I Need Answers

[dehydrated flower]

First off, thanks so much for this forum! I don't respond much but I read your stories and sympathize.

I am in month 3 of the loss of my partner. I wish I could be paid for grieving because it's a full time job. I am back in school and trying to focus but there is so much drama going on around me. There are many obstacles and I seem to be running away from responsibilities. I am drowning in my tears but I lie and say I'm not. I don;t want others to worry about me because they have been through a lot too. Others want to talk about my dead partner and I don't want to hear it and that makes them drift further away. In a way, I am pushing them away too. I want to be in pain because I am not convinced that my partners death wasn't due to my negligence. Therefore I deserve to hurt, I deserve to feel the pain my partner was feeling, 10 fold. I am still waiting to hear the results of her autopsy. Her mother isn't ready to call them yet. We know what killed her (dehydration) but we don;t know what caused her to be sick in the first place. We all think we won;t know why she died. If this is the case then I will forever believe that because i didn't call an ambulance that one f-in time, she died. I need to know why she died.

[PaulaB.]

Hi, I'm sorry for the loss of your partner. I could be wrong, (it won't be the first time), but it sounds like you are a pretty young person? It sounds like you are angry. I went through some anger too when I lost my Tom and every once in awhile, it sneaks up on me again. I just keep it under control. In a way, you are getting paid for grieving. You are learning about LIFE and you are learning about yourself. You can't buy those things, and it will make you a stronger person in the long run. And it's OK to need support at this time and for how ever long it takes. I had some days that I didn't want to talk to anyone about Tom and then I realized that I had an even bigger emptiness in my life. I needed my friends and I needed both our families. And it didn't make me weak to need those things. Maybe you could help your partner's Mom with requesting the report? You have to remember that her Mom is hurting, too. One thing I do know is that you don't just die from dehydration overnight. There has to be something leading up to it. I am speaking from experience. Tom had esophogheal cancer. His battle was always with food and liquid intake. There was a time in the spring of this year that he just stopped eating and taking in fluids. Sometimes, I wonder if he did it on purpose. I know now that he had discussed suicide with more than one friend because of his condition. He didn't discuss it with me. Many things that you may need or want to figure out. One thing is for sure. It was your partner's time. Paula

[mlg]

Dear flower

I don't know how many posts you have read and if you have gone back to old ones or not but you are suffering from the coulda, shoulda, woulda syndrome that almost all of us have gone through. Could I have done something more, Should I have noticed something sooner, Would I have done things differently and would it have made a difference? The problem is Yes, maybe you could have noticed something sooner, could you have done something more? Maybe. Would it have changed the outcome- Probably not. I feel we have a time and some of us seem to dodge some bullets at times but when it is the REAL time it makes no difference what anyone does. We cannot save our loved one. Only God can decide when that time is. I know there are those who won't believe this but that is what I believe.

That being said, it doesn't help those of us left behind. We let all the doubts eat us alive. I am getting closer to two years out and at times still beat myself to a bloody pulp. Does it do any good NO, but it hits and I can't help it. I am worse when I am overly tired and that is why it is best to try to eat and sleep whenever you can because especially in the beginning we tend to neglect ourselves.

Please take care of yourself and even if you just come here to read, keep coming back. Eventually you will feel some healing, but you will also fall off the wagon, so to speak, and go backwards, but that is normal too.

[Korina]

I also am familiar with the woulda shoulda couldas, and very often beat myself to a bloody pulp, in the words of Mary Linda. I plan to talk to his doctor just to understand better the whole situation (while Scott was not well, he got very sick suddenly and was gone in 3 days). Hopefully, one day, I will feel basically resolved, though I am definitely not there yet (even though people tell me not to blame myself). One thing is for sure, grief is so hard and exhausting; I look to the day when I have the upper hand in managing it. One of the most meaningful things Scott ever said to me was that he was proud of me. I aim to continue to make him proud in how I raise our daughter and conduct my life.

Korina

[Boo Mayhew]

Dehydrated Flower, I just wanted to add that I for one really did punish myself with guilt. Until I thought it would destroy me. This was my worst demon and it raises its ugly head every now and again to revisit me, though less often these days (am at 9 months now). I'd like to share with you how I started to overcome this:

Imagine two boxes, one labelled Justified Guilt, the other, Unjustified Guilt. Assign your worries/memories/guilt/regrets to these boxes. Analyze them objectively. Talk them over - one by one - with someone whose opinion you value and trust. Gradually, I hope, they will mainly be relegated to the Unjustified box.

This worked for me. No one told me to do this, I just decided to. But it worked :-)

I wish you peace.