Being Alone Sucks

[V. R.]

Wandering around on YouTube, I came across Prince Harry's interview in the US "The late show", and I was particularly touched by his words when asked about how his experience of grieving his mother had affected him: "Our society does not encourage grief". 

[Boho-Soul]

On 1/20/2023 at 4:29 AM, kayc said:

Boho, I wish you were here, we'd have a grief support group that wouldn't just be old people and you'd feel comfortable. 

I thought you lived somewhere deep in the woodland hills, maybe you're taking about the city you are close to. Must be a big city, the city I live in is rather big, but it's odd there isn't many widow/widower support groups for various ages. One group of 6 woman still wants to remain online and do zoom gatherings, I have zoom fatigue and need/want in-person gatherings now. Plus these woman (with the exception of 1) no longer need to work since they received their husband's life insurance, and it's hard to hear how much ease they have in their life even though their spouse has died.

[Margm]

23 minutes ago, Boho-Soul said:

and it's hard to hear how much ease they have in their life even though their spouse has died.

I cannot believe if they were married for life or death, I cannot imagine even though they have insurance, even though they worked at jobs for state or federal government that put back retirement for both of them, or the survivor, I just cannot believe their life is one of ease.  I was 73 when Billy left, I was taken care of from both working at state jobs totaled at 60 years, life cannot be ease.  I mention my family, they might have worked at jobs with retirement income, but one kept taking sabbaticals and used up her retirement.  People cannot live on government hand outs.  That is where family comes in.  We help when and where we can.  I guess there might be happy widow(er's) but I do not know any of them.  My cousin is going to have to have government help.  She is not well, cannot work any longer.  Has one child that has a big family and lives away.  Another cousin lost her husband of 55 years a couple of weeks ago.  Thank goodness for her family.  Her husband invested in a home in the country, just outside the city limits.  It has grown into an industrial complex all around her homeplace she has lived 55 years.  She will have no financial worries, and I'm sure her sweet large family will steer her in the way she needs to go.  Where she lives has built up with dangerous gangs surrounding the high fenced in home.  It was country when they bought it.  I'm sure she would trade it all off just to have her husband back.  There really is something called a "widow's brain" and unfortunately it sometimes happens when we are elderly to begin with.  A lot of my friends live "in ease" alone.  

I'm lonesome (sometimes I prefer it.)  I get to read.  I have health problems that could shatter at any time.  They say you cannot live in fear.  Yes you can.  

As to the grief meetings.  One of my sweet friends has gone to the "big" Baptist Church in our town/city (about 12,000 to 13,000) people.  They had one of the grief seminars and she had me go.  She said she'd go with me at first.  I told her I could handle it.  I expected men and women widowers and widows.  I was confronted with young women that had recently lost children, one woman's son had just been shot in a deer stand.  I asked why no men attended and was told, "oh, they just get remarried" and I knew that was not always true.  I went three times and left afterwards so bereft that my sorrow seemed secondary to a child dying.  I cried all the way home and was so despondent for days and could not go back.  For once, I had no advice or help to give them.  I think Kay was the leader to one of these seminars with much better results.  

Grandma said (in writing) to the response of the stranger that stopped in her country store.  Asking how long my grandfather had been gone, being told it was 18 years, and the woman said "Oh, well you have had time to get over it."  Grandma wrote in her "book" that it "felt like yesterday."  

We all take death in some different ways.  My mom stayed angry at my dad because he had a cancer, with symptoms, that could have been cured.  Taking away a man's ego (sometimes) is the same as ending their life.  My dad suffered horrendously.  My son has finally spoke to me in an aggravated way, (this does not happen), but I pressured him to go to the doctor. It worries me.  He has some of the symptoms my dad had.  He works for the VA Hospital, but he won't go.  Sometimes men are smarter than their ego, sometimes not..  

I take my sister on February 1st to her 2nd choice surgeon.  She didn't like the first.  She is not going to like this one either.  She is down to 100 pounds.  

Well, football is fixing to start.  I will watch, I will enjoy.  I will call out "intercept" just like Billy always did, but he is not here.   Enough of my word salad. 

[Boho-Soul]

1 hour ago, Margm said:

I just cannot believe their life is one of ease. 

Perhaps not, it's possibly just my perception as they don't talk about their grief, and go on about where they just traveled to since they don't have to work anymore, or talk about the fun things they have been doing lately (1 just started dating again). They don't share about any financial concerns or other complicating factors. When they ask how I've been doing that's what I share, how I'm still sorting out financial issues, still dealing with the hoarding fiasco my late husband left me to clean up and how my recovery from experiencing burnout is going, as my Dr told me to go back to work to soon after my Michael died. So compared to me, their life appears to be one of ease.

1 hour ago, Margm said:

They say you cannot live in fear.  Yes you can. 

Yes, you're right, you can live in fear, as it is something one is 'capable' of doing. But I think what the saying really means is you can't live in fear, meaning, ‘don't do it'. It's not a place to set up camp or a place to live your life from. Living in fear doesn't have to be one's reality . If you live your life in fear, you're not living you're hiding, it's the greatest prison people live in. I say this from experience not just to spout off, as I lived in fear for 10 yrs after a traumatic event happened to me when I was 19. After living in fear and PTSD for a decade I faced and overcame my fears and began to live again. And I won't live my life from a place of fear again. 

[Margm]

Billy used to tell me after years of clear tests that I still lived in fear of the cancer returning.  I did.  Then 32 years later my colon burst from all the radiation I had had for the cancer and I was not expected to live, overall sepsis.  No surgery, my insides were burned up.  Not even any female surgery, if I needed it, so I felt free of the stirrups.  And then after Billy took such good care of me, emptying the drainage sack taped to my leg, then I was not really afraid.  Tylenol was all I could take and it did not touch the pain.  I walked until it had died down with Billy watching from the front door.  I am obviously a lot older than you and we have different perspectives.  The next year, I lost Billy and I did not want to live.  Yes I have fear, fear of living, some fear of dying before I get rid of all this paper from years gone by.  I do not face anything but death, you, being much younger, you have many mountains left to climb.  I wish you luck and after awhile, you will notice all the spring flowers and then the autumn beauty.  

[Gwenivere]

I’m 

7 hours ago, Boho-Soul said:

Plus these woman (with the exception of 1) no longer need to work since they received their husband's life insurance, and it's hard to hear how much ease they have in their life even though their spouse has died.

I haven’t heard any widow/er ever say a life of ease even if they have adequate income.  Grateful, yes.  Ease, no.  I’m grateful I don’t have to stress much about money, but the void is so deep and intense I often want to die.  I know I am fortunate.  But I think back on all it took and the work Steve did.  It was done for us.  But there is no us.  Perhaps it was you r wording.  I see  now you posted  about what e  mess your husband left you with.  Yes, some take vacations that they never could.  It just sounded a bit judgmental.  Grief is so complicated. Many try to run and find out you can’t.  Some find out a different place helps a bit.  It seems  the only consistent is never being complete as we had been.  Even if we find love again, it will never be THAT love.

5 hours ago, Boho-Soul said:

I won't live my life from a place of fear again. 

That is a great goal.  I wish I could feel that way but I am fighting more than the mental choice alone.  I don’t see the coming future with any good outcomes and it’s from age and complications of that.  I don’t have the freedom of choices.  I sincerely hope you find that freedom as you will never lose that love you and e shared.

[Margm]

I just read that Buzz Aldrin got married on his 93rd birthday.  All his other partners ended in divorce.  Gotta give the fellow a star for trying to find the right one.  Am I being sarcastic?  Could be.  Wife is pretty but is no spring chicken, maybe a good "frying hen."

 

[KarenK]

I have never lived a life of ease, married or widowed. We worked hard for all we had and lived paycheck to paycheck. We didn't manage our resources well. He had no life insurance and without my son's help, not sure where I would be.

I understand what Boho is saying. At one time I joined a widow/widower social group. Their activities were meeting for lunch and dinner out every day, trips, cruises, etc. If you didn't plan to attend regularly, you weren't part of the group. They appeared to be financially set to enjoy it. I definitely was not and dropped out right away.

[Margm]

Karen, I think most of us have lived paycheck to paycheck.  I am comfortable, but have two in the family that need more than they have money for, so sometimes I run out of money days before the end of the month.  Prices have gone up so much.  If we get a SS increase then the company that has my TV service went up over $40 and all I got was $50 extra.  I called and will be dropping these million channels I do not watch.  Two vehicles got paid for in November and December and with helping the others, who have to have help, I am in the same predicament I was before.  Billy and I used to go fishing on the borrow pits off the bayou to get fish for all of us to eat.  I'm a true bayou girl.  I do have a friend and her husband passed after Billy. She was a school teacher and he was 25 years older.  She lives close to her son now and posts her trips on FB.  I am just so happy for her..  She shows the guy she is "with" now and he is somewhere around her age.  I write her and tell her she is having too much fun.  But, I am happy for her.  I have no need for a man anymore and Billy would haunt me if I did.  No desire for that.  I think we all are miserable, I think that is normal, and I think most of us have no use for another man.  Heck, I'm still married.  I could put a couple of shocking funnies in that, but I won't. Karen, I'm glad you have your son close.  I just want to get rid of useless papers from years back, buy a monument, put it next to my paternal family and hope Billy approves.  I think he will and I will ask him one day, I believe.  

 

[KarenK]

Marg, I'm definitely grateful for what I do have. I could be a lot worse off. I'll just never be in that bracket of widows with unlimited funds.

[kayc]

16 hours ago, Boho-Soul said:

I thought you lived somewhere deep in the woodland hills, maybe you're taking about the city you are close to.

No actually I'm in the mountains ten miles from my "town" which is at most about 3,500 people including outlying areas.  Drive 50 miles to nearest "city" which is very small, Springfield, 60 to Eugene, which is 2nd or 3rd largest in OR but still not huge.

Our town did not have grief support until I started one but everything shut down to Covid.

 

[kayc]

13 hours ago, Boho-Soul said:

they don't talk about their grief, and go on about where they just traveled to

Some don't show their grief, it's culturally not acceptable although changing here in the US but you still find a lot of people that it's taboo with.

[kayc]

13 hours ago, Margm said:

Yes I have fear, fear of living,

I get this.  Another 20+ years to go...

8 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

It just sounded a bit judgmental.

I didn't take it that way.  Just not understanding the disparity when one's life is far from "ease" and we didn't all inherit great insurance payoffs, etc. and of course with no one to travel with, even if we could, who'd want to?  George dying greatly changed/altered the future we'd planned.  My life is about survival in my old age, not enjoyment.

 

[Margm]

8 hours ago, KarenK said:

I'll just never be in that bracket of widows with unlimited funds.

Well Karen, when my folks need it and I have it, they will too.  If I don't have it, I have depleted it.  "Mama always said" that other folks having more than us does not make us any richer.  When the cards are on the table, we can't take anything with us when we leave. 

[Margm]

6 hours ago, kayc said:

My life is about survival in my old age, not enjoyment.

I ordered me something.  I seldom do that.  I had "end time" thoughts in my mind though.  I found Caftan's under $20 on Amazon.  I ordered one, it is perfect so I ordered two more.  So comfortable to sleep in. Now, if I go in my sleep, I will at least have everything covered nicely.  Doomsday thinking.  

[Margm]

I guess I've read it many times before, but somehow, it hit me directly after reading these posts.

We grieve in direct proportion to how much we love.   

Thanks Gwen.  

[Boho-Soul]

On 1/21/2023 at 10:42 PM, Margm said:

I think we all are miserable, I think that is normal

Miserable, as in gloomy and wretchedly unhappy - yeesh 😬 Hope that won't be my normal.

I’m experiencing grief emotions around my loss and my life is profoundly different, but I’m not miserable. Integrating my grief by coming to terms with my loss and reorienting to a world without my loved one is a hard journey, but I will do whatever I can to not take an off-ramp to the road of misery. Not a road I want to travel on.

On 1/22/2023 at 4:23 AM, kayc said:

My life is about survival in my old age, not enjoyment.

Miserable is normal, life without enjoyment - These are such sad statements 😳 I wish a happier life for both of you.

The death of a loved one is highly stressful, and there’s a myriad of other stressors that can emerge. But I think learning how to cope with them is necessary for restoration and an ongoing life. It’s about finding a pathway that leads to restoration to have a fulfilling life.

Maybe age has something to do with this mindset for some, but I draw inspiration from my soon to be 94 yr old dad. He’s been widowed twice (now married for the 3rd time) and has health concerns that limit him, but he’s always joyful, loves to laugh and you never hear him complain about how miserable or joyless his life is.

[Margm]

I only have one thing to say, if you were looking for happiness, you came to the wrong place.  I think you have all the answers already, Normal is a setting on a washing machine.  We talk to each other.  We read.  I guess if we had all the answers, either we would not be here or we would hang a degree on our wall.  I don't think a degree helps feelings.  I'm sorry to say this, but neither are you.  I do think you have topped the class in criticism.  I give you an A+ (that probably includes your acquaintances you are so critical of.)  Now, someone will have to make excuses for me because in seven years, I don't think I've said anything like this.

[Boho-Soul]

1 hour ago, Margm said:

I only have one thing to say, if you were looking for happiness, you came to the wrong place.  I think you have all the answers already, Normal is a setting on a washing machine.  We talk to each other.  We read.  I guess if we had all the answers, either we would not be here or we would hang a degree on our wall.  I don't think a degree helps feelings.  I'm sorry to say this, but neither are you.  I do think you have topped the class in criticism.  I give you an A+ (that probably includes your acquaintances you are so critical of.)  Now, someone will have to make excuses for me because in seven years, I don't think I've said anything like this.

Ouch! 💔

I didn't come to this forum looking for happiness. I found my way here because I experienced a profound loss, and I thought this was a safe place where I could express my thoughts, feel supported and possibly encouraged others as I moved along my own journey of grief.

No I don't have all the answers, that's why I'm on here, to seek support. Why do you think Marty posts all those links? To provide support and encouragement to others. 

When I write my thoughts I'm writing my truth, and they're not intended to be critical. Criticism is a negative commentary about something or someone. All I said was your statement was sad because my heart hurt when I read what you had written. What did I write that was so negative or critical about you?

I feel hurt by your response. I try to be uplifting when I comment, but from what you said my thoughts on my own personal journey and how I choose to move through my grief doen't help. Well, it's still my experience, and my expressions of my journey. 

Your response kind of tainted my experience here. Makes me question if I should return if I can't share my honest thoughts around how I'm moving forward with my loss.

 

[Margm]

Please stay and share your thoughts, but negativity and criticism on this forum is not something I am used to.  I write too much, but I have never felt so criticized for feeling grief.  You mention perspectives often.  I honestly do not know how to take your perspective.  Perhaps I should have ignored the post.  

[Gwenivere]

6 hours ago, Margm said:

When the cards are on the table, we can't take anything with us when we leave. 

 

2 hours ago, Margm said:

I do think you have topped the class in criticism.  I give you an A+ (that probably includes your acquaintances you are so critical of.)  Now, someone will have to make excuses for me because in seven years, I don't think I've said anything like this.

I have to agree with Marg here.  I also feel you have been judgmental in your choice of words towards others here.  You claim you want support but when given you find fault.  I read your posts with care, but fear responding from generalized any way but yours is right.  Respect is needed fr everyone’s responses.  The reality on this plane is money makes a difference in care we can receive.  To say it  provides ease.is tue, but not something anyone should be criticized for.  Of course it is useless when we die.  So many here could benefit from having more.  So what if they take a cruise?  People make choices trying to ease what they constantly carry.  We need to support whatever it is. 

[Boho-Soul]

* I sincerely apologize if I came across as critical in any way, I was not my intention and I did not do so maliciously.

4 hours ago, Margm said:

I do think you have topped the class in criticism.  I give you an A+

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

Respect is needed fr everyone’s responses.

I agree, respect is needed from everyone. The way Margm responded to me by stating I’m top in my class for criticism and giving me a A+ felt disrespectful. How was her response clean from criticism or being judgemental? If she wanted to point out my error she could have handled it more graciously.

All I can do now is cry and I’ve never felt more alone 😪

[Margm]

I'm sorry you feel that way.  I was very sarcastic in what I said.  I feel I should apologize, but then I would feel I was doing myself wrong in doing so.  You are right, age might play a part in it, I am 80, and I felt you were being very disrespectful to people I know who are kind and only want to help.  I do not have to make a copy of the things you said, you can go back and read your own post.  Our feelings should be respected, just like yours should be.  Repeating what we say and then dissecting our feelings, somehow made me feel you were making fun of our real feelings.  Perhaps I could have handled it more graciously, and I've never spoken that sharply to anyone, that I can remember (on this forum).  Crying and feeling alone are things we all share, but not because someone on the forum has hurt our feelings.  It is supposed to be a forum for support, and I'm sorry, I didn't see anything I agreed with when you were unkind.  I will get off here now and perhaps Kay or Marty can correct my cynicism.  

[kayc]

22 hours ago, kayc said:

My life is about survival in my old age, not enjoyment.

In response to Boho-Soul:

What I am referring to has nothing to do with what you think and more to do with calamities that have hit me in recent years...started with the snowpocalypse 2019, then Arlie's diagnosis of cancer and subsequent death, then the death of my 25 year old cat, Kitty.  Then Covid hit, changing life for all of us.  The hand injuries started between Arlie's death and continued for three years, leaving me with 10% strength, continual pain and numbness.  So nothing to do with my mindset, I do my best with it.  We had a horrific 7 1/2 month winter last year then a horrid summer, 3 months within 1 mile of a wildfire that left our air quality over 1600!  The worst in the nation.  My Panther (feral cat) can't meow anymore because of breathing it in.  And now we're starting winter again and who knows what we'll get..  I got my throat/tongue condition Christmas over two years ago, no one has been able to tell me what it is, so more pain and fighting the stress blood sugar that comes with it, platelets up.  Next doctor ENT not until May and that's just a meet & greet, who knows when I'll get the scope!  Meanwhile two sisters died, another has Guillain-Barre since Oct. and is in the hospital, another is blind.  If this is what the last four years have held, I don't want to see/know the next 20?!  Meanwhile I see people on FB going to the Bahamas, that definitely isn't my life!  Oh and they still have their husbands!  Not me, mine has been gone since 2005.  The back of my garage is rotting, price went up 8 times as high since my quote just before Covid, we were waiting for summer to do it...now I have all these injuries and can't clean it out even if I did have $20,000 laying around, which I don't.

 

[kayc]

11 hours ago, Boho-Soul said:

I feel hurt by your response.

You may feel hurt by Marg's response but I feel hurt by yours to me.  I know it was spoken out of ignorance of everything I have been through to prompt it, so I'll let it go and move on.  I don't think anyone wants you to leave, just responding to the judgment received from you.  I am glad for your relative that his "positive mindset" has brought on joy in his life...but do you think that would help in Gwen's situation or mine?