Author Topic: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.  (Read 2410 times)

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Offline Hopeless

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4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« on: July 07, 2020, 01:10:25 PM »
I lost my precious husband of 17 years on the 29th of June. I felt life sucked out of me the moment he left. I am struggling to come to terms with the loss. We were always together, doing almost everything together. Work, shop, eat, travel you name it and there we were always by each other’s side. We had no children due to long term illnesses we both have.
We were so happy together that we were never sad or upset with our illness or the fact we have no children. Although he had cancer that was not what took him. We fought cancer for 13 years and we were told it was well controlled, we never imagined life would be snatched away like it did.
I have lost the will to live, barely able to put food in my mouth. When I sleep and wake up to reality my body trembles with physical pain. I’m lost.
How do you cope losing a husband.
I have a loving family with brothers nieces and nephews but no one understands the pain I’m going through.
I come here hoping someone who have had similar loss will understand me.

Offline Sandra61

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2020, 12:43:41 PM »
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your husband.  :hug:  Sadly, the way you describe feeling will be common to many people here. It is very early days for you. If you can get through just one day or one hour at a time, then that's fine for now. It is such a shock to lose someone so close. You are not alone here.  :hearts:

Offline Hopeless

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2020, 02:35:45 PM »
Thank you Sandra from the bottom of this aching heart for your reply. I’m very grateful to you for understanding it’s early days. People say “it’s over a month, you have to get over it and live your life” what they don’t know is my life was my husband, today without him I have no life. Mornings are so hard. For the first two weeks I barely left our bed. I had no purpose to get out. Next thing I know was I woke up in hospital ICU. I’ve been found unconscious on the floor by the bed.
After a week I get back home the pain is worse.
I keep asking how did we get hear. One moment my husband had fought the chest infection he suddenly got and we were coming home, on the same day he took a turn for the worse and died of a cardiac arrest. I was with him in hospital for 18 days, night and da never left his side. I remember what he went through in those 18 days and I seem to only remember this and go through it over and over again, night and day and cry.
I wish I could just disappear into nothingness.
I don’t feel a sense of belonging, I feel scared to face the world without him.
I simply don’t know how to live without him.
My life over, I’m just a living corpse.

Offline Sandra61

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2020, 04:44:40 PM »
Oh dear! Sadly unless someone has been through a loss themselves, I don't think they have any idea how terribly hard it is to learn to live with it. Honestly, four weeks is nothing. I know the feeling of not wanting to get out of bed because you have nothing to get up for, but for your own health and because your lost loved one would not want you to make yourself unwell, you should at least try to make sure you eat and drink enough each day. That is hard, because you have no appetite and don't notice time passing when you are feeling so low, but please try. It will only make things worse if you make yourself ill also, as you have already discovered.

I know it feels like the world has ended and it's hard to understand how others can still act as though everything has gone back to normal, when for you, it never will, but that is one of the things about loss. The 'normal' that you knew won't come back and neither will the old you, but that doesn't mean your life is over. It really doesn't. What it means is that you slowly have to adjust to the new 'normal' that you find yourself in and to the new you this terrible experience has made of you. Slowly, you do find your way forward, but in my experience, you have to look for that, a little bit at a time. You need to find things that help you, in however small a way, to feel better, even if it is just having some flowers around so that you have something pretty to look at and a lovely scent to smell. For me, they reminded me that there are still good things in the world. Similarly, it helped me to go out and walk, partly to get me out of the house and partly because, if you have a park or open space somewhere near you, I found it helped to go and sit there to try to grasp what had happened and absorb it. The park was a lovely calming place to sit and do that in with all the greenery around and the sunshine to enjoy. It helped me too to see all the benches with their lovely inscriptions to loved ones others had lost but still remembered and missed and loved. It helped me remember that love never dies and those we love remain part of us for as long as we live and so never really leave us.

In time, it may help you to take up a new interest and make some new friends to give you something to look forward to each week and a reason to go out, but for now, how about starting a journal or perhaps a memory book. It helped me to make a photo album of favourite pictures of the person I had lost so I could look at them whenever I needed to, but it also helped to write down each day how i was feeling and what I was thinking about and that helped me get it out of my system a bit. Also you could start a book of memories, to help you look beyond the last days of your husband's life and remember all the good times you spent together. Revisiting some of the places you used to go to together might help with this also.

Grief should not just be about the misery and the sadness of that person not being there, but also about being thankful for the privilege of having known them and for the gift of the time you had with them. The memory of those will be the treasure you take with you into your future - and you do have a future. You just have to make it now for yourself, as he is not there to help make you happy himself anymore. So try to do that for him and that way, when you meet again, you can tell him about all the things you did after he was gone and make him proud of you for finding a way forward and making the most of your life after your time together, which, as someone who loved you, I am sure he would want.

One day at a time for now and even getting up and making a cup of tea or a meal is a little triumph and a start towards recovery. Sending strength.  :hug: :hearts:

Offline Hopeless

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2020, 05:17:15 PM »
Thank you Sandra, angels do live in this cruel world and you are truly one of them. I’m so glad I came here. I read your reply and thank you for taking the time to write in such detail. I’m most grateful.
As much as I try looking at his photos is one of the hardest things I’m find doing, when I come across his photos I curl into a ball and tremble. I can’t understand why but I can’t do it right now.
I’m going to read your response a few more times and take it in. I can’t tell you how enormously grateful I am to you.

Offline Sandra61

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2020, 05:39:31 PM »
Then find something easier to do. Try writing that journal or just write how you felt about those last days at the hospital. I did find the memory of those weighed heavily on me until I wrote about them. I felt a bit better about that time after that. Karena, who also writes on this site, would say that writing it down helps you understand your own feelings better as the act of writing means you have to order your thoughts to do it and that can help you understand them better and the act of writing, I think, just helps give them some validity and leaves you feeling you have dealt with them to some extent. I spent a lot of time at the hospital in those last days too and couldn't focus on anything else for a long time after. I think back on those days as the 'hospital horror', as we did not have a good experience of that time. But it did make me feel a little 'lighter' after I wrote down how I thought about them.

I think the shock of loss blots out every other memory of the person you have lost for some considerable time after you lose them, but slowly you do get back the good memories, as the shock slowly subsides. I think you are still in the shocked phase at the moment though, so be gentle with yourself and actively try to take care of yourself, even if you don't feel like it. Everyone grieves differently. There is no right or wrong way to do it and learning to live with it takes longer for some than others. I don't think any of us ever really get over it though. It just becomes part of who we are and life may return to a routine in time, but it never really feels the same again.

Thank you for your lovely kind words, but I am no angel, I'm afraid; just another grieving person who is a little further along the road than you are and understands something of what you are going through. 

Whatever you can cope with now is fine. If you can't look at photos, that's fine. Just do whatever does help, as I say, even if that's just making yourself a cup of tea and having a good cry! xx  :hearts:

Offline Hopeless

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2020, 07:42:54 AM »
Writing a journal, I can do. Thank you. Even the thought of putting my pain into paper I feel relief. I will write everything. My anger, despair, frustration, that engulfed me over the weeks while my precious husband was in hospital and the horrible thoughts I keep getting now hoping for an end of life for me, I will write everything.
Thank you so much once again Sandra.

Offline Sandra61

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2020, 09:38:36 AM »
Good. I hope it helps. Grief will drag you down if you let it and the further you slide the harder it is to climb back out of that pit of despair, so keep working on finding little things to help you feel just a tiny fraction better. Don't give up. I am sure your lovely hubby wouldn't want you to give up on life, especially when he fought to keep his own. Keep going! Sending strength - and don't forget to eat and drink. I am sure the last place he would want you to end up again is in the hospital. Big hug!  :hug:

Offline RichardD

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2020, 06:55:45 PM »
I have just joined the forum today and have posted on the introduce yourself page.

I note that the author first posted this a couple of weeks after her husband passed away back in July.

Is there any way of following this up to see how she is doing now?

It would be interesting to know whether or not the 2/3 months that have passed have improved her outlook on life. 

Offline Sandra61

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #9 on: October 11, 2020, 02:07:27 PM »
Hello Richard, no, not really, unless the person chooses to post an update. I am always pleased when they do, because like you, it is good to know how someone is getting on. But all we can do is reply if they do post something. If they choose not to, I always hope that means that they are doing better now and don't need us anymore.  :hearts:

Offline Emz2014

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Re: 4 weeks loss of husband and I can’t cope.
« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2020, 10:05:35 PM »
It does help to see others journeys and gain some hope

Grief takes time, the first year has all the 'firsts' to navigate, for me the 2nd year brought different challenges.  Its scary to see time mentioned in periods of years when we are in such pain, but from my experience the pain doesnt stay a consistent level.  As time passes we learn to cope and glimpses of easier days comes between the bad, and gradually the easier times get a little longer or more frequent. We dont 'get over it', we find ways to carry on and in a way carry our loved ones with us.  Ive found that keeping a journal, or writing regularly here, we are able to see our journey and notice the progress (when we are in it day to day we can often not see. And whilst in pain its hard to see when it is not quite as painful)
I feel rather clumsy trying to get this into words - just trying to share there is hope. The pain will ebb and flow, hold on in there  :hearts:
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. 
Hold on in there xx