My Sanity Needed Vents

[kayc]

5 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Thank gawd for Melody, Vicodin and dark chocolate M&M's.

Sending cyber hugs!  The above sounds comforting.  I feel the same about Kodie.

My right hand is swollen and sore, no idea what brought that on.  Will ice off/on today, continuing on Ibuprofen & Tylenol PM.  Getting numbness in my left hand now...I hate this.

[Margm]

9 hours ago, KarenK said:

. My world is so upside down.

I think all our worlds are upside down, and it is not just the grief, though it plays a heavy hand.  I saw the sunlight come up the other morning and it was because I read so late.  What is terrible, I used to like to get up early to see the sun come up.  It did not make me happy.

[Margm]

8 hours ago, Kieron said:

Mark had one.  She stepped in when there was an issue with medical ride service or other home-based services. 

So did Billy.  He wasn't in the "program" long.  In fact, they were to come the day after he passed away.  They always called first.  They couldn't believe he had gone.  (Neither could I)

[Kieron]

Ah, I knew I had this in my voluminous files... I feel like Dumbledore searching through his laboratory. 

 

[Margm]

Thanks, I copied and saved.

 

[Gwenivere]

9 hours ago, KarenK said:

My world is so upside down.

 

8 hours ago, Kieron said:

the pain becomes all-consuming and leaves you no "disk space" in your concentration to juggle multiple matters that a person who's not in pain can easily handle.

 

8 hours ago, Kieron said:

I have wondered if excessive degrees and book learning makes people blind to deeper issues or complex webs of causation.

All three of these jumped out at me today.  

Upside down?  Kind way to put it.  I could spew a litany of profanity when my eyes pop open every day.   I feel like I live in a snow globe someone keeps shaking all day long.  I really wonder about my mental state as the days tick by now with the medical stuff so intense and going into my dark months of personal and holiday dates.  Before it was just the mental, but adding in the physical has me teetering on a dangerous edge.

 I’m becoming fearful again, despite the anxiety meds.  This is a different fear tho.  It’s the fear of wide eyed seeing how my world has changed and quite rapidly.  How things that I could reach for even small stability are gone.  This year has been a nightmare since January.  Limited  mobility is a huge factor.  Mentally, losing the nursing home and my rock in Ally I can’t even begin to describe the emptiness and pain.  

Going to-the community center and church for meals was OK at first.  The small social connection does nothing for me.  Often makes me feel worse.  I’m sure that’s why I was sobbing on the way home last night.  Loneliness is my captor.  It’s consuming me.   I’ve don’t know how to seek out fulfillment from an empty place.  I would do that because I felt inspired.  That is what is working against me.  It’s a Catch 22.  Need the connections, no drive to find them.  It felt natural before.  Dog park was young dogs needing exercise and the newness of off leash leading to making friends.  Volunteering was seeing the ones that helped my mom and wanting to repay that here because I couldn’t be there.  I don’t know how people get involved with things if you feel dead inside.  I don’t know anyone who has.  All the people I meet now that have things going started like former me.  Not one succeeded coming from emptiness.  

All the medical stuff just intensifies this.  I can see less pain is a good thing, but I know it coming back to this life I already have.  Kieron, you are right.  It’s all book learning, dealing with people that don’t have emotional anchors and definitely no understanding of it not changing your inner life.  I know people do this stuff alone, but they are usually people that have been alone and that is their normal.  My counselor is alone, but even she has her neighbors and colleagues for back up.  It may not be family, but it’s some connection with interests and experiences in common.  This is so hard to describe.  

I’ve had to let go of outside judgement or try to.  My inner judge is tougher.  I’m weak but I’m not.  I’m lonely but I can’t force being open.  Since this nightmare began I’ve grabbed the natural connections as they happened.  And they did, but have stopped due to my pain and covid.  A woman at the community center is so involved in dog rescue.  I’d love to be too, but my body can’t.  Sitting at home making phone calls coordinating pick ups and fostering are solitary which is what I’m trying to escape.  The rewards would help so much the dogs, but I need to feel more connected for myself.  Hands on stuff like transporting them myself.  

Sorry for another ramble.  My day will be an awkward Zoom call, get dinner, hopefully a shower and that’s it.  I so want a life with some life in it.  I have Melody and feel I am letting her down too.  So self focused.  I’m ashamed of myself.  😓

 

[Margm]

7 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

I’m becoming fearful again, despite the anxiety meds.

Your in good company Gwen, and we are all in the same boat (I can't swim), so I'm not gonna rock the boat.  I think we are all fearful.  I'm afraid the "infant" President is going to do something "we" have to pay for while he goes off to his Epstein Island and takes his family somewhere else.  This is not politics.  This is leadership by a dictator and might hit and run.  Fear, fear, fear.  Pandemic, fear.  Alone, fear.  People we wish we could help, fear.  Not enough money, acceptance, fear. 

[kayc]

Saved and copied the chart, thanks!  Doctors should show it before they ask, "On a scale of 1 to 10..."

[scba]

Not sure if this belongs here. 

A friend of mine has recently complaint that I don't open up myself about my grief, my feelings and frustrations and that I'm to stubborn and proud to admit I'm vulnerable. I know she means well, she's trying to shake me up.

Still, I feel really uncomfortable speaking about my feelings. I made it clear to her that I won't discuss my grief with anybody (who hasn't touched THAT flames) and I won't justify my decision. She made it clear that this attitude is not of a true friend and what type of life and relationship I could build If I behave that way. 

I am totally lost. I didn't see it coming. I love my friend. I need some wisdom and I don't know what to do. 

[MartyT]

Ana, my dear, feeling misjudged by someone you considered to be a friend is like being kicked in the stomach, especially when you didn't see it coming. It has happened to me, too, and I know how much it hurts. I hope you'll find some comfort in this article: 6 Lessons to Remember When Someone Judges or Criticizes You ❤️

[scba]

Thank you Marty very much

 

[Margm]

7 hours ago, kayc said:

Doctors should show it before they ask, "On a scale of 1 to 10..."

Agreed

[Margm]

8 hours ago, scba said:

Still, I feel really uncomfortable speaking about my feelings. I made it clear to her that I won't discuss my grief with anybody (who hasn't touched THAT flames) and I won't justify my decision. She made it clear that this attitude is not of a true friend and what type of life and relationship I could build If I behave that way. 

I am totally lost. I didn't see it coming. I love my friend. I need some wisdom and I don't know what to do. 

You are right Ana.  Unless they have been touched by the flames, walked on the coals, they cannot possibly understand, and why should you have to open a wound and bleed for anyone.  Tell them when they have visited that spot in hell, you will help them as best you can.  She can offer you sympathy.  She cannot offer empathy.  When and if that time comes, you will show her how much a friend you really are.  You do not deserve to have to dissect your feelings for anyone.  

[Gwenivere]

I don’t know how many times I’ve had to make decisions about who stays, how they stay or go in my life since this loss.  It’s always come down to...if they haven’t experienced it, they can’t know and I absolutely reject any advice or criticism for anything I do.  Only others on this path will I listen to because they know.  Can’t count how many times I’ve heard 'I’m sorry, that is hard.'  If I lost they knew.  I used to try and explain it but found it can’t be done.  About all I can do to people when they make inane observations is point out they have their partner, try envisioning it without them.  Even then they think they can.  It’s a hard lesson to learn.  It does change friendships.  String ones survive it.  Many sadly don’t as I have found,

[scba]

Thanks Marg and Gwen.

It hurts because she is my dear friend. I understand her feelings. But I want to be left alone with mine.

[Kieron]

I've been letting two longtime friendships drift, and it's been made worse by the pandemic. I'm not sure why it's somehow easier to just let them slide away.

8 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 It does change friendships.  String ones survive it.  Many sadly don’t as I have found,

I'm finding this out, too, but as I said elsewhere, you can't make new old friends, so what do you do?  (Rhetorical question)  For the current pandemic, there are so many parallels to earlier pandemics that society didn't acknowledge or care about because it only affected a narrow segment of the population.  Now, this one doesn't discriminate.  Everyone is worried about it, or should be, but there are still some who don't care, or don't believe it's real or that serious.

17 hours ago, scba said:

I didn't see it coming. I love my friend.

  Ana, we usually don't see it coming.  And of course you love your friend.  I loved my two friends noted above and still do and I don't know how to be around them anymore, with the dynamic having changed by their behavior, words or assumptions.  The small insult/disregard/trespass probably isn't worth the cost of losing the relationship, but in a way, it has changed the tone and I don't know, any more than you do, how to repair it, or if I even should.

[kayc]

This was a good article, I've saved it and hope I never need it!  I think I''d have a hard time taking it as well as the author did.  I'd probably snip back something like, "I didn't ask you to critique me!"  This author was 21 and showed more wisdom and insight than I possess at my age!

Seriously, friends should "be there" for you, not point out what they perceive as faults, ESPECIALLY when they have not walked in our shoes!  Even if she had been through it, she needs to understand that there are a variety of factors that play into how we choose to respond to things, and that is our business!!!   It's whatever makes YOU most comfortable!!!

I think I'd give it some time and then respond something like, "I'm trying to assume you meant well in your critique but I'll do my best to get past it, hoping you will do your best to accept my way of grieving as my own.  If and when the time comes you've lost your soulmate, I will try to be there for you without judgment."

[Gwenivere]

15 hours ago, Kieron said:

I've been letting two longtime friendships drift, and it's been made worse by the pandemic. I'm not sure why it's somehow easier to just let them slide away.

I didn’t have many to lose, but I know I don’t interact as I did.  Some is being worn down by physical pain, but a lot is I just have so little to offer.  I also get weary of hearing plans, projects and shared little joys others have over and over.  I can only fake happiness for them now and that is waning.  So I am not really connected now.  I’m the one whose life is a rerun every day while they go on living with their partners.  I get asked what I am going to do for special days or holidays.  The answer is usually.....nothing.  Kinda hard to do fun or meaningful stuff alone.  I miss listening and then sharing 'our' plans.  I also don’t want to see their pity looks as well as relief it isn’t them.

[nashreed]

I don't have friends. Annette had them, but was very sensitive and something always caused her to drift away from them- a perceived slight or betrayal. I didn't need anybody but her. Now I'm kinda regretting it, but I wouldn't know how to keep a friendship. 

[Margm]

2 minutes ago, nashreed said:

but I wouldn't know how to keep a friendship. 

You have friends on here.  This is how we make friends now.  It is not hard to keep these kind of friends and we don't breathe on each other or touch each other.  I have friends on FB..  I did not go to my aunt's funeral because we come from a small town but she was high school secretary and there would be so many people there.  I've gotten my feelings hurt by what I thought were my friends, but the reaction from them was a "slight" and they would not have done it if it had been Billy left.  But we are friends on paper/or screen, which is fine with me.  We are here.  You have friendships.  I even throw in a lot of words sometimes, and sometimes they make sense......to me.  We miss our mates.  I've been through every emotion even questioning if he loved me.  I'm not easy to put up with.  He did it though, for 54 years.  That boy deserves stars in his crown.  If you need to talk, we are here.  

[nashreed]

Well thanks. I guess that's the whole point of this thread. I need to vent or I'll go insane. You fine folks read ("listen") and we keep each other sane. 

[Margm]

Oh "N," I am so far from sane I need binoculars.  But, if you look back a few months, you will see us crying for help.  Like I have said at least 100 times, I found this forum three days after Billy left.  I still had my extra 50 morphine from Billy's left overs and I wanted to be with him.  My religion (not strong, but still unsure) kept me from it, and these people.  Go ahead and let it all out.  It is not anything we are not used to and Marty usually has some prime reading material that helps too.  

You've got friends.

[nashreed]

Thanks. Yeah, the only thing that keeps me from seriously ending it is my latent Catholism saying I won't go to Heaven if I do, and if I can't be with Annette there's no point. 

[Margm]

Agree.  It has been five years for me.  I'm not young.  A couple of years ago I noticed the spring flowers, fluorescent trees, and though they did not heal, it was a change.  Maybe like Rose Kennedy said about the wound never healing but you develop scar tissue.  And it can be ripped off just as easily as it forms.  Do some of Marty's readings.  They told me to keep a diary of each day.  I did that, went back and read it and wished I had the pills again.  I can't write my pain and re-read it.  I started looking for books written by new widows and widowers.  Actually, reading Martin Short's autobiography helped me the most.  One thing does not help everyone though.  Writing a diary was recommended often to me but that did not work at all, as mentioned.  It is like they say, we are all on a path and no one else can walk it for us.  But, we can wave and shake hands.  I would like to say it gets better and better, but five years down the road, I still miss him so much.  We had hit that time we could both read for hours and just looking up, knowing he was there, that was enough.  I still talk to him.  I sleep with a big pillow sham with his everyday clothes in them.  The pillow is on his side of the bed.  I still slide out of bed trying not to wake him, an instant in time, still doing it five years later.  

[Kieron]

5 hours ago, Marg M said:

I am so far from sane I need binoculars.

Never intending to make light of this topic, not ever, but Marg, that is priceless. 😄