Tired Of Being Strong

[kayc]

15 hours ago, Marg M said:

she keeps the "homestead" going and husband keeps the grandkids in another state.  They go months without seeing each other

What??!!  Yes, tell her  to go be with him NOW, that each day without him is a day she'll never get back, and when he goes, she'll wish she'd done it differently.  I can't even IMAGINE living like that!  I would never willingly be apart from George.  I remember when he was having his rash of car accidents due to his long commute and being tired after his long exhausting shift, I had stay close to his job during his four day work week only because I wanted to keep him ALIVE!  But every moment outside of that we spent together except one weekend a year I'd be with my sisters and he'd go on a fishing excursion with his buddies...of course that had to be when his body chose to have a heart attack.    I'm glad we lived life to the fullest with each other, each decision we made was with the other in mind, we WANTED to be together!

[Margm]

You know I cannot interfere.  If she cannot see what I am going through and cannot put herself in my place, she will not listen to me.  I think we learn......after the fact.  They know I suffer, and they also know I am a "steel magnolia" but I feel like "a lonely little petunia in an onion patch."  We will overcome to some point, but we won't forget.  And, when it happens to others, we will show empathy, because we learned the hard way.  Her beloved only sister passed and she saw her brother-in-law actually  wither away and finally pass away.  He was skin and bones and had honestly mourned himself to death.  When you see things after the curtain has been pulled away and you do not learn a lesson from it, then you will be self-taught the hard way.  

[scba]

This morning I thought:

"I can put lables and names to every thing grief related......but in the end it's all about one single thing: I miss him very very much"

How am I going to live the rest of my life with the fact that, it doesn't matter, I just miss him?

My days and hours are full.....but missing him. Every day I focus on fill my time, and do and do and do....because I miss him.

It's a race to nowhere. 

Just a thought, I know there's no answer.  I'll live....but missing. 

[Guest Janka]

25 minutes ago, scba said:

How am I going to live the rest of my life with the fact that, it doesn't matter, I just miss him?

My days and hours are full.....but missing him. Every day I focus on fill my time, and do and do and do....because I miss him.

It's a race to nowhere.

Dear Ana!

You´re right!There´s nothing else to do,because we must go on somehow...everytime...till the end...

It´s missing someone who is irreplaceable forever...

Hugs from Janka

 

[kayc]

Me too, Ana.  I miss him each and every day and he's always in my thoughts and resides in my heart.  I've accepted that this is how it will be the rest of my life.  My mom had to live like this for 32 years, oh Lord I pray it won't be that long, but I fear it will be much longer than that.  It is what it is, I pray for grace to go through it.

[scba]

I came to the conclusion that from all the dates I fear, new year's eve is the worst. I had a horrible evening, have accepted an invitation I knew I shouldn't ). I could feel my heart breaking into and more and more pieces during the evening. Witnessing other's people joy, smiles and happiness made me feel worse, there was a moment when I wanted to stand up and leave the place. I did not.

The hosts were a young couple, watching them I imagined us in their place. I usually don't do that, but it is happening frequently now. I picture myself and him on situations I know will never take place

I felt I belonged to another planet, I could not connect with what was going on around me and I could not stop the storm of grief that was arriving. I was scared to loosing it and when I walked home when the party was over, feeling cold and being wet, I asked to the sky: how did I end up here?

I cannot open facebook, I did not reply many messages of good wishes. 

I feel the acute pain of the early days, and it scares me, I thought that kind of pain had changed and was part of the past , but it has not.

 God, how am I going to survive this life of grief and pain? How could this be your work? I was only loving someone with all my heart and wanted to be happy....

This too shall pass.

[kayc]

Ana,

I'm sorry it was such a horrible time for you.  I went to bed at 9:30, awake at 3:30...not much of a reveler.  Not being able to drive at night means I miss out on most things and my life is pretty much alone.  I have my volunteer activities but other than that, it's pretty quiet, and even when I do my church books, I'm alone.

I hope when you feel uncomfortable about attending something, you don't, it's important to listen to that quiet voice inside of us that knows what we need and what we don't.

[scba]

Dear Kay, thank you very much for your reply and m sorry that you woke up in the middle of the night. I generally don't go out in the evening because I don't feel safe where I live to hang around alone and have no friends there. My nights are very lonely too and I fall asleep scrolling facebook.

I struggle a lot with what I need and need not. Sometimes I do things just not to be alone, to try to not feel alone, to not be left alone or for fear that I am falling into depression if I avoid social activities.

CS lewis is so right, grief is so much like fear. 

[DaveM]

6 hours ago, scba said:

CS lewis is so right, grief is so much like fear. 

Ana, that is so true. The feeling deep in my chest or in the pit of my stomach feels exactly like fear to me. My adrenaline pumps and I find myself looking from side to side.

[Gwenivere]

Panic and anxiety are overlooked symptoms of grief.  I read an article that said anxiety should be a stage of grief because it is so prevalent.  I think both Marg and I can attest to that.  I don’t know how often when in emotional throws I feel I cannot breathe which causes panic.  Many write how they wake up in the middle of the night gripped by something more than normal nervousness.  There is a huge brain/gut connection too.  Digestion is so drastically changed for me.  Some is I don’t eat as healthy as I did when I cooked actual meals, but it’s mostly the despair that always there even when we think it’s asleep.  I also think not feeling like we fit in the world anymore is a big factor.  I am places everyday, but I feel invisible or watching from the outside now.  One time I ran into a woman I hadn’t seen in forever and her husband had just died.  Think she was 3 months into it.  She told me she now understood what I had been going thru and echoed what we all have felt, the imagining doesn’t even come close to the reality.  Unfortunately it distressed her I was still in such pain being so much further along.  All I could do is say......my path is not your path.  But.....be prepared for all the advice you will be given and people moving on.  Beware the fixers who really are doing it more for themselves as we scare them.  We represent thier fears it will happen someday.  It becomes a time you choose very carefully who you talk with and learn to recognize when some get tired of hearing about it and you lose more outlets, but not to blame them either.  It may hurt to see, but give them thier time while they have it with thier partners.  I have become a good actor feigning happiness for others.  I want them to have it.  It’s just so hard to walk away back to the loneliness.  

[Margm]

I only talk about it to my sister and she is very supportive.* My kids have their own grief and if I add mine to theirs, well, it is a different kind of grief, but still grief and Billy was such a good dad and granddad, nothing can replace what is lost.  We just deal with the hole that was left and like you said, we walk our own path.  But, the panic attack I had in Walmart a few weeks back, just before Christmas was the worse one I have ever had.  I actually did not know what it was.  Was not worried about my heart, but the fear and shaking was all over my body.  I hid in between the sheets, towels, comforters.  I took a Xanax right there.  It was like an automobile that has stalled.  After a few minutes I was okay.  The shaking will forever be with me, but not to the degree that I had then.  I have been in the store many times since then, been in when it was a totally full store and did not have the symptoms.  I had them once before and one was so bad I left my shopping cart in checkout line, did not even look around, just left period, and did not look back.  That was in the early 1980's.  Have not had any more since then to those two degrees, just get afraid some times, even with my daughter fussing.  I did take a Xanax to settle down after she left.  I hope she can find some help with her anger attacks.  Sometimes I think so many doctors have given her so many different medications it has made her worse.  I told her that sometimes we have to find our own help.  I have had to.  One help and stick with it.  One city.  One state.  One doc. 

*Except on here and I spill my guts on here.

[kayc]

Gwen,

You are so right about the anxiety, I've always had it but grief has given it reason now to blow up.

[Brad]

10 hours ago, Marg M said:

 But, the panic attack I had in Walmart a few weeks back, just before Christmas was the worse one I have ever had.  I actually did not know what it was.  Was not worried about my heart, but the fear and shaking was all over my body.  I hid in between the sheets, towels, comforters.  I took a Xanax right there.  It was like an automobile that has stalled.  After a few minutes I was okay.  The shaking will forever be with me, but not to the degree that I had then. 

Marg - your story brought to mind an episode Deedo had years ago in Walmart.  She was having problems with tachycardia that would render her insensible; frequently requiring the doctors to stop and restart her heart.  She would feel them coming on and so she was given a few moments to stop driving or to sit down prior to collapsing.  She was standing in line, ready to check out when she felt one coming on.  Not wanting to colllapse in front of everyone, she ran to the restroom and locked herself in a stall.  When she collapsed her body was wedged between the toilet and the wall.  Paramedics were called and while they were trying to extract her, which necessitated removing the plumbing, rendering both men's and ladies'  lavatories closed, she came to.  Eventually she was loaded on a stretcher, wheeled to the ambulance for a $3,000 ride to the ER which was literally right across the street.  Her reasoning for running to the loo was that she did not want to cause a scene.  

[Margm]

17 minutes ago, Brad said:

 Her reasoning for running to the loo was that she did not want to cause a scene.  

We never do Brad.  Billy could not get me to the ER when I had sepsis and ruptured bowel until I passed out.  I hallucinated in the ambulance, but can remember the two little girls that rode on the steps of the ambulance all the way to the hospital.  (I was the only one who saw them, I asked about them.) I had so much radiation years before that only thin hair grew back, so I wore a wig.  I fought those EMT's the whole way because they wanted me to take the wig off.  In and out of consciousness, I can sympathize with Deedo.  Sometimes we do not have control of our own bodies and we fight against outside sources making "a scene" that we never wanted to make.  

Billy went from walking with pain, walking with a cane, next week a walker, the final couple of weeks a wheelchair.  I cannot describe his ego.  He was so emasculated that I had to bathe him, do toilet duties for him, that he did not want to fight to live.  Deedo also  had an ego.  So do I.  So do we all.  We fight losing our self worth that we carry in our head.  I understand.  And, they do not understand that what we do to help we do out of love.  "In sickness and in health, until death  us do part" and I have made myself cry for the Billy's, the Deedo's, for myself and the many bedpans, tube cleaning and changing's Billy did for me and I knew he did it out of love, he never cringed, but it took something out of him for me to do the same for him.  I wish we could tell them face to face they never were a burden.  

[Gin]

Al told me several times, "You got the raw end of this deal".  I always said that we were partners and I did not consider him a burden.  I sure hope he believed  me.  I would do anything to have my "burden" back!

[Cookie]

13 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Panic and anxiety are overlooked symptoms of grief.  I read an article that said anxiety should be a stage of grief because it is so prevalent.  I think both Marg and I can attest to that.  I don’t know how often when in emotional throws I feel I cannot breathe which causes panic.  Many write how they wake up in the middle of the night gripped by something more than normal nervousness.  There is a huge brain/gut connection too.  Digestion is so drastically changed for me.  Some is I don’t eat as healthy as I did when I cooked actual meals, but it’s mostly the despair that always there even when we think it’s asleep.  I also think not feeling like we fit in the world anymore is a big factor.  I am places everyday, but I feel invisible or watching from the outside now.  One time I ran into a woman I hadn’t seen in forever and her husband had just died.  Think she was 3 months into it.  She told me she now understood what I had been going thru and echoed what we all have felt, the imagining doesn’t even come close to the reality.  Unfortunately it distressed her I was still in such pain being so much further along.  All I could do is say......my path is not your path.  But.....be prepared for all the advice you will be given and people moving on.  Beware the fixers who really are doing it more for themselves as we scare them.  We represent thier fears it will happen someday.  It becomes a time you choose very carefully who you talk with and learn to recognize when some get tired of hearing about it and you lose more outlets, but not to blame them either.  It may hurt to see, but give them thier time while they have it with thier partners.  I have become a good actor feigning happiness for others.  I want them to have it.  It’s just so hard to walk away back to the loneliness.  

Gwen:  I agree with the anxiety becoming a more recognized stage.  I guess I was slightly prone to anxiety before John died, but nothing on this scale.  Since he's died, that has been my primary problem....and I also agree that it somehow comes out of that feeling of not fitting in, being on the outside looking in, etc.  For 2 years I woke up every morning with horrible anxiety, and now I get up right away and get busy.  They come out of nowhere it seems.  I guess there are triggers everywhere that you aren't even aware of.  I had quite a bit of anxiety this New Year's and I think it had to do with knowing I was that much further away from him in time.  Thought it was supposed to get better with time (that's what everyone says).  Well, that's not true. 

[Cookie]

Just now, Gin said:

Al told me several times, "You got the raw end of this deal".  I always said that we were partners and I did not consider him a burden.  I sure hope he believed  me.  I would do anything to have my "burden" back!

Oh Gin, John kind of said the same things to me at the end.  He felt so bad that I was having to go through this, and I could only say that he was the one suffering so much.  I also would do anything to have my "burden back."  It was not a burden.  Taking care of him was a privilege and honor and he was so gracious.  Hugs to you......Cookie

[Cookie]

On ‎01‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 5:52 AM, scba said:

I came to the conclusion that from all the dates I fear, new year's eve is the worst. I had a horrible evening, have accepted an invitation I knew I shouldn't ). I could feel my heart breaking into and more and more pieces during the evening. Witnessing other's people joy, smiles and happiness made me feel worse, there was a moment when I wanted to stand up and leave the place. I did not.

The hosts were a young couple, watching them I imagined us in their place. I usually don't do that, but it is happening frequently now. I picture myself and him on situations I know will never take place

I felt I belonged to another planet, I could not connect with what was going on around me and I could not stop the storm of grief that was arriving. I was scared to loosing it and when I walked home when the party was over, feeling cold and being wet, I asked to the sky: how did I end up here?

I cannot open facebook, I did not reply many messages of good wishes. 

I feel the acute pain of the early days, and it scares me, I thought that kind of pain had changed and was part of the past , but it has not.

 God, how am I going to survive this life of grief and pain? How could this be your work? I was only loving someone with all my heart and wanted to be happy....

This too shall pass.

Scba:  I feel much the same.  New Year's was much sadder than Christmas, and after all this time I keep wondering the same thing, "how am I going to survive this life of grief and pain."  It feels like I'm doing time.......hugs to you, Cookie

[TomPB]

I have a confused sense of time. Hard to remember that monday was New Years. Got thru that OK, then was really dreading home alone in the storm yesterday, which used to be so cozy with Susan. So I moved up my call with my grief counselor from Fri to Th and got a surprise dinner invite from a friend, so got thru better than I'd hoped. We have 13'' snow and there was major flooding on the waterfront. My shoulders were sore after shoveling. Coming home today was sad that Susan's boots were not sitting outside the door.

Sorting thru things I have a lot of her baby pics, which I did not realize. How can she have run thru her entire life when I have pics of her at just a few months?

Everything I do feels like "getting thru", not what I just naturally want to do and enjoy like before 3/31/17. My grief counselor says "Don't miss this part", meaning this phase of my life is worthwhile and don't dismiss it as just something to be gotten thru. I understand, but it's hard NOT to want to miss this part.

My swim teammate Mara's husband died 1 week ago after about a 1 yr decline with cancer. I hugged her and said "Welcome to my world". Of course we've been talking about things for some time. I hope we can help each other.

 

[kayc]

22 hours ago, Marg M said:

We fight losing our self worth that we carry in our head.

When my MIL was dying of cancer, as it spread liver to bones to every organ of her body...what was her concern?  Her hair!  She had always dress immaculately and had her hair done every week.  So we had someone come in and do her hair for her every week.  Something so little but important to her.

Thanks for sharing that story, Brad.  It brought a smile, even though I'm sure it was anything but something to smile about at the time, only in looking back at the irony.

[kayc]

22 hours ago, Gin said:

Al told me several times, "You got the raw end of this deal".  I always said that we were partners and I did not consider him a burden.  I sure hope he believed  me.  I would do anything to have my "burden" back!

This reminded me, my daughter and her husband came down with the flu, really knock down stuff with every symptom there is.  They got back together just as Melissa was at her worst, and Don soon followed.  Separated for months and now watching each other puke.  But they felt it would be much worse if gone through alone.  We need that other half of our team to go through stuff in life with.  Just as you'd do anything for Al, so would I for George, and vice-versa.

[scba]

On 1/1/2018 at 7:52 AM, scba said:

I came to the conclusion that from all the dates I fear, new year's eve is the worst.

Dear friends from the forum, it´s been long since the last time I´ve posted an update on the post I started in 2015. I´ve quoted that, cause it´s coming again, once more.

I simply don´t know where to start. So much have happened this year and still, I am unhappy and feel empty, just spiritually empty. I stopped making questions to heavens, I stopped looking for answers, I stopped fighting against the finality of his death, I have accepted he is dead. I have accepted to live with a wound in my soul, with a tragedy having happened in my life. I came to terms with grief waves, with what grief entails. With secondary losses. And etc. I have accepted all of that, all of it and I thought that acceptance would lead me to a better place......but healing hasn´t happened. I am still unhappy, still empty, still detached, still seing nothing from the future. I am an empty cage. Surely my soul must have left my body with my boyfriend´s departure. That´s how it feels. I have been in a tsunami, in a hurricane, in a sea storm, sort of saying..but now I feel I am standing in a swamp. My grief changes. Or hasn´t. 

I have written about the following many times. What surrounds me are babies, weddings, pregnancies, dating,  that´s majority. And I feel so much pain bearing witness to that with as much dignity as possible, trying to be a good friend that cares. But then something breaks inside of me because I had that, and had the project of that and it was ripped away from me!!!!!! Because I knew how it felt!!!! And then, I care about them no more. 

And so you can pretend to be cool and fine, but inside you are not the same. 

I don´t want to hear that I´m young and I could meet someone. I just don´t care.I don´t want a relationship, I want my boyfriend. That´s the problem. It was true what I knew in my heart when I met him, that I would be unhappy to live without him. Now it is reality. Here it is. I was right. Does he know it? Does he know I am unhappy without him? 

And it hurts. It really hurts. Another year in which I feel LOST AND EMPTIED!

You are all in my thoughts and prayers. I read all of your posts.

Peace.

Ana

[Gin]

Ana, I feel much the same.  So empty and not seeing any change in the future for the better.  Unlike you, I am old and having a hard time dealing with everything alone.  Thinking about you and hoping you are coping.  Gin

[Gwenivere]

Ana, I feel the same.  I’m just an empty vessel now.  I care about nothing.  In the meantime my body is breaking down from the stress of it and conditions I could address but don’t really care.  Everyday I’m so disappointed I woke up.  I’m so sick of listening to others who are alive.  This is bad because I am isolating and that itself worsens.the grief.  But I can’t pretend anymore how deeply this has affected me. I know if I were 20, 30,, even 40 years younger I would feel the same..  this was the person for me and me alone.  I watch all the people in thier holiday frenzies under a dark cloud of our memories.  You are right, we had what we see happening around us that was ripped away and are bleeding from it.  Will I ever get used to him being gone?  Nope. Will someone ever fill that void?  Nope.  I, too, have had to accept the reality.  Will I survive it?  Unknown.  It’s a form of torture unlike anything I could have imagined.  I saw it in movies, but hat wasn’t real.  And it wasn’t us.  Not one single thing of joy in our home anymore.

[kayc]

Ana, accepting was just step one.  And oh God it takes years!  It took years for me just to process his death.  And like you, I eventually quit asking why, I never got any resounding answers.  But I was left with emptiness in his place.  It took me more years to find purpose, and more years yet to build a life I could live.  It's nothing like the old life.  I don't try to compare it because that's a bloodsucker.  Instead I try to enjoy what is.  I know that rings hollow to you Gwen, because you're having health issues that preclude your being able to do this right now.  I hope it gets better for you.  I know you're trying.  I know you want to be volunteering, and you got some purpose and fulfillment from that, and I hope you can get back to it.  I also know that my life as is, is subject to change at any time.  I've built a lot of friendships, I've worked damned hard at it!  I've joined a lot of groups to get exposure to more people, that's what it's taken.  I'm at 13 1/2 years and I can honestly say it's taken me all this time to get to a semi-decent place.  This isn't for the faint hearted, I hesitate to tell people how long it's taken me.  I hope it doesn't take this long for everyone else, one thing I know, we all have different circumstances, different coping abilities, different personalities, etc. so no one's journey will totally mimic another's.  My only advice is to don't give up, it takes what it takes.  

As for the void, I'm not sure we do ever totally fill it, there's a George-shaped hole in my heart that nothing has filled, I still miss him, I've learned to live with it.  Maybe I'm just some crazy lady that talks out loud to him...I may have to borrow some of Polly's cats!