe it too I thought that men saying it was confused. I didn't sleep that night watching CNN Español, many Latinos were queing where the CNN reporters were, at night, holding pictures and hand made signs with the names of their relatives, friends, colleagues who worked in the Towers or nearby, asking if someone had seen them please call back at xxxxx. I cried for these people looking for hope with no resources and little possibilities. That's what I remember apart from all the images that went "viral" (this word didn't exist) I kept the newspapers from September 12th. When I studied International Relations, the first paragraph of an essay started with: after the end of the Cold War..... The fourth paragraph: After September 11th.... When I visited NY, already a widow, I visited ground zero. I wasn't sure what I would find there, and it surprised me. I was so very impressed by THAT sound of the water. I can hear it now. Peace

I feel the same as you do. Sometimes I have to remind myself: you were different, you were that one in the picture. You knew nothing about this. This is you next to him. He has chosen You. You have chosen him. You were part of a big story. Because of the emotional and physical distance that has grown between that Me and this Me (doctors may claim this is a form of PTSD.... whatever) because nobody mentions his name anymore, I found the thought of loving someone again unthinkable, among other reasons. But this isn't the topic of this post. Sorry for blackjacking

Totally agree with you both. Western medicine is mostly based on pills. I'm not implying that they don't work nor that they shouldn't be prescribed. Thats not my point. An aspect to consider is that whatever "alternative" may complement a "traditional" medical treatment is treated as something the patient should afford by themselves. Therefore, only Gwyneth Paltrow rich followers can benefit from massages. Because of that, health and alternative medicine are business. "Don't get sick", here. My two cents.

Dear one, quoting you: How does it feel to wake up from a nightmare and there is no one there to comfort you? What gets you back to sleep? What does your house feel like now that you're alone in it? How can you drive around the town you shared with him since you were both kids and not fall apart? I sincerely want to get to a place where I'm OK. And I believe that it's possible because millions of ordinary people suffer this loss and most of them go on to live decent lives Because grief changes and you will change with it, to all of that you will get used to and you won't mainly think of your loss when you wake up, when you drive around the town. This is very hard to understand because how could you not think of your beloved one? Our brains ara capable to adapt to survive. I'm saying adapting, not accepting. People confuse acceptance with adapting and from this place comes with lots of platitudes. Because of that millions of ordinary people go on to live decent lives. I'm one of them. All in all I have a decent life. But then how or when that happens, is very difficult to reply. Loss is a very confusing and contradictory experience packed with strong emotions, thoughts and pain. No right or wrong way of grieving. You will be OK in your own terms. Peace Ana

I'm sorry for my ignorance about what it means. What are the alternative methods of pain control?

Thank you all 🥰

7 years ago my BF entered hospital to never leave again. We were extremely hopeful in the success of what should have been a life changing surgery and the start of a new life. I saw triumph in his young eyes. I trusted with all my heart and soul, and "donated" my heart to destiny. He never opened his eyes again. I will never, ever!!!! Forget that day and the 10 days that followed which felt like arriving on top of the mountain and falling down in an nightly avalanche and be crushed in the loss and darkness. My heart broke into million pieces since then and I wonder how it is possible, today, to feel those pieces breaking once more. You would think there is no surface left for that. I'm again wrong. In these 7 years I was able to forgive myself, for whatever the heart feels I did wrong once then. Ana

Dear one. I'm very sorry for your loss. If you are here putting down your words, it is a healthy way to start dealing with the loss of your wife. There is no right or wrong, but your own way. You have acknowledged that you need to face your grief, and to your sons too. Have you considered counseling? I was unable to work an it took me two years to apply for a job again. I'm prone to be a workaholic to fill the hours I spend being at home due to the pandemia. I've found myself alone with my thoughts. It was difficult to deal with that on top of everything else. Grief evolves. It changes. Things will change. Welcome. Here is a safe place to express yourself.

Hello, I'm sorry to ready about your experience. This therapist sounds so unprofessional, conducting a session when driving? That's even dangerous! Take credit for quitting and looking for a new one because in the middle of such pain is very hard to acknowledge what is wrong and go for a change. My therapist is much younger than me but I trust him, we even have some topics of interest in common and I have all his attention during our session. Sometimes I wonder if it is still useful now, if it worths the money. But I must trust this is still helping me because it's the only place where I speak out about my grief journey. After 7 years you are more or less on your own with it. In the early years I resented some (older) relatives who appeared to be fine and pushed the topic aside, or spoke of it metaphorically. I now understand why. Our culture forces us to stop speaking a start lying. And your grief encapsulates inside of you and when lots of time passes you are more on your own to deal with it than ever before. The """"good"""" news is that it becomes manageable and you have acquired skills to deal with its challenges. My experience. Peace Ana

Hello, I'm very sorry for your loss. It must be very hard to deal with your grief and pain and at the same time raising your baby girl. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you are very early in your journey. This sounds frightening because you may wonder how long and how more you could endure. Be assured that things will change and will evolve, however this is a slow process and the most challenging one in your life. None is prepared, let alone knows how to deal with grief. Because of this I would suggest you to keep attending your counseling sessions, if possible, because you are going to need help and a safe place to express yourself when your expectations about how grief should be don't match the way you feel. You are not alone in this and what you are experiencing is normal in grief. Everyone here has been were you are today. Trust you will survive. I'm sorry if the following sounds plainly wrong to a parent, but you need to "recover" (I use your words) for your own sake first, because this is happening to you. Grief unattended or "resolved" for someone else's shows up later in any form.

7 years. That cannot be true, but it is.