The daily struggle...

[Gwenivere]

I have to admit to becoming more callous too, Ana.  I have little to no patience about people's complaints about thier loved ones. I sometimes want to scream at them.....at least you have something to complain about!  And it's usually such minor stuff.  I have no interest in the news either.  Have to feel like you are a part of the world to do that.  All I watch is the weather forecast and for where I live that is depressing.  Time for months of rain and gloom.  Blah.  

[kevin]

I just saw on Weather channel, this is the wettest October on record for Pacific Northwest Southern BC,,,,,,,Agree, somewhat depressing with all the rain and grey skies....But this new attitude of mine I actually find refreshing.......and will only improve with Sunshine......

[mittam99]

15 hours ago, scba said:

I haven't watched or read the news for a week. I feel fine and well about it!

I never did watch the news very often but now I have even less interest. Fact is, 99% of the news seems to be depressingly sad. And sad is something I already get plenty of from within my own thoughts.

[Margm]

My granddaughter won't watch the news.  She said it is nothing but sad.  It makes me wonder.  We got the Shreveport Times and the Shreveport Journal when I was a child and I read the newspaper from front to back.  Newly married, I got it from the grocery store in front of the apartment and the owner said he was impressed because most young people never read the newspaper.  I still read the news on the local TV stations, but politics is not my center of interest.  I wonder a lot of times about the rate of crime now and the rate of crime when I was a child.  We did not have the fear that young people face now and I wonder if it is because the escalation of the news on every medium.  I only read the newspapers.  I did call the Shreveport Times once because they used a "fill-in" article of an actor dying that had been dead for nearly 10 years.  I wonder how much of the reporting now is "fill-in" reporting.  My head is not in the world's situation, only in my situation.  If this is not normal, that's just too bad, again, it is what it is.

[Brad]

I cancelled my tv months ago. Just stream now and mostly movies pre 1980. 

[Patty65]

Happy birthday, Ron. ❤️?

[kayc]

I can't stream so have dish, I watch the local news every night but occasionally national. Yes, Kevin, it is the wettest October and they predict more of the same.  Upset about my new patio roof leaking so badly. As much as I hate heat, I'd prefer summer at this point!

[Margm]

On 10/28/2016 at 9:13 PM, Gwenivere said:

I have little to no patience about people's complaints about thier loved ones

Last night our apartment complex held a Halloween party in the park in front of my building.  I had to leave once to take my son's girlfriend home from work, the complex was filled with Halloween characters.  I saw one little girl princess that was so adorable, but I have no business being among a bunch of people.  My daughter's friend wanted me to go to this town's city council meeting Monday night on the electric bills people are getting.  Mine was down $30, I have no complaint, and I do not want to be around a bunch of people.  Perhaps my reason for not finding a church home yet also.  I don't suffer complaints from people..  The woman in the Walmart buggy that was waiting for her prescription.  Her husband passed in 1999.  My granddaughter was born in 1999.  My two grandmother's born in 1899. (And, I am going  nowhere with that topic).  Anyhow, her husband (now husband) came and paid for her prescription (he had been shopping).  He had been a classmate many, many years ago.  She told me in confidence behind his back (but I think he probably heard), she said "it is not the same."  Well, of course it is not the same.  She had to have triple bypass surgery the first week of the newer marriage.  What stress she must have had.  One of them will suffer loss again, or for the first time.  Life goes on, until it doesn't.  

[Brad]

 

35 minutes ago, Marg M said:

I do not want to be around a bunch of people.  

I too avoid group situations, particularly those which involve Deedo's friends, Red Hat group, etc.  I can handle support groups okay because they get it and are too busy trying to fix themselves to try to fix me.  Immediate family I can handle but have already told my daughter that I don't think I can handle Thanksgiving with her in-laws.  Of course that was always a challenge under the best of circumstances.

Standing in line at the checkout counter the other day the gal in front of me was on the phone complaining to the listener about her husband.  I so wanted to let her know how lucky she was to have him, instead I went to another line.  

[Gin]

Patty,

Hard day for you.  Happy birthday to Ron.   Another hard day of remembering.  They are all hard, now.  People tell me to remember the good times, but that does not work.  Those good times are gone and not coming back.

Gin

[Margm]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

I don't think I can handle Thanksgiving

Well, I have a dilemma.  We all know I don't cook.  Oh, I do some small things ever so often, nothing inventive though.  My granddaughter cooks for herself and I make sure she has the right things.

My daughter has mentioned we all have the buffet at one of the casino's on the river.  Sounded good to me until my granddaughter said "I want a traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas."  She said "Daddy would want us to have this."  Well, this is one part of family I will not take away from her although it sounded like a good idea to keep the memories away.  I will get through it.  I know how to cook.  Southern corn bread dressing for me will be replaced with grits dressing.  Corn bread for those others. I can fix the other for the rest of them and freeze the rest.  Don't know how my daughter will accept this.  She wants the "different" and so did I, but I can manage this for my granddaughter.  It means family to her, even if she does not live with her mother.  Hope we can pull it off.  

[scba]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

 

I too avoid group situations, particularly those which involve Deedo's friends, Red Hat group, etc.  I can handle support groups okay because they get it and are too busy trying to fix themselves to try to fix me.  Immediate family I can handle but have already told my daughter that I don't think I can handle Thanksgiving with her in-laws.  Of course that was always a challenge under the best of circumstances.

Standing in line at the checkout counter the other day the gal in front of me was on the phone complaining to the listener about her husband.  I so wanted to let her know how lucky she was to have him, instead I went to another line.  

I can be around a bunch of people, like in a crowd, because I remain anonymous. I avoid social situations where I have to share a space - a table - with people that I don't know or are just acquitances. Today I turned down an invitation to have lunch with relatives and some people I met in my childhood but haven't been in touch for more than a decade. I cannot talk about my present nor about my past cause It makes me feel unconfortable. I have to put extra effort to divert conversations to other topics than personal life Or subjects that  remind me of what I had and lost. And I'm too tired. I

I told this to my mum and she said: but these are nice and good people! Why you don't want to go?

Who could understand? .......... Who understood me beyond everything? Again, the loss....

[mittam99]

2 hours ago, Gin said:

 People tell me to remember the good times, but that does not work.  Those good times are gone and not coming back.

Gin, maybe I look at this from a slightly little different perspective.

Of course we aren't going to share any new memories with our beloved and that's what hurts so much. We had a life we loved. We spent our days with the person that made us feel complete. But somehow, some way we have the rest of our life to live.

Sure, I cry when I think about the things that will never be again. Holding hands, kissing, sitting at a restaurant together, taking long drives, etc.

But... I also use those memories and the love Tammy and I shared as a motivator. I will always feel a part of the Mitch and Tammy team. In that way I still feel "special". I know I had a love and a love story that few others have experienced. And ultimately, I believe that Tammy is still a part of my life. She is not only in my heart and soul but I truly carry the hope that she still exists is some way. I still tell her I love her everyday. Still tell her I'm home when I walk through the door from a day at work. Still reach over to her side of bed in hopes that she feels all my love.

None of this is easy. We all want to turn back the hands of time and be together with our soul mate.

One day at a time is all we can do.

 

[Patty65]

it's been a horrid week. these dates, just so impossible, feels like I'm waiting for the knock-out blow.  

about crowds. they are a huge issue for me too.  i had an art department meeting at the university the other day, a knot in my throat, tears welling, heart racing, anxiety, and a smile on my face to pretend i was fine.  it threw me back like i was the day before, and the day before i was so non functional it felt like the first week after he was gone. hysterically crying at work, unable to drive to go home or do anything, no trigger, just there -- unbearable and unstoppable loss of my One Love.  my business partner said i was still plenty productive and its ok.  but its not ok, not about not getting work done, but the pain of loss that brings me to my knees. the swollen stinging eyes, the stomach sickened, the massive headache. the thought of the future so hard, i lost the one person who truly understood me, accepted me, loved me.  i believe that "lose" is a strong word because i believe his love is still out there for me, it just takes so much energy and work to find it, that when i am weak and need it the most, it is more than i have in me to find or feel.  

in crowds, in stores, in any place other than maui pasta and home, i honestly feel like an alien in a foreign world lately.

My business partner, who is so sweet, just won't take "no" for an answer about thanksgiving. having me join her, or wherever her and her husband are.  so my strategy is -- I am going to say yes, and then that morning, i'm going to say -- oh, sorry, can't come.  is that wrong?

on friday night, my estranged friend invited me over, knowing it was ron's birthday the next day. the one who has not been able to deal with my grief. i said ok, i was hoping for total distraction and NOT talking about it.  she asked me if i could bring a piece of cheesecloth from the shop, but given that my mother was in the ER all day with blood clots in her massively swollen feet, and i was texting and calling with my sister all day, i forgot it.  my friend was so SO hurt that i forgot, even though i apologized profusely. at the end of the night, she had drunk too much, and she said as I crawled onto the futon to crash for the night, you know, there ARE other people missing ron on his birthday, like me and (her husband), and did you ever THINK to ask US how we are feeling?  (aka console them).  I didn't know what to say.  In my silence, she repeated herself two times more.  Finally I said the pain was so involuntary, I cannot just bring it up.  She said I should.  I said, "it feels like you are scolding me."  she huffed out of the room, came back, and said she was not scolding me, she just thought i should get "out of my head" and reach out to others hurting.  She has a HUSBAND to console her about Ron, whom she was at most acquaintances with, how can she ask that of ME?? . She walked away, i laid there awake most of the night, left for work before dawn, and thought that was the end of our friendship.  it just reinforced how deeply it hurt to lose my Ron, the ONE and only person who understood me.  the next day she texted me and apologized.  She said she just missed ron, and our old friendship, and her husband reminded her of "what a hard time" they had with her sister after she lost her husband 3 years ago.  Is that what I am? a fricken hard time??

just how on earth do you survive when there is no end in sight?

my one positive -- my therapist is back on the scene starting next week.  after 7 weeks now. what a long haul that was.  i have spoken to her a couple of times.

thanks for listening, i'm gonna try not to isolate and be here more, it helps being here.

patty

 

[Brad]

14 minutes ago, Patty65 said:

a knot in my throat, tears welling, heart racing, anxiety, and a smile on my face to pretend i was fine.  it threw me back like i was the day before, and the day before i was so non functional it felt like the first week after he was gone. hysterically crying at work, unable to drive to go home or do anything, no trigger, just there --

Yesterday I went hiking to a favorite place with a friend whose husband is in advanced stages of Alzheimers.  She's at that limbo place where she's alone and her soulmate left her some time ago and  yet his heart still beats.  We were hiking for seven hours and most of the conversation was about our grief.  Several times it was mentioned how those tears seem to be located just barely below the upper most layer of epidermis just waiting, lurking, ready to spring forth at the most minor of provocations.

20 minutes ago, Patty65 said:

 i believe that "lose" is a strong word because i believe his love is still out there for me, it just takes so much energy and work to find it, that when i am weak and need it the most, it is more than i have in me to find or feel.  

I prefer not to use lose or loss.  I didn't lose Deedo; she died from an insidious disease.  And Ron's love, like Deedo's is still out there for us.  Keep in mind that I really am quite obtuse most of the time; as I was recently reminded of repeatedly.  I have had a few things happen over the past 15 months and one day that would qualify, in many peoples minds, as a sign from Deedo.  When they have occurred the critical thinking kicks in and I am able to convince myself it is mere coincidence.   However there is something very comforting in believing that the birds that inhabited the birdhouse that had been vacant for 25 years were brought there by Deedo.  Or their little chick who, on the day it flew the nest, spent thirty minutes perched on the screen in front of me saying goodbye, was a sign.  Again, I am dense.

 

33 minutes ago, Patty65 said:

My business partner, who is so sweet, just won't take "no" for an answer about thanksgiving. having me join her, or wherever her and her husband are.  so my strategy is -- I am going to say yes, and then that morning, i'm going to say -- oh, sorry, can't come.  is that wrong?

No Patty that isn't wrong.  You need to do what feels right for you.  I've already told my daughter that I may not come for Thanksgiving.  Last year I went and really struggled.

35 minutes ago, Patty65 said:

on friday night, my estranged friend invited me over, knowing it was ron's birthday the next day. the one who has not been able to deal with my grief. i said ok, i was hoping for total distraction and NOT talking about it.  she asked me if i could bring a piece of cheesecloth from the shop, but given that my mother was in the ER all day with blood clots in her massively swollen feet, and i was texting and calling with my sister all day, i forgot it.  my friend was so SO hurt that i forgot, even though i apologized profusely. at the end of the night, she had drunk too much, and she said as I crawled onto the futon to crash for the night, you know, there ARE other people missing ron on his birthday, like me and (her husband), and did you ever THINK to ask US how we are feeling?  (aka console them).  I didn't know what to say.  In my silence, she repeated herself two times more.  Finally I said the pain was so involuntary, I cannot just bring it up.  She said I should.  I said, "it feels like you are scolding me."  she huffed out of the room, came back, and said she was not scolding me, she just thought i should get "out of my head" and reach out to others hurting.  She has a HUSBAND to console her about Ron, whom she was at most acquaintances with, how can she ask that of ME?? . She walked away, i laid there awake most of the night, left for work before dawn, and thought that was the end of our friendship.  it just reinforced how deeply it hurt to lose my Ron, the ONE and only person who understood me.  the next day she texted me and apologized.  She said she just missed ron, and our old friendship, and her husband reminded her of "what a hard time" they had with her sister after she lost her husband 3 years ago.  Is that what I am? a fricken hard time??

Patty, I am so sorry you went through this.  She is obviously someone who is unable to deal with someone who is deep in the throes of grief.  This is the main reason I prefer the company of those who are grieving.  They really get it.  I see her apology as not taking responsibility for her comments but one of really trying to shift the ownership from her to you. Right now I really have little time for people who are unable to put my needs first.  I am the one who lost the love of my life.  I am the one who needs support.

I do hope this next week will be better.  It starts with Halloween: for many that is a good thing, for me not so much so.  I have always enjoyed getting past it: kind of like a root canal.

 

 

[Gwenivere]

Egads Patty!  I cannot even imagine someone pressuring me to help them about missing Steve.  They didn't lose what we did.  Sure they miss them.  But it is our lives that are the ones that are truly changed.  The closet I had talked to someone (and it was in sharing the loss) was his brother and sister because they had lifelong ties with him.  It would have been the same if his parents were alive.  Friends of his miss him, I get it.  But to expect me to bolster them is ridiculous.  I'm barely keeping myself going.  Alcohol is no excuse either.  It brings out what they truly feel and that would be a huge red flag of selfishness on your friends part, IMO.  

I want to isolate too sometimes and i know from prior experience it is not a good thing.  There are already enough hours of my day now I am alone.  The trick is finding something I want to do that doesn't feel like I am just killing time.  Haven't found that yet.  But I do go out every day because I don't want to have spent it holed up here.  I'm afraid it could become too easy and it makes me feel crazier.  This is so damned complicated!  

[Margm]

1 hour ago, Patty65 said:

i honestly feel like an alien in a foreign world

I just want to be invisible to everyone but family, and well, sometimes............I will leave it at that.

[MartyT]

Oh Patty. Dear Patty. I am so sorry that you've encountered so much insensitivity these last few days ~ most especially when you're doing your level best to get through Ron's birthday, let alone everything else that's on your plate. I understand that your work partner is pressuring you about joining her for Thanksgiving. That does not mean that you have to accept her invitation. It's okay to say no ~ it's okay to say that the last thing on your mind right now is how you will spend the holidays. It's okay to say that you just don't know how you will feel that day, and you really aren't up to making commitments this far in advance. It's okay to do what feels right for YOU. You are under NO obligation to be taking care of anyone else right now but YOU. If nothing else, tell her that your grief support group (that would be us ) has advised you not to be making plans for the holidays this far ahead.

As for your "friend" ~ well ~ as Gwen and Brad have said, alcohol is no excuse. I'm so, so sorry . . .  

[Margm]

17 hours ago, Patty65 said:

my estranged friend invited me over

Patty, if they were estranged to begin with, losing them again is going to be like losing something you don't want anyhow.  Sounds like she was trying to do some kind of stupid reverse psychology to make you see you were not the only one hurting.  And she was estranged, why?  Some things we don't need in life and sometimes estranged friends are some of them.  She was not making you look at yourself, she was just being stupid.  Her pain or grief, or her husband's pain or grief is not your concern.  The only concern to you is your own grief.  You handle yours and let Ms. Ignoramus handle hers.  Please don't sleep on her futon again.  I have a futon as a couch.  For someone to sleep on it, I keep a three inch memory foam mattress hid behind it.  I would not let family or friends sleep on it without it.  Myself, I think I would let her handle her own "grief" and you handle your own grief, because we all know which is greatest.  And the good Lord only knows we don't need estranged friends.  

[kayc]

23 hours ago, Brad said:

Standing in line at the checkout counter the other day the gal in front of me was on the phone complaining to the listener about her husband.  I so wanted to let her know how lucky she was to have him, instead I went to another line.  

I would have told her that!  But maybe that's why I don't have friends, I tell people what I think and they don't like to hear it.  But to me it beats holding it in and it might give her a pause for thought.

[kayc]

18 hours ago, Patty65 said:

My business partner, who is so sweet, just won't take "no" for an answer about thanksgiving. having me join her, or wherever her and her husband are.  so my strategy is -- I am going to say yes, and then that morning, i'm going to say -- oh, sorry, can't come.  is that wrong?

No, I don't think that's wrong.  Some people, although well meaning, do not hear us when we try to tell them what we need and want, they think, "How could you possibly want to be alone on Thanksgiving?!" and so they persist, but you know inside yourself what you are feeling and needing and you must do what you feel is best for you.  We don't all respond to our grief in the same way so what is right for you might be different for the next one and neither one is wrong, it is only right or wrong for YOU.  

I don't have problems in crowds because I can be lost in them, the same as I am at home when I am alone, to me it is no different.  I don't feel a part of them, my life is fairly solitary, although I try to incorporate being part of my church family...sometimes I feel it, sometimes I don't.

Patty, when I read of your experience with your friend, it is really upsetting, I can't believe she'd act like that, although nothing people do or say should surprise me anymore.  I am just so sorry you went through that.  I think I would have told her, "You have a husband to go through things with, I do not, I cannot be responsible for your feelings, I have my plate full with my own."  People!  Whether or not you remain friends is up to you, but I would have to let her know how it affected me and feel assured there would not be a repeat experience like that in order to forge ahead with our friendship.  Otherwise I think I'd want a break until I could handle her "ways" better.  Ugh!  I'm glad you get some comfort coming here and I hope your time with your therapist is helpful to you as well.  (((hugs)))

[scba]

Dear friends, when someone writes you an email and ask you "tell me your news"..... which are the news during grief? Really, which could be the news? If husband, kids, friends and exciting jobs are out of the equation, what is left to tell? 

If I were to write the truth, that could be "well, my life is an unhappy one. I miss him. My life without him is an unhappy one.  My present is that I don't have my relationship, nor kids in the family, I haven't made new friends in town and my job is an office job. So different to what we dreamed. Sorry, I don't have news. I'm fine, thank you". 

 

[Brad]

Ana - Sadly the truth is not what most people want to hear from us.  People want to hear that we are doing okay.  For me it really depends on what kind of relationship I have with the person asking how I am.  Most people really don't want to know so I tell them I am okay, I have been much better but I am doing okay.  If I am close to that person, or if that person has lost a loved one then I open up and we honestly share all of our tribulations and challenges.  I know for me loneliness is a battle.  Finding people my age who are as active as I am is a challenge.  Sadly I don't play golf and have little interest in learning and if you are retired and living in Arizona that's what you do.

[kayc]

If a person is close to you they don't have to ask what your "news" is, they will already know.  Honestly, a question like that posed to a griever is so out of line it doesn't dignify an answer!  It gives one the feeling that we are letting them down if we haven't stories to tell of winning the lottery and traveling and throwing dinner parties for friends.  But our reality is trying to get through this day and survive without the person that meant the world to us.  And that's not the news they'd want to hear about.  I think I'd ignore the whole thing.

[brat#2]

Ana, I just had someone asked me that this morning.  But to be fair to that person, they don't know me other than from seeing me at the grocery store, so I said nothing exciting and left it at that.  It is really hard to find that balance with people.  Even the neighbors that have known Dale and me for 20+ years, I don't feel like I can really tell them how I'm doing and not doing.  I just find it easier to say I'm okay and let it go at that.  Posting on here and a few people that I have that I  can old fashioned email with are the only places I feel I can really say how I'm feeling and believe me, I'm grateful for that.  Thank you everyone.

Joyce