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Going Through The Motions of Being Alive


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3 hours ago, ElizabethMC said:

Thank you, everyone, for your kindness and generosity. It's going to be a really hard time for me, I know, just as it is for everyone else here. 

My nature is to be very private, so commenting like this is hard for me.

I don't know if I will be commenting in the future, but I think I will be checking in to read comments to hopefully benefit that way.

I wish with all my heart that we all find light in our lives.

E.

 

Dear Elizabeth.

Thank you for the wish you sent to all of us. It's beautiful. I cannot think of anything better to wish for us.

Sandra

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I spent yesterday afternoon in the ER.  Had a severe panic attack, but it felt like a heart attack.  The very worst of it was being alone and knowing it was probably triggered by knowing another week was coming with more things I have to face alone as always.  I keep trying to reframe things to not be so broken hearted when the night sets in.  Don’t know if I will ever master that.  Maybe master is the wrong word, but to not be so overcome by what I know will not change, being alone.  Everything else that has ever changed in my life I’ve adapted to as time passed.  This is the only one that has gotten worse.  But then, it wasn’t my everything that changed.  I don’t know if anyone else feels this, but I am so tired all the time. I miss energy.  I guess that comes from not caring about anything anymore and the irony I have to take sedatives for the anxiety attacks.  Depressing that brushing my teeth is a big effort.

Having no one to share doing things with or for and them for you.  As many have stated, it is the worst feeling no one would notice if you were gone in in distress.  Going to the hospital yesterday again made me realize not a soul on this earth knew I needed help.  

Im reading A Grief Observed by CS Lewis.  It’s amazing how he found the words to describe this hell we are in.  It’s quite interesting a guy wrote this so long ago and published it as men were expected to be so stoic.  Losing his wife made him felt he lost his life, just like us all.

It says he found his way thru it to some kind of sense of life again.  I haven’t gotten that far yet.  I can only read things about grief in very small installments, like a page or two before they overcome me.   

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Gwen,.  I feel as you do a lot.  It is such a huge difference between being alone and having that ONE special person.  Yesterday was a bad day...worse than most.  I was in the whole day with the snow here again.  I called everyone I know.  All four of them. Then what?  Call them again?  Nope.  Some days are just like that.  Most do not really understand, anyway.   Wish we all lived close by so we could at least meet for coffee.  I have not found a purpose in my life, yet.  These last 21/2 years seem like forever.

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Gwen, I totally love C.S. Lewis.  I love to read about his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien.  In fact, during the first parts of time after Billy left, I found many books on Kindle and I read all I could find on how other women handled their grief.  "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion was hard for me to read because she lost her daughter too and it made me think of our Karen. (She does not mention her daughter's death in her husband's book.  She wrote a separate book.  Somehow, reading women and men in other walks of life made my life seem rather simple.  I like simple.  I read a rather long autobiography by Martin Short.  I must say, he was not my favorite comedian before I started the book, but I totally love him now.  It is called "I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend." and I would not ruin it for anyone, but his conversations with his wife, who is deceased, are heart wrenchingly comical.  I really do not need anyone to tell me how to handle my grief, but reading other people's grief, though seemingly morbid, is actually enlightening.  

And, in saying all this, I have made a complete liar out of myself.  I said I could not concentrate.  But, I find that is not the truth.  I can sometimes, but now I am back to reading Billy's C.J. Box books on the character Joe Pickett.  And, I did like I used to do.  Sleep was coming on too soon, so I read the last chapter.  Now, it is good enough, even though I know the ending that I will/am reading the rest of it.  It is his newest book.  He leaves it with a cliffhanger.  I wonder if he is going to write fast enough for me to read the next.  Only time will tell.  

Gwen, Gin, and those that are having a particular hard time right now, if you can slip in a book or two, if you like reading.............well, it helps me for a moment or two anyhow.

I put the picture below because I took it from some of C.S. Lewis's quotes, but it is not attributed to him on the picture itself.  

mud.jpg

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19 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

I spent yesterday afternoon in the ER.  Had a severe panic attack, but it felt like a heart attack.  The very worst of it was being alone and knowing it was probably triggered by knowing another week was coming with more things I have to face alone as always.  I keep trying to reframe things to not be so broken hearted when the night sets in.  Don’t know if I will ever master that.  Maybe master is the wrong word, but to not be so overcome by what I know will not change, being alone.  Everything else that has ever changed in my life I’ve adapted to as time passed.  This is the only one that has gotten worse.  But then, it wasn’t my everything that changed.  I don’t know if anyone else feels this, but I am so tired all the time. I miss energy.  I guess that comes from not caring about anything anymore and the irony I have to take sedatives for the anxiety attacks.  Depressing that brushing my teeth is a big effort.

Having no one to share doing things with or for and them for you.  As many have stated, it is the worst feeling no one would notice if you were gone in in distress.  Going to the hospital yesterday again made me realize not a soul on this earth knew I needed help.  

Im reading A Grief Observed by CS Lewis.  It’s amazing how he found the words to describe this hell we are in.  It’s quite interesting a guy wrote this so long ago and published it as men were expected to be so stoic.  Losing his wife made him felt he lost his life, just like us all.

It says he found his way thru it to some kind of sense of life again.  I haven’t gotten that far yet.  I can only read things about grief in very small installments, like a page or two before they overcome me.   

Gwen,

I'm so sorry for what you went through, and all alone!  How I wish I lived near you so I could have drove you in and been there for you.  (I drove a guy that occasionally comes to our church in to the ER a week ago even though I don't know him).  Here it's 1 1/2 hours away from Riverbend Hospital so long day.  I went through a panic attack as you describe when George was alive, we thought I was having a heart attack, felt relieved that it wasn't, very scary!  I've had panic attacks since he died, I remember one, I wasn't sure if it was that or a heart attack, but had someone wait with me on the phone and they were to call 911 if I stopped responding.  It's hell being so alone sometimes.

A Grief Observed is one of my favorites, I love CS Lewis!  He is such an authentic person, he knew from firsthand experience true and amazing love...and loss.  He didn't get caught up in Christian cliches and thinking, he was so real and really knew what he was talking about, that and he had a beautiful way of putting his thoughts and feelings into words for us, the readers.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/17/2018 at 8:39 AM, kayc said:

Gwen,

I'm so sorry for what you went through, and all alone!  How I wish I lived near you so I could have drove you in and been there for you.  (I drove a guy that occasionally comes to our church in to the ER a week ago even though I don't know him).  Here it's 1 1/2 hours away from Riverbend Hospital so long day.  I went through a panic attack as you describe when George was alive, we thought I was having a heart attack, felt relieved that it wasn't, very scary!  I've had panic attacks since he died, I remember one, I wasn't sure if it was that or a heart attack, but had someone wait with me on the phone and they were to call 911 if I stopped responding.  It's hell being so alone sometimes.

A Grief Observed is one of my favorites, I love CS Lewis!  He is such an authentic person, he knew from firsthand experience true and amazing love...and loss.  He didn't get caught up in Christian cliches and thinking, he was so real and really knew what he was talking about, that and he had a beautiful way of putting his thoughts and feelings into words for us, the readers.

Gwen,

Like kayc, I, too am so sorry for what you went through, and all alone. Is there no one you could have reached out to? Myself, I find it very, very difficult to reach out to people when I need help, so, now that I, too, am alone, and without friends, I guess I am also asking myself because I can just see myself driving myself to the ER rather than reaching out to anyone to help me. Not always the best course of action.

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I know this sounds cold, but perhaps any of us could use the "life alert" apparatus, whether it is a necklace or however it comes.  I know in these apartments, I have seen, them come check on people that they do not see or neighbors are worried about.  I think they call it a "well check" and my son and daughter both have it at their separate apartment complexes.  I will never forget walking to my front door (after I took the ear buds out of my ears) and finding the police fixing to break my door in because family had called my cell phone and house phone and could not get me.  I cannot hear anything but what comes out of the ear buds and whatever music or other app I am listening to, to try to get to sleep, or maybe someday I might want to order a book read to me.  Waking up to the flashing lights of at least three police cars and an ambulance was traumatic, but this was right after Billy left and my family was not sure that I wanted to live, so I can see their worry.  At any rate, if we do not have close friends or neighbors to check on us, the "life alert" button, necklace, or however it is offered might not be a bad idea.  No substitute for our mate, but might save us bodily pain or injury.  Just a thought..

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Marg M

I got a Life Alert as a 61st birthday present to myself last week. It's worn like a wristwatch.  I live 45 minutes to any one of 3 hospitals, but it's still 45 minutes. My neighbors aren't close by, so as a matter of self care. My sister had been with me every day in the guest house since my Rick passed 12/20/17, but the second week of April, she drove back to her home in Palm Springs. She won't be back until mid June. First she said mid May, and I thought, 'OK, I can get to that'. But last night she said mid-June, and it's the first time I have experienced the loneliness we all have felt. Of course I've missed my husband and was lonely without him, but with her presence, I never felt alone. Does that make sense? Being completely alone is scary, which is why, for my own peace of mind, I bought the Bay Alarm medical alert. Much cheaper that Life Alert, BTW. So now I won't feel anxious about being outside doing yardwork, or worrying about falling. For me, now that it's only me, the price is worth it.

Peace

Steph

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I have a life alert necklace.  I never wear it, just keep it by the bed.  It made me incredibly depressed to get.  Sealed another reality of being alone.  I don’t really care about me anymore without Steve. It’s just going through the motions and that’s a tortuous monotony day after day.   I see the station in Steve’s office by his recliner and think what a cold replacement.  

No, Sandra, I have no one to call for companionship locally.  Phone calls to a couple people I care about is all I have left.  Sadly, one died and the one person I connected with locally did also.  So everything I do is solo.   

I honestly don’t know why I go to the doctors, PT or urgent care when I do.  My counselor says inate survival instinct because as much as I don’t want to be here anymore, part of me fights it.  The complication of being human.  I watch my dogs deal with feeling sick or ones that were dying and they just accept it.  I envy their non comprehension  of death.

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People are always recommending books and movies. Some are helpful but nothing helps me like sharing "experience, strength and hope" with other grievers. I'd be even worse off if I didn't have them so I feel for you, Gwen.  That said, "A grief observed" was powerful, tho towards the end he seemed to be recovering too easily - maybe i misread it. Anyway today someone told me about "Shadowlands" by his adopted son and made into a movie, and I'm gonna watch it tonight.

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Frustrations of life..  I know I could not follow Billy.  Right now I do not see why.  Oh, I know I couldn't.  I just read about a 96 and 97 year old, famous, I guess, people.No children.  Both in congestive heart failure.  He went in and told her it was time to go and they died within hours of each other.  They were buried together.  I am lucky, I have family, but sometimes I don't know what to do with them.  But.............I will figure it out.

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Thanks Steph.   After 15 years of psychotherapy with just the diagnosis of chronic depression, with typing about all of the disorders and labeling them, maybe our ancestors did correctly.  Just lock them in the back room.  I can imagine I would have never escaped the back room..  I will figure all this out.  I have been  through a life full of Loony-Tunes, and it is getting close to refill for my own medication.  Hey, it keeps me alive so I can keep helping.  Damn, why did they quit pushing old people off on ice floes?  Guess down here they would have to take us deep in the swamp and leave us.  

Sometimes I share more than I should.  Sometimes I go back and edit.  This is me.

"Anyone who tells a story speaks a world into being." Michael Williams

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