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All I know is......when this thread started, I just up and quit coming here. I hated the feeling of dissension and questioning......I know that due to my being in the "early" stages of losing a beloved spouse, I am perhaps over-sensitive.  It just felt like....I don't know......like a "safe place" to voice grief was no longer safe. That there would be pettiness, bickering over who would be allowed to voice their feelings.......that some grief was more "valid" than others........I am a coward when it comes to such.....I'd rather just go away, and try to deal on my own.......this is my first time back in months.  Cannot bring myself to read all of the posts, but just need to know......is this forum again a safe place?  I hate discord/confrontation/negativity..........I isolate as much as possible.....but I've missed being able to voice my unending grief, here.

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WolfsKat,

I know you are welcome here. I have been offended by people even on this group from time to time. I can be overly sensitive. I have learned to just take what I like and leave the rest.  Everyone has their opinions but when they interfere with others is when the feathers get ruffled. I try to stay away from politics, sex, and religion... just like my momma told me growing up.... ha ha ha.  Grief brings out intense feelings and a wide spectrum.  I have learned not to hid, stuff, or pretend I don't have them.  But FEELINGS are not FACTS.  I am learning to do what I don't feel like doing like cleaning, eating, right, exercising, etc...  And when I do those things I don't want to do (TAKE ACTION) it frees me up to do some things I like to do.  Grief is not for sissy's.  It's a lot of work.  I still hate the fact that my wife died but I am gradually learning to accept it in my heart.  I am learning to take as good care of myself than I did my precious wife. I am moving forward.  I am trying to incorporate all of my wife's great characteristics in order  to honor her.  I still cry and grieve. I still miss her.  I am working on "Get Busy Living" a line from one of my wife's favorite movies, "Shawshank Redemption"  .

Welcome back. Stay awhile. Learn and grow at your own pace.  Shalom - George 

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 I know I missed your presence WolfsKat and I believe this place is safe.  All voices can and should be heard and you are as much part of this community as any of us. I run from confrontation myself. We are all gun shy in our grieving state and we can be awfully sensitive sometimes. Perhaps as George says and you stick around for a while, you can feel comfortable again being able to voice your grief.

I just watched Morgan Freeman say those lines yesterday for the umpteenth time George. It's a favorite movie of mine and perhaps the only Stephen King film that doesn't scare the hell out of me.  A friend of mine told me in the first month of my grief's journey that if I wanted to, I would die. My body would develop a disease of some kind and my wish would be answered. Those words "get busy living, or get busy dying" rang in my mind like a bell and helped me change my thinking.

One other thought. We cross over threads mixing up what they are all about and what started them. I think the word highjacking was even once used.  We ramble, we babble on sometimes and we apologize for doing so only to be told "Don't be silly". We do this because we are a family of grieving souls who understand that each of us is doing the best we can with what we've got. Eventually the thread comes back to it's origins or we will start a new one. Gosh, I was looking for a thread I started in years past and there are literally thousands of them.  I gave up and just started talking where I left off.  If you go back to Marty's first post on her thread, you will hear kind of the same thing I've just spoken.

So in the words of Sergeant Hulka  in the film Stripes, "Lighten up Francis".

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I for one am glad you are still here, Wolfskat. Not for the reason but for the fact that we are all welcome here. We are all sensitive and sometimes we say things that sound hurtful but I don't think anyone intentionally says things to hurt. I am with you. I am not confrontational and I'd be the first one who would disappear if that were to happen. 

Anne

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I am so glad to see you back here!  I hope you will continue to post and I think everyone is just learning if they don't like something to skip over it and I like to think this is a place of respect.  

There is so much more than just this section too, Marty has a course for first & second year people, there is her blog which has lots of information on it, there's tools for healing, etc.  I hope you'll check them out as well, and welcome back!

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This absolutely is a safe place! I have found people to be kind and very supportive. Of course, no one is perfect, much less a group, but the site is carefully moderated by Marty. You can always ignore things that you don't like, ask for clarification (in case it's just a misunderstanding), or even ask Marty if something concerns you. 

Nevertheless, I have been amazed over and over-and consistently-with the warmth and love with which people here treat each other. It is remarkable as an internet resource!

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Dear People

Thank you for the "welcome back"........I've missed many of you, and have kept you in heart/prayer.  I'm coming up on 8 months.....it is still such a hard, lonely journey that I think I "need" to come here.......I may cry a lot, going through your posts, but I think it is cathartic, in a sense.  And NO one else in my current life "gets" this grief.  Most of you understand, all too well....again, my thanks.  Kat

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WK:  I need this place.  I am addicted to the help I receive from here.  I have come upon the idea that one day I might not need to come here and I take a Xanax when I think something like that.  If for no other reason than there are people here that need the same help that I do, people that are suffering and I think, it must be "normal' in the terrible sense of normal grief.  And, I realize "normal" is only a place on a washing machine.  We help each other. And yes, I admit, I had a plan for suicide right after Billy left.  I told him I could not live without him.  I did not plan on living without him.  I'm old, I am expendable, I would be grieved for but the double grief would get over with and they would live their life.  But, there is one life involved in all of this that has had our help for nearly 17 years and in my grief I forgot about her.  I have a reason to be here.  We all do.  I signed on here three days after Billy left me.  It was here for a reason.  And it is here for you too.  Good people.

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Marg, my dear, if you are old, so am I. You and I are the exact same age. I do not consider myself old or "expendable," and I certainly hope that you do not consider yourself that way, either. That would be insulting to both of us, don't you think? ;) And if your precious granddaughter is your reason to still be here, that is reason enough. (I hope you will add to that the fact that we all need for you to stay here with us, too.) 

And Kat, welcome back. I'm so pleased that you decided to return to us 

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Okay Marty, I have a new lease on life.  I am giving up my three half gallons of sea-salt caramel ice cream and I am gonna start taking care of myself.  (No kidding you all, need to try this stuff).  Well, maybe not. 

I guess I better not mention old.  I really was not old until last year. 

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I agree with Gwen. It would be like me giving up chocolate ~ it won't happen. :wacko: I even put caramel on chocolate ice cream and chocolate brownies and chocolate pecan bites.

Anne 

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  • 2 weeks later...

WK:  I cannot have chocolate.  It is one thing I am not supposed to have that I have cheated on.  Billy got on one of his health kicks once where you eat the dark chocolate.  Only, I decided if a little is good for you, then a whole lot must even be better.  After I got through throwing it all up, I found out that chocolate missing from my diet is not the worse thing in the world.  Ice cream?  I only eat it if I have it......often.  

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I only WISH I didn't like chocolate and ice cream!  But I'm Diabetic so I have to pretend that the sugar free stuff tastes good.  Years ago we got burglarized and the burglars took our hard to come by elk meat, venison, huckleberries, but left the sugar free ice cream.  My young son piped up, "See, Mom!  I TOLD you that stuff was no good, even the burglars wouldn't take it!"

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  • 2 months later...

Dear ones, I re-visited all the posts in this forum just now, and it occurs to me that calling your attention to  this particular article might be appropriate to include in this particular thread, since it speaks so well to what we are about on this site. (Even if you read it when it first appeared over a year ago, I think it is worth another look): In Grief: Ashamed to Share Negative Feelings in An Online Forum 

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1 hour ago, MartyT said:

Dear ones, I re-visited all the posts in this forum just now, and it occurs to me that calling your attention to  this particular article might be appropriate to include in this particular thread, since it speaks so well to what we are about on this site. (Even if you read it when it first appeared over a year ago, I think it is worth another look): In Grief: Ashamed to Share Negative Feelings in An Online Forum 

Marty......THANK you for this.  This letter could've been written by me.......and, yes, there have been times where all I can do is just read posts, not posting myself, because my mood/emotions were dark, despairing and depressing.....and I thought, why post stuff that might depress others even more, especially "newbies" to this forum?

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Thank you for reading the article, Kat. I hope it serves to answer your concerns about posting "stuff that might depress others even more." If you can't talk about such stuff here, and feel safe in doing so, where are you supposed to go with it? And how will we ever come to acknowledge and understand what grief REALLY feels like if we don't talk about it here?

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I get that Marty and thanks for posting the article.  You are correct. If you can't say it here then where can you say it? Speaking just for myself, I have never read anything no matter how dark it seemed to be that brought me further down in my own grief. If anything it helped me feel as if I was not alone.  Grief never was going to be easy. Once that fact is accepted, we can continue working our own grief's journey.

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Kat, I do that simetimes....not post fearing it will be too dark.  But Marty is right.  If we can't say it here, which this was provided for, where can we turn?  We already know outsiders won't get it.  The one thing I try and do (and this is just me) is edit my feelings to convey the core.  I tend to get bogged in details at times that are superfluous.  I decide if they are necessary.  I so treasure this place because I can say anything.  In the real world one has to be careful as people get freaked out by the depths of this.  If they don't say something useless, they can overreact thinking we will go over the edge.  Sometimes going over the edge is part of it.  

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The thing for people to keep in mind is, most of us experience similar things in our grief, and in addressing it here honestly and openly, we allow others to realize they are not alone in their grief feelings either.  There is no such thing as an outlandish feeling when it comes to grief...it is an odd assortment, a mixed bag.

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