Advice for 1 yr

[Dragonfly]

I am so sad. I miss my husband so much. This is so much worse then I imagined. I held it together for so long. Why is 1 year so freaking hard? I just keep thinking back... what if? Ok I will pull it together for my son. I got this right?

Dragonfly

[Toosoon2.0]

Dragonfly, I was a walking shit show at 1 year.  It felt every day like my house of cards was going to collapse.  I had a nervous breakdown because of the responsibilities of a demanding career, a 6 year old whose learning disabilities were just emerging, and exhaustion coming off two years of intensive care giving.  Those were dark, dark times for me.  But the good news is, you do have this.  Things will get better.  By 18 months I was starting to come out of it.  It took me that long though.  Little by little, day by day, i started to get stronger.  Be kind to yourself.  Don't try to do too much too fast.  Know that what you're feeling is normal, even if it is hellish.  Sending you support and understanding.  Christine

[twin_mom]

So many of us subliminally think that 1 year is some magic number and everything will be okay if we can just get to it. But our hearts don't work that way,  unfortunately. They have their own timelines.  You will start having less terrible days,  I promise.  Just breathe,  drink your water, and be kind to yourself.

 

I think it's kinda like parenting - you wish for the day they're out of the <fill in the blank> phase and then one day you realize that the phase is past and you've moved into another without realizing it.... someday, on your timeline, you'll realize that you haven't felt like your heart had been ripped out in awhile, instead you've been feeling something else, that you've moved into a new phase of your grief processing.

 

Hang in there.

[Mizpah]

At one year, I felt exiled.  Exiled from grief.  From social recognition of grief, and from the structure of grieving (part of the Jewish tradition involves saying kaddish or the mourner's prayer for 11 months and then again at the one year anniversary of death, and then every year on the anniversary), so at 11 months and one year, it was kind of "the end" of the heavy ritual grieving).  I felt exiled.  Like I'd done all the firsts.  I'd done all the dates where I could say, "last year on this day we were....."  I just felt exiled.  I wanted back into the first year.  My family came with me to say kaddish on the one year anniversary and in the midst of it I just collapsed into sobs.  It couldn't be over.  It being over was him being over all over again.  One year is really hard. 

[Trying]

I remember how hard one year hit me and how shocked I was that it could still hurt so much.  The build up had me reliving all of the horrid details of the last weeks and days before he died.  When the anniversary came I was struck by the fact that all of the firsts were over.  I had thought there would be a relief in that but instead there was just more pain and emptiness.

 

Things did start to improve in that second year as the waves of grief became less intense with longer periods of calm in between over time.  We all need to let go of the idea that grief has some sort of timeline and ignore the subtle pressure or judgement of friends and family.

 

Hugs to you Dragonfly.  You've got this, even when it doesn't feel like it.

[Captains wife]

I found year 1 difficult too - and while I felt a little better than at 3 months, I struggled a lot with working full time and raising a baby alone and being very isolated in my community. I would say that I came out of my deep grief more into 2+ years for some reason...