Reliving the past unwillingly

[Gwenivere]

I’ve never posted the details of the year Steve died.  I talk about them with my counselors.  I don’t know if it wise to keep them alive in print or not for me.  I did a journal for the first year, but it was about the emotions, not what I witnessed.  It is always with me.  Last night, trying to go to sleep, I relived the death of our dog that we had to make that horrid decision about 3 months before Steve left.  I couldn’t escape the images and  pain of seeing from diagnosis of cancer, surgery and those last moments we had with her.  I ached so much and sobbed until sleep took me.  Death was at our door from January 2014 iof her diagnosis and losing him.  I ask myself, did I not grieve enough?  I know the pain will always be there, but so intensely?  The things we had to do to give her remaining time less pain as it was a death sentence from day one.  And we did.  I look back and don’t know how we got thru it.  Then dealing with Steve’s acceleration of his cancer stepped in immediately.  I lost half of my family in 3 months.  Watched him struggle for years before that.  Now our lab is getting older and I know the future of that.  I got another dog, but she has no ties to my former life.  That’s good and bad.  I will not be alone, but I will.  My whole family wiped out.  They say don’t live in the future, but humans (at least this one) can’t help it after such traumas.  I think about how I will have to face this without him.  He got his wish, he wanted to live long enough to be there for her and he was.  I know people that would be with me, but it’s the family issue that haunts me.  

Family.  Those we choose to make one with, not thrust upon us by birth.  That was my happiest life.  I loved many in my biological family, but mine trumped that a hundred times over.  We here have the tightest bonds with our loves we lost.  I look at many I know and see how they will adapt so differently as they dont have that connection that cannot be described.  Thier lives work for them.  They will never be seen here.  I know ones hat have 'moved on', but know they have their memories.  I don’t view us as better than them in our love, but sometimes when crying thru the night I feel I loved too much.  I gave my whole self to someone willingly and would not change that.  Just the unpayable bill it comes with.

i know 2 people that want what I had.  It’s hard to say....maybe you don’t.  You will be spared.  But then....they would miss such joy too.  Now I see why I Don’t talk about the images we live with we can never erase.  

[iPraiseHim]

Gwen, It is a bittersweet place we are in now.  I too, experienced much of what you write about.  I was lonely and alone, my adult life until I met my wife when we were both almost 33.  We truly did complete each other in so many ways.  Our lives and heart intertwined for almost 26 years.  Now this, afterlife is different.  I strive to remember the good times and to minimize the bad.  Neither of us perfect but seemed close to perfection.  I am blessed to know such love and to be able to share it unconditionally with my beloved Rose Anne.  Her name is hardly mentioned anymore except in my mind, conversations, and heart.  I have gradually grown to accept ( as best I can) her death as the reality it is.  Despite the trials of life, I was happy and content in life with her.  Now I have to strive hard just to live each day.  It is the price we pay for such deep profound love.  - Shalom

[KarenK]

Gwen, it has taken me a very long time to not constantly relive Ron's death and worse yet, Debbie's. It is always worse at night, of course when all is relatively quiet. I cannot shut my brain off without medication, which bothers me to no end, but I cannot survive without sleep either. I spend all day every day in the family room where he died, but his spirit is no longer there. I have come to terms with the horrid fact of removing his life support, but there will always be those niggling doubts as to whether that would have been his choice. I know in my heart it was the only choice. It is more difficult to rid myself of the horrible visions of my daughter's death because she suffered so. I can never forget those words she said to me a couple of days before she left, "I just love life." That a higher power that she loved could hear those words and then reply with "Gotcha" is inconceivable and cruel to me, but that's another bag of worms I won't open...........

I hope in time that you are able to find a small measure of peace that will grow. It is all that some of us have to look forward to.

Love,

Karen

[scba]

14 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 I don’t view us as better than them in our love, but sometimes when crying thru the night I feel I loved too much.  I gave my whole self to someone willingly and would not change that.  Just the unpayable bill it comes with.

 

Dear Gwen, I too understand. I am in year 4 and I don't relive the images of the last week of my boyfriend as often as before. They are not intrusive, sometimes flashbacks. However, I don't need any help nor any tool to describe those days in whole detail, it is all printed in my memory and in my heart and I will remember every detail for the rest of my days. I don't mind anymore if it is labelled as trauma. I didn't ask for it but it happened. 

Before, I felt blessed and lucky. After, I never felt better than anyone else about my love story. I spent lot of time feeling cursed and disgraced, blaming myself, a victim of some destiny game. I am working very hard to change that.

After 4 years, this whole horrible thing, this bill I am paying, is becoming the spiritual journey of my life. My love story questions me every day, but on a deeper level. My external life is set up as any other. A job, bills to pay, rent a place, groceries, gossip and etc. But my spirit is busy somewhere else. I live two lives now and I guess it will be this way for a long time. Again, I didn't ask for it but it happened. 

My therapist pointed the overthinking. I cannot help it. 

Peace.

Ana

[kayc]

Gwen,

I only know that I can totally relate to everything you've said.  I lost George in June, then in August our cat Tigger took one long look at me and left.  It was as if he had been waiting for George to come home and when he didn't, he committed me to memory and then left.  I never saw him again.  A year after I lost my husband, George, I lost King George, our cat, he had cancer and was suffering horribly so I had him put to sleep.  I'd gotten a cat, Chappy, just 3 1/2 months after George passed, and a couple of years later a cougar got him.  Another year later I lost Lucky, my whippet.  Then I lost my granddoggy, Skye, and in June of 2016 I lost Miss Mocha, a cat I'd adopted a few months after George died.  When is enough, enough?  My remaining cat, Kitty, is 23.  Arlie is now ten and I know I haven't got a lot of years left with either of them.  I can't help but think what is ahead, and I know it will be hard.  I try to stay in today, I really do, I try to make the most of my remaining time with them, yet always in the back of your mind is that thought.

Yes, this is the price we pay for loving.  Yet I wouldn't change a thing.  Even with all the pain.  What I had with George couldn't be surpassed, I was one of the lucky ones, we "had it" and knew we were so fortunate.  But the price I am paying will be for the rest of my life and I well know it.  I'm sorry for your pain, I get it.  You see, years ago, when we were in our relationship, we enjoyed it, we took for granted we'd have years left together, but we didn't.  Now I can never take that blindly for granted again, now I know how tenuous life is, how things can change at any moment, when you least expect it.

[Margm]

 

On 3/17/2018 at 1:09 AM, KarenK said:

I cannot shut my brain off without medication, which bothers me to no end, but I cannot survive without sleep either.

I cannot either.  If my Xanax wears out at 3:00 a.m., I will take a Dramamine.  I cannot lay there thinking.  When I read what I wrote after he left (see, he left, he didn't die, he is not dead, he is just gone).  When I read my raw emotions it tears me up.  I will not relive it.  He is gone.  And that is all.

[kayc]

On 3/16/2018 at 11:09 PM, KarenK said:

It is always worse at night, of course when all is relatively quiet. I cannot shut my brain off without medication, which bothers me to no end, but I cannot survive without sleep either.

I go through that too, only my medication isn't doing it for me, two nights this week I woke up at 12:30 am and did not get back to sleep.  I hate anxiety but it seems to visit worse at night.  It used to get me in the daytime too so I guess I should be thankful it's mostly at night now, but it's hard to function without sleep.  I don't know which is worse, laying there trying to fight it or getting up and giving up on sleep...might as well get up, not getting back to sleep when it happens.  I tried sleeping pills, they make me tired, immobilize me, but still, I'm awake, anxiety running rampant.

[Margm]

8 hours ago, kayc said:

I tried sleeping pills

One Ambien gave me two hours sleep, every time.  I did not even use up a whole prescription.  Now Xanax gives me four, then Dramamine gives me most of four more.  I am unapologetic of the way I get my sleep.  The only way I would stop is if they prove it makes me gain weight.  As it is, my weight is staying steady.. (very fluffy).  Probably because I ate, at one sitting, a whole package of those pure sugar wafer cookies that you get from the $ store that cost $1.00.  Hey, it is on my low residue diet.  Raw carrots, cauliflower, other vegetables are not.  Death by sugar wafer cookies.  I know, that is gallows humor on a bad subject.  Unfortunately, it is close to the truth.  

[kayc]

Two hours of sleep or four is still not adequate.  I think it's my anxiety.  I slept so well in George's arms and no antianxiety medicine then either.

[Margm]

I have really written enough lately, but something came to mind, and I might have mentioned on it somewhere else.  When I went back and read my emotional self the day after Billy "left" it felt like something I have read about teenagers, and older people too, it felt like I was cutting myself to feel the pain, to see the blood.  And, this is only my thoughts, only my own analogy, no one else's, have not read it elsewhere, it was just a feeling I had, the pain was such that it drew me back to that day, I saw Billy on the bed, I cannot describe the horror, but reading my emotional self from that moment, I hurt, It was painful as if I had cut through my skin and was watching it bleed.  Yet some people, they find comfort in reading their thoughts from this time.

I will never forget Billy.  I will never quit loving him, but I am going to try my best to quit bleeding myself to feel the pain.  Sometimes I already feel dead, hopeless, but I am going to do my best to just live each day.  I do not expect to find much happiness, but hopefully I might find satisfaction in living another day, whether I want to or not.

[Gwenivere]

5 hours ago, Marg M said:

I will never forget Billy.  I will never quit loving him, but I am going to try my best to quit bleeding myself to feel the pain.  Sometimes I already feel dead, hopeless, but I am going to do my best to just live each day.  I do not expect to find much happiness, but hopefully I might find satisfaction in living another day, whether I want to or not.

My dilemma too, Marg.  I dread waking up every day.  It’s the same old pain and more intensified as the day passes.  Having my body turn against itself makes things  harder.  I just know if I wasn’t in pain every moment, my mind would be clearer.  I had 2 years of grief without it and it was hell, but I could do things that gave me a little pleasure.  Doing anything now but sit hurts.  I’m not a good sedentary person. I got satisfaction cleanning up the yard a bit, taking my dogs out, being able to walk the long hallways and use the stairs where I volunteer. Now I plan ahead what I can do and brace myself for it.  Sleep is the worst thing compromised.  Without that time being restorative it really affects how one interacts with the world.  My temper is shorter, concentration harder, anxiety heightened and much more.    I even dread counseling days as it’s talk, talk, talk but I leave feeling no ground was gained.  Seeing doctors is even worse.  I’m supposed to start PT next month and it might help, but geez.  I’d rather be doing something that lets me feel I accomplished something at night as in something that I did that kept my home a home, not just a dwelling.  An example of how crazy my mind is getting from this all is tremors I developed during Steve’s final months.  They were rare but happen a lot now.  What do I do?  To my detriment I read the web and find all kinds of scary stuff like Parkinson’s.  Essential tremors.  One could be serious, one from stress.  The point is I’d never be looking at these sites and adding more fear if the very person who created the stress had not been taken from me.  I wouldn’t be seeing a 2nd counselor to try and handle these intrusive thoughts.  I’d be living with Steve, doing our thing, whatever we decided that day.  I just watched my neighbors drive off with thier dogs together as I stood at the window alone.  I know that feeling, but it is now gone.  I’ll be going out alone, coming home the same way.  One thing one counselor says is isolation is torture.  It’s outlawed as such.  I see why.  I may be free to come and go, but inside I am a prisoner.  I do things to bleed too.  I do chores I know will hurt me doing them and then later.  Guess I’m not ready to give up the fight even if I don’t know why.  I just hate being such a downer and lost.  I just got a new drivers license and the picture looks like a mug shot, not the smiling woman on my old one.  I see myself in the mirror and never saw her.  I do now.  Such little things bring into focus the massive change of losing someone that completed your world.  I want to care about something again.  How’s that for a ramble?  I’m totally understanding your term word salad.  Thought coming from all angles and you just toss them together.  I have to be organized enough relating to the word.  It’s exhausting.

[kayc]

17 hours ago, Marg M said:

When I went back and read my emotional self the day after Billy "left" it felt like something I have read about teenagers, and older people too, it felt like I was cutting myself to feel the pain, to see the blood.

I think I got rid of my journal from that time...yeah, some things are pretty painful.