Jo Jo, I am so sorry. Yours is certainly a very heavy load to bear. Do whatever helps for now. Just make sure you eat and drink enough and perhaps seek counselling. That does help some people.
I think something similar happened to me about six months after I lost my mum. I struggled through the first six months trying to stop crying long enough to get round the banks sorting out her financial affairs and all the official things you have to do, as well as getting back to work and trying to sort out how I was going to move forward without her and then took a week off six months later and just had a week of complete panic, tears, fears and upset, feeling completely lost and alone and not knowing what to do, so you are not alone in feeling so bad either. I am sure it happens to a lot of us. It did help me once I found this website a few months later. It is a comfort to know that others do at least understand how you feel. That brought me to tears too, but I think those were tears of relief that I had at last found some people who understood! I hope that helps you too, Diane.
I know exactly what you mean when you describe how you feel. I think we all go though this, but it will slowly get better. I felt like I was slipping into a pit of despair too and often, in those early months found myself getting up and going and sitting down only to lose myself in thought and then suddenly realise it was getting dark and i had not even got dressed or eaten or drunk anything and it was time to go back to bed, where I would lay awake crying some more all night, so I do understand.
I found it helped me to develop a few strategies to try to stay positive or at least to get me through the days. It helped me to have flowers around. It cheered me up and comforted me a little to see their beauty and smell their scent and know there were still beautiful things in the world. Also it helped to walk in the park. It is a lovely and calm place to sit and think and examine your feelings in. Also, I like reading the inscriptions on the benches from others in memory to the people they have loved and lost and to know that love goes on, just as mine does, for those I have loved and lost. I think what helped the most was that, fearful of losing my sanity in this terrible state of grief, I decided I needed to find something to do to help myself. I took up an interest that my mum had also enjoyed and joined a local class. That was what saved me and eighteen months on from losing her, it still is. It took me out of myself and gave me a reason to get dressed and get out of the house and made me think about something else for a while. It also got me amongst other people and made me take a step back into life around me again. I made some wonderful new friends there and have honestly received more support from them than from existing friends and family! I would thoroughly recommend it. I am sure others will tell you what has helped them best too. You just have to find what is right for you and what helps you the most, but I think staying in on your own is the worst thing you can do. You need the contact and support of others, if only for a couple of hours a week. You have us here too, of course and that I hope will help.
You will find a way forward, Diane, but, as I am sure you know, after going through so much already over the years, it is a matter of taking little steps as often as you can and being kind to yourself in the meantime and just doing whatever you can to help yourself, one day or one hour or even one minute at a time. You are not alone. Sending you strength and a huge hug..xx