Daymares

[azbrian]

I know it is not usual to have nightmares with the grief process, I don't seem to have them. Like most I do wake up and don't always sleep well.

I do have a nightmare during the day when I am awake and it is the same one and it will just happen even if I am not thinking about it. It always stops me in my tracks. I'll spare you the details of it. It is when I found my wife and tried to get her to respond to me and what happened between then and when the ambulance came. Those images of the last time I saw her moving (trying to move) and her face, the expression. The expression is the horrible part of the daymare. The aneurysm had already happened and I can't tell if she is aware of me or pleading for me to help her. The part of a nightmare that is the wake up or snap back to reality from the daymare.

Nightmares, well you can just not sleep to not have them right.......... just kidding.

How do you stop them when you are awake?

Thanks for listening.

[MartyT]

Hi Brian ~ The "daymares" you describe sound to me like flashbacks, which often happen in people with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with other problems such as intrusive thoughts and difficulties with sleep and concentration. I don't mean to suggest that you have PTSD, but I do think that the circumstances surrounding your wife's death were certainly traumatic for you, and that alone would explain why you're experiencing these very disturbing "daymares." Over the past decade, several innovative treatments have been developed for PTSD, guided imagery among them ~ and these treatments can be quite helpful in managing flashbacks. For example, when you last felt this flashback coming on, think back and try to remember exactly what you were seeing, thinking and feeling just before it happened. Once you can identify what triggered it, you'll be better prepared the next time. You'll find this and several additional suggestions for coping with flashbacks here: Coping with Flasbacks. If you're interested at all in trying guided imagery, I highly recommend the audio CDs by Belleruth Naparstek. See, for example, this recent press release, For Those Affected by the Tucson Tragedy.

[Cheryl]

Brian,

I have found that I have relived the events of my husbands death a million times. In one of the grief books I read, it said that your mind will want to make sense of what has happened and by reliving the experience over and over you are trying to control, change and eventually except the outcome. Especially in sudden deaths, the griever is blindsided and is in such shock that the mind can't believe this has happened. Over and over you will recall, relive and attempt to understand not only the event, but the death itself. Your mind simply can not believe that this has really happened, and there is simply no way to fix it. It was during that time that I found myself feeling like I might be going crazy! I could not escape the reoccuring thought patterns. Just know that it is normal and facing all the thoughts, memories, daymares ect... is part of moving through grief. Recognizing that all of these events are part of "grief work" will help get you through it.

[kayc]

Brian,

When my last husband (the one I married after George died) cheated on me, it was such a traumatic event for me to discover...I will never forget driving up to see him (he lived near his job during the week, 3 1/2 hours away) and when I opened the door (he was gone) the first thing I saw was a Pepto Bismo Pink shirt laying on the couch...I soon discovered candles, flowers, and evidence in every drawer, closet, everywhere that he had a young woman living with him. You can imagine my shock! It was the first time I'd "dropped in on him", always before he had taken care to remove every trace before I visited.

I say all this to say, even today, when I see that color of pink, it acts as a trigger that can take me back in time to that evening, that very moment, with the indescribable feelings that I felt, a sickening lurch in my stomach, the accompanying shock, disbelief, sense of betrayal, and incredible pain.

The brain is an amazing thing, and it helps to learn how it works. In the years following my discovery that night, I joined marriagebuilders.com and learned so much, it has been tremendously helpful. There wasn't anything to save of that marriage, for that was only one thing out of many more continual breeches of trust, but I have continued on that site because it offers so much, that even though I do not have a partner, there is so much to learn and there is such a vast knowledge of great principles offered there if one but takes the time to uncover them. One such thread I have bookmarked is by Mark1952, and I will post the link here...even though this thread of his is written to address triggers brought about by infidelity, I have found the same principles and truths to apply in other situations where the brain is instantly taken back by a trigger or memory, such as post traumatic stress disorder. To save time, you can skip over reading the other posts, and just read the original poster's, Mark1952, as it's a long thread.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2243454

I have found this of tremendous help to me for if for no other reason, just to understand what is happening. I have also found the stop thought process to be of immense help. (Changing course of direction in your thoughts)

Marty's links are also very good, thank you, Marty!

[azbrian]

The replies all have great info, thank you.

So I am going wacko.

I am kidding !!

Sorry, guess I have a strange sense of humor as well.

I really do appreciate the help and info.

KayC I never could or will understand a man or woman cheating on their mate. Knowing Ruth over 28 years I have never even thought about it and like most marriages ours wasn't always perfect either.. But that's the point to get it to work right ? Anyway, I guess I just am not built that way.

But to cheat on you when you have already (are) gone through hell losing your husband. Sorry, I cannot understand what kind of man that is.

[kayc]

A con man, Brian, plain and simple. Someone who preys on unsuspecting widows. There's plenty of them out there.

[Guest Nicholas]

Who said you don't have nightmares during the grieving process??? Not Stephen Hawking again, was it?

I have had nightmares, on and off, for as long as I can remember, grieving or not grieving.

Nicholas

[melina]

I haven't had flashbacks exactly, but "daymares" - I have had very strong and troublesome memories of my husband's final day. It's etched in my mind and when I'm stressed or tired it comes back - usually when I'm trying to fall asleep. I've had to turn to antidepressants for a while just to deal with them. My husband had cancer, but no one - not even the doctors - realized he was actually dying until the day before he died. It was the biggest shock I've ever had. His face at death will always haunt me. He loved life and really lived to the full - so to see him like that was beyond my worst nightmare.

As for real nightmares, at night - I haven't really had those. Though I have had a couple of near nightmares where my husband announced he was leaving me for another woman. No amount of screaming, crying or begging from me would change his mind. This never actually happened while he was alive, but in my dream it felt real. Maybe the other woman was a symbol for death - me feeling abandoned.

Melina

[kayc]

You're probably right Melina, it probably did symbolize abandonment. I haven't had the nightmares either, only one dream with him in it and in that he came home and I was mad and wanted to know where he'd been all this time! (No clue what that signified if anything.)

I suppose daymares and flashbacks are kind of the same thing...I had them for a long time, of the moment they threw me out of his hospital room and he was having a heart attack, his eyes were so big and he was clearly in distress and I didn't want to desert him in his hour of greatest need. That has haunted me, but it's better now than it was. I still feel an incredible amount of anger at Ms. Iceberg (my name for the nurse) that threw me off the ward. There was no call for it, they wouldn't have even known he was having a heart attack if I hadn't run to their nurse's station and interrupted their petty little talk, because there were no bells or whistles going off...so much for their monitoring him in ICU. As long as I live I will never forget that. And I'm sorry, I can't forgive how she treated me, locking the door behind me, like I was some kind of felon. I was his Little One! And as long as we knew each other, we were there for each other, I felt I let him down in his greatest time of need, and it was because I was physically forced away from him. I spoke with the hospital about it later and they said they don't want the family around when they're working on them...why? They think their "heroic" methods could be any more upsetting to me than being away from him as he passes from this world to the next? I've often wished he could have died quietly at home with me by his side, but then I'd probably feel guilty for not having had professional help there and wondered if they could have saved him. I guess we just don't like how it goes, no matter how it is.

[mfh]

I agree Melina, that "other woman" in your dream seems like a symbol for death. I was up with dreams the last two nights...woke up sobbing....not exactly nightmares but dreams of Bill and losing him and waking to realize the dreams were true. I guess it does not matter what we call them or when they occur...memories, flashbacks, nightmares, daymares-they all make the road tougher to trod.

[HAP]

Folks,

I thought I was awake for this, but have since understood I must have been asleep. I woke up to hear my wife coming to bed. She slid in beside me and we fell asleep together as we used to do. When i woke up i realized it was my own knee I was holding.

It was sad but it colored my day pleasantly. Later, I walked into her craft room and inhaled a deep breath of frankincense, so maybe she was here last night after all--and has been here much of the day. I certainly felt her running that 5K with me this morning.

Peace,

Harry