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My Story ....we buried my mom last mothers day 2 month later my husband was diagnosed with cancer....4 month later he dies..  My sister says i should talk to someone....How could anyone help? By telling me to have hope..well i have done that ..doesn't work, or have faith a lot of good that did..no one can do anything

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Gem I am so sorry to hear you lost your mom and your husband so close together, that is a tremendous amount of grief all at once.  Your sister is probably well meaning and worried about you, it's hard for people who love us to witness our pain and feel helpless to ease it. In my early months I resented everyone's suggestions about how I should "fix" my grief because I really needed time to just feel it and live with the pain.  That being said I started seeing a therapist as soon as my husband was undeniably terminal.  She did not try to fix me, she gave me a safe space to express my grief, my anger, my fears about the future and whatever else was the emotion of the moment.  I had witnessed a very close friend turn to self destructive behaviors after her husband died and I asked this therapist to just help me in my grief journey to not follow in her path.  She helped me with strategies to deal with my children, family members, friends and work.  If nothing else, it was one hour a week that was all about me, no judgement and no pity.

 

Coming here was also therapeutic for me, it gave me an outlet to express my grief, people who understood and reading posts from those further out I was able to find so threads of hope to grab onto.

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Oh gosh I'm so sorry.  That's so hard.

 

But therapy *can* help.  It can't change your circumstances, and its goal isn't to "cheer you up" or anything like that, but for me, some of the benefits were the ritual of having a time and place and person to go to that were all about my needs (in a world that of course is NOT), of having a place where I could say ANYTHING (including hopelessness), of knowing that I was doing what I could to be as healthy as possible in highly health-threatening circumstances (emotionally, but also physically and mentally, etc.). 

 

So much of grief and loss is about processing, and talking through your thoughts and feelings is processing.  Grief isn't to be fixed, as Trying said, but to be gone through.  Therapy helps you go through it.  (I went twice a week for 8 months and then once a week for more than year after that - DH was hit by a car while standing on a sidewalk and had brain injuries - I was severely traumatized.)  I needed to be able to say things I didn't feel I could say in real life.  I needed to be able to fall apart.  So, for me, it wasn't about, "Hey, therapy will make everything better," but more like, "Therapy will allow me to be honest about how horrible things truly are."  And, for me, that did - very very slowly and very very gradually over a long period of time - help me, give me strength, reveal my resiliency, allow me to take joy in aspects of life again, help me feel alive again, help me become myself rather than a zombie, help me reenter the land of the living.  (Can you tell I love therapy?)

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Hi Gem,

So sorry for your loses within small period of time. Your sister is worried about you and that's why trying to help. In beginning we all are like on a mission and doesn't want to hear anything from any close ones also. As Trying said we need to let our grief be processed. Talking to therapist or close one who can listen you for hours will definitely help as no body else has skills or time to listen to you. Expressing yourself on this forum was one of the things which helped me and thanks to everyone for helping me during that stage.  If you don't want to create your own thread then reply to others or read old ones. I sometimes still go thru all the pages in different section as sometimes some comments can bring smile to our face.

Hugs

Manoj

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Hi Gem,

I am so sorry for all you have been through. Not too much to add to the already wonderful input before me.  If a therapist said any of those things to me I would have been out of there real fast!  I was fortunate enough to find a wonderful compassionate smart lady therapist on my first go. I was many months out and my first few appointments I just blubbered like a baby and talked in between. (I recall those appointments as my grief dump.) Then as time went on I found myself crying less and talking more.  She was so in tune with me it amazed me.  She left me with insightful things to do and think about as time went on.  I had no one else to talk to like I did with her. As time went on the appointments became less frequent because I felt I didn't need to go as often.  I went for about a year and I really do think she helped me process.  Didn't mean I was all healed but it sure did help.  At 4 yrs out I still have my days but they are nothing like they were early on.

Something that really resonated with me that I read in this forum and repeated to myself when things got (still get) really crappy is "If you're going through hell, just keep going". 

Hugs to you Gem.

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Gem, no apologies for needing to spout off, this is the place to do that.  It took me me a while to stop reacting so negatively to people's suggestions of what I should do. It can feel like you are being criticized or told you shouldn't be grieving the way you are or that you should stop feeling devastated when you aren't ready to.  I had to learn that wanting to work on my grief didn't mean I was betraying my love for DH and that he would never want his legacy to be that his death destroyed me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm so glad you posted. I'd never joined an on-line group before and found it very helpful those first couple of years when everything felt so dark and hopeless. Vent away when you need to- that's what we're here for. At almost 5 years I am finally taking steps to see a therapist. I should have done it sooner, I don't know why it's been so difficult for me to go. I am so thankful for this site, I hope it can be of help for you also.

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