Resentment

[mlg]

Is anyone else having trouble with resentment? The other night during the stand up to cancer program on all 3 networks I became almost physically sick, when Patrick Swayze was the first person out. Yes, he was thin but he was alive and why couldn't that have been Tom. Is it because we weren't millionaires and couldn't hire the best. (I really do think we had one of the best and caring oncologists, but it still hurts that he couldn't save him)

I see people in the paper celebrating their anniversaries and I know I'll never do that again and it kills me. Some of these people are my friends and I want to be happy for them but I resent them at the same time.

I feel so selfish. It's like why me and then I feel so guilty; why not me?

Just wonder if anyone else is having this problem because it is really bothering me right now. My grief support group said it's OK but I still have a knot in my stomach.

[dpodesta]

mlg,

It is perfectly normal. My wife died because of clogged artieries, she was only 45 and my son was 6 at the time. Every time I saw a Plavix commercial it would just kill me that they couldn't have found out earlier and gotten her on this medication. I truly don't believe that any amount of money could have helped me or you. I don't know if this analogy will help or not but it is what I know. I teach technicians how to repair copiers. We are able to open them up and look inside to see what is happening. When one part doesn't fix the problem we are able to try a different one with relative ease, usually when a copier has a certain problem the same part that fixed the one before will fix the same problem. A person is different. What works for one person doesn't always work for another, just like grief each of us has our own time period. Doctors don't have the flexibility to just open us up every time something is wrong with us. So I really don't believe any amount of money could have helped either of us. I went through a lot of anger for quite awhile after the loss of my wife, I know today that it is through that anger and resentment that you will be able to grow and get through this.

Love always

Derek

[JoeA]

Mary Linda -

Yes, I sometimes feel resentment like that. I did not watch that show, I don't watch shows like that anymore because I always have negative feelings. Your grief support group is right, it is normal & OK. The really good thing is that you are aware of your feelings and are honest about it. That's healthy! You cannot control those feelings. You can, however, control how you react to the feelings. You don't have to feel guilty, or self-critical. Try to recognize the feelings for what they are - symptoms of your grief, and allow yourself to feel that way. It will pass. From your postings here I know you are a very caring person. That's who you are. Don't let these feelings - just symptoms of your grief - define you.

You are a good person. Allow yourself to grieve without guilt.

Peace,

- Joe

[JeanneC]

Mary Linda:

I felt that way when Alex was in the hospital. He was in intensive care for 5 months and everyone around him was getting better, either going to step-down, it's what they call it when you don't need intensive care, but still need to be in the hospital or leaving the hospital. And, I don't mean to be cruel, some of these people were old.

Also, when I see ads for hospitals that have different remedies and how they have progressed in heart disease. Whey couldn't that me something for my husband. In fact, my husband was on his way to receiving an assist device for his heart. The only thing was that he developed a bacterial infection in his blood before that and he had sepsis and that is what he died from. For 5 months I tried to see if he could be placed on a heart transplant list or for any device that could help him. You see, the hospital he was in does not do heart transplants. And in NY there are only a few that do. It is very hard to be transferred to one of these hospital unless you have doctors that push for that. I will say they tried very hard, but we always got a no. Either one thing or the other. Until one doctor from Newark Beth Israel saw my husband and wanted to give him a chance. He was transferred and it was so exciting to see that he was finally getting the help he really needed to recover. Only a little too late.

So, I do have some resentment that all that time in the hospital and why could something have been done sooner.

Love and God Bless,

Jeanne

[kayc]

Mary Linda,

I think anger is an important stage that we go through and it's a necessary step in grieving in order to work through it. It's natural and normal to ask "why me" when there are others with great outcomes and we just weren't one of them. I think it's not healthy to stay in that stage permanently, but it's a stage we all go through nonetheless.

As was already stated, it's important that you get your feelings out and air them, and eventually you will get past this. You miss him, period. It's hard to understand why some die and some live. Some of us have a hard time with injustice. My husband should have been sent for tests, should have been taken seriously, but he wasn't. He even had a car accident and totalled his car just six months to the day, before he died...why? Because he had a heart attack and literally died, and when that happened, he wrecked his car and the air bags going off gave the thrust to his chest that restarted his heart and gave him another six months to live. Yet in all of that, the doctor never said, "Hey, I want you to get checked out"...instead, the doctor said, "If you think you're going to file a claim on this, you're crazy!" I later got mad at the doctor and told him my husband wasn't that type, that he WANTED to work, but he'd suffered so much and was so tired, he didn't know what to do, and he had TURNED to the doctor to let him know what to do, and the doctor had failed him. A lot of people felt I should have sued the doctor, but it's hard to prove what took place between the two of them, the conversation George relayed back to me would be considered "heresay" in court. I talked to the doctor following George's death because I wanted his assurance that the next person in this situation would be taken seriously...and not left to die. Was this an injustice? You bet it was! So it also seems an injustice when a couple that are so happy together and want to be together, get ripped apart while another couple who are not happy together gets to stay together and live. Who figures this out? Is it random? Who knows? I guess it doesn't matter any more, it is what it is and we have to go on. I'm sorry you're experiencing these feelings, I know they're hard to deal with. But know they're not uncommon!

[Jan Thurman]

I to have those feelings. It is natural to feel this way. I don't like to feel this way but you can't help it. But something just happened in our family that makes me say I had 40 years and so many memories and this girl had 3 weeks and very few memories. My husbands nephew - a decorated Marine - 2 tours in Iraq - got married 3 weeks ago. His father was the minister at my husbands memorial service. I was supposed to go to his wedding but I just didn't feel like I could go. But now, this Saturday I will be going to his funeral. He was killed in a car accident last Friday. They had just came home from their honeymoon. At least she has that memory. I'm sure she is asking why like we all have. Jan

[AnnC]

I felt that resentment too, in an awful way. When my father got terminal cancer, and he and my mother were having a tough time, yet I felt resentment because he was almost 80, and my parents had 56 years of marriage, 59 years since they met. Whereas my ex-husband died at 50. I had moments where I thought they should not complain, because they had all those years together, my dad had almost 30 year more of life than my ex-husband. Isn't that awful? I was so jealous. Of course I never said anything. But my parents were also rather dismissive of my feelings when my ex-husband died, and then I was so supportive of them, and have been so supportive of my mother since she's been widowed, yet she never mentions my own loss, just her own.

Ann

[kayc]

Ann,

I wonder if some people don't consider their loss the greatest...after all, that one wasn't married as long, or that one was older and had a good life, etc. The truth is, all of our losses are great and they are greatest to us than to anyone else. At least you were there for your mom in spite of her not being there for you, you didn't let it change who you are, you demonstrated true charity in spite of what you went through.

[JeanneC]

Now that I have lost my husband, I know what it feels like to friends of mine that have lost their spouses. In fact, my mother died 30 years ago at the age of 61. I was 28 then and my father and her were married for 33 years. Thinking back now, I feel that 61 is pretty young. But I did not think that then. I also did not think about my dad at the time. He had me, my brother and he had a big family. 9 brothers and sisters, plenty of nieces and nephews. I never thought of his loss or was really there for him. I just went about my business. Yes, I was very upset about my mom. My father past away 4 years ago. He was 89. So all that time without my mom, even though I am sure the heartbreak lessend, must of been hard, because my brother and I moved out. I was very close to my father, but my brother and him were estranged. I also had resentment when my husband died, because my father died at 89 and my husband was 54. Also, my father was a prisoner of war in the Philippines and Japan during WWII. Was a prisoner for 4 years. What he went through you would think his body would not take living to the age of 89. But I must get over that, I am happy my father lived to that age and we don't have control of that.

Also, tt took the loss of my husband to finally realize what my father had to go through without really getting any comfort from me or my brother. The loss of my husband has brought out a lot of feelings that I thought I would never have and remembering the loss of my mother.

Love and God Bless

Jeanne