hollowheart

Janka, that's awesome that you met someone. Overtime I'm sure it will develop into the friendship you need. It's sad that we all have to find new friends now, but I'm happy for you. That's what I hope to find. I really just need someone to talk with.

This is what I miss more than I can say!! I have my Ma around, and while I'm happy and grateful I have her, I miss the kind of companionship and conversations I got with my sister. It's just not the same with my Ma and at times it aggravates me because I know she won't get certain things. It's just horrible. As far as friends in general, I just feel like giving up on them. There is one that keeps in contact and is very nice. We try to make time to talk on the phone to each other, so that is nice. I'm happy for that. But anyone else makes me tired. On grief being your best friend, I can relate to that. What angers me the most about my "new best friend" are all the things I had to give up that I enjoyed. Sure I didn't HAVE to give them up, but they are no fun to do alone and it would just remind me of my forced loneliness. It upsets me that I will basically be miserable the rest of my life because I had to eliminate so much.

I just re-read this and it definitely touched me today, for some reason. I was just thinking about trying to make new friends and that was my exact thought, that making friends takes time, energy, commitment. It does take a while to feel comfortable with someone, consider them a friend and want to share personal things with them. It takes years, or a lifetime to find someone you click with so well. I was doing this meeting new people thing years before she passed because I wanted friends outside of my sister. It worked for the most part, I did meet some nice people, but one has moved to Florida with her fiance and she's moved on with her happy life. I find myself wanting to talk to random strangers just to talk to someone. It's like I'm a crazy homeless lady. That feels so sad. As I have gotten older I'm a little better being outside of my comfort zone, but loved always having my comfort zone handy to run back too. Not having it available anymore is very disconcerting and disturbing in a way. It almost makes me feel desperate in some situations and I hate that feeling.

Cookie, I do that too about crying out sometimes. I have thoughts of wanting to just kick or punch something or toss something around, I think it would make me feel better but I don't do it. I know I resist crying now, I didn't in the past. When I feel like crying I know I sorta stamp it back. It's excruciating, just like you said. About taking 2 years for your friend to get her life back, I think that is why we have to feel what we feel when we do. We all so want this pain to stop, and people we know all expect us to have fully grieved and moved on by now. "years" is not something others want to comprehend, let alone us--the people going through it! I really hate to hear "STILL sad" "STILL grieving" "STILL crying" in reference to us, like we should have been done with all that already. Even when my sis was still here I never once felt like someone shouldn't still be sad over someones death, no matter how long ago it was. It was always very sad to me to know someone was still sad 15 or 30 years later. That's heartbreaking.

Karen, I love that you washed the ball and finished eating. I would have too! A true animal lover. This was hilarious.

I'm glad you were able to talk to people here about your health scare. Everything is compounded and elevated when your 'go-to' person is gone. Alone is much different than being lonely and that aloneness is never felt more than when you are scared or worried. Not having anyone to share the good times is bad enough. I fear the same kind of aloneness as I'm not getting any younger and don't know the odds of me ever getting married or getting into a long term relationship. I have no husband or kids and always felt that at the very least my sister and I would have each other in our old age. People who have kids at least have something. I see family getting older and I helped them before, but I had my sister to share in that. Now it's just me. So I gotta take care of myself and others too? That is terrifying. It's also sad neither of us gave my parents grandchildren, but I digress. This guy talking about improve your health and get on with it is a doofus. I hope you can brush him off your shoulders. He sounds kinda nosy too. Some people don't get how hard it is to "choose life" I'm in the bed as soon as I get a chance, something I never did before unless I was sick. I've been robbed of my motivation and zest for life. I'm sorry, but I laughed when you said skip on down the road because I was told multiple times to do just that. I watched a few movies recently where people died and their loved ones all said something along the lines of they live for the now because they dont' want life to pass them by or something like that. And I was like 'do people really think that way?" Because I didn't and I still don't. Not once have I thought I want to 'grab life by the balls" now because I lost someone. It didn't make me want to get on with life faster or be happy I am alive. I'm just constantly sad and missing her. Maybe it's just me.

This broke my heart. I know all to well this feeling. I hope we gave you some company. This weekend I felt just like you did. I just felt uncomfortable all weekend, it was a jarring and frustrating feeling. I just had moments of wanting to burst into tears all weekend. Hugs to you. I hope today is little bit better. Ugh! This would have been me and my sister for sure. We used to go to IMAX a lot (Well, sort of a lot since it was $20 per person) but it is something I know I will never do again because I don't know anyone who would want to. Reading this made me so sad. I hate not having these kinds of things to look forward to. I also remember this excitement. Never Again. I had a friend message me on FB asking where I've been. I just told her I can't take seeing the peppy status updates. I used to be addicted to facebook and loved the silly status updates, posting pics and stuff. Now it all means nothing and it's not fun anymore. Not to mention, I won't present a 'fake' happy me on Facebook so my "friends" can think I'm all good now. My friend said "oh I'm sorry you're still grieving" she is a sweetheart, but the way she said it is just how people think "still grieving" yep, sure am. I've been on there in the past posting personal things and get no replies, yet I know they are all sitting there reading and being nosy. I kinda miss FB because it was a part of what made me happy, but I know people just want to read your business, they don't really feel sad for you.

I think I would have liked the chance to say things that I always thought but never said, or to just tell her a couple personal things I never got to tell her. But knowing I was telling her on her deathbed would have been been just as traumatic to me. I just don't know. I will never get the image of her face out of my head when I found her that morning. I think I even knew before I walked into her bedroom, it was a fear that I would find her like that but I kept pushing it aside thinking 'no, that won't happen' but it did. Literally, my worst fear came true. I feel cheated. I just wish she could have held on one more day. I don't know what that extra would have given us, at least a chance to get to the hospital. Hope? Something. Don't you know when a tragedy almost happens and you can say "whew! You could have died!' and you may even laugh about it and you can't even pretend to feel what that would actually have been like had it happened. That happened many times to me with other people, even my cat! She climbed into the refrigerator when she was a kitten (it was a deep fridge) and had I not happenend to turn and see her I would have closed the door and gone on to eat my snack. I always thought how horrid it would be to open it up and find her in there. It's like when you can't fathom the worst you don't know how to fathom the worst. Had I saved my sister I wouldn't be able to fathom feeling how I feel now and know how lucky we both would have been. I wish I could have had a "Final Destination" sort of premonition to see just how awful this would be and I would done any and everything to try to save her. I don't know if that would have helped, but waking up with the knowledge of how I feel now would have me running around do anything I could to prevent it.

Gwen, iheartm, Cookie, Kay, once again I agree with you all. Kay you are right, I also sometimes just think "enough is enough!" but that means nothing in the end. I just get these moments where I just get so sick of not having her around. I think, 'Ok, I'm tired of this" but can't do anything about it. I used to do a lot of things by myself. One thing I would do was go to the movies a lot alone (and sneak into 2 or 3 other movies, shhhh!) I had no problem watching 3 movies alone. But the option to see a movie with her was always there. So, this forced solitude gives a whole new meaning and knowing I have no choice but to go alone makes me not want to go at all, even though I used to do it all the time. Isn't that crazy. Cookie, you're right that those women didn't know what they were saying. What hurts is that your tragedy is so out of their memory that they don't even try to be considerate. I may not always know what to say but I will remember if someone suffered a tragedy, especially if I see them face to face on a somewhat regular basis. I used to be one of those people that liked and shared those positivity quotes. Now none of it means anything, because you can't just "be positive" after someone dies. A motivational speaker can't help that. Sigh.

Cookie, kay and iheartm, I am the exact same way. My sister kept saying her mouth was dry, her mouth was so dry and she went crazy trying to drink anything in sight. I didn't even think about the fact she was only supposed to have so much liquid with her heart condition. We walked to the store and she bought tons of drinks, I think she was just so out of it wanting something to satisfy her thirst and neither of us decided to go to the emergency room, even though I did ask if she wanted to call her doctor. Her mouth had even drooped at one point, but that stopped. She mostly likely had a stroke. And we walked to the store instead (!??!?!?) I looked at her laying in the bed unable to talk and still waited until the morning to decide on the hospital. Of course that was to late. How stupid is that? That will haunt me forever too.

TH, you're so right. On good days I can get to that thinking. It's such a horrible permanent thing to grapple with. I think me not believing the worst would happen lulled me into doing what I did and that I had time to make other choices or figure things out later. I would say "better safe than sorry" all the time and didn't do that. I'm so sorry I didn't. I'm trying to remember we did not intend to hurt our loved ones. That is what matters.

Kay, I can't add 1+1 without a calculator so bkpg is waaaay above my head, lol. I did reception at another job but HATED the extra work I had to do. I had to send out case status updates to all the clients for every attorney (almost 50) and it just got tedious. Then I had to type up each one, and print it out so they could proof it so its' like I was doing the work twice--doing it once then looking it up again and sending them all once they were approved. I hated the work so of course that made me grumpy and mad. That is my middle name, lol. I hate reception. I get tired of being tied to the desk and expected to be in charge of petty stuff like paper jams, filling the copier, even putting staples in the electric stapler. I'm still trying to figure out what else I can do because it's depressing to think all I'm good for is refilling a stapler. It's not like it's beneath me, I"m just tired of it.

Deb, you talked to her everyday and like you said, she did have other family in her life. We all have this guilt over what we did or didn't do with our loved ones, and that will never go away. Lord knows I know it won't for me. I think when we are living our lives and everything is going fine...it's going fine, but when tragedy strikes we say "why did I move out?" "why did I live abroad?" "why did I only call 3 times a week instead of 5?" when those things were working for us they were working and in reality there was nothing wrong with that. We owe ourselves to have a life. I remember in college we had to give some presentation about something or say something about ourselves and this girl mentioned how she was living at home and helping everyone out and she was not going to do it anymore, she was going to move and have her own life and not feel bad about doing it. And that's just how it is. One day you have to do for you even as you try to help others on on the side. Depression is hard because it usually looks like the person is just moping around being negative. It is more serious than we realize. I also think those that are depressed even notice it until they are deep into it.

Kay you are so right. I believe support staff are invaluable, but the 0.3% of bosses that feel that way are hard to find. The "maid like mentality" they also expect is what annoys me. I just noticed over the years how much worse these positions have gotten. The pay is still from 1990 and they want 1 person to do an 8 person job and they expect top notch up to date skills and you're still looked down upon. I know every job has something bad about it, but these positions are for the birds. I fell into admin work and it's definitely a trap. I'm also back to receptionist work and that's even worse. This job along with my horrible life now is doing nothing for my moral. I really feel like I have nothing now. The moments of happiness are so fleeting I forget they happen. Even with this job I at least had fun times with my sister to look forward too, now I don't even have that. This job doesn't always have bad days, this is just a really sucky week. But overall I had something else to look forward too. Having nothing now even makes the good days bad.

You said a mouthful here! When you mentioned the chatting with cashiers intensifies it felt true to me too. I knew I liked to talk, but I guess I didn't realize how much I talked before. We would hang out and talk for 4-6 hours, watching movies, whatever, then I'd go home a bit and go back for a few more hours. The contact was just normal and expected. Kay, the evenings and the weekends was our time too, obviously because we both worked during the day. It was great to have that to look forward too during the week. I'm still glad for the weekends to be away from work, but they are not fun anymore. I can't imagine how rough that was losing your job after losing your husband. I know you thought you wouldn't make it. Life is just to cruel. I'm honestly just sick of everything. I'm just tired. I just want what I used to have. I"m just tired.

Gin, it's things that you feel you will never get used to. It's ingrained in you the things you had with him, like hoping you didn't wake him. Those automatic things are almost like triggers. The evenings and weekends are unbearable for me. The weekends are excruciating. All that down time and nothing to do with it. It gets so boring and lonely and tedious. I want to go out but don't want to go alone. Having no one to talk to hurts so bad.

Mitch, I'm so sorry. I feel your heartbreak right through the computer. When you said Tammy was going to make lifestyle changes my eyes welled up. My sister was on the same track. It's horrible that they were both thinking about the future and how they were going to get healthy and this happened. I H A T E it!!!! I have been having a hard week, I can't believe I'm actually ready to see my counselor. Like you, I keep replaying events and thinking about the last things we did together and I just want to rewind back to those days so bad. I can't believe in an instant I'm an only child now. It's unfathomable. Gin, I still feel like I let my sister down. People may say "you tried" but I really didn't because I could have called an ambulance. It's hard knowing I really didn't "do everything I could". I could have done so much. I failed her too.

Happy Birthday! Thank you for all your kind words

This how my sister with a cousin. He was a drug addict and made our lives hell and got into with her all the time. But somehow he was ALWAYS coming into money some way or another while we struggled for every dime. She couldn't stand him and I hated seeing her hating him so much. It's another issue I have with her death, she died and he's still going on. Not fair. I understand maybe not saying 'I forgive you" but I always told her to just let it be. I learned over the years that even though he was getting money he was not happy. I felt like Karma would catch him sooner or later and that you are making yourself ill being mad at someone else. I used to do that all the time. I still get that way from time to time, I get so mad and jealous over someone elses news or lifestyle and hate on them. But it takes time to finally say 'forget that' I am not going to do all that. It's not worth it. The sad thing is that before all this happened to me I felt like I could deal with any problems, now I just do feel sorry for myself and feel 'why me?" when I see others being happy. I know I will never really be happy again and that hurts and brings on that jealous anger. Life is really exhausting now.

kay, you hit the nail on the head. I'm a little calmer now, but still irritated, lol. But you are right, the real frustration was not the coat, as annoying as it was, it was not having my sister here at all and not having her to vent too. The thing is, I can do things on my own, but knowing she was available for backup or advice or help made it more tolerable. When you are doing something and cant' fix it and have no one to turn to but yourself that is very upsetting and frustrating. And I will admit that it's not like hate suggestions on fixing things. I have done that too when the person is enraged and I just want to help and calm them down. It's just a couple of people I have talked too, I can tell they feel the complaining is unnecessary or that I"m just an 'angry ol' lady' or something instead of understanding I need to just get it out. You know how there are some people that claim this positive attitude 100% of the time. That's not possible.

I'm glad I'm not that only one that has been irritated and angry recently. Heck, I'm pretty much always irritated and angry and I hate that because that is not me, that's not who I was, by any means. Today I was running late and my scarf got caught in my coat zipper. I was so pissed so of course me yanking and pulling broke the zipper and I had to toss that coat off and grab a winter jacket and run out. I get off the train and somehow the zipper on this coat breaks! But I manage to get it together and zip it back up. Are you kidding me?!? I thought my head was going to explode. I sorta took out some of it on my ma this morning, I didn't mean too, but she was asking dumb questions and it just made me even more annoyed. Of course it stems from what I'm going through, but what I hate about that is that people I know don't want to acknowledge that because they don't want to get back into "that" again. Sometimes I just need to be angry and vent and complain, and the one person that I loved doing that with is not here which makes me even more angry. But people don't want me to complain, they just want to fix an unfixable situation by telling me to do things that won't help anyway. I feel like they see me as this miserable mean person now and You know what? Maybe I am. I feel like I shouldn't have the right to vent. I was getting tips how to fix the zipper, I'm just mad right now, I didn't need that. No, I don't want a tutorial on replacing a zipper, can't I just be upset? I'm sorry I can't think right now, but I think it was CL who said that she got lost in her car and that just created a snowball effect of frustration when it wouldn't have had her husband been there. (if it wasn't CL, sorry, I can't remember right now) But that's how I feel now. If my sister was here I would have texted her about it, been angry but able to handle it better. Just having this happens makes me feel like it's just the norm in my already shi**y f'ed up life that has been handed down to me. Why should I expect any sunny days anymore? I just feel done today.

Sometimes I live in world where I haven't accepted it. Sometimes that's how I get through the days. It's like I just don't want to deal with that reality and that is better than having to fully face the stark truth. I admit that here because I know everyone is dealing the pain of losing someone and we all understand that pain. I dont' want to tell that to anyone not going through this because then I get the lectures about how unhealthy it is to not want to face that truth, and I better deal with the reality and so on and so on. I DO know what is true. Obviously I know she is dead and not coming back. But I dont' need someone telling me I need to sit and meditate on that truth. That is something I wish I could erase from my mind. I don't need to sit and stare at pictures of her in her empty apartment to understand that truth. It does nothing but launch me into mind numbing sadness, despair, pain, misery, heartache, loneliness, anger, resentment, hate for the world, guilt, and uncontrollable crying. I've been there. Of course I want to avoid that.

I used to jokingly say "come on, lets do <insert activity>, you could be dead tomorrow." It used to be funny, but now it's not. It just made me think about some of the things I wanted to do and I got her to do with me and we really enjoyed. Sadly, those are cherished memories now. The phrase "Live for today" really does take on new meaning.

I'm so sorry for your loss. It is so new and raw, you are expected to be out of your mind right now. What you said about thinking about the same person over and over 24/7 got to me and brought tears to my eyes. All that you said hit me in my heart. I lost a sister, not a spouse, but it still resonated with me. To have the same thought in your mind over and over and it's an unfixable permanent problem, one that is tearing your soul apart, is excruciating and exhausting. It really is torture. While we have done a lot of angry friend bashing here the past few weeks, I sometimes think hearing from your friends and hearing them say "Hey, how are you doing?" (which brought you to tears) not only hurts because you are doing HORRIBLY! but because it it also reminds you of your old life that has been completely destroyed. Everything you once knew is gone and changed forever and those friends you used to joke around with, talk about nothing with, be funny with seem like some sort of movie of yourself or something, it's unreal. I think about my friends or look at their texts or something and I do remember the stuff we used to do without a care in the world. I will never do those things with them again with that genuine fun in my heart. I don't even know if I really, truly want to either. It's nice your friends are trying to contact you. No need to feel guilty or offer excuses why you don't reply. If they have any sense they would know why you don't feel like talking. Seeing "I'm thinking of you" works because there is no obligation from you to respond. It does feel good to know your friends are around, available, worried about you but don't want to push all over you. That is better than disappearing. And when you do come around and want to talk to them, the good ones will remember and get back to you. We are all busy, but I feel like if you talked to that person before all this happened why is it that they suddenly fall off the earth after a tragedy? They suddenly become harder to reach than the King of Spain. Tell them you don't feel like talking but appreciate them checking on you every now and then. We need to be sad and down and miserable about this for a while. There is always pressure to get happy again quickly. Do what you need to do.

This is so true. I love TV and movies but I was never a stare at TV 24/7 type of person. I might get into some marathons over the weekend, but overall I was with my sister and we'd be out for hours and then come home and watch movies. watching movies are not the same anymore and not having that pleasure has taken the pleasure out of my life. I watch movies and TV shows alone and have no one to comment about them with, or to watch and then go "oh, you need to watch this show or have you seen last weeks episode?" Silence. And when I'm tired of the TV I just have to keep watching because there is no reason to turn it off and go find my sis to hang out with because she is gone. Some things really make you feel even more alone. scba, my anger is always there and that is wearing thin and wearing me down. When you mentioned you were angry I couldn't help but nod. Like Gwen said, I feel cheated too. My sister was also cheated and that pisses me off, so we're back to being angry. It never ends.