BEREAVEMENTUK SUPPORT FORUM
Bereavement Support Posts => Introduce Yourself To Us All => Topic started by: Rumar on September 28, 2019, 12:46:19 PM
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Hi, not sure I can do this, really struggling but find it so difficult to open up.
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Hello Rumar, welcome to this site. So sorry you have reason to come and find us. Sending you a welcome hug. :hug: Painful as it is, I found it made me feel better to tell my story when I joined this site. It helps just to write it down and somehow gets the pent up feelings some release. Everyone here has suffered some kind of loss, so it is unlikely anyone will be shocked by anything you could say. People here have lost loved ones in all kinds of different circumstances but we all go through similar emotions and have similar responses, so will understand how you will be feeling before you have even said anything! If it helps, it felt like some of the weight fell from my shoulders once I joined this site. I got so many kind responses from welcome wishes to sound advice and much sympathy and it made me feel less isolated and alone. Feel free to say whatever you need to say. No one here will judge. Thinking of you. :hearts:
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Hi Sandra 61,
I am hurting so much, lost my partner 6 weeks ago, diagnosed 9th August with small cell cancer with liver mets, died one week later. He died in the early hours of the morning, I was with him talking to him holding his hand for 9hrs, no support, nobody with me, he look so scared and those images will haunt me for as long as I live. Saw doctor at 4.00pm the day before he died, because he said he did not expect him to pass so quickly refused to sign death certificate and was querying palliative care team putting him on Morphine, this is despite me telling him the medication my man was on when he visited. So it was referred to the Coroner, it took ten days for them to decide there had to be a post-mortem, which absolutely broke me.
I have been so traumatised by all this, my lovely man made me promise he would never go back to
hospital and that’s where they took him and kept him there for 5 days, it shattered my heart.
Still they have not ascertained cause of death, it will take up to another 2 months. They did allow us to go ahead with the funeral which was last Tuesday, and I brought his ashes home yesterday.
I know he has gone but I just can’t accept it. I have only been out to the doctors and the funeral directors in the last 6 weeks, did try going to supermarket last week but broke down and cried hysterically.
I spend all my time either in bed or in the spare bedroom staring blankly at the TV. That way there are less reminders for me to confront.
Everyday I cry until my head hurts, can hardly sleep and the last hours of my partners life keep going round and round in my head.
I keep calling for him, just silence, everyday just seems to be getting worse, I want him back.
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I'm so sorry, Rumar. I suspect you are probably still in shock. A lot has happened in a short space of time and you didn't have time to prepare for it at all. It is still very early days for you and I did much the same after my mother died. There were days when I got up and just sat and cried and thought until I noticed it was getting dark and I hadn't washed or dressed or eaten or drunk anything all day and hadn't even noticed the time passing and so just went back to bed, where I lay awake and cried some more. I suspect we all do that for a while after a loss. The pain and shock and emptiness are so overwhelming we just can't deal with it and we expect the world to stop because the ground has fallen from beneath our own feet and we can't understand how the world around us can just go on as normal.
Unfortunately the processes that the law states must be gone through are beyond our control, but in the end, they really make no difference. The person we loved is still gone and even if they took his body back to the hospital, by then he was no longer present in it. You did not let him down. You have done well to get the funeral organised and done. Responding to the changes that losing him has wrought in your world will take longer.
Loss breaks your heart, changes your life and the way your home feels to you and seems impossible to cope with, but you will cope. It may not feel like it now, but things do get better slowly. It is a long hard journey, but for now, if you can remember to drink and eat something, that will be enough. It is still very early days for you, so I am not surprised to hear that you are not sleeping or going out or that you spend all your time crying. I did too. I think we all do.
If it helps, I did find it helped me to do little things to support myself. I found having flowers around lifted my spirits a little and it helped to get out of the house, if only for a walk in the park. I still find it helps to just sit there and think and try to come to terms with all that has happened. But I found myself sometimes feeling a little better for a while only to slip back into misery again and have to try to find a way to climb back out of the hole grief leaves you in.
Almost two years on, I would not say I am 'over it' - I don't think you ever get over it - but I have learned to accept it and no longer live with those awful memories of my mother's last weeks of illness in the forefront of my mind. You have to remember that those last weeks were only a short time compared to the entire lifetime of the person you have lost, which, from the way you talk about it in your post, sounds as if it comprised a lot of love and happy times for you together. It's that that matters. You did your very best for him at the end and stayed with him and held his hand and when the worst happens, that is all you can do. You did your best for him and he is no longer suffering and is at peace. Now it is for you to try to find peace.
I know that is hard when you have a hole in your heart and your life that he used to fill, but you have to remember that he would still want the best for you and even if you only do it in tiny steps, falling back now and then, slowly you have to find ways to help yourself move forward. For me that began with putting together an album of photos of my mum that I can turn to when I am missing her and remember happier times, and keeping a daily journal of what I was thinking about and how I was feeling. Writing it down helped me to process those thoughts and feelings and get them out of my system somehow. Others put together memory boxes and memory books; some create a little shrine to the memory of their lost loved one in the house or garden and others get a bench placed at a favourite spot they used to visit together, so they can go there to feel close to them and remember them.
Whatever works for you is ok. If you can't face doing anything at the moment, that is ok too. We all make this terrible journey in different ways and at varying paces, but we all have to find ways to help ourselves, because this does not just get better on its own. If you have family, it may help to talk to them. If not, talk to us here. We may not be able to give you a real hug, but we will certainly send you a virtual one, full of understanding and sympathy, Rumar, because we have been where you are now and know how hard it is. But it does get better and you will find ways to carry him forward with you into your future. How can you not, when he remains in your heart and your memories?
Thinking of you. :hug: :hearts:
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Hi Sandra61,
Thank you for your lovely reply. Unfortunately, at this moment I can’t see a way forward, I am hoping that as you say things will become easier in time. Yesterday, I spent most of the day feeling completely numb, not feeling anything, not recognising that time was passing, the tv was on but I was not watching it, in fact I don’t remember doing anything, I seemed to be in a trance. That was until late afternoon when it seemed as though I jolted back to reality and the flood gates opened and I have not stopped crying since.
I always thought of myself as a strong person but this has completely knocked me for six! I feel so alone and isolated, my partner and I were everything to each other so I have no friends to turn to, he was my best friend. I have a brother and sister, they do not live locally, they phone but are now beginning to tell me I have to get over it, they don’t understand and now I want to avoid their calls which will isolate me more.
I have so much respect for you, reaching out with kind words, advice and support, even though you are still adjusting to your loss.
I am so scared that I will not be able to get through this pain, this is not living, it is just existing.
My heart goes out to all who have lost a loved one.
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Hello Rumar,
If it's any comfort, I think the feelings you describe are perfectly normal for this stage of adjustment and are normal ways we respond to grief. Your mind does just go round and round thinking about those last days before we lost the person we love and it is as though you are in a trance and don't notice anything going on around you.
If you read any of the other posts on here, you will notice those words, numbness, alone and isolation are often repeated. That is how grief makes you feel. The numbness, I think, stems from the disbelief, the feeling of being alone from the void left behind by the person you have lost the seems to leave such a vast emptiness in yourself and your home and your life and the isolation comes from the recognition that anyone else close to you just so often does not seem to have any inkling of what you are going through. So many of us are told to 'get over it', as if we can somehow just switch off our feelings like switching off a light! It's impossible! Try not to be offended by your siblings. It is likely they have never been through such a close loss and have no idea of how it affects you and you are right when you say it knocks you for six. It will floor the very strongest of people. That is grief.
The upheaval in every aspect of our world and our hearts that results from the passing of someone so close and so dear to us is not something you can recover from in a few weeks, but this is often just not understood by anyone who has not experienced it for themselves yet. Pay no heed to what your brother and sister say. The fact that they call means they care. The fact that they are telling you to 'get over it' just means they don't understand the nature of grief.
I don't think any of us can see a way forward at such an early stage of this journey. I don't think I could for about six months and then, in a panic, I sat down and made a list of short-term things that had to be done and another of things I could take a little more time over and that has stood me in good stead up to now. At this stage though, just cry when you need to, get out of the house when you can, even if it is only to go for a walk. It does help not to stay indoors all the time. Try to eat something and make sure you drink enough. It won't help you feel any better if you get ill from not drinking enough. Try setting an alarm to go off to remind you you to make a drink or something to eat and then make sure you do. That can be one of your first tiny steps towards helping yourself cope with this. Otherwise just do whatever you feel you need to do. These little steps will help in time.
But how you feel now is normal, Rumar. You just have to find little ways to help yourself feel better as time goes on. I realised that early on. If anyone was going to help me, it was only going to be me. Work colleagues don't care. Family often don't understand or are coping with their own grief. Like you, I was my mother's carer, so didn't have any close friends, so I had to help myself and feeling I was sliding slowly into the abyss of grief, I decided I had to make a new life for myself in these new unwanted circumstances and slowly started looking for ways to do that. It can be done, but, only slowly and with difficulty.
Tiny steps, Rumar, but they still add up to achievement. You do have a future. One you would not have chosen, but it will be for you to make it as good as it can be. Tiny steps. sending you a hug. :hug:
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Thank you Sandra61, I will try to remember your inspirational words but I cannot see any hope at the moment. perhaps as you say it is too early. I am so distraught, this time last week I was just leaving home for my darling’s funeral, everything is as raw as it was the moment he died. This is so difficult posting here, I always feel that I don’t want to bring people down, they have enough grief of their own. You seem to be such a strong person, The relationship you had with your mum sounds as though it was extremely close, you must miss her terribly but you are still here to help others and I am so glad you are. X
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Dont be afraid to express your emotions thats the point of the site that we share our grief - and sometimes later on we share other things the good days the mediocre ones too, as well as the bad, , but no-one expects good days so soon .
My journey started much longer ago but i do remember only too well the feelings of hopelessness and pointlessness.
The support i found here back then and the way writing helped me to express what i couldnt ever do elsewhere is priceless.
We spend a lot of time painting on a smile and saying we are OK when we are not on this wretched grief journey - you dont have to do that here. :hug:
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Of course you are still distraught, Rumar. Your loss is still very recent. That's normal. And don't think you are bringing anyone down! As Karena says, that's the point of this site. You can say how you really feel and everyone will understand because they either still feel or have felt exactly the same way and just wan to help and sympathise. And it is so important to have that support so that you don't feel you are doing this all on your own. Even if that support is only virtual and we cannot be with you to give you a real hug, it made all the difference to me to know others were thinking of me and understood what I was going through and we do, Rumar. You can say whatever you like here and no one will mind or be brought down by it. They will just want to help. We all have to help each other. When the worst has happened, it is a help to know you are not alone. :hug: :hearts:
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Thank you Karena and Sandra61, I really appreciate your support. Today has been another numb day, as you have said it is probably still shock. I got up this morning, another sleepless night, thought I would try to do just one little job, next thing looked at the clock and half the day has gone and I don’t even remember getting out of bed. Can’t be bothered to shower or get dressed, all seems so pointless. I will try again tomorrow to do something but right now just want to get back into bed and wish the rest of the day away. Thank you again.
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Try to take it in small steps :hug: make sure you notice each little step forward, some days getting up and showered will be an achievement. And thats ok :hug:
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Hi All, just needed to talk. Got up and decided to just do one little job, gathered all my partners jackets shoes etc. to put them all in the same wardrobe, have no intention of getting rid of anything but wanted them to all be in the same place. Have absolutely had a mega breakdown, spent half an hour frantically sniffing all his clothes trying to smell his scent. He always said that “if he put any of his things down for five minutes it would be in the washing machine”. Can’t smell him anywhere, it’s like he has been washed out of my life, why did I do it? I hate this rotten misery, I feel as though I am falling into a big hole and can’t get out, I hate this life. :cray: .
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:hug:no pressure to get rid of anything only you will know when or if ever you are ready to do that - i wore my husbands big fleece round the house for a long time and his dressing gown is still on the back of the door but its not the same house i had to move and hung it there while telling myself the lie he was just working away -and knowing it wasnt true but thats what got me through the move, even complaining too him about leaving me with all the work to do but i didnt find his smell in thse things -just every so often a glimmer around me not attached too an object and in the early days i think maybe we look for the obvious too hard and miss the small things - in time they will come from unexpected places at unexpected times - sometimes they will make you cry and you wont believe me now but other times they will make you smile.
He hasnt been washed away he will always be with you in some way but at the moment grief is too big and overwhelming for you to find that way. :hug:
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Hi Karen, thank you for your support, I so look forward to any little thing that will give me hope that there is more than this heartbreaking finality. I feel so ashamed that I am saying “ I hate this life” when there are so many people putting up a desperate fight for theirs, but I really don’t feel I can ever heal from this. We never spent a day apart, we knew what each other was going to say before we said it. Everybody used to say “ what on earth do you two find to talk about, you are always talking!” We didn’t need friends, we were happy to just be each other’s best friends, only now I don’t have my best friend and the conversation has stopped. :cray: x
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So sorry you are so overwhelmed by your grief, Rumar. I know it is very hard, but what Karena says is true. You will feel better in time, as unbelievable as that sounds now.
I don't seem to have anything that retains my mum's scent either, but hard as it was, and I am not surprised you fell apart after, I think that was an achievement to put all your husband's things in one wardrobe. You wanted it that way and you did it. Now you know you can go to that cupboard and look at his clothes when you want to and each item will have a memory attached to it of somewhere you went together or something you did. That's why I am finding it hard to part with my mum's things. But as Karena also says, you can keep them forever and that's ok. If they bring you any kind of comfort or a memory of some kind, that is a help. I think so many people keep their lost loved ones' things. It is a comfort and a way to feel closer to them.
Some people here have made cushions from their loved one's clothes so that they can have them round the room to remind them of the person they have lost and hug them to make them feel closer to them. Just a thought for the future perhaps. I don't think it would work for me. All I could see if I considered doing that would be my mum berating me for spoiling her lovely things, so I wouldn't dare! It's something you might like to think about though.
Conversation is more complicated as an issue. I still tell my mum and dad if I am going out and where and invite them to come along in spirit when I am off somewhere nice. I also talk to their pictures about my day or if I am upset or worried about something. I can often hear in my mind what their replies might have been too. I know some people write a letter to the person they have lost to tell them all the things they might have wanted to say in person, but never got the chance to do, or how they are feeling now without them and what they feel about the future. You don't have to stop talking to him. You just change how you do it or how you hear his responses. You can't bring him back, but that doesn't mean that you have to let him go or forget him either.
Your description of feeling you are falling into a big black hole that you gave earlier and of hating this life is another thing that is normal for grief and another thing we all go through too. It made me quite scared at the time. I felt like I was sliding into depression and wasn't sure if I would be able to get out of that hole again. For me, that was a bit of a turning point. I knew I was going to need something in my life to help me find a way forward and give me some respite from the grieving and some little ray of hope to keep me going. I joined a class doing something my mum also used to enjoy and that felt ok, because I knew she would have gone with me if she had still been here and would not have disapproved. It took a lot of courage, but I was so glad I went.
Like you, I had no real friends and I made some there and it made me think about something else for a couple of hours a week. It got me out of the house and gave me a change of scene and became something I look forward to doing each week. I didn't stop grieving or crying, not for many more months and I don't think, even when you learn to cope with it better, that you ever stop grieving, but it did help and still does. I don't know what I would have done without that class to look forward to. I really believe that it saved me from going into depression. I still go now and still enjoy it two years later almost. It's all part of building a new life for yourself in your new circumstances really and making life bearable again. Maybe there is something you might think about doing when you feel up to it, something perhaps that you both enjoyed or were interested in, so that you could do it for the both of you. It is worth thinking about. It helped me. It did help combat the grief pit and kept me from sliding in!
Well done for sorting out your husband's clothes though, Rumar. As upsetting as it was, it was a little step forward and a little victory for you. Sending you a hug. :hug:
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Its a long one i,m afraid but maybe if i take you on my journey a bit it could help.
My life felt completely pointless i had always been a carer in one way or another and had no one to care for - i didnt have the fainyest idea how to care for myself i wasnt wrth cooking for i didnt matter at all. - I worked i had to go back to work, but it felt like why bother, all i am doing is working to pay the bills for a life i dont want.
My girls had both moved away in the previous 6 months one to the other side of the world -there was a horrrid divorce going on with the other who had also just been through a major trauma of her own and even a threat i would be deprived of seeing two of my grandsons again at that time -because their dads new girlfriend hated my daughter and by default me too.
Everything was just so awful i felt helpless to help them and i couldnt even earn enough to keep paying the rent on the house we both loved so much, so had to move and lose that too and the community we lived in -it was the worst time of my life - and i will be honest i did think almost clinically about ending it
but then i imagined a conversation if we ever met again, if that was even possible, how angry would he be with me how could it a re union of any kind of romance he faught for his life and i threw mine away, and caused even more hurt too our familly than they were already going through, that i would not longer be the person he knew and loved because that would have been such a change from who i was before.
Later that thought turned to that potential conversation - what i could do with my life - and again what if i did nothing just survive but wait for it to end - how short would that conversation be -a hug a kis a welcome and then what - we were more than that - like you we talked all the time we did things together all the time laughed at each others ways or errors we made that were funny or silly and there were so many things he wanted to do but never got the chance too -so if i couldnt live my life for me i could try and live it for him - and if that meeting never happens at least i will have filled those empty years.
It wasnt easy it wasnt a sudden revelation that picked me up and launched me instantly into doing these things but a seed of thought and because i was the introvert, the one who was happy to stand back and shelter under his wings - the one who cannot walk into a cafe and order a coffee on her own let alone a room full of people this wasnt going to be easy -and i didnt avoid depression, but then i have SAD and have always struggled in winter anyway - the difference now is there is no-one there to make it better - light the fire and cuddle up with me, go for walks with me on the days the sun shone, make sure i ate -make me laugh - look after me.
So i had to fight each dragon that stood in my way or find a way to go round it but even the planning that went into that was motivation even though i didnt realise it then. - On his birthday i started planting native daffodill bulbs in some of our favourite places most of those were campsites we had had meets with other campervan enthusists so to do that i had to get there, so the campervan needed to go back on the road, and i needed to be in contact with the others from the group and go back to those meets to access the sites. But when i did those who had been his freinds helped me to do it. I cant tell you how many times i set off somewhere in that van and almost turned back but it was him that drove me forward. The following year and every year since I went back to the place we loved most and planned to retire too, and i sat on the harbour wall and watched dolphins and cried that he wasnt there, but also felt felt he had sent the dolphins to see me He had adopted one as a present for me - that year on the last evening it was the first time i ever saw her, she swam into the harbour with her calf i couldnt have been closer too her and still be on land.Over those years i have made new friends all of us there because of the dolphins and all of us from different places but recognising each other from those conversations or shared boat trips and this year going to the pub together every night and having a laugh.I still feel closer too him there than anywhere.
But going back wasnt enough on its own there were things we planned to do so i did some of those on my own too - i cried my way through a Russell Watson concert because we had been bought the tickets just before he died - he was the fan but i did it anyway,and too this day i cannot bring myself to listen too his CD - I have still to walk up Cader Idris and i will do it one day.
There were also things that he might have done and i would most definitely not - zip wiring acorss a gorge in south africa was the utimate i was terrified beyond belief but my reward on the last turn was a rainbow in a waterfall - something he knew i had always said i wanted to see once in my lifetime.
To do any of these things took money and i so i was working for more than just paying bills and work became more important than it had before.
I can get on a plane i can travel across the world i have done surfing and snorkelling but not just for him because now i do these things things for me too - but i still cant walk into a coffee shop or a restaurant on my own, the point is i dont need too because there are always take aways - and in the UK i have built a conversion for the camper van so i can cater for myself - another new set of skills aquired in order to avoid a dragon.
Sometimes we set ourselves goals that really are the wrong ones - and i have done that too joined local things WI, amateur dramatics which is about all thats on offer here and then ended up shattered and sobbing back at home because i didnt fit in - i was doing what other people said i should but not what suited me, i know that now, but then it was, in my mind just another sign that i was a failure as a person.
I still need to look like some-one who has a reason to be somewhere i need a prop - a camera is a good one -i have series of photos of vintage car radiator grids from a steam fair he liked going too - and another of building gable ends in Manchester - because i had to break a journey there and had hours to sit around -there are ways around everything and the camera meant it looked like i had a mission.
If you imagine right now you are in a forest and you are sitting under a tree - and everything around you is black and frightening its fine to stay there you dont have to move away from the tree but at some point the black will start to become more colurful - leaves coming out glimpses of blue in the clouds - you will look up hear a bird sing see a ray of sunshine and spot a path - and take a step towards it - sometimes we move forward in the wrong direction or go around in a circle and end up back where we started under that tree - other times we see another path and set off again and path leads to another unexpected one - doing fee online courses to fill the time lead to me finding something i could do that i never though of before. The tree is always there we can still go and sit there and shelter under it and that is fine too it doesnt mean we have failed or we are not grieving properly or we are crazy but the things we discover on those paths are the way we move forward until we find the right onefor us.
I am not religious i dont have a single set of beliefs,and i dont doubt some aspects of all of them including science and quantum physics , but i feel quite strongly that if that meeting ever can take place, if the conversation can ever be had, i wont afterall be telling him about everything as though i did it on my own and he hasnt been with me, but we will talk about it as though we have shared it , because so many time i have felt him present with me - and if none of it is true and there is nothing as tangible as that and even if he is just a memory he has still been my guide, pushing me forward looking afte me and he is still with me in some way because he was always the motive to start to live again.
I still work but i also volunteer for a school gardens permaculture project in Africa - most of that work is done from my desk here thanks to those course - and his tools, the ones i dont use, eventually went to a project which cleans them up and gives them to young people over there to help them get training and start their own business, and that was so easy to do because he went out there and trained mechanics himself - so i know he would have done that ith those tools himself.
Over time you will value some of his possesions and keep them and they may be really unexpected things (a rear heater matrix from our first camper van for goodness sake) and others you will find you can let go because its right at that time.
But it all takes time not everyone is the same -so not the same length of time - not the same journey or path - the local group worked for Sandra it could work for you too but you will find your own path.
This is my 8th year, i still miss him i know i always will there are still days i struggle to cope,nights i dont sleep and empty spaces i cant fill and i still talk too him,but i dont regret at all that i made the decision i did, to go on and fight and live for him and generally life is good.The oldest of those grandsons is moving in with me at half term october so i can help him get through his gcse,s -so its about to get better, and again that unexpected path of education has taken another turn into teaching.
Ther is something for all of us and some way in which they remain with us finding that is an adventure and a complete emotional rollercoaster but you will and for now you need to be kind too yourself every step is important every small thing you do is a step. :hug:
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Karena and Sandra, you are both an absolute inspiration, I hope in time I hope I will be able to honour the memory of my partner they way you have honoured the memory of your husband and mum. At the moment I cannot accept that I will not see him again, therefore, I can’t see any way forward. I can truly say that I feel that I am losing my mind and that’s scary! Karena, I am also an introvert, a coffee shop is out for me as well. Unfortunately, I do not drive, I did not need to, I had my own private chauffeur! Reading your post made me cry, you and your husband sound very similar in some ways to me and mine. We absolutely loved walking, the mountains, rugged coasts and the New Forest. Many happy times were spent at New Quay Wales watching the dolphins, the beautiful ponies and donkeys in the forest. Donations from my partner’s funeral went to the Donkey Sanctuary in Devon, another place we loved.
It is just so sad that I can’t ever imagine doing these things again, just thinking about them is breaking my heart.
I also worked, at the moment I am signed off sick but I don’t think I will be going back. We met at this place, there is another reason I can’t discuss on an open forum but I think it would tip me over the edge. Money will be tight and I know that I will be even more isolated.
I just hope that I can find some meaning to life before I am completely overwhelmed. I am so pleased that you both have found ways to help you through, please don’t think I am not grateful for your words and support, just can’t even begin to understand how I will come out the other side. X
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This is all still very recent for you, Rumar, so it is no wonder you can't yet see any way forward from this. Give yourself time. Don't try to look too far ahead. Deal with daily simple tasks for now. Eat a little and make sure your drink enough. Wash and dress on the days when you can and even if you just go out into the garden or onto the balcony if you have one, a little fresh air and a look at the trees and plants and birds around you will help. One day at a time. :hug:
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Thank you Sandra, I really needed a word from someone, I feel so lonely today, not even got up, nothing helps, I think I am going mad, holding on by a thread but really wish I could just close my eyes and not wake up, I am so low, I know there are many more that feel like me, but at the moment I don’t care, what a dreadful person this grief and pain is turning me into. X. :cray:
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It's an awful time, Rumar. Best just let yourself grieve and cry as and when you need to. Concentrate on the little things and take care of yourself. Slowly, as you start to accept what has happened, it becomes easier to exist with that knowledge and you will start to build a new life around the new reality. It will take time and effort, so just keep taking those tiny steps whenever you can. They all move you forward. I know it's so hard. Thinking of you. :hearts:
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Hi Rumar, you've already received such amazing help and advice but I just wanted to reach out and let you know that you are not alone. I know it feels it and everything seems so huge and unreal but be kind to yourself and give yourself time.
Your messages are so sad, and I really, really feel for you to have those last memories. As others have said, you are also coping with the trauma of that and all the hurdles the authorities have thrown at you.
I'm new here myself and everyone has been so supportive, keep talking and sharing. You have already shown how strong you are by making your first post and sharing. Sending you healing love 🤗
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:hug: You are not a dreadful person - this is something which changes us all, how could it not do so. You are a person whose life has just been shredded into pieces and trying to put it back together with a huge number of the pieces missing - like a jigsaw start with the corners -the very basics of functioning -you dont need to do more than that at the moment. As you start to add more over time you will find fewer are brocken than you thought and with others you have to cut new ones but in cutting them they are the familiar shape of what was there before because they are built from our memorys of the older ones.
It probably sounds basic and unrelated, but one of the courses i have done was about consciousness (from a neurological point of view) and a lot of it was based on the difference between instinct and learned/conscious behaviour - so there was comparison with the animal kingdom - how they behave and how we behave, what they learn and what we do through play for example and the function of that learning.
But one subject was looking at response to grief using Elephant studies.
What happens when a particularly close relationship within a herd such as mother and calf is brocken by a death - the other one separates herself from the herd and goes into a safe space - a den or lair hidden away in the trees.
The rest of the herd, which is in general like dolphins, a matriarchal structure, go past daily and leave food but retain a respect for the one in the lair who stays there, but then one day will come out and walk to the waterhole with them before returning to the lair and eventually at the waterhole will become more interested in the playful side of that behaviour until over time they start to mix with the herd more fully and then rejoin them.
It is the one grieving who sets this pace - the herd are nearby but only interfere is if there is danger particularly with a vulnerable calf or injured adult when they will make a protective ring aound the lair - or if it is imperative to migrate at that point to another area - when water dries up etc when they will try and persuade the grieving one to move with them, - they will only abandon them if the rest of the herd is in danger by staying.
The herd meanwhile will also sometimes cover the body of the one who died with branches as though within their particular herd they have a buriel ceremony others dont do this but in all cases start a routine where they visit the site and stop as they pass.
I thought at the time i read it, we are the same when we grieve, our instinct is to go into a lair and hide away and that is pefectly natural behavior, but what differs is that our more patriarchal herd is more impatient, it is structured in a different way -it measures importance of a situation differently because the basics survival itself, in western society anyway, is not such a massive consideration. We have water on tap and dont exist in the wilderness with lions waiting to eat us - so our herds stop dropping the food round, they consider it is our behaviour which is unnatural not theirs because it doesnt fit a written pattern instinct isnt a reaction to convention - and because they consider it to be the case so do we and then put pressure on ourselves to return before we are ready.
Our "evolved" culture moves on when they chose, not when we do, and they expect us to follow, if we dont then will abandon us for much less vital reasons but vital to their thinking, because they are on a different level, to the wilderness level of understanding survival.
So the return to work, to socialising etc, the evolution of established, written behaviour patterns rather than following our instincts, the clinical theorising of grief as stages then the idea we just move on and cut the bonds of the past, this notion of a time based grief is conscious behaviour which our society has adopted not instinct.
Early religions and rituals and rites within humans echoes the elephant behaviour - the ancestor worship that happens still in some societys which we consider is somehow more primative than that of modern religions or cultures isnt worship but respect -just as when the Elephant herd come back after that migration and stand in the spot where that body once was is respect and that habit is passed through generations.The Elephnat is not conscious of the ancestor where as the human is, but still stops at that spot as it did with its mother - but how does it remember where that is and why does it continue that behaviour.
What i am trying to say in my roundabout way is that we in our society are torn between our instinct and expected behaviour and start to think it us who are fundamentally flawed -so a "bad person" but in my view that is wrong.
We obey our other instincts - we think nothing of obeying the flight/fight response - we recognise fear as part of us, we know if we step off a cliff we will be injured without being told, we even go into a lair and nuture ourselves if we are physically ill, and these instincts are all about our survival - yet we deny our instinct to do that when it is our loss of a loved one which is creating that reaction, and we try to fight against it because of our cultural conditioning which does us no favours at a time we are already distraught.I you want to stay in bed then do that -those who may feel they can udge have no jurisdiction over your grief and how you cope with it. :hug:
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Hi Karena, thank you for your very interesting post, I have read it several times. Thanks also for the support from Sandra and Buttercup. I don’t feel like a strong person, how can someone cry every single day? How can there not be one good memory? Everything is taken over by bad images. I know that I will probably get through this but as you all say it will take time.
Had a bad day yesterday, had Drs appointment, have to see her every 2 weeks at the moment, had panic attack and barely made it to the surgery. Anyway, I am now on antidepressants, not keen on medication but seem to be slipping further into that “Dark Hole”, so need to give it a go.
It means so much to know there are people on this site who will talk to you, even when every post is one of misery, thank you all. xxx
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Ahhh Rumar, immensely proud of you for making it to the drs today, really hope that the tablets might help and by your next appt things might feel a little more bearable.
I know exactly what you mean about good memories vs last memories. I am sure all those wonderful times you had together and memories you made, will all come back to you, Once you have time to process ll the awfulness of your situation. Keep going lovely, you are doing really well and please keep posting and keeping in touch ♥
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Rumar, what you describe is normal grieving. We do cry every day, for months or years sometimes. We do want to just stay in bed, because the thought of living a normal day is so insignificant in comparison to the catastrophe of the loss of a loved one, so consequently, nothing else seems to matter anymore. You can't focus on anything else either, because you are consumed by the shock and the pain and the huge impact that loss has had on you and your life. So you focus on those last days and weeks and can't see the good memories because they are blotted out by those terrible ones.
It is normal, Rumar, and you need to be less hard on yourself. Don't judge yourself by the expectations of others and be kinder to yourself. If ever you needed to be kind to yourself, it is now. What you are going through is not depression. It's just grief. That's how it is. It will get better and the good memories will resurface as time goes on, but time is key to this, time and your own efforts to care for yourself at this awful time.
I'm not a great believer in anti-depressants as a treatment for grief either, but it's worth trying and if it helps, so much the better, but I would go back and ask the gp if you can be referred for grief counselling. I don't think there is any substitute for being able to talk it through with someone. I really think that might help you more. Failing that, writing it down helped me very much, so you could try that too. There's something about the act of writing it down that helps you get those emotions out of your system and helps you make sense of them.
Don't be so hard on yourself, Rumar. You are grieving and all the feelings you have are normal for a grieving person.
I do recognise the fear of sliding into the black hole though and what helped most with that was getting out of the house and walking in the park, having flowers in the house and just giving myself time to adjust to everything, absorb it all and also trying to give myself a break from all the stress of grieving, which in my case, I did by joining a class, as I have mentioned, so that I had something to look forward to, leave the house for and that meant I had to think about something else for a few hours a week. I really recommend it. If you only go out for a walk, try and get out. Look on it as a little treat, therapy even. See if it helps.
Keep going. It will get easier in time, but don't expect it to be a quick process, No one can adjust to something so enormous in the space of a few weeks or months. Find some strategies that help you and turn to them when you need them. Grief is largely a matter of patience and self help in my experience.
Keep going, Rumar. Think what your husband would want for you and try to care for yourself as he would have done. He loved you and would want you to be ok after he was gone, so now you need to concentrate on trying to make that happen, for him.
Thinking of you. :hearts:
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Hi Sandra, thanks for your reply. I hear where you are coming from and hope I will be able to get myself into a place where I can begin to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The only time I leave the house now is to go to the Dr. my brother drives me because I feel as though my heart is beating out of my chest, I can’t breathe and start to sweat at the thought of being outside. A couple of weeks ago, I did make it to the shop but had a mega meltdown , now I even check to make sure there is nobody around before putting the rubbish out, apart from seeing my brother for a couple of hours a week, I am on my own, that’s when all the dark thoughts creep in.
I have tried setting myself just one small task a day, just to try and do something normal but it seems that everything just emphasises that a few weeks ago we were two, now I am alone, nobody to share with, no hugs and gentle words, no laughter, I can’t seem to push through this.
I will give the pills a go because I feel as though I am going mad, I still expect to see my partner, I just can’t accept that he will not be in the kitchen making me a cup of tea and when he is not there it is like losing him all over again.
I read replies from you and Karena and how you helped yourselves but I can’t seem to do it, I am still staying in one room just trying to avoid reminders, I know in my heart that this is ridiculous because the reminders are in my head all the time.
Thank you for listening. x
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:hug: it took time we crawled back up but we didnt do it overnight.
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Try not to expect too much of yourself too soon, Rumar. All this is very recent for you. As Karena says, it takes time to learn to cope with it. Again, expecting to find your husband still there as he always was is normal. I still walk into the front room sometimes and find it odd not to see my mum sitting in her favourite chair and find it hard to go into her bedroom, because again, it feels odd that she isn't there anymore. It's a normal part of grieving to experience these thoughts and feelings and to want to hide away.
You will reach a point where you will want to try to help yourself, but need to be ready to do that. You will need more time than this to get to that point. Keep trying and you will find little things you can do and gradually, become braver and start doing more. Patience and perseverance and time are needed. Just don't give up. :hug:
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Hi, having a rough time, tried my hardest to try and take a few steps forward but my world is collapsing around me. Have hardly been out of bed for the last 5 days, don’t know if theses pills are making things worse, the flashbacks to the day J died are more vivid, I try to think of happy memories, I can see the places but can’t see J at all, it as though he was never part of them. There is only misery in my life and I can’t see how I can go on like this, I cry all day, real gut wrenching sobbing, if I do manage to get a couple of hours sleep, I wake up and find my pillow wet where I have been crying in my sleep. I was such an active person, now I can’t do anything, I don’t care about anyone or anything. I feel as though I am up to my neck in quicksand, being pulled under x. :cray:
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I dont know which tablets you are on but i think the SSRI type do take a while to start working and may make you feel worse initially, its a reaction between the two main chemicsls they use. if it doesnt settle go back to your GP and they can give you different ones.I couuldnt take any they made me really ill and created hallucinations so the GP put me down for bereavement counselling i was resistant to the idea how could taking too a stranger help but that was the only option -the first two sessions i left feeling worse but after that it really helped.
the thing is though you are grieveing and it is early days and no drug is going to stop that being a fact - they tend to help you get through the days in a functional way but dont stop you grieving just sit on the emotions a bit.Counselling is the same in that it can help you think a different way sometimes it takes a stranger to pick up on something you might be feeling turn it upside down and make you think differently - but again its a prop and we need whatever props are available and best for us as individuals to get through this, but maybe we expect too much of them because they cant take grief away -
If you think about it if you have a badly brocken leg you know it is going to hurt for some time to come but you dont give yourself a hard time for admitting you are in pain or for resting up in bed for a while - the cast and the crutches - are the props, they keep it stable reduce the pain a bit and help you get to the bathroom then later move around a bit further but they dont take away the pain completely.
One of the differences with this is no-one sees the crutches so no one sees the suffering in the same way, no one brings you food or drives you to physio every day and professional services are something you have to ask for you dont get automatic apointments through the door so there is less support all round - and another is that you know with a brocken leg in a few weeks it will feel better you can calculate when you will return to work, when you will be able to drive again based on what you are told but grief doesnt have a set time healing time because it isnt a bone fixing itself it cant be predicted based on common data so you need more patience with this than you ever imagined possible and its a more lonely journey.
But what is the same is that with the leg you get rid of the plaster cast and get physio and eventually the crutches maybe one at a time but by then you will know which crutch works best for you -you will have covered the handles in foam to make them more comfortable learned how to get up and down stairs with them set them at the right height etc, but you are aware that you wont be leaping out of bed and walking as fast as you did, and you certainly wont start running any marathons or climbing any mountains for a long time to come yet, and yet you will get impatient with that and maybe sometimes try and go too fast and fall over again which takes you back a few stages but later begin to accept that to make progress those falls will happen but less often and the landing is less hard because you have also leaned how to protect yourself as you fall and they too are part of the process, and in my experience of brocken legs even years later on very rainy days they will ache like mad and that will keep you awake at night sometimes, and so will re living the trauma situation that lead too it and you will perhaps always have a bit of a limp.
But that doesnt mean you will never run that marathon or climb that mountain you might have to walk instead of run, you might have to find a different way to scramble over the rocks or go round them on a different route but you will still make it in the end.
You are still at the resting up stage of this journey and if you can do one thing every day even if it is something small you wouldnt have thought twice about before it is an acheivement and you need to give yourself credit for that, rather than put yourself down for not being able to do more, this is what we mean when we say be kind too yourself - you will do more in time but dont set the goal posts so far away you cant see them.
get up, get dressed, wash your hair,make yourself a meal, wash the dishes - and if thats all you do today thats enough and if you dont do it today maybe you will tomorow , its ok to cry and its ok to be in bed for the rest of the time because next week or the week after you might go outside for a short walk as well as those things, and maybe the week after that you might go to the shop or hoover the carpets all those tiny little things are an acheivement cross them off a list and give yourself a mental pat on the back, but also dont give yourself a hard time if you didnt manage them today. :hug:
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Thank you Karena, it is so nice to know there is someone there when I am so low, I have been referred for counselling but the first date I can be seen is 10th Dec! The pills I am on are Fluoxetine (Prozac), I will try and keep battling through but really I just want to give up. Thank you again for your time x
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:hug: 10th decenber feels a long way off but still worth going for.
I think for me the problem with trying to care for myself was that i didnt, i didnt see the point in my life any more i wasnt needed any more - and that then pervades everything else because then there is no point in doing anything so we dont.
I was lucky i did have the dog and he got me out of bed he had to be fed and let out and he was grieving too he would sit behind the door and whine in the evenings and i would cry even more because of his sadness -the whole house was filled with our sadness.But I would walk him at night so as not to be seen, isnt it odd that we long for company but then avoid i,t in part because the one person we long for most isnt here, and in part because we dont want to speak - saying anything in response to sympathy is affirming in our own minds something we overwhelmingly want to not be true, so we just say we,re fine and move on or avoid them altogether.
Obviousely where you live very much determines whether you can go outside after dark from a safety point of view but maybe it is something you could try even if its just the garden ofr ten minutes or so -take a hot chocolate and a blanket and make it a thing -just looking at the stars can help calm your mind it doesnt make it go away but offers a bit of respite.
I really do believe the act of caring for something makes a difference to our ability to care for ourselves - we have to survive so that the thing we are looking after does.
I was on autopilot feeding the birds it was just a thing i did anyway -i didnt think it was because i actually cared at the time - yet looking back i cost myself a lot of money putting off the move because the robin i rescued years before came back in winter then disapeared in summer but he was still coming back and then the spotted flycatchers who nested in the virginia creeper over the door every year arrived and i knew the landlord intented chopping it all down so i waited until they fledged.
I am not suggesting you get a dog, but caring for the birds in the garden or even just some plants in the house seems like nothing but can be very therapeutic.
After i did move there was one very memorable moment when the clouds lifted -i had determined i was going to recreate the garden we used to have -just smaller scale I had been digging a pond and was crouched down struggling with a root when i was suddenly aware of the sun on my back and a robin singing and he absolutley wasnt going to let me ignore him it was so loud and so persistant it wasnt much more than a moment or two but a moment that did stay with me whenever the clouds engulfed me again.
I heard him and looked up because for a mad second i thought my robin had followed me - but also suddenly became aware of the significance of me digging a pond at that moment, something that had been such a joke between us, because when i said i was going to create a pond at the old place he thought i meant a little preformed pond - came out to bring me a cup of tea and was greeted with something about ten foot round and me covered in mud in the bottom of a hole - so after that whenever i disapeared into the garden for any length of time he would come out to make sure i wasnt digging a pond ( i did dig two smaller ones and a waterfall later so he was justified in that ) but looking back that moment was a first, the first time i laughed and meant it - i just looked at the sky and said -out loud -something along the lines of still interupting my pond digging i see - the first time i started talking to him and thinking of him not always as something lost but as something precious that could never really be lost.
Its all little things but they do count even if we dont recognise their value at the time.
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Hi Karena, everything you say makes perfect sense. I have avoided the garden too many reminders of the time we spent creating the garden together, perhaps when I can get myself out of this bed, I could try going into the garden for a short period at night. One day perhaps I can start feeding the birds again, that was my other half’s great passion but I have avoided it as it hurts so much. I must tell you that we had a pair of robins nest in the garden, had one chick that survived, J had almost managed to get one to feed from his hand. They all disappeared about 2 weeks before J passed away. As you know I am virtually living in the back bedroom to avoid reminders, but each morning when I go down to make a cup of tea, I look out the window and a robin is always in the garden. One day last week, I said out loud “look J your robin is in the garden”, as soon as I said it, it was as though a cool breeze went right through me. It wasn’t just feeling cold but an actual breeze, no windows or doors were open. I wonder! x
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:hug:I think with things like that if we stop listening to the logical brain saying it is all co-incidence and listen too our hearts we find the logical brain eventually catches up and agrees that there cannot be so many co -incidences without substance -because the evidence says otherwise.
I know reminders are painful but there is nothing that is not a reminder and even out of sight of them your mind is always on him anyway but its always on your loss and those reminders are not always painful, sometimes they remind us much more of the joy we shared rather than that we can no longer share them in the same way.
Winter is coming and even if its a few steps into the garden in the dark maybe it is time to start feeding the birds, then in the spring ahead thinking about keeping the garden going because he was so proud of it and enjoyed it so much it is a way of carrying him forward with you.
So even though you cant go out now and you cant face doing it now perhaps now is the time to start planning how you could do it and how to get over or round the hurdles that might be stopping you - look through those plant catalogues and think back on what you learned from him and what you might need to know and how you would have made him so proud by not letting his work go,but honoring his memory by continuing it.
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Hi, had another lousy week, the pills I am taking make me feel numb during the mornings, I still get the flashbacks and feel incredibly sad but am unable to express emotion. By the afternoon, the floodgates open and I cry uncontrollably. Although I have a counselling session 10th Dec it is such a long time away, Dr said that if I can’t wait I will have to go private.
When I am having bad memories, I have been trying to think about good memories, the awful thing is I can see the place and what is going on but J is not there, it is as thoughI was there on my own, no matter how much I try to picture him there it doesn’t happen. I have photos around the house but nothing in my mind, it is very upsetting.
I spent another three days in bed, there still seems no point to life. I have taken on board what you said about the garden Karena and hope that I will be able to enjoy and maintain it one day. Yesterday afternoon I did manage to go into the garden to fill up the bird feeders but the price I paid was an overwhelming grief, I could not stop crying. When I went into the shed to get the feed, I noticed that J had my photo pinned up on the wall, I have not noticed it before, it broke me. I feel as though I try and take one small step forward but take ten huge steps back. I am so unhappy :cray:
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:hug:Its ok to cry , give yourself permission to greive and its normal for these bursts of overwhelming grief and that in itself is exhausting it leaves you drained so also while you feel emotionally numb at other times its your brains way of protecting you - recovering from the energy that outbursts create.
bad memorys are also something that happens a lot and does fade in time and replacing them with better ones takes practice - maybe you are in an in between place and you will start to see him there over time.
You did well to go to get the bird seed i am sorry it caused you distress though - but remeber its a symbol of his love for you that he kept a photo of you there. :hug:
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Hi Karena, another trip to Dr. She insists on seeing me every two weeks. Now wants me to take 2 antidepressants, one that will make me sleep, read the info, horrendous write up, really don’t know if I want to risk it but I hardly sleep, my mind won’t stop racing over everything that happened. The feelings of guilt at not doing more for J, not making sure the hospital investigated his pain more, still not had notification from Coroner as to cause of death, just makes everything harder. Now, the last days of my mum and dad are coming back to haunt me as well, it’s all overwhelming me, there is not a day that I don’t cry uncontrollably, I cry so much, I feel physically ill. I still can’t get myself out of the one room, still in bed most of the day. I know that I am not the only one who goes through this, I just feel so helpless and hopeless, thank you for listening, take care. X
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Hello Rumar, I am sorry you are still finding all this so hard and painful. :hug: I am glad your doctor is at least keeping an eye on you, but don't use the tablets if you are not confident that they will help. I had trouble sleeping too for months. I ended up taking Nytol sometimes to help me sleep and it did help, but there is a herbal version of it, so it did not have any bad side effects. Maybe you could try that instead.
I think everyone going through grief has a problem with sleeping. You can't switch your mind off and as you say, you have a tendency to keep going over everything that happened, but I am afraid that often does only lead to feelings of guilt and self-blame and just makes you more upset and makes it harder to sleep. Try not to go there. What you have to remember is that whatever you did at the time was the best you could do in the circumstances. It is very hard to know what to do at times of crisis, so we do the best we can with the information we have and just have to hope for the best, but it is unlikely anything you could have done would have changed the outcome. We can all find things to blame ourselves for when we go over what took place, but that doesn't mean we are right to blame ourselves. We did the best with what we had at the time. No one ever does less. You love the person in trouble so you make the choices that make sense at the time, but you still can not always do anything to prevent the worst from happening. There is no point to keep going over it and blaming yourself, Rumar. It isn't your fault.
Please try not to dwell on past losses either. Life unfortunately involves loss. No one lives forever. No one has their parents with them all their life usually either. I read somewhere that grief is the price we pay for love and loss is an unavoidable part of life. Try to focus on the many happy years you spent with your lost loved ones, not the end of their lives. That time only accounted for such a small proportion of their time and none of the legacy they have left you in the memories they helped create with you. Try to focus on that and realise that you have a treasure of happy memories to bolster you up into your future. Those will never be lost to you and the love you have for those you have lost will always be there too.
I don't think myself, that either the spirit dies or that love dies either. I think those we have lost may no longer be here in body, but that they still exist on another plane and that they still love us just as much where they are now. If you hold on to that thought, it may give you strength to realise that they would still want the best for us and want us to move forward with our lives, supported by the knowledge that they do still love us, even if they cannot be with us and knowing that, you know you owe it to them to try to make the best of this new phase of your life. You have to work on making it the best it can be because that is what they would want for you and it is up to you to do that for them now.
Try to have a plan to take tiny steps and achieve little goals each day. Maybe go into one of those rooms you are avoiding for a few minutes and just let yourself recall the good memories you have of the times spent in them. Pull back the curtains and let in the light. Dust the ornaments, put some flowers around and make the room look nice. Use the space. It belonged to both of you and is not something to be feared, but used to help you remember the good memories and stop you living with the bad ones that your mind is full of now. It may make you sad, because it is just you now, but it was yours and j's domain, so it will help you to live in that sphere, not in the sphere of nightmares, shut away in one room and locked inside your worst memories. I am sure J would want you to own your space and be proud of all the good memories he left you with.
Getting through this is going to need bravery and effort from you, Rumar. It has happened. You can't change it and you can't turn back the clock. All you can do is try to move forward one step at a time. You will fall down and have to keep getting up again, but you have to try and keep trying. Shutting yourself away won't make it so that this never happened. You have to look after yourself now, as I am sure J would want you to do. Let go of your guilt and accept the new reality, however unwanted. It is how it is now and you have to try to move forward. There is no way back, but you have a lovely path behind you. The path ahead is yours to choose and to navigate. Try to move off this bad path and onto a better one.
We are here for you. Sending you love and strength. :hug: :hearts:
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Its fairly normal for a new rief to trigger old one and of course it makes sense that its your parents because they were the ones who would have been there for you and supported you through this no matter what but the whays or the logic of it doesnt help at all when your going through it i know that.
try the Nytol, try lavendar sprays a hot bath and miky drink - there is a pukah night time tea that wiped me out when i first discoverd it.
Much of it is also about routine -go to bed and bring up those happy memory cards in your mind - something else i used to do was to think of five things that were better about today - five things you achieved seems a lot but seeing better things is the achievent itself whatever it is and however small it is so as Sandra says you have to let in some light and even though you might not be ready to leave the house yet you have windows, so a colourful autumn leaf falling, a dog running down the street, a bird sitting on a bush the colour of a late flower the shape of building or a tree - go have a look right now.
If you go to sleep and wake up with a nightmare take your mind out of it immediately and think again about those five things or your happy memorys -
I think based on experience its possible you dont sleep because you are afraid to sleep and have the nightmares so you get into this freefall cycle - the only way out of that cycle really is to learn to accept they happen but that there are ways you can recover quickly from them then go back to sleep. -
one thing to help you do this is something as simple as a solid object you can hold -
I have a crystal - crystal is something which many belief has healing propertys but in folklore quartz crystal holds memorys and it can communicate and that isnt quite as far fetched as it sounds when you consider crystal radios - the science part wasnt developed until 1900 so why did people believe this long before that was known.
People might consider this is all mumbo jumbo but the point really is that you create a ritual so to put that in modern terms - if you take the sleeping pills you will have a ritual with them you will take them at a given time, get up fill a glass with water to swallow them rinse out the glass put the tablets back in the cupboard etc etc - its still a ritual our lives are filled with them except this one is more of a conscious one which might help without you taking the pills.
So anyway if you want to give it a go - you get reasonable sized clear quartz crystal you can get them online if you dont want to go out.
first cleanse the crystal - now once again there different ways to do this and you beliefs might dictate which you chose and thats fine.
Crystal cleansing could involve lighting candles, smudging with burning dried sage and chanting something, a tibetan sound bowl, or placing in brown rice for 24 hours or it it could be simply putting it under running water - in my case it was a shallow part of the local river because the river has meaning to me anyway , but it can actually be your tap.The point is to rid it of negative things it might be holding from its past.
Next stage is charging it - ideally on a full moon leave it in the light on your windowsill. but again it could be any moon phase it could be leaving it in the sun or burying it in the garden (dont forget where though) the point is fo it to receive energy waves - just as a crystal radio received radio waves.
So now you take the crystal hold it in your hand and sit quietly and go through your best memorys start with your mum and dad they dont have to be of just one person - imagine you are transfering them into the crystal through your hand visualise it if you can but dont let any bad ones in there, stop them before they get there and throw them away - when you have done this you seal them with running water again but think of it sealing it not re-cleansing it. Once its sealed you can cleanse and recharge without putting the memorys in again you dont have to do either but actually just doing that every so often is a reminder of the ritual and the ritual is important.
Now you put it somewhere near the bed within reach - i literally went to sleep holding mine -so as soon as you aware you are having a nightmare or have had one hold the crystal again in your hand - and visualise the things, the memorys you put in there then let yourself go back to sleep.
Ok i may sound like a complete fruit loop and maybe it is nothing more than the simple ritual, or a form of mindfulness, and having something solid and tangible to hold in your hand when you have a nightmare perhaps it could be anything solid with no meaning or ritual attached - but it worked for me, and i actually dont mind how it worked, - although actually i personally do belive it is something special - and i believed in it strongly enough to get another one -but this time for my memorys,
it isnt permanantly sealed yet because they are still going in there, it travels with me,it records concerts,and places and trips and sights and sounds all positive things to hold onto when i fall back down and go back to thinking there is no point in my life -holding it reminds me there is. That feeling and that need is rare now, so this one has in a way become a different ritual thing, rather than the need to do it to keep myself sane, its become a moment just to pause take in something amazing make it more special and appreciate things i suppose but still my insurance just in case i do slide back.
- it has been cleansed in the indian ocean on a stunning beach along with a bracelet of gems i wear all the time it has been in the irish sea in my
haunt in wales - under a full moon - charged under an african sun seen a rainbow in a waterfall and it contains all those other moments which were not necessarilly big events but litle things that add up to a positive whole.
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Hi Sandra and Karena, thank you both for your replies, as usual you offer comfort and ideas of ways to cope with this grief and all that goes with it. Unfortunately, I have now been diagnosed with depression, there is such a long wait for any kind of therapy, as I explained previously, my first appointment for counselling will not be until 10th Dec. Because I have got so low, even the simplest job seems like a major event, my mind is just shutting down, I find hours pass and I have just been sitting, not doing anything, all motivation has gone, every single step seems like running a marathon. I have moments when I tell myself today I will do this small thing, sometimes I manage to get washed, or dressed, or feed the birds, then everything comes flooding back and I shrink back into my shell and the safety of “that room”. I am aware that nearly everyone on this site has suffered terrible grief, I have no children, since the funeral J’s family have faded away, I have a brother I see for an hour a week, a sister who phones daily, apart from that I am totally isolated and alone. I do hope that you do not get fed up with my negative messages, mentally I am not in a good place and I get some relief posting on this site. Thank you x
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I am glad it helps you, Rumar. You can say whatever you like here, however you feel, so don't apologise. It sounds like you have slipped into the pit that I felt myself sliding into at one point a couple of months after my mum died, but I somehow managed to scramble back up the slippery slope before I fell so deeply into it that I couldn't get out on my own anymore.
I think grief is like quicksand or treacle or mud. You sink slowly deeper and deeper into it and then it sucks onto your feet and starts drawing you down and you just keep sinking unless you make a huge effort to drag your legs out from its grip and claw your way back onto solid ground. It is a vicious and destructive force and takes a lot of fighting against. So start fighting, Rumar!
Your life doesn't have to consist of misery and depression. It has contained love and a lifetime of companionship with a man you clearly thought was wonderful and that is more than many of us ever have! You have so much to be grateful for and so many great memories to look back on and treasure. Use all of that as your strength now. Let J help you with this. He is still your strength, even though he is not here in body anymore. Imagine what he would advise you to do and follow that advice. He had your picture up in his shed. How greatly he treasured you then! Clearly you were his strength too!
Start pulling your legs out of the mud, Rumar. Use anything you can to help you climb out. Stop relying on 'that room'. You have a whole house of wonderful memories waiting to be reignited. I told you to dust. As you pick up each object, it will have a memory tied to it. You will remember where you got it and what you were doing that day with some things and comments you both made about it when you decided to get it. As you handle it, you can recall all those wonderful memories and yes, they may make you cry, but they may also make you smile and most likely, both at the same time! You have a wonderful past to take strength from, Rumar. Use it now, when you need it most. You don't have to live in grief. You can learn to appreciate your luck in having had so many wonderful years with your lovely husband and your parents. These are things to rejoice in, not weep over, and the future is an open book for you to make your way back to and keep on writing, for all of you.
Sending your strength. :hearts:
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i can only really repeat what sandra said and i also slid into that pit -and i already had seasonal adjustment disorder so winter was so much worse anyway.
Dont see not doing much as a failure,but instead see doing anything at all as a success and give yourself a pat on the back for doing just one simple thing because thats the first move to pulling your legs out
This is a bereavement site and if you cant be honest here then when can you be - its why we are here so no we will never get fed up of your
negative messages because we have all done the same - It helps no-one reading through who is new if we do exactly the same as we do out in the world and paint on a smile because if everyone is doing that all the time here as well then it looks as though they are more alone in what they are experiencing and in addition too that, one thing you do find over time is that when you read them back you realise you are moving forward even when you think you are stuck again, so believe it or not they can become a form of self help in the future. :hug: