Oh My, I Feel I'm Becoming...

Hello there 

Was just thinking of putting on a posting when I saw yours. We seem to be the same. I know exactly what you are talking about.

It is both frustrating and tiring having to repeat why you are feeling the way you are ? I don't want to feel bitter with these people either.

I now avoid certain people as it causes me to get upset when I see them. It is such a lonely existence isn't it ? 

I have had a rash on my face for weeks now due to stress. I am even explaining to the doctor and the nurse the other day, who recoiled from me rapidly. Saying what's happened to you ? And not in a sympathetic way either. God help us. I have to explain why. After all the worries and strain over the last few years.Hardly surprising it is coming out this way.

What can I say ? We just get up and carry on I suppose. Not much choice.

Another day. Might be better !

Take care 

Hi There1

I can resonate well with you are both saying. I'm just about 7 months in from losing my husband to bowel cancer and as you say Fifi, at times it can be a lonely existence. I try to be as active and busy as possible  as always advised but there is still that lonely existence that empty feeling.  It really is a shock to the system when someone you were with for 40 years is no longer there. You want to tell them what's going on around you now but can't. All I see is the year- or years! stretching out in front of me and so uncertain of what the future will bring. I just dread having to make changes to things and decide what to do for certain things without him we always planned for things together. I have been ok up until now in managing day to day things and certain things he used to take charge of and I have amazed myself at just how well I have managed but still he's not here. I have began bereavement support so hopefully I will get something positive out of it. Everyday is still a struggle and everything is still fairly raw for me given that you both are a few years in now. With the dark winter mornings it makes it just that bit more harder to get out of bed but again FIfi as you say `we get up and carry on`. My best wishes to you WDJ and Fifi and hope we can all move forward. It says there is no timescale for this and I have been told by two specialists it will never leave you, but you learn to build a life around it and I just hope for all our sakes that that's true. Take Care.

Vicky x

Hi,

I'm 4 months in to this dark place and already feeling that people are less supportive and understanding which makes a lonely place even lonelier.

After being together for 37 years how do people think your over it in a few months and I was told by a friend this week well at some point you have to get on with it! I thought I had been trying to do that going back to work, trying to socialise when I felt able but then I started to question myself. 

It's another Friday night with all my married friends out or chilling together and the loneliness feels overwhelming .

Your posts made me feel I'm right to feel how I do and if your in this place it's dam hard. 

Hi Sally!

Yes it's hard. I find the weekends harder more so. I'm retired so it's trying to find things to do during the week to keep me going but just some days I feel I need to push myself to do things just for the sake of being active and sometimes I just sit on my backside somedays just not finding the energy to move at all and then I get angry with myself that there are things I could have been doing but just didn't have the incentive to do them. Yes as I said it can be a lonely existence. It's good though that I have the car and have started driving again at least if I want I can go out somewhere for a while. I look after my older sister too who has mild learning and mental health issues. She lives on her own in sheltered accomodation just within walking distance from me. She has just got over bowel cancer surgery. She got her diagnosis within two months of my hubby passing. She has been in and got her tumour cut out though at the end of last year and she's been told she is more or less going to make a full recovery. Just been for one of her post op appointments and they are happy with her progress so it's been quite something for me over the last 7 months. As I said I have began bereavement support and hope I get something positive out of it. I just feel so invisible as you say Sally people can't do enough for you at the beginning with the `if you need anything` but that soon phases out then they go back to their own lives. I'm sure we'll all get through this one way or another. Yes keep coming on here it's a good place just to let go on how you are feeling going through this as everyone gets it. Take Care. 

Vicky x

I had 35 years with my husband - all my adult life. Now, 3 months since he died, I've just about caught up on sleep from caring for him through the last 9 months, and I'm still keeping essential house and family things going.

Getting out of bed on these dark mornings is a struggle, but I'm still getting to work on time. On the weekends I make a big effort to spend time on my hobbies or meeting friends. I am hugely aware now of how lucky I am to have another day - I no longer take them for granted.

But I find Friday nights the worst - no one to welcome me home, give me a hug or ask how the week went. And then it's hard to switch the TV off and accept the silence in the house going to bed. I can't see that ever changing. 

I still feel, after all these months, that this forum is where I gain most of my strength. It is incredible how, as we are, complete strangers brought together by our shared, awful, experience.

It has, however, given me more reflection and optimism than anywhere, and from anyone, I know. 

Not much else I can say really. 

Take care,

WDJ 

Hi WDJ

I totally understand your feelings that you struggle more now than you did initially 20 months ago...

I am 3 years in.  I reckon from around 3 months following my husband's passing that some of my so-called friends and relatives started to detach from the loss. More upsetting was the fact that they seemed to expect me to do the same, as if I should be 'over it' .  I will never be 'over it' life without him just isn't the same, it doesn't matter if it is 1 week, 1 month, 1 year or a decade. 

I too feel bitter that other people get to live to an age so much older than my husband did. His 54 years of life spent on earth, helping others, saving lives and doing his duty. When I see certain people wasting their lives, consumed with drinking, drugs and criminal behaviour I get so angry that they live yet my hard working, clean living husband was taken. 

Oh how I miss having him by my side, the comfortable silences or intimate laughter... the void is still there and the more time that passes, the bigger and emptier the void feels. The aching pain of needing to be enveloped in his hug remains as strong and painful as it did 40 months ago.

I feel your pain...

Mym x

Hi motherofboys!

I am  so with you on all you have just posted. going to bed at night on your own is the worst and yes the silence can be deafening sometimes. I have a little dog though for company don't know what I would do without him. He's my `shadow` now where I go he's there. He was my husband's dog my son and I got him for him 10 years ago at Christmas they allowed us to bring him to the hospital when my husband was in his final days but he passed before we got the chance to do it. My husband fought for 2 years with his cancer battle at one point being in remission but the cancer decided after 5 months it was coming back for him. I just feel so empty although I try my hardest to find things to fill my day we more or less did everything together and worked out what days we did what. All that's gone now though. He retired 5 years ago and since then it had been a daily occurence of hospitals, clinics, specialists GPs he never seemed to get a break. He worked 50 odd years and very very seldom seen a doctor or was in a hospital for anything if he was, it would probably just been A & E for a work related injury or something. Life can be so cruel. Take Care.

x

Hi WDJ,

I've not been on here for a few weeks and have just read your post. Unfortunately, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, unless you have lost your spouse/partner it is impossible to comprehend the sense of loss and the overwhelming emotions that we experience.

I have joined a few groups - WayUp, bereavement café, walking group, U3A - which is helping me from a social aspect. However, a woman on the walking group equated her husband leaving her to move back to Chile to being like a bereavement. I took the diplomatic route and kept my counsel, but thought there is no way the two equate in my mind, even though I know her experience has been upsetting and I get that.

I am 2¼ years into this journey and I still struggle emotionally at times and feel really low and tearful, but I think it is slowly getting easier to cope with these down days.

Wishing you all the best,

Derek