I Don't Know What to Do
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I Don't Know What to Do
| Tue, 02-13-2007 - 11:19pm |
I just found this board today, I guess because I feel so alone and I don't want to be alone. My husband of ten years died 6 months ago after a sudden and very brief struggle with cancer. We have a son who just turned four. I feel as though I have been coping very well because I had to for Noah, and no one seems to question whether I am doing ok...nobody even talks about my husband any more, except for Noah and me...suddenly for the last few days I can't stop crying, I miss him so much. I look at pictures of him and I can almost feel what it would be like to see him again. I feel so alone. I don't think anyone wants to know how much I hurt. If he was still here, he would care and understand how I feel and he would comfort me. I don't know how to reach out to anyone even if I knew who to reach out to...my family wants me to move from my home in Tennessee to Indiana, and I feel as though short of that they don't want to know how bad it is because they are too far away to help. I don't want people to think I just want to be depressing and sit around talking about Bryan all the time, because nobody wants to be around that--they don't know what to say or how to deal with that, but I want to talk about him. Sometimes I say his name five or ten times a day just to hear his name, because no one talks about him. I'm just so sad. I want to know what I should do.

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Karen,
What an extraordinarily beautiful and sad story...to have reclaimed your love only to lose him so soon, and not even from cancer...my heart goes out to you...I read a post of yours in another thread about shopping and I wondered what had happened to you...I am so sorry...
You are so like me, I think, in the situation re: family and moving...I am committed to staying here...this was our first home and everything about it belongs to Bryan and me...I don't want to be anywhere else, at least not right now...and Noah is close to Bryan's parents...I know moving would be another significant struggle for him...
I get so lonely, as I'm sure you know...the worst thing is feeling as though no one cares anymore, or there is no place for me in their lives now that the dynamic is gone...what I mean is, people have their own lives, their own families...I feel sort of like I belong to a new club (being a single mother and a widow) but there is no one around to be in the club with me...
I am thankful to all of you for your answers and support...this has been a week I didn't expect, full of newer, unusual grief...and I needed you all..
Amy
What a great response, Karen.
Thanks
Beth
Proud to be co-cl for
Significant losses, especially of the most important person in your life, do create the sense of painful isolation and, yes, abandonment.
My husband died suddenly of an accident last March 8. For the first 6 to 8 months I thought I was losing my mind. I didn't feel ready for a support group, not wanting to share him with strangers. I read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to bereavement and came across the most useful book of all. It is Surviving Grief and Learning to Live Again by Catherine M. Sanders. It was reassuring to know that some of the things I felt, like sudden crying jags, absent mindedness, mood swings, physical pain,(I felt like someone had scooped out my insides and replaced them with a block of ice) etc. were to be expected. She doesn't give a timetable of when you feel certain ways, but talks about periods of feelings that might occur a month after a loss or a year after a loss.
She also emphasizes that each loss is different. The loss of a spouse is not the same as a loss of a sibling or parent. Life relationships are different.
After 8 months, I did join a grief support group. It is facilitated by an experienced grief counselor from a hospice unit in a hospital, so she is very used to dealing with bereavement. It has been helpful, but the book, a private therapist, and time have helped me to face life without my soulmate. We were together almost 24/7 for 28 years as we had a business and worked together as well as doing everything else as a unit.
This year has been harder than I could have imagined. Tomorrow is our anniversary and I feel a meltdown coming. What I've learned is to let it happen, then pick yourself up and go on. The chemical composition of tears of grief are different than others. That's why you feel better after a "good cry." The book even suggests scheduling a good cry periodically to release suppressed grief.
Rose, I want to extend my sympathies on the passing of your dad.
Quintal...welcome.
I am so sorry about the loss of your husband. I know that today will be difficult, and I want you to know you are in my thoughts.
Amy, I know what you mean about feeling so alone, in a club by yourself ... that you have no place in the lives of others anymore. I see our friends, couples, going on being couples, continuing as they were -- here I am a widow with my whole life upside down. It is very lonely. I feel lost quite often.
I know we'll get through this, but it's just so difficult. I'll feel a little better for a short time then it comes back & hits me. It comes in waves. And sometimes I would like to have one of my sisters or my brother around when I'm so down but I, like you, am staying where I am for now. I can't imagine leaving our home.
But this board is the place where the others truly understand. And that's what we need so we don't feel so alone.
How are you feeling here lately?
Karen
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