Could You Relive Your Experience To Write A Book?

[Suzanne R.]

Would you write a story/book of the experiences of 3 years of much anguish and pain and turmoil that you and your spouse went through after he/she died if you knew you had to go through the ordeal emotionally all over again? Someone suggested this to me a few times but I think it would be too much heartbreak, I fear a nervous breakdown would ensue. I'm going through so much sadness and grief right now as I know we all are. I don't know if I can. Could you?

P.S. I am so depressed and barely able to get through this empty life, but I want to thank each and every one who replied to my posts. I read your answers over and over and you all have helped with your words of comfort. I am truly grateful.

Sincerely,

Suzanne

[niamh]

hi Suzanne,

this is something I've thought of and something I want to do someday (I'm only 4 months in after losing my Dad who was my best friend, my teacher and just so much more than just my Dad,so it will be a long long time). I have been writing a lot anyways through it all as someday I want to be able to see my journey in my words. I don't feel anything is getting less difficult, I don't feel it ever will but I'm on the inside and maybe someone on the outside sees differently, all I know is I don't feel it.

If I somehow ever learn to live and not just exist then it's something I would also like to do. For now I can't look back on what I've written because, as you say, it's so painful ,starting at the beginning is somewhere I don't think I can go yet, my mind goes there but the pain it brings just cripples me. I know it's such early days yet though for me.

I am so sorry things are still so empty and sad for you, it's such a stark reminder to me of the life long journey ahead, knowing it really doesn't ever go away.Some people manage to learn to live again, find some happiness again and I am glad for them I just can't see it for me.Maybe it's still too soon for you, too soon as you say to go near some of those emotions,some of the earlier times of all this. If you feel it's too much emotionally for now then leave it, you are already trying to deal with so much, no need to pressure yourself to relive something that will bring you additional pain and heartache (if that's even possible, if you know you what I mean ).

I wish you a peaceful day and here's (((hug))) for you aswell,

niamh

[Dusky]

Dear Suzanne R,

I did just that - I wrote a book. Its been nearly five years now since I lost Jack and quite honestly writing was one of the main ways I was able to survive. There is something about putting down on paper what is racing through your mind that is both theraputic and cathartic. I would suggest that you give it a try. I started out by writing 20 pomes - with the intention of having them published. Then as I started to write some sort of intorduction for different sets of these pomes it mushroomed into a book. It's called "Finding My Banana Bread Man - a journey through morning." It's basically about the 10 months of Jacks illness and a year and a half of the time period after he died. The book also goes back in time and pulls pieces of our past forward into the time period dealt with in the book.

Below you will find a link to my web site which I set up to help promote my book - but more importantly to help others through unspeakable loss. Check out this site - I hope it helps you heal. I also hope you start putting "pen to paper" - put your thoughts down on paper - it will help you.

[kayc]

I think whether one should write a book or not would depend upon whether they could handle it...some might find it therapeutic, whereas others might find it way too difficult emotionally. Also, not everyone has what it takes to be an author...some are more articulate than others. So I think that's an individual decision. It would help if a person had written a journal along the way, to refer to.

My little sister had a baby born without a brain, and she wrote a book about their experiences (the child lived to be almost two years old).

[ipswitch]

We didn't have three years. People often speak of the "gift" of time cancer provides to say good-bye; not so in our case.

If I had a book to write, unfortunately, it would be a re-hash of all the good advice one hears from others, but people think it doesn't apply to themselves - to live each day to the fullest, to let go of grudges, to accept people as they are, and not try to change them, or if they are toxic, to limit the impact toxic people have on your life.

Sadly Suzanne, my husband was an alcoholic. I'm missing him a lot this morning, but my loss is tempered (for better or worse, one might say)by the knowledge that whatever made him so desperately unhappy is ended now. I miss his sense of humor, and how he understood me in a way many people didn't.

He loved me as best as he could. Unfortunately for me, I didn't feel very loved. If I had a book to write, it would tell people to either extricate themselves from a situation like that, or to find comfort in the fact that this person, a frail, flawed mortal, loves you as best he can.

[kayc]

ipswitch,

I appreciate your writing candidly. My husband used drugs, although I didn't find out until three weeks before he died...he did so in order to have the energy to keep up at work...how I wish he'd just spoken up and gone on disability (he had five blocked arteries to his heart which is why he didn't have energy) instead of trying to keep up. Alas, I've learned not to drive myself crazy with the "what ifs" and accept instead, what was and is. He was, aside from that, an excellent husband and I knew each and every moment how much he loved me. The finding out something like that, though, does complicate grief. Most of the people we read about here were "perfect people"...mine wasn't perfect, but he was perfect for me. Although I disagreed with his choice to use, I understood what prompted it, and I knew he was doing everything he could to comply with my terms those last three weeks...he was abstaining, and working on rebuilding trust and getting counseling. My sister asked me if I thought that my terms (what I required if he were to stay with me) are what killed him. In answer, no, I spoke what he needed to hear and he was doing all that he could along those lines. What killed him is a bad heart, programmed into his genes, and a doctor that made the mistake of not sending him on to a specialist when he should have. He wasn't overweight, he looked the picture of health, but he had this buildup in his arteries, just like his mom before him did. The doctor should have taken his history into account, along with his complaints of symptoms. And of course, there was his choice to smoke...although he'd cut back by 90%, still, it had to have had an effect.

You had a husband that was alcoholic...perhaps in his disease he wasn't good at showing his love to you, but that in no way means that he didn't. My George was spared much that he would have had to have gone through had he lived...instead that burden was placed on my shoulders...just as your husband was spared much, and instead you live with the aftermath. I don't think I would trade places with George for I couldn't bear the thought of him enduring life without me. For some reason, God must have considered me the strong one, although I don't always feel like it...for my strength was in George, take him away and it has been pretty tough. We just did better as a team.

[Suzanne R.]

Dear Ipswitch

I just wanted to let you know that Dan struggled with pain, and anguish for the last three years of his life but it wasn't until 35 days before he passed away that Dan's radiation doctor told him that the last round of treatments didn't get the reoccurance of cancer and it was on December 18, 2009 that the dr told us he didn't know where the cancer would spread or how long he had left. (he even said it could be months or years, even the Dr. was shocked when I told him he passed away after only 35 days) We always believed even after this devastating news that Dan would be healed or cured or have an operation or something. So since we didn't know at the beginning of this nightmare in which I'm still living that Danny would have 3 years left. We had no idea. We always thought when he gained some weight back, if the cancer hadn't reoccured, he would feel better and live to tell our grandchildren about it. We didn't know he had 3 years. Now, I am still living in this nightmare which I'll never wake up from and I had no clue that when Danny passed away I'd be feeling like this. Three years of struggling not knowing his time was around the corner was no gift. If would have been a gift had I known, however.

God bless,

Suzanne

[ipswitch]

In speaking with other family members of cancer patients, most of them realize or have in the back of their minds the thought that cancer will take their loved one, eventually. (For all the groups agitating for this disease or that, cancer will be the cause of death for one in four Americans)

One of my recent customers told me she was taking a trip, her first vacation in a couple years. She had been caring for her mother who had been a cancer patient. She seemed upbeat about her mother at the beginning of our conversation, as her mother was through with treatment. She did allude to the fact that although the cancer in her mother's throat had been treated, it was only a matter of time before the cancer turned up some place else.

I guess I've quickly grown philosophical about what the future would have held for me and Jeff: many chemo treatments (his illness too advanced for any surgery) and the awful side effects. A slow, painful death.

Jeff's GP and oncologist were surprised, too, at his death five weeks from diagnosis. The oncologist explained what likely happened when I described what occurred, and I felt no need to investigate further.

As this day draws to a close,I see I've gotten through all right. I did miss him today, though.

Jeff's birthday is in June. Our twenty-fifth anniversary would have been 16 days later. I'll be going up to the state park where we honeymooned to scatter his ashes.

[Korina]

I just know that writing letters to Scott has helped me, particularly in the early months. No plans to publish, it was just a way to talk to him, vent, etc. It has helped.

Korina

[Lainey]

Just as Korina said, writing to Lars helped alot in the first months. I can also go back and see the progress I'm making day by day. I wouldn't want to write about the pain and suffering we both went through for the year before he passed away. Too many bad memories..

Lainey

[closs86]

Hi

I also just started writing a journal, and it seems I am writing to Johnny, he passed on April 6th, and all of a sudden I decided I was going to write what I felt down, and noticed that I am writing to him, it seems to somehow make me feel a little better. I just started it a couple of days ago, I also just got the urn for his ashes that was pretty hard, but now he is in his new home right next to me on the nightstand, with his picture, and that makes me feel good, he is with me again.

I just took a pill to sleep and I think I had better shut down now, I will come back tomorrow night

Good night

Karen