Long Term Grief....and Hello from New member

[Gwenivere]

Ever since I became  disabled by my surgery, I get triggered by everything around me thinking about Steve.  I can’t do anything I did when he was here.  I’m in so much physical and emotional pain I’m consumed by it.  I don’t want t be here anymore.  Everything has become a trigger that can’t be avoided.  My options to feel 'better' are all gambles.  If I could have him I would do anything, but he’s not.  So huge.risks to sit here alone.  How ,could anyone find any appeal in that?  I ha e that built i survival installed in the way.  I live and breathe for nothing.  That is all it will ever be.  what was once happiness is hell.  I can’t listen to others with true interest as they have that. I feel like a fake person.  I want to feel joy for them, not resentment.  That makes me feel cheating them. That is a horrible ting to do.  If he were here I could at least take true interest in other people and. the which I feel is. passing me by.   

[kayc]

19 hours ago, nashreed said:

I feel like a different person, not who I was with Annette.

You were a different person, we all were.

[kayc]

6 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

If he were here I could at least take true interest in other people

Oh Gwen, my heart bleeds for you.  I think if you weren't trapped in this painful non-functioning body you would, but even so I see glimmers of interest, it's just hard because everything pales in comparison to the hell you are living in.

 

[Gwenivere]

Thank you, Kay.   I know if I weren’t consumed I would be able to share more interest in others.  .  I don’t even try to play down how I feel anymore.  I don’t have the energy.   I thought about haxing Dee take me out, but it would just to sit in the car and see how noninvolved I am.  I have to physically go to the doctor next week, not a trip I count as involved.  I'm way past pretending.  I had some company with the housekeeper.  Had to call my shrink and do again next week to get my meds.  He wants me down to none before he’ll call in more.  Dee’s out with a friend for dinner and a movie and I hope I don’t have to hear all the details.  Just doing my usual routine is enough.  Yeah, it’s hell.  Your caring means so much.

[kayc]

8 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Had to call my shrink and do again next week to get my meds.

I can't believe him!  Unreal.  Good grief, what he thinks!

[Gwenivere]

It’s all about having me on a tight leash.

[Margm]

On 10/3/2022 at 10:52 AM, FreebirdNY1958 said:

It's been 18 years but every year is still a struggle.

I have quoted this incident so many times.  The 18 years you mention just brought the thoughts on again.  My grandmother was born in 1899.  She took care of a houseful of her younger brothers and sisters and she read, everything she could.  She was so smart, at 15, during a debate at her school, she won the debate by proving the world was flat.  Of course everyone knew it wasn't, but her way of describing, debating, it won the prize for her.  (Do not know what the prize was.)  She wrote for the parish newspaper (we do not have counties in Louisiana), since she was 14-years-old.  Then at a party, way out in the country where all of my relatives came from, her knight on a "white horse" rode up.  (The horse was not white), but she fell totally and instantly in love.  He was 12 years older than her, but I have the newspaper clipping from their wedding.  She had a horrendous life after marriage, but to her it was the love of a lifetime.  He loved her too and called her "Kiddie."  Her name was Elizabeth, and all the family thought he was saying "Kitty" for Elizabeth.  Not so.  She had seven children in 10 years, last one stillborn.  Then they found cancer, she underwent radiation and surgery with an instrument/sponge? left inside her that gave her blood poisoning (sepsis), and they called all the family in.  She was going to die.  My mom was not school age, just a baby, she heard her daddy cursing God all the many miles to the city hospital.  Well, God took pity on that cursing "prayer" and she lived only to face a complete nervous breakdown.  He nursed her back to health, took care of  the kids, bought her fancy clothes and shoes with heels, in style, and she took them to the chopping block and hacked the heels off.  Hard to slop the hogs in high heels.  The total love of her life.  He was everything to her and he was in his 60's when he died.  The man would eat nothing but meat, pork mostly.  He left her with a little country store, and that kept  her busy.  So damn smart.  She got bored in her 70's and all her kids were grown with families of their own.  They told her to write a book of her life.  She did, and it is something I treasure.  Something all the grandkids, greats and great-greats treasure.  

A long story to get to what I want to say.  About 19 years after my grandfather had passed away (she wrote in her book), a woman came into this way deep in the country store, they talked and the woman said "Well, he has been gone 19 years and you ought to be "over it."  My grandmother wrote in her "book" "Over it?, it felt like only yesterday."

Monday will be seven years since Billy left.  Ii was so lucky to have 54 years with him, but even though the wound has scar tissue, there are times when I cry and cry when I am by myself.  He and I could sit together and read for hours without saying a word, just knowing we were there.  He said "I am you and you are me" so often, and I think that is true.  I can reach my hand up and feel his high cheekbones, he was over a foot taller than me.  Only it is really only air I feel.  At my age, I just still want to sit and read with him, and I do that a lot.  

I've done it again folks, I have not forgot how to write a "word salad."

[kayc]

Love you, Marg!

[V. R.]

16 hours ago, Marg M said:

He and I could sit together and read for hours without saying a word, just knowing we were there.  He s

Dear Marg, on reading these words I got goose bumps and teary-eyed. Now THAT is a perfect example of a beautiful bond that you can only have with your soulmate. 

❤️

Enza

[Chocolate]

On 10/3/2022 at 8:52 AM, FreebirdNY1958 said:

Hello all, new kid on the block here as of yesterday. I found this forum via a recent Google search on how to deal with the anniversary of a loved one's passing date. It's been 18 years but every year is still a struggle. I've read up on anniversary triggers and manage to get thru it. I am feeling better today. Whew....the intensity still amazes me.

I am looking forward to participating on the site. I've been reading a lot of the posts already. 

J

For me it's been 8 plus months, so on the monthly-versary it is still very hard, and I think of what I was doing at the time of his death and about the events leading up to it.

Last night I had a life-long friend tell me it would get easier every day - that I'm healing.  She was trying to be supportive, but she is not with her soulmate.  They both settled for each other.  Well, I will never be healed at least not in this lifetime.  I told her so.  People need to realize it is different for each of us, and if the one we loved and lost was the love of our life, it will never really be okay.  So I spent the night more achy than I would have been if she had said nothing.  I'm thinking that I need to stop sharing with people who have never been there.

[Margm]

10 hours ago, Chocolate said:

She was trying to be supportive,

They mean well, but you have to learn the difference in empathy and sympathy.  You will know the ones that know the difference.  

[Chocolate]

8 hours ago, Marg M said:

They mean well, but you have to learn the difference in empathy and sympathy.  You will know the ones that know the difference.  

I do know the difference.  She is very ill with M.S. and in horrid pain.  The only way to cure the problem is to not talk to her at all.  I don't want to do that.  That would be unkind of me.