Author Topic: dreading my future  (Read 1754 times)

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Offline perryje

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dreading my future
« on: December 31, 2020, 07:48:08 PM »
I have just lost my husband of 45 years. It was very sudden and a tremendous shock. We had been together as teenage sweethearts and were soul mates. We lived for each other and did everything together. I am struggling to cope with such a loss and life is not worth living at the moment and I feel I don't want a future without him.We didn't have a family but I have a brother who visits regularly. I feel I have nowhere and no-one to turn to right now. I have talked to friends on the phone but unless you have been through this yourself no-one really understands the unbearable pain and suffering. One even said -new year new start. I have spoken to gp who has given me medication. I am also on a waiting list to speak to councellor. I am trying to do things to help myself and I go for walks with my dog but end up walking around in tears. I have also managed to get out to the shops but have had crying bouts while I'm out. Tonight all I can see is a whole year without him and the pain is just terrible.

Offline Sandra61

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Re: dreading my future
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2021, 11:16:13 AM »
Hello, I am so sorry for your loss. Sending you a hug.  :hug:  I understand the huge shock and terrible sense of loss that you must be going through and why you feel as you do  at present. It is almost impossible to see a way forward this early after any loss and crying all the time is a normal state to find yourself in. Loss always impacts on your life in a massive way. It changes your entire life, but it also changes you too and you are never the same again, so it means a massive upheaval in your life and leaves you with changes to get used to that seem like insurmountable mountains. The only way to endure it is not to look too far ahead in terms of recovering from it. Just get through one day at a time and if crying helps, that's fine. Be gentle with yourself.

You are right. Unless you have been through a loss yourself, you don't understand and others will make inappropriate comments as a result of this. In your case, having spent most of your life with your husband, trying to adapt to being without him now must be especially hard and I don't think others will understand or even if they do have some inkling, probably won't have the words to be able to say what could help in any case. There are probably no words that can. That's why we end up here, because we are seeking others who do at least have some idea what we are going through - and we do. You are not alone here and lots of other people will understand how you are feeling. For me, it helped just to know that.

I have to say, from reading your post, although you don't feel like it now, I'm sure, you do sound like a strong and sensible woman, and I am sure some of that must be the result of the years you spent with your husband. Perhaps that is part of his legacy to you. You are clearly doing your best to live from day to day, which is all that you can do at this stage or any stage of life really and can see the positives you do have in your life. That's a great place to start. You have a dog too and that must be a great comfort, as pets always are. It may be hard to see any future now and I am sure it is not the kind of life you would have wanted. Who wants to be without those they love best? But you do have a future and it will be whatever you make it and in my experience, that's something you have to work at, to make it work for you.

Loss and grief are a huge shock to have to go through and the hardest things you will ever have to go through for most people. It takes a long time recover from and in a way, we do not ever recover really; we just learn to live with our new normality. Grief becomes a part of you, but the pain dulls and recedes over time, even though it may come to the fore again at times, when something suddenly reminds you, but better days still emerge. Many here describe it as a roller-coaster ride with highs and lows that you hit you when you least expect them. But your strength and your treasure are the memories your lovely husband left you with and will be your strength moving forward from this.

The first year without the person you have lost is the hardest with all the firsts you have to face on your own, but slowly, you find there are better days as well as the ones that are not so good. As you have probably already discovered, there is a little light to be found in simple things like a walk in the park or the countryside, seeing a flower, smelling its scent or sitting in a garden. I found it helped to write down how I felt during the last weeks of my lost loved one's life and started writing a diary then to record how I felt each day. It somehow helped me get those feelings out a bit and did make me feel better. Some people do that in the form of a letter to the person they have lost and find that helps, allowing them to say all the things they would have liked to say to them when they were still here. Perhaps that might help you.

I am sure your husband would want the best for you for the rest of your life and now that he isn't here to help create that for you, it's up to you to do that on his behalf. I am sure he is with you in spirit and I suppose that is how I have ended up feeling about loss. The people we love may not be here in person anymore, but they never really leave us. Love makes that too hard. They remain in our hearts and we have our memories of them and those are always with us to give us strength. In my experience, they even make their presence felt at times by leaving feathers for me when I have had a difficult time or have a problem of some kind. I do feel they watch over me and I believe that. Love is a two-way thing and I doubt they find it easy to leave us, just as we find it hard to be without them.

You have a future, but you have to build it and you will do that slowly, but you will not be alone and will carry him with you always, the love you shared and the memory of the time you had together supporting you as you find your way forward. There is little anyone can say that helps after such a close loss, but I hope there is something here that might help you little and, if nothing else, that it might help to know someone else at least understands something of what you are going through. You are not alone in that.

We are here for you to talk to for as long as you need us. Sending strength and an understanding hug.  :hearts: :hug:

Offline perryje

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Re: dreading my future
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2021, 11:31:26 PM »
Thank you for your kind comments. On the day my husband died he was taken to hospital because he couldn't breathe. The paramedics put him on oxygen on arrival at our home and thought he was having a mild heart attack so did an ECG in our bedroom. It wasn't a heart attack and so they got him to the nearest hospital to investigate. When I arrived at the hospital I was shown into the family room and a doctor and a nurse came in . The doctor had a clipboard and calmly started asking me questions about his medical and family history. At this point I thought they were going to come up with a plan to help him. Suddenly the nurse interrupted the doctor and said " she doesn't know what happened in the ambulance". I asked her what she meant and she said he had stopped breathing and his heart had stopped on the way to the hospital. I remember saying to her "you mean he's dead" and she replied " well yes. We are still trying resuscitation but there is a time limit. " This is the brutal way they told me and I can never get that conversation out of my head. I was in total shock. They then left the room and returned a few minutes later to say there was nothing they could do. The cause of his death was a clot on his lung resulting in heart failure. 
It happened early on a Sunday morning in our bedroom and I cannot sleep in there on a Saturday evening because I relive every second when I wake up. I have to be out of the house so I take the dog to the park but there is no joy in this.Since his passing I have left the radio on all the time including at night and I have to sleep with a lamp on in our bedroom.
I have also had three talks with a medium and I know this isn't for everyone but my husband and my family have come through each time to say they know I am struggling and they are with me trying to help. I talk to him all the time and I have his ashes at home to help me think he is still with me but in another form.
Because we were so close  it is so much harder to bear and I don't want to do anything. I am existing hour to hour and sometimes I look at the clock and think of all the hours to fill until I can go to bed. I used to love to read and do jigsaw puzzles but even these simple things are non starters. I have no interest in anything. Life has no meaning.
It's also difficult because we didn't have a family so I only have my brother to support me. I speak to friends on the phone sometimes but some days I don't want to speak to anyone. Some friends say that I am coping really well but they have no understanding of how bad I feel.
Also just under 2 years ago I lost my father to dementia. He had suffered with it for 4 years and every day I lost a bit more of him. I had to be strong and my husband was my rock throughout this and he was a wonderful support to me and dad but now I am fed up with being strong for others. I feel so weary.

 


Offline Sandra61

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Re: dreading my future
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2021, 10:46:18 AM »
Hello again,

Feeling as if life has no meaning is not unusual when you are grieving. I remember wondering how it could be that everything carried on as normal around me when my world had stopped. I felt like the world had stopped turning form me. I think that's just part of the shock and sadness of it all and it is also so exhausting. I think that's one of the reasons I found going for a walk helpful. You do need a distraction from it and for me walking and having flowers around helped with that. I also joined a class which helped hugely at the time, still was helping before we were all locked down in the current crisis, but I still talk with the people I met there and so it does still help. It got me out of the house and made me think about something else a couple of times a week and that really did help. We can't go out to any classes now, but there are on-line things you could look at or practice some craft at home, if there is something you like doing. It really does help to try to get your mind onto something else for a while.

You describe in detail what happened when you lost your husband and that is usual too. The memory of that last few hours, days or weeks is always sharp in our minds and hard to dispel, but writing about it does help with that and looking at photos and revisiting places does help bring back the better memories and gradually, although we never forget, the memory of those last times do move slowly into the background, although I think you have to work at helping that happen too. Time, they say, is a great healer and that is true. It does get a little easier over time, but what often surprises people is just how much time that takes. It is usually more a case of years than months. Time and how long it takes to learn to live with loss, will be different for everyone, but you do gradually find your way forward, though you will probably have to work at that and help yourself. Things don't improve if you just wait. Grief, in my experience, is a matter of self help and finding out what helps and then using those things when you need to to stop you slipping into that pit of despair that grief tries to drag you into.

I hope this helps, though I know little does when you are lost in such a difficult time and state of mind. Keep going. It will get better. All best wishes.  :hug: :hearts:

Offline Karena

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Re: dreading my future
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2021, 12:10:23 PM »
There is little i can add to what Sandra has said. When my husband died i also felt there was no point in life no incentive to carry on or do anything - and like you i had a dog - i still work my husband was retired to the dog spent most of his time with my husband so he was more his dog in that sense than mine -  and in the early days the poor dog would sit behind the front door and whine waiting for him to come back through it -and in the end i think that became in a way my salvation - consoling his dog looking  him establishing a new pecking order walking feeding him etc gave me a purpose and yes walking with tears streaming down my face was a common thing for me too but in time looking at listening too and just being in the natural world kind of woke me up and being outdoors became a healing  tool -When i was at home the TV was on - i wasnt really watching it but it added some normality to the house as background noise -i couldnt watch the programmes we used too though theme tunes would have me frantically looking for the remote - like you i couldnt read even though i had been an avid reader before - that also passed in time and i read again now.I didnt go to bed i stayed on the sofa with the dog -

I also knew i would have to move house with half the income coming in so there was stuff i had to do.  to do that stuff i wrote a list with top priority things at the top of the list - then worked down it - a task at a time a day at a time because some days i could tackle a couple other days i didnt want too but forced myself to do just one maybe from lower down the list that wasnt so daunting - then i put a big red tick next to each as i did it - that way if something seemed too much there was a visible reminder of what i had done and that i could cope with the next thing.

I also had awful memorys of what happened and Sandra is right they do become less sharp - the way to speed that up a bit for me was to collect in my head all the good memorys - the romantic the funny even the little annoying things that we love about some-one -  then when the flashback came imagine you have a pack of cards with these things on and when an awful one is on the top take a better one form the bottom and replace it with that - eventually the good cards get more and the bad ones dont come to the top as much as they used too. _ i didnt sort his clothes and things for a long time -i still have a massive fleece of his i can snuggle into -  There was a lot of stuff he was a bit of a hoarder and my stepson helped with a lot of it - we found things in the garage which were from before my time but which stirred memorys for him so we often found ourselves laughing over things - stupid things like a pair of speedos from an earlier era or something that stirred a memory of his childhood holidays -  but the  things from our time together i packed and they moved with me and again silly stuff i still have a brocken heater matrix from our campervan - because he left it on the kitchen window sill and we had one of those daft stubborn things going on over that - i decide i wasnt going to clear up all the time so  left a note on it saying move me - he left a flower in it in response  and it just carried on notes flowers etc - but its those things that make me smile now not the bigger things.

This year will be 10 years its an awful long time -and it took a lot of those earlier years to even establish any kind of life worth living. But  i decided if i couldnt find a point to my life i would live it for him do what he didnt get to do - go back to places we had loved - places we planned but didnt get round too - places and things he said he fancied doing and i would have 100% not done but sat and maybe watched him do -- and there were a lot of challenges just planning - working out how to get somewhere how to cope with travelling alone all that stuff - but doing them for him pushed me to do it where-as doing them for myself wouldnt have especially in the earlier times.

 I still talk to him i still feel his love around me - especially when times are tough and i have also seen mediums in the past  - but i dont need too now because i am so sure of that love still being with me. :hug: 

Offline perryje

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Re: dreading my future
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2021, 05:17:36 PM »
Thank you for sharing your story and experiences with me. You are very kind.