Finch

For better or worse, i am going ahead with this. I have found a Medium from that site Marty recommended. She is based in the UK and does email readings. http://www.lizziehoulbrooke.com/ Apparently all I need to do is send her a photo, tell her the name of the person I lost and a number of questions. Seems too straight forward and I am massively sceptical. It's pretty affordable compared to some other Mediums I've looked into so if it is a scam, I won't be too ripped off financially. I have exchanged a number of emails with her asking about the process in more detail. I'll let you know how I get on. I hope I don't regret this. Sorry Crystal. I have to try!

Thanks Marita. Your support means a great deal to me and I'm thinking of you too. I'm sorry you have those moments of darkness in the night. I can relate. I sometimes step outside my body and look and myself and wonder how this all happened. Who is that person? I do not recognise him. I feel a bit like I am in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It is the Jewish New Year today. The first one since I lost her. I don't want to celebrate it. Not without her celebrating it with me. Thanks Robin. Those are wonderful words. I would pay that price over and over to have shared the love I shared with Crystal. It was indeed a blessing, even with all the regrets I have about the would haves and should haves. I want to have hope for the future, though it's about as scary as it can be. I can't even begin to think about how to love anyone else or have children of my own without sharing that journey with her. I don't want to.

What you have been through has been devastating. Just letting you know I am listening and that we are all here to listen. Even if you repeat the same thing. It doesn't matter. Say what you need to say, as many times as you need to say it. Why do you need to call the lawyer? Have you done so yet? Is this related to your home?

Accepting that this is how things are always going to be - the ups and downs - in varying degrees, is hard. It's not how I want my life to be or how I imagined it would be a few years ago or when I was a child. Not that anyone chooses this. It makes it hard to imagine how to live with in the long term. With this sadness. It's like a damn prison sentence. Nothing you can do to change it. All you can do is try your best to serve your time the best way you can without going insane or trying to escape. I know it takes time and my outlook may change. I want to believe that there is hope for happiness in the future. It's difficult to hold onto hope when swimming in darkness. I just want to rip a hole in reality. This fake reality.

Thank you Marita.

How do people get through the days that are really bad? The lowest days, in comparison to a normal day. The low points on the graph. Do people ever analyse why those days are especially bad? When you miss them the most. Is it triggers? Patterns? Human nature? Chemicals in the brain? It's so exhausting. Is this the way life has to be now?

Thanks very much Kay, I will check out those links. I know you went through something similar with regards to no goodbye.

Thanks. What you say about nothing ever being enough is true. Nothing can fill in for the stolen future and possibilities. And all the fragments left over.. I do have an insatiable hunger to gather them all. It's become an obsession because it's all I have left. I'm sure the friend would have said if there had been a significant acknowledgement to my message. But as much as I reason it in my head, I'd like to know for sure, evenm if there was a slight one. It's just not right that she was in bed for several days and I was unable to be there are get a message through right until the night before she died. It would just comfort me to know if she acknowledged it in any way. In case she was wondering where I was and wasn't able to vocalise it. Chances are, she didn't understand. It's possible that me finding out there was definitely no acknowledgement might make me feel worse. But I'm not sure I can let this rest. I know none of these negates our love for each other. And I don't want to upset the friend. Just like I didn't want to upset her father when I contacted him. I don't want to upset these people. But it's just not right that I have to move around in the shadows like this, scavenging for tiny bits of information. Making the grieving even harder. It took me 8 months just to find out the woman I loved was cremated. My grief counselor likened my situation to when someone married dies who was in a secret extra-marital affair. The person they had the affair with is outside everything and has to grieve apart from them, and is shut out from everything, the funeral, the going through things etc.

I am sorry for your hurt at finding this out, Robin.

I am still weighing this up. I am really close to doing this. I know what you are saying seachelle. Paying for something that could be a scam. Sigh. Going down the rabbit hole somewhat in my research. I found a show called Hollywood Medium. Trying to work out if that's a scam or not. Alot of the stuff he says seems like cold reading, but then there are some really specific things that make you wonder...

Wow, Arlie is magnificent! My mum's dog, Oscar (a little smaller):

I have a dilemma. I got in contact with one of Crystal's friends. The same one I had exchanged a few messages with at the time of Crystal's death and that had given Crystal a message from me the night before she died. Anyway, she sent me back a really nice, long reply, giving me a full update on Crystal's kids, the new house, the dogs, and I finally found out that she was cremated. And that her ashes were used to plant a tree at the new house. So, I now know there is no grave as such that I can visit. I broke down after reading all of it, a mixture of relief and sadness, because I finally knew alot of things I was desperate to know. I had a checklist. The dogs, the kids, the new house, the grave. All those questions answered. But. There is one thing I didn't ask that I wish I did, something that has been a great source of guilt. The message I gave that she told Crystal. I want to ask the friend if she can remember whether Crystal in any way acknowledged the message. From what the she said at the time, she had just a few minutes with her before the family wanted time with her, and Crystal was barely lucid and hardly recognising people, though she did look at her 'intently' at one point. I feel like I need to ask whether there was any response from Crystal at all when she gave her the message. I want Crystal to have known that I was asking after her. I hate thinking that she might have wondered where I was. I'll never know her thoughts, but maybe I can get an idea of if she heard my message. I can't bare the idea that she may have wanted me there in her final moments. I wanted to be there. I am not sure whether to ask this though. The friend has been really helpful in giving me a very lengthy update, much much more than I expected, and I don't want to upset her by reminding her of the last time she saw Crystal, in case it is a source of pain for her as she herself has struggled with the loss. Maybe she doesn't like to think about it. But she is the only person I can ask. She gave her the message. And if I don't ask, it will continue to haunt me. And it's really haunting me. I know there can only be two possible answers. 1) She didn't respond at all or 2) she responded with a look. But even to know if 2) happened would mean so much. It just seems that whatever I find out, whatever new information I uncover, it's never enough. I need to know more. I have this desire to know everything I possibly can.

Yes, it's difficult. So many things that have meaning between us. Letters, gifts, clothes. Hannukah stuff. Ticket stubs.Things I made her. A scrap book. A sock puppet! Really personal stuff from 12 years of friendship. I just have this image of her husband throwing them all away or burning them. Or not knowing the significance of something seemingly valueless and throwing it away. Or maybe he put them all in a box and they are in an attic or basement. She never even got to open some of the stuff I sent her last Christmas. Did someone else open them? I'll never know. But even the things that didn't particular have to do with us. Just... her stuff. Because it's her. I can only imagine what it must be like to sit down and go through everything like you and others reading this will have done. I guess it takes time before you are ready? At least I have all the things she sent me. Things she touched. Letters she wrote. A ring she made on a college trip to Italy. A yearbook photo from high school. I won't start listing things or I'll be here forever. The fact we never physically met meant these tangible things that we sent each other had so, so much meaning. She once sent me cookies that she baked for me. All the way from Georgia to the UK. She was so paranoid they'd be stale by the time they got here. She concealed them in some heavy duty tupperware. They were delicious. Even if they were the stalest cookies ever, I probably would have still found them delicious. It was amazing to eat something she made for me with her own hands.

In my recent experiences, in the weeks and months after my loss, feeling paralyzed was a thing. I definitely felt that. Physically weak, too. Breathing problems yes. Shaking. Anxiety, panic. Sense of dread was the worst thing. Half eaten sandwich is definitely a victory, so well done. Try setting very small targets.

Ah, thank you!

I miss her so much. My world is so dark without her.

Thanks. No one witnessed our love No one ever will. I know that shouldn't matter. We knew between us what it meant. It just hurts because I think our love deserved to be known. I keep thinking about a favourite T-shirt of mine I sent her last Christmas. She wore it at night. It gave her alot of comfort. I wonder what happened to it

I am very sorry about Betty and the suffering this cruel thing can cause. At least she was surrounded by family? And her pain is over.

What's an ADC?

Hi ilotuslove I'm so sorry to hear about you losing your mother, your best friend. I echo what Kay said in that it's important you have someone to talk to, like a grief counselor. Especially if family or friends are not an avenue. Please talk to someone. Don't suffer in silence. I know that everything right now seems absolutely impossible to get through, like it just cannot be done and that you will not survive. There was a time I felt like that too and I still do sometimes. It's a positive step that you have posted on this forum, there are many, many people here that will listen to you as you process things, and offer advice if you want it, and who can relate to what you are going through because they have been through things of a similar nature. Also, even though it came at the same time as everything else, if your boyfriend was being abusive to you then... well, I'm not a relationship expert by any stretch of the imagination, but that's bad and needed to stop! But I appreciate that you miss him right now. Which is why it might be good for you to find somebody to talk to in person or on the phone? So you can begin to work through this. Some advice I got early on was to try not to think too far ahead and instead focus on the now, second by second, minute by minute, day by day. All the best, try and stay hydrated, I hope your cat turns up, and give your dog a hug from me.

Update: I have looked into several mediums, many through the link Marty posted. I've even emailed a few, both US and UK based. Most of the best reviewed ones have incredible waiting lists. A UK based one who won 'Medium of the year' in 2013 I contacted has waiting lists until next April. She has suspended her Skype and phone readings for some reason. They are all extremely expensive and have very stringent conditions like pay x amount to ask x questions. I guess a business is a business and a job is a job, supply and demand etc, but something about that doesn't sit right with me given the nature of what I want to do. One of the ones I contacted does Skype readings and at a suspiciously low price. She offered to do one but I told her that I was maybe not in the best place mentally to do it yet, and that I am also somewhat of a skeptic. She replied saying to do it when I feel ready, and also that there is no guarantee that I will be able to connect with the person I want to connect with. So, I am still investigating and still undecided whether I will actually do it. I am partly resorting to this due to not being able to connect as I want with Crystal's family and friends, and generally being at my lowest ebb for some time. I am currently backing up over 12 years worth of emails between me and Crystal. It's weird that a very large part of our relationship is recorded there. It hurts too much to read through them at the moment. I'm not sure I will ever be able to read through the majority of them. But I can't bare the thought of losing them. I keep thinking about something she told me a few weeks before she died. She told me that I was her light in the darkness. I selfishly wish she was here to be my light in the darkness.

Kay, thanks. Yes I am seeing a grief counselor. Been seeing him for around 4 or 5 months now. and we are at the point where it is slowly tapering down, first weekly now to bi-weekly. It's a free service so it is time limited. It has been a particularly bad couple of weeks and my frustration is at an all time high, I think following the contacting of Crystal's dad and realising it's not really an avenue I can pursue to help with my process, or share in grief with those that knew her, due to the nature of our complex relationship. I'm finding it so hard to accept that I can't mourn my soulmate, in the way that I feel I need to. Some small progress so far with the medium search. I will update the other thread.

Yes. It is. Sorry, I don't want to hijack this thread. I'm going through a weird time at the moment. Rejection/lack of acknowledgement/inability to find the answers I want and having to accept that, resorting to spending hours looking at mediums, physical health pretty bad, frustrations boiling over, dark thoughts and feelings of pointlessness increasing in frequency back to what they were a few months ago. So when I saw the thread title 'Losing it', it struck a nerve!

Yes, I have mentioned it to both of my counselors. I should add that these outbursts are pretty sporadic, and have decreased significantly compared to several months ago. But I agree that I could better express them in other ways. I've tried to motivate myself to do more exercise, with mixed success. I think, as Marty alluded to Cheryl above, being in the parked car is a recipe for it. Personally it's one of the few times I'm alone during the day, and in complete, deafening silence. Just me and my thoughts, echoing around me.

I lost it in my car last week and punched my steering wheel, dashboard and the door several times. I am also on the verge of losing it today and I nearly crushed my mouse within my grasp. Not a real mouse, a PC mouse.