Struggling

Hi Sue 

Thanks for that. It will give me something to think about. Off to work for 2pm and thinking to myself, what's the point other than I've got to. Come home at 10pm to the empty house, thinking is this my life now. Just existing is how it feels without any purpose. Seeing any future without my other half is impossible right now. I try to be positive but it's difficult.

Take care 

I know exactly what you mean.  Our futures,plans,dreams have been stolen from us by cancer, just as they have from our partners.  We have lost so much and you're spot on - we just exist.  We have been cheated of our future with that one special person.  Trying  to be positive is really good but maybe positivity has to wait a while longer whilst you come to terms with everything.  At the moment, just getting through each day is a positive.  

Thinking of you. 

Hi Sue 

I've had bad day today. Bad shift at work, unable to keep the painful thoughts off my mind all shift. The feeling of being utterly lost grips you so tightly and there is nothing you can do about it. The mental torment 6 months in is getting worse.

Just needed to post, to try and snap out of it and vainly try and sleep tonight. 

Hi Mark sorry to hear you had a bad day yesterday. You weren’t alone mine was crap as well. Collected my car from garage and made myself go for a drive ,looking at the empty seat beside me was unbelievable hard . I stopped 3 times to have a good cry . Arrived back home to an empty house , like you said the mental torture and loneliness seems to drive you slowly mad. 

Hope you managed to sleep last night. 

Mike 

Hi Mike 

I feel for you, I haven't slept. Lay awake all night. 32 years of shift work ruined my sleep. Before I lost my wife I'd go day's without sleep. But it didn't matter because she was there. Now it's virtually impossible to get any sleep. I get to the end of the week and I'm exhausted and all I'm thinking is am going to sleep at the weekend. My doctor has given me handful of sleeping pills, but I've got to spread them out. I'd like to take one every day but can't.

I'm tired of my well intentioned work friends telling me to go on holiday or do this or that. They have absolutely no idea what we're going through. It takes all the limited mental strength we have just to get through today. I've no mental capacity to think about the future being alone without my wife. I don't feel like eating, but I've just forced myself to eat a ready meal. Us men are so used to being looked after in that respect. Eating anything alone is horrible. I ache for the time this mental torture eases just for a tiny little bit.

We all say take care, don't we. But we all know that just doesn't cut it, don't we. 

Hi Mike and Mark

Just read your last posts - totally heartbreaking.   I may be much further on than you but I do remember the total anguish you are going through right now.   Days and nights seem endless.  Sleep, which would at least block the pain for a while, is non existent and food, if you can be bothered, tastes like cardboard.

Nothing I can say will make any difference to you - wish it could.  No magic pills or potions.  Just try to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Just getting up each day is an achievement.  Although nobody that has not been in our situation would ever believe that, I know.   Each day you get through is one day nearer that little glimmer of blue sky.  It's a long way off for you both, I know but it is there.  

Keep posting on here, and maybe consider joining Way or Way Up.  If nothing else, it is good to know others understand.  IReaching for my I-pad was the first thing I did in the morning, and the last thing I did at night and even in the night.  Still do, most days.  It passed many a lonely hour.  Just knowing someone else was awake and I was not alone helped.   There are many widowers on the Way Up forum and they do post regularly - hints and tips on coping mechanisms.  

Hi Mark . You are right we all say take care and no it doesn’t cut it . Like you I can’t eat, i just manage a toasted cheese sandwich and that was hard work. I went to sort out the freezer and found all the stuff my wife had prepared and bought, I just looked at it and cried and wondering will it ever get used. I just can’t see myself cooking it and sitting down alone and eating it. The future just doesn’t exist anymore. 

Mike 

Hi Susie46 Thank you for the kind words. Yes the days and nights do seem endless and they all just roll in to one big jumble . Like you first and last thing I do is reach for the I pad it does pass away the lonely hours. I have only been retired a year and like everyone else here our plans and future has been taken away from us. 

I will have a look at way or way up .

Thank you Susie. Mike 

Hi Mike 

I'm exactly the same. I'm sat in the work Canteen writing this post, dreading going home at 10pm knowing I won't sleep again tonight. I'd gotten used to a lack of sleep through years of shift work, but it didn't matter because I'd got my wife. Now it's impossible to sleep. I can't cook apart from shoving some oven chips in and I've got no heart. I've turned the oven on twice in 6 months. I stick a ready meal in the microwave or have toast same as you. There is no enjoyment in eating anything even when you feel like eating. Never dreamt eating alone could be mental torture. I hope this torment and despair doesn't last another 6 months. But the scary thought is we just don't know and that kills us.

One day at a time and clinging to hope, sums me up. 

Hi Anne 

Your words 

Just someone to talk to or just sit in silence with.

Before our bereavements, these words were just a normal statement in an normal conversation anytime. Now these same words carry massive meaning and they are one of the statements that I /we struggle with. I know I will eventually have to get used to being alone, but now 6 months in it hurts so bad, I can't begin to contemplate it yet. I feel my grief has to wane before this can happen. Does anyone in the group feel the same.

I'm just stumbling in the dark, like many of us I presume.