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Maryann, I understand you. And I think that your decission to take a day off and get a haircut were good ones. I understood that I must take care of myself, hair included. I spent years looking for my soulmate, I found him, and he was taken away from me too soon. But he changed my life forever. He loved me in a way I cannot put in words. He was the one. I never doubted it. He was all I could ever wanted. I cannot think of being with anyone else simply because there was no break up and he is the love of my life, and he loves me more every day.

Mitch, I'm very sorry, I understand your despair and helplessness. Have you thought of meeting a grief counselor? It helped me in many ways to deal with my strong emotions. Another thing that helped me is tohave a pet. They are very healing.

Dear all, thank you so much for all of your words. I'm so glad I found this website full of people who really understands. Even if I don't reply to all of the threads, I read them. After my boyfriend passed away, my mother took a flight to pick me up. I couldnt sleep, I couldn't eat, and all I could do was to cry. I cried in the supermarket, in the bus, in the shower. My mother wouldn't have left me alone and I knew I needed help. I returned to my parents home. I spent 6 month on the couch, watching tv, surfing the internet, feeding my dog, and little else. I was numbed, and then I cried, then numb again. I couldn't write a journal, I couldn't have a look to pictures, I couldn't even sit down and let memories to come to me....I was hurting so much, I felt it in my flesh and bones. I decided to start therapy. And it's the only place where I can express myself freely face-to-face. I cry for the whole session, I express all my feelings and thoughts without being ashamed of them. Im aware I havent come to terms with his death. I know what happened, rationally I know. But somehow I cannot accept my new life, the fact that Im not the one I used to be before. I cannot accept he is present differently. The last couple of months, I started to feel better, I went back to school and to volunteer. But with this new routine, I dont know how I blocked my emotions, my tears, my memories. I know my grief is there, but I cant embrace it, I fear I would be a mess again. I started to play the be strong and wear a brave mask card in front of family and friends who congratulated me with youre doing so well, youre so brave youre so young, you will make it.. and I know its not true! I was doing a huge effort to make it through the day. Im doing what Im supposed to do at my young age: get up, keep moving, keep doing things and grief privately. Keep moving, keep moving. Be strong, be strong. My body is wiser than me and two days ago I collapsed. I must understand that grief is one step in front of the other, no matter my inner pressures, the external ones, what other people think. Just be. However, I had a reason to be strong when my boyfriend was phisically here. Now I don't know why I have to, I feel lost and abandoned. Thank you again for your support.

I need to write down the following: I'm tired of being strong, of wearing a "brave face". I wish I could cry my heart out, but after 9 months of grief it seems I'm blocked with my emotions. Grief is so demanding and confusing... thanks for reading

It is painful, and it seems nothing can help us to lessen the pain. My early phase of grief was very painful too. I felt i had lost everything, even my self being. Somehow, i survived, and keep the faith that you will too.

I find hard to be quiet and in company of my thoughts. Since a couple of months I'm avoiding memories. In the morning the radio is on. In the afternoon and in the evening the tv is on. At night I read newspapers online. I know I should face memories, but I try not to be so hard with myself. One day at a time

Three weeks after he passed away, I had to left the appartment we rented. I won't ever forget the last time I had a look at it before closing its door forever. I thought: "he's dead, I'm alive, but dead too". I miss our home, I still dream about it. I left all of our furniture and stuff in a friend's garage, and I'm still unable to go and get them. I went once and I couldn't handle it. I know it's all there, and for now it's enough. I've a bag with his gifts, some shirts he loved, letters, memories, my old mobile with his sms. I can't yet open the bag. I'm scared that memories will hurt me very much. I'm working on this issue with my therapist. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough.

Yes, it's the worst pain. It feels like an agony. As if there is nothing between us and our broken hearts. I've been there too, wishing to never wake up again, feeling I've been cheated by each belief I had about love, God and life. But I keep waking up, I still don't know what's next, and it scares me to face it without my boyfriend.

Dear Jayntee, We are all here to listen and to help, and to "hold your hand". We understand you. Before and after my boyfriend's funeral, I was not "allowed" to cry. I couldn't cry in front of his parents ("how could I, if they're through the most devastating pain? they have lost a son!") and also my parents didn't want me to cry. But when it was all over....I had a breakdown, I cried for weeks. I hated everything and everybody. I had the feeling that it hasn't been his funeral, but mine. "It's been the funeral of me and our life". I asked why, what for, what's next? So cry if you can because it is healing, dont' repress your tears even if they hurt you. It'll be "better" afterwards. Don't repress your feelings, cause they're not rational. It's a time to express yourself in the way it's ok for you. When time comes, consider the possibility to talk to a therapist. It helped me a lot to understand my grief. But right now take care of yourself through basics: eat, take a shower, sleep. And allow your family and friends to help you too. SC

In April (6 months after him passing away) I decided to go back to study. I felt I couldn't work and I needed to focus my mind in something else. From September to April I spent my days su on internet, watching tv, and sleeping. I remember nothing from this period. since last week I have been unwilling to do nothing again. I should study for an exam, do some assignments, but I feel so empty that I started to feel broken again. I thought that my life is fake, that my study is to fill in the days and not something I really care. I think of my old life and I can't believe it's over. I don't recognize myself, I used to be a good and committed student even If I struggled with stress. Why I don't care anymore, if I used to care before? Does it mean I've been restarted as a PC and what I did is no longer feasible? I feel so lost. Last night I wished I could close my eyes and wake up when I'll be 99. I can't stand the pain, his absence. I feel I've been cheated by love. thank you for reading me.

I found the following posted in this forum, and I hope it may be of help: “Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had her you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. When you are used to this horrible thing that they will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible. Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power ... that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more.” ------ That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

Dear JayNTee, I'm very sorry for your loss. I would like to tell you a lot of things but at the same time I know nothing can bring confort right now. I've lost the love of my life 10 months ago and I'm in my 30's too. I felt I died with him, and also my dreams. You're in a fog and your body and mind are protecting you. Grief is confusing and tyring. Take one day at a time, one hour at a time. Eat, sleep and accept your friends and family's help. Don't force yourself to feel "right" or "strong". Whatever you're feeling, it's Ok. Crying is fine. Anger is fine. If people ask you irritating questions or say things that can hurt you, know that they mean well and they really don't know what to say. We're here to read you and help you. We know how it feels. Remember, you're not alone.

Maryann, I can relate to what you're feeling, I'm 10 months on my journey (too short...but it feels like years) and there are better days and other when you feel just as you said: sinking. The fact that we deal with some many different emotions we probably never experienced before (from being fine to rage, from peace and then to tears) is very tiring. But we must believe that things will get better, not in the way better was used to be with our husbands next to us, but "better" in a different way. My advice: don't control your tears, let them come and let them go. They heal. I know that our culture want us to be "strong" but I learnt that tears are helpful. I restrain them because I don't want to upset my parents, but I cry a river every time I go to counseling. And I feel "better" afterwards. Tired, but relieved.

I know nothing seems to help in our first year of grief. I spent months doing things mechanically, and I still enjoy nothing. I started to read a lot, and The year of magical thinking helped me because is a sincere narration of what grief is. Another book I read is CS Lewis A grief observed. I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the string, then I remember and have to lay the bow down. ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect the shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be "healing." A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to "get through it," rise to the occasion, exhibit the "strength" that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves the for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief was we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.” ― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Thank you Kay for posting the lyrics, it's very nice. Amy, what you expressed in your post resembles what I (and all of us) experience every day. Yes, there are better days....still, we feel it's not enough. I've been on a trip, the second one after my boyfriend passed away. I had fun, I enjoyed changing air....still, it felt totally incomplete and sad. We didn't travel together often, but he never stopped me to doing so. I called him every day while I was away and he always came to pick me up. This time, he's not there. People tell me he's always with me now.....still, it's not enough. People tell me I've my entire life ahead.....but I can't see why (how) this is a good thing. It will never be complete again. And we must learn to cope with it. It's hard.

Dear all, thank you very much for all your advice. I've started to read the links suggested and the forum threads, and I'm learning about this journey. Thank you again...

Dear Marty and KayC, Thank you very much for your kind words. I've never wrote in a forum before. I have a counselor who is helping me a lot. It was the first time in my life I went to therapy (and it was the first decision I took when my boyfriend passed away: "I won't be able to cope with grief by myself"). He said: the aim of this journey is to save "Love". I felt relief because I thought I was "mad" and I need "to be fixed". I keep this sentence as an act of faith. There are no grief groups in my city; the only one is for parents who lost their sons. Thankfully there are plenty of blogs and forums in which I can find “comfort” in the fact that I’m not alone nor crazy because my grief is so intense. Another resource that helps me is to write emails to our mutual friends who are also devastated by boyfriend’s death. They knew us as a couple and they can understand who I lost. The sentence “You’re too young, you’ll find love again” is usually matched with “closure”. I guess my loss is (wrongly) related to a breakup (a sadden one, but it happened) because he was my boyfriend, we had no children; we were together for a couple of years, and so on. What is wrong with this world that is unable to embrace other’s people pain without questioning it? I know they mean well and surely they have no idea what means to grief. Somehow, they’re lucky for that. Still, I must endure those comments without yelling how wrong they are. But this is another subject. Thank you again for your support. I will check more threads and the resources you kindly provided me. S.

Dear all, I've just signed up. I've came across this website while looking for some clues about grief + apathy. I've read almost all posts from this section and felt I could start from here. I hope I will be able to contribute to your posts as well. A short introduction: I lost my boyfriend on Sept 2014. He died after a long disease. I was not prepared. It was too soon (4 years together), we're too young (we're in our early 30s) and with him, my life and dreams died too. It's so true to me what Susan Boyle sings: my life has killed the dream I dreamed. I've moved to live with my parents. I left behind a hole life (his family, my friends, my job, our apartment and so on). Memories from our life together still hurt (because I cannot totally believe what happened). We were soul mates. Besides my family and my grief counselor, I've none here to talk about my boyfriend and my grief. None knew him here and I'm too young to be a widow (I feel like I'm a widow). My friends are having babies and buying houses, grief isn't a topic to be talked or understood. I had to lock my grief inside my heart and be brave to face people who cannot help me/doesn't want to or know to/ cannot cope with my pain. I look like "normal" now, but it's like a volcano, the "activity" is inside. And this is why I came here to look for your advise: Many good news are happening (birth - marriage - new houses - new jobs) and though I politely smile and make diplomatic questions and congratulate them....the truth is I don't care. But this is not me! I never been this way with my friends. Did you feel this way? How did you cope with it? Thank you for reading my post and for any advise. PS: Please don't tell me: I'm too young, I will find love again....I know it means well, but I cannot hear it.