If You're Going Through Hell

[Gin]

Al and I went to his cardiac rehab for 7 years at the health club.  Every football season they had a contest to see who could predict the outcome of the football games that week.  Al loved it (he even won once).  We had to turn the papers in on a certain day each week.  If we were not going that day, we had to make a special trip just for that purpose.  Last year the contest started again and I asked about it.  He said to forget it.  I said I would be sure to get it there on time.  No.  I think he knew he was going to die within the next month.  Was there today and saw the sheets.  Another trigger.

 

[KATPILOT]

Thank you all for the thoughts. It's all done now and cute as hell. I did discover something in Kathy's stash of things. I found a quilt piece she had started and knowing her she quit because she wasn't happy with it. I found it lovely. I am framing it for the art auction but I guess I will have to outbid anyone that dares try to buying it.   I think it appropriate to have something of hers in the show. It makes this whole thing just that much more meaningful.

[Gin]

No one would dare to outbid you!

[Gwenivere]

I admire you were able to face this change, Steve, get it done and find something you weren't expecting with the quilt.  Change gets forced upon us and some we can't avoid.  It seems like each new time we are faced with something alone now it is going to trigger those memories.  It's a whole new world now we live in and everything has to be faced like the first time ever.  Some repeatedly.  I don't foresee any big changes in our house as there is no need without kids or grandkids.  Sometimes I wonder if that is good or bad.  Mostly I like Steves things where they are so I don't get too wrapped up in that.  I did a lot of thinning and sorting the first year.  Just the most important things have remained so I can see them.  His hat, his note on the dryer not to dry his favorite T shirt, his bathroom remains the same.  I miss his messes tho!  Now you can have life again in Kathys room.  I'm sure she would approved especially since the life comes from you two being together to create another generation.

[Gin]

Eleven months ago, the light left my life!.   And it was a Sunday.  I know that Terri and Marg are approaching this, also.  Peace to you.  Worst 11 months of my life.

[Polly]

20 minutes ago, Gin said:

Eleven months ago, the light left my life!.   And it was a Sunday.  I know that Terri and Marg are approaching this, also.  Peace to you.  Worst 11 months of my life.

Sending you a hug! Tomorrow is 10 months for me.

[mittam99]

Gin, Polly, Terri, Marg, Steve, Gwen and honestly everyone that posts here... my heart goes out to you all. Hugs.

Eighteen months ago today, my Tammy came home after another long hospital/rehab stay and I thought our future was bright. Two days later, I was left alone and devastated as my beautiful bride was off to heaven. How have I survived these past 18 months?

[kayc]

Stephen,

Any change we make is hard because it feels like we're leaving a part of them behind or nullifying them.  It's not.  The truth is, Kathy might have made the same decision faced with growing grandchildren that she wanted to spend time with.  She probably would have had special storage walls installed (they often do that for craft rooms) so that the yarns, etc. would be hidden and the room would be more like a guest room for the coveted guests!  It will take some time to adjust to but I'm sure you made the right decision for you and Kathy, one she would agree with.  I hope hearing the giggling and chatter of your grandchildren using this room will negate some of the bad feelings you're trying to waft your way through right now.

It can be very exhausting, as George expressed, to tackle something this major...it's not unlike Mitch's trying to replace bedding, etc. from the room where Tammy spent so much time.  It's painstakingly excruciating!  You are making your way through this...

[scba]

Hugs to everybody. Tomorrow is two years from my bf's hospitalization, a week later he was gone. 

[MartyT]

[MartyT]

On 9/3/2016 at 11:14 AM, Marg M said:

 I have shown fear often, but now I seem frozen in some kind of fear.  I am looking out the window at life and I don't want to live it, anywhere.  I cannot decide on a counselor.  I need to.  I don't think I am asking for help, that might mean I am open to suggestions and I seem steadfast in my stubbornness.  I have to break this mood. It does not seem like my depression which I have fought forever, this is different, it is sort of a mindless fear.  

Marg, my dear, I hope you will step up your efforts to find a counselor or therapist. It sounds as if you're experiencing anxiety as well as depression, and while you're aware of your need for outside support, you're awfully good at talking yourself out of getting it. Please don't delay any longer. I don't think this is going to get any better all by itself, so why wait until you feel worse than you do now?  ♥

[brat#2]

4 hours ago, Gin said:

Eleven months ago, the light left my life!.   And it was a Sunday.  I know that Terri and Marg are approaching this, also.  Peace to you.  Worst 11 months of my life.

Gin - you are in my thoughts and my heart is with you.  Sending you hugs

Joyce

 

[Margm]

I will find a counselor,, I have to.  I don't know what it is.  I cannot describe it, I just know I don't want to hurt anyone else with my lifelessness.  I have things I have to do.  My mom has passed and maybe somewhere the conflict between losing Billy and then my mom has collided in my brain.  I remember my first mama, (same body for 95 years), my second mama which appeared after my sister came and she suffered some lifetime postpartum illness, then the mean person after my dad passed.  I cannot help but admire her courage, even her anger at his passing and making her miss a job promotion.  Some of this was senseless and turned into the mom from hell that her little mind just dissolved into.  Strange, I am not afraid my mind is turning into that, but these past 10 months have been spent worrying about other people and have turned me into a hermit.  I speak to people, but I don't want to.  I want to answer people on here but I delete it.  Somewhere along the line my family drama mixed with death have made a strange person that wants to hide.

I feel like I am failing people, I just hope I can find a counselor I can trust.  I will search long and hard and soon.  I am sorry everyone.  I hate to desert anyone.

[brat#2]

Marg, you are not deserting anyone, just finally having time to yourself for your grief.  With everything that you have been through this past 10 months, Billy, moving and your mom, it would drive anyone into a hermit.  But don't think you are alone in this, I have some of the same feelings that I just want to be a hermit, I don't want to talk to people in general either.  I think grief does that to you, when people can't and don't understand how you are feeling, it is just easier not to talk to anyone.  Hope you can find a counselor that you can trust and that can help with your feelings.  Take care

Joyce

 

[enna]

“I feel like I am failing people, I just hope I can find a counselor I can trust.  I will search long and hard and soon.  I am sorry everyone.  I hate to desert anyone.”

I hope you do not feel like you have to do anything besides be who you are dear Marg. So many of us feel like we need to respond to others who come here but we do not. It is not unusual that in grief we mix family situations with our losses. When my Jim died after a five-year bout with Alzheimer’s disease all I was able to do is walk around in a fog. The best thing I did was to call my Hospice of the Valley people and let them know that I think talking with a grief counselor might help me. It was a good decision for me.

You have had many losses in a short period of time. A good grief counselor can help in sorting things out with you and if it is something he/she cannot help with then he/she is in a position to direct you to someone who has the expertise.

When we come here there will be times that we need to be carried along and are not strong enough to carry anyone else. That is what we do here. There is no judgment and no need to feel like we are deserting anyone. I wish you peace.

Anne

[Margm]

Joyce, you and Marty are both right. 

I found one.  He was at my hospital when I worked there so will try it out.  Not quite sure it is a psychiatrist I need (and yes, sometimes I think I know more than the doctors).

Anne, I wrote all that and maybe I need to find a grief counselor like you said.  I can use my run-on fingers, but sometimes it is as simple as two words. But I have so many books by them and I am being stubborn again.

I put two more books on my Kindle last night and they did not help, one was by my Grief one day at a Time fellow Alan D Wolfelt, PhD., and as usual I could read a few lines and then my mind would stray.  Concentration is not my strongest thing at this time.  Neither is putting one foot in front of the other.

[Gwenivere]

7 hours ago, mittam99 said:

How have I survived these past 18 months?

If you find an answer to that question, please post it.  At 20 months it's been survival, but also a kind of insanity I could never describe.  Maybe another question is how did we get this far not really living anymore?

[mittam99]

24 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

Maybe another question is how did we get this far not really living anymore?

Gwen are you saying the past 20 months or so have made you feel kind of like this?? ...

Zombie-ish...

 

[Gwenivere]

Kinda.....but that looks like it takes energy.  Maybe more like the walking dead.  Lumbering along staring at the ground.  Wandering around without any destination.  I don't know if it can be depicted!

[enna]

Gwen, you nailed it. I wouldn't be able to name all the 'walking dead' I know. Many of us here could be in our own movie.  

[Clematis]

On September 3, 2016 at 2:50 PM, KATPILOT said:

 I've made a lot of small changes over the years and triggers ceased to bother me but this is different. This is major. That room which always looked as if she was still around working in it is leaving. It's like triggers in reverse. Could I have grown so accustomed to that room as a trigger that I began to cherish it? Years ago I stopped seeing it as a trigger for sorrow. 

This makes total sense to me...It's hard to dismantle those spaces that seem like they could just walk back into them. 

I was living in my dad's house by the time he died, and stayed there with minor changes for six and a half months while I cleared out my own condo, painted it, had new carpet laid and all that. I moved all of his furniture, lamps, artwork, etc. from his condo to mine - all the stuff that made it look like his place. Our condos are the same, but one is a mirror image of the other. It was sad but somehow reassuring to be at his place with his stuff. Now I am at mine and it looks more like his but it's clearly mine. So it's disorienting to be here at my place, but it's terrible to be at his and it was really heart-wrenching to dismantle his place, even though it was all going to my place.

I still find both condos to be disorienting and hard to deal with. His is just a mess, with left over junk from both of us, Mine looks good other than the usual post-moving mess. But nothing is the same, except the kitchen. When I am looking for something in either house, I will walk into another room expecting to find it on some piece of furniture that is not there. It's like the room is not there. Some other room is there instead.

I think it's a huge trigger, and by saving the room as it was it is like saving a piece of them and having that to hold onto. So when you dismantle the room (or the whole condo in my case) it seems like losing them all over again. I sure was not ready to dismantle his house six months after losing my dad. But I had to...

 

[kayc]

22 hours ago, Marg M said:

I am sorry everyone.  I hate to desert anyone.

Marg, You have no need to apologize and you aren't "deserting" anyone.  You need to tend to YOU first and foremost!  

I'm glad to read that you found a counselor!!

[TerriL]

Marg, SW, you aren't deserting anyone. There are times I get "quiet" on here, because I feel that strange, inexplicable vibe coming over me, too, and the only way I know how to handle it is to withdraw for a while and THINK. It feels like I'm wearing a shroud made of a mixture of fear and anxiety, with depression trim. I go inside myself, to sort all the stuff out. I've thought about finding a counselor---I actually have picked one out---but then I begin to think about my finances and the weekly co-payment, which adds up monthly and so forth, and I don't want to get started with something I'm not sure I'll be able to continue. I think how I can use that money for the property taxes that will be coming due again in several months. There's a possibility that my realization that in a little over one month from now, Paul will have been gone an entire year, is playing a huge part in these strange, depressed feelings. I'm trying to come to grips with that bec cause there are still moments where it seems like it happened only a month ago. Everything is still so vivid in my mind I don't understand how I've been able to exist this long without him. We were never apart for this length of time in 34 years and now, I really have no choice but to accept that it's true. He isn't coming back from a long trip. He's gone and every year of my life from here on out will have to continue without him by my side. Yet, I still feel the need to have a life. I don't mean romance, but a life where I feel useful and have a sense of purpose. I often think about how things might be if the situation had been reversed. Would I want Paul to be lonely and alone the rest of his life? Of course, the answer is that I'd hope he'd realize I was irreplaceable---lol---but I would want him to find someone, at least good friends, with whom he could enjoy the remainder of his life. Who knows? Maybe he would have gotten along a lot better than I'm doing. I know he'd still have the full amount of finances coming in; they only cut everything in half and take away the social security for his surviving spouse. He probably would have gotten rid of the cats, or at least a few of them. There is no way Paul would ever do litter boxes, so I can't see how he would have been able to handle that without me around. And he certainly would not have been able to tolerate Lorelai and her inability (or unwillingness) to go poo in a litter box. Always on the floor NEAR the box. never IN. That's always been my job, as well. I suppose speculation is useless, since things are the way they are. 

 

I'm praying for all of us on here, but especially you, SW. You've been dealt repeated blows and changes up the wazoo and if you are having difficulty navigating the waters right now, it's only because you're in a brand new boat you haven't gotten used to operating yet. WW has your back. XO

[Margm]

1 hour ago, TerriL said:

There's a possibility that my realization that in a little over one month from now, Paul will have been gone an entire year,

I think this plays into my feelings too WW.  I know this sounds stupid and pretentious, but having had 15 years of psychotherapy, having worked with doctors for 43 years, sometimes I think I know about as much as they do.  The things Marty has replied with have helped me, but I think time is going to be the best practitioner.  Still, I am going to find a counselor.  I found one, researched, and talked myself out of this one.  Will look some more.  I know what they will tell me when I go in,, it is normal grief.  And, I cannot take antidepressants because of my compromised colon.  Also, doctors tend to not be as invested in the older patient.  I know some will not agree with that, but it is my feeling.  I think my mom's passing made Billy's death even more real, if that is possible.  I don't know what Billy would have done if I had gone first.  I think he had time to confront those feelings when I was near death with sepsis after the colon  rupture.  I went through some tough months of pain and then we bought the RV a year later.  I think he would have lived in the RV and stayed away from people, just the opposite of what I did.  I feel he faced up to the possibility that I would go first.  I always felt I would also.  That is why he told me the one left must stay/live.  I cannot even remember his words exactly, but the day he told me that I can see him sitting on the sofa.  I was on the computer, as usual, and someone had passed away within minutes of their spouse.  I read that off to him and he told me his feelings.  When we bought the RV we did not know he was ill.  Even then it would have been too late to do anything.  You just never know what life is going to  throw at you. You either catch the ball and live or you are destroyed.  I just have not decided if I want to catch the ball yet.  

We have had a new member that I have not answered yet.  I tried to but everything I wrote sounded so trite.  I have to get outside myself and I think writing twice today may have helped.  

WW, sometimes when our mate passes, the one left gets less money..  Billy would have got less if I had gone first.  That is why I worked about 14 more years to get the SS that would have brought our state retirements up to what either of us would have received.  It seems sometimes the woman is the one not taken care of as well, and there are so many things wrong with that.  Maybe the world sees us as stronger than we think we are.  I wonder, does the "world" know something we don't?  I know how strong you seem to be, and being much younger than I am, I know you also have longer to grieve.  But, trying to put in perspective what our spouse would have done if we had gone first is a good step to take in assessing our losses.  I remember one member saying her husband could not have made it, but I think Billy could have made it, just not as long as expected.  Sometimes being older is not a bad thing.  

[MartyT]

1 hour ago, Marg M said:

I think time is going to be the best practitioner.  Still, I am going to find a counselor.  I found one, researched, and talked myself out of this one.  Will look some more.   I know what they will tell me when I go in,, it is normal grief.  

Marg, my dear, because you are a veteran of psychotherapy, it's not surprising to me that you're reluctant to find a grief counselor. After all, they cannot fix you, and they cannot take away your grief. Still, there is something quite wonderful about sharing your story with someone who knows how to listen and whose focus is entirely on YOU. Grief counseling is a lot more than simply saying "it is normal grief" As I wrote in Finding Grief Support That Is Right For You,

If you’re more comfortable in the care-giving role or feel uneasy with sympathy—or if you see the need for counseling as a sign of weakness or of mental illness— you may be reluctant to seek the help of a professional counselor. Yet it takes strength and courage to let yourself be cared for, and you need not bear your sorrow all alone.

Even if you’re mourning in a normal, healthy way, it is wise to use all the resources available to help you recover your balance and put your life back together again. Sometimes friends and family may worry too much about you, get too involved in your personal affairs, or not be available to you at all. When it seems that support from family and friends is either too much or not enough, a few sessions with a bereavement counselor may give you the understanding and comfort you need. 

Unlike friendship, a professional counseling relationship offers you the opportunity to relate to a caring, supportive individual who understands the grief process, doesn’t need you to depend upon, and will allow you to grieve without interference. Within the safety and confidentiality of a therapeutic relationship, you can share your intimate thoughts, make sense of what you’re feeling and clarify your reactions. An effective bereavement counselor is knowledgeable about the mourning process, helps you feel understood, offers a witness to your experience, encourages you to move forward, fosters faith that you will survive, and offers hope that you will get through your grief successfully.