ECR

Just want to get a sense of other people’s experience. I started counselling sessions from the second week of the grieving process until last week. It’s been heavy going but I thought I was seeing some improvements in having some better days. But since I stopped, the last week has been sliding down the steep section of the emotional rollercoaster. I’m stepping into the fifth month and it’s been a bit despairing that my grief is still so raw. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself but I need to recover for the sake of my 8 month old daughter, who has lost her mother.

Just checking in. The absence is just driving me crazy and I still can’t get over the fact that I have lost my soul mate. I feel god has tried to tell me that there was nothing I can do as it was part of his plan and I have to move forward but this is excruciating the loss of my beloved. People tell me to take it day by day but this effort just to survive each day without being able to see the path ahead is so painful. Where is the hope without her?

Found this a little comforting…

Oh god I just got into the most awful conversation. This person may be well meaning but the things she said - “it’s going to take a long while, you may never recover…” This is like telling a wounded marathoner still running the race - the finish line is still very far away, you may never finish! And then she says it’s ok that it’s bittersweet that my wife can’t be here to witness my baby’s growth and development cos life is fleeting! We never know what we lose or gain in life. Aaargh!!!!!

@kaycthank you - the last 2 days have been better. I tell all my family and friends there are no good days - just better or bad days. I’ve reached out to more support and also reconnecting with a few friends that wanted to contact me but have hesitated cos they didn’t know what to say or do. I’m keeping busy reading self help books, journaling, exercising and talking to people but everyday her loss still lingers and I miss my wife so so much. This morning I felt her reach out to me through the song “together” which happened to play on my playlist. It was uncanny but I felt it was a message to me. Guess I should take whatever little joys I can get.

Today is my first Father’s Day and I get well wishes which ring so hollow. This was supposed to be a happy event and joy after the many years of envying other people celebrate with their children. Yet I can’t bring myself to even feel any happiness without my wife, and I cried the whole morning when playing with my child. Still wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestion. I try to focus on using all of the coping strategies at my disposal and I understand how it’s important to take it a day at a time, but was it important for all of you to also have hope in the future? I just wonder what is the hope that I can look forward to? I lost the love of my life forever in this life and our dreams of raising my little one together as a complete family are also gone. Many people also tell me “it takes a long time.” To me I can’t see anything now but a bleak future. I am generally someone who likes to be able to look forward and plan things so this situation I find myself in causes me anxiety and it’s hard not to let it preoccupy your mind and drag you down throughout the day.

I lost my wife of 12 years to post partum depression. I am now still somewhat in a state of shock as her condition deteriorated so quickly in less than a week and she took her own life fearing that she was going to be a bad mother to our then three month old baby. We had been trying for eleven years unsuccessfully to have a child and finally when god granted us one he took my soul mate away. I loved my wife so much and she meant everything to me, and I’m struggling so badly notwithstanding the support of friends and counselors. I feel helpless, I feel weak, I feel like giving up and sometimes these thoughts of joining her are so appealing. I just wish the earth would open up and take me in…