PLEASE show me how to turn off my PAIN

[Missing Omar]

It's been only a couple of days, week's maybe just minutes. Since my best half was taken away from me, The 22nd of April 2021.

He went to the store and NEVER came home again. My head won't shut up for a second. So I can try and put myself back together.

But how can I fix myself when the best part of me is gone.

This is unbearable PAIN and I don't want to feel it anymore.

I am getting scared for my health bcuz I can feel this big solid ball of grief in my chest and it hurts so much

[kayc]

I am so sorry for your loss, I know the pain, everyone here does.  I know of no way to turn it off as our going through this, pain and all processes it, but in time you may be able to mete it out so it's more tolerable.  It won't always be in this same degree of pain, little by little we begin to adjust to where we learn to carry it inside, I have learned to co-exist with my grief, but you are very fresh in this, the still in shock stage.  I remember feeling I couldn't do this!  It's been nearly 16 years now.
Dosing Crying Time in Grief

I would advise you to see your doctor to check you over and maybe give you help sleeping.  

I want to share an article I wrote of the things I've found helpful over the years, in the hopes something will be of help to you either now or on down the road.

TIPS TO MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH GRIEF

There's no way to sum up how to go on in a simple easy answer, but I encourage you to read the other threads here, little by little you will learn how to make your way through this.  I do want to give you some pointers though, of some things I've learned on my journey.

• Take one day at a time.  The Bible says each day has enough trouble of it's own, I've found that to be true, so don't bite off more than you can chew.  It can be challenging enough just to tackle today.  I tell myself, I only have to get through today.  Then I get up tomorrow and do it all over again.  To think about the "rest of my life" invites anxiety.
• Don't be afraid, grief may not end but it evolves.  The intensity lessens eventually.
• Visit your doctor.  Tell them about your loss, any troubles sleeping, suicidal thoughts, anxiety attacks.  They need to know these things in order to help you through it...this is all part of grief.
• Suicidal thoughts are common in early grief.  If they're reoccurring, call a suicide hotline.  I felt that way early on, but then realized it wasn't that I wanted to die so much as I didn't want to go through what I'd have to face if I lived.  Back to taking a day at a time.  Suicide Hotline - Call 1-800-273-8255 or www.crisis textline.org or US and Canada: text 741741 UK: text 85258 | Ireland: text 50808
• Give yourself permission to smile.  It is not our grief that binds us to them, but our love, and that continues still.
• Try not to isolate too much.  
• There's a balance to reach between taking time to process our grief, and avoiding it...it's good to find that balance for yourself.  We can't keep so busy as to avoid our grief, it has a way of haunting us, finding us, and demanding we pay attention to it!  Some people set aside time every day to grieve.  I didn't have to, it searched and found me!
• Self-care is extremely important, more so than ever.  That person that would have cared for you is gone, now you're it...learn to be your own best friend, your own advocate, practice self-care.  You'll need it more than ever.
• Recognize that your doctor isn't trained in grief, find a professional grief counselor that is.  We need help finding ourselves through this maze of grief, knowing where to start, etc.  They have not only the knowledge, but the resources.
• In time, consider a grief support group.  If your friends have not been through it themselves, they may not understand what you're going through, it helps to find someone somewhere who DOES "get it". 
• Be patient, give yourself time.  There's no hurry or timetable about cleaning out belongings, etc.  They can wait, you can take a year, ten years, or never deal with it.  It's okay, it's what YOU are comfortable with that matters.  
• Know that what we are comfortable with may change from time to time.  That first couple of years I put his pictures up, took them down, up, down, depending on whether it made me feel better or worse.  Finally, they were up to stay.
• Consider a pet.  Not everyone is a pet fan, but I've found that my dog helps immensely.  It's someone to love, someone to come home to, someone happy to see me, someone that gives me a purpose...I have to come home and feed him.  Besides, they're known to relieve stress.  Well maybe not in the puppy stage when they're chewing up everything, but there's older ones to adopt if you don't relish that stage.
• Make yourself get out now and then.  You may not feel interest in anything, things that interested you before seem to feel flat now.  That's normal.  Push yourself out of your comfort zone just a wee bit now and then.  Eating out alone, going to a movie alone or church alone, all of these things are hard to do at first.  You may feel you flunked at it, cried throughout, that's okay, you did it, you tried, and eventually you get a little better at it.  If I waited until I had someone to do things with I'd be stuck at home a lot.
• Keep coming here.  We've been through it and we're all going through this together.
• Look for joy in every day.  It will be hard to find at first, but in practicing this, it will change your focus so you can embrace what IS rather than merely focusing on what ISN'T.  It teaches you to live in the present and appreciate fully.  You have lost your big joy in life, and all other small joys may seem insignificant in comparison, but rather than compare what used to be to what is, learn the ability to appreciate each and every small thing that comes your way...a rainbow, a phone call from a friend, unexpected money, a stranger smiling at you, whatever the small joy, embrace it.  It's an art that takes practice and is life changing if you continue it.
• Eventually consider volunteering.  It helps us when we're outward focused, it's a win/win.

(((hugs))) Praying for you today.

 

[joe57]

Take some deep breaths.

You will get through it. It will hurt, but you will get through it.

Make sure you are staying hydrated. Dehydrating makes you feel crappier.

Gary Roe says:

You're not alone.

You're not crazy.

You're going to be ok.

Hang in there. Peace.

[kayc]

Gary Roe is an author, chaplain, and grief counselor with Hospice Brazos Valley. He currently has six books published. Two of his books have been USA Today Best Book Award finalists (Heartbroken: Healing from the Loss of a Spouse in 2015; Please Be Patient, I'm Grieving in 2016).

[joe57]

I've found grief books helpful on my journey. Also print off kayc's Tips and review them at times, it's helpful. kayc seems to catch everyone coming through and gives that to them. (Keep up the good work there, kayc!) 

[MartyT]

Our members' very own list of recommended books can be found here:  Grief Bibliography

[Missing Omar]

I really want to Thank All of You. You all have helped me if only for a minute.

I was starting to think I was all alone and I am drowning but don't know how to swim.

Not in this Ocean of Grief.

I feel so bad bcuz he felt something was wrong. He told me he heard voices and he asked me why did they want to hurt him. I told him he didn't have to worry that they would have to go through me. He asked me if he should go to the store and I said yes. He trusted me and now look at him. He is gone and he told me he was afraid to die. And that's what happened

[Gwenivere]

5 hours ago, Missing Omar said:

I was starting to think I was all alone and I am drowning but don't know how to swim.

Not in this Ocean of Grief.

The first few months seem to go one of 2 ways.  Shock and numb or excruciating pain.  I had the former, even tho I saw it coming.  I don’t know what happened to your beloved, but the pain and aloneness is totally understandable.  It hasn’t been a month yet.   Your heart, brain and even body don’t know what to make of this life altering change.  You’ve been split in two and half of you taken with him.   I’m going into my 7th year and a phase as intense, if not more, than when it happened.  None of us want the pain.  It’s a shock that love can bring us that when it was and is the greatest power and gift there is.  How could it possibly do this to us?  When we surrender ourselves fully to it with another, we never think of it ending.  It’s just so intoxicating and becomes our foundation.  We allow another to become essential to who we are, how we define ourselves.  I read a lot about becoming independent again.  I always was.  We just completed each other in a way I didn’t know possible from other relationships.  Proof was staying together thru times that would have severed something less.  But now I know loneliness.  Something I never knew before, ever.  And the other people in my life that I would turn to to feel I mattered in this world are gone too.   Parents, cousins that were like siblings, friends I thought would be there thru thick and thin.   All gone.  I navigate in a world of acquaintances.  There are people who care, but not enough to fill me, nor I them.  Sometimes I can even breathe the pain is too much.

I wish you weren’t here, as we all say.  The admission cost is too steep.  But, it is a haven to be who we are now.  Someone most of the worlds we occupy do not understand tho they claim to.  It thinks we can be fixed.  We can’t be, it isn’t that kind of injury.   That makes this even harder to experience.   I hope you will share more to let out your pain with others who get it 100%.  

[MartyT]

13 hours ago, Missing Omar said:

I was starting to think I was all alone and I am drowning but don't know how to swim.

Not in this Ocean of Grief.

[kayc]

On 5/14/2021 at 7:39 AM, Missing Omar said:

He told me he heard voices and he asked me why did they want to hurt him.

Do you know what the cause of death was?

[kayc]

18 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 Shock and numb or excruciating pain.

I felt both.

[Kevinslove]

I truly am sorry for your loss let me start be saying this is not your fault  you had  no way of knowing  what would happen  I  lost my Kevin  to a drug overdose  and I kept thinking  if only I had  been tougher if only I had  stopped  him from using somehow  that day it took me along time to accept  it was not my fault  unfortunately  there are alot of questions  we will not have  answers to, I  wish there was away  to tell you how to stop the pain it is a pain  I don't  wish on anyone  I can  tell you to just take one moment at a time one breath at a time if you have  to and know  you are not alone  in your journey. hugs

[kayc]

19 hours ago, Kevinslove said:

if only I had  stopped  him from using

We cannot stop them, that's on them, it's their choice to use!  

19 hours ago, Kevinslove said:

I can  tell you to just take one moment at a time one breath at a time if you have  to and know  you are not alone  in your journey. hugs

For sure!

[Missing Omar]

On 5/15/2021 at 8:24 AM, kayc said:

Do you know what the cause of death was?

He was murdered.

[kayc]

How do you know he was murdered if you have no body found?  Is anything else a possibility?