13 Days -- Is This Shock? Numbness? Distraction? Sociopathy?

[HCMBirdie]

My husband died 13 days ago. He was 38 years old and in great health. He was coming back from a work conference on a Thursday afternoon and banged his knee with his suitcase, tearing his ACL and meniscus. By Monday night, unbeknownst to us, he had formed a huge blood clot in the leg and experienced a saddle embolus, which he survived but mistook as a panic attack. We went to the hospital Tuesday morning, and they apprised us of the situation. They put him on blood thinners, but he'd survived, his vitals and breathing were normal, and both my husband and I thought we'd caught it and gotten lucky. Wednesday evening, he felt good until it shifted suddenly and he was probably dead in a matter of five minutes, though I watched them work on him for 30.

 

I cried over his body until I couldn't anymore. Then I made the phone calls in the room next to him, packed up our stuff while they tagged and bagged him, and then had a friend drive me home. Since then, I've been collecting passwords, tracking down credit cards, responding to facebook, planning the funeral, scraping together money for obituaries, and generally handling our business.

 

I'm functional and I hate it. People keep telling me how strong I am and how proud they are of me, but I don't feel anything and it feels like a betrayal. That's not entirely true... sometimes I feel a flash of deep, black tar guilt about all the ways I was a bad wife. Sometimes I feel painful stabs of regret that I didn't think harder about asking about sperm recovery in time. He was 38, I am 34, and we'd planned to start a family in May after he'd had laparoscopic hernia surgery. He was excited about it. Sometimes I cry because of how terrible I feel about how little I've cried and how productive and functional I have been. How little it feels like it matters to my life that he's dead.

 

People tell me I'm still in shock and/or numbness, but when I read about being in shock or numbness, it doesn't describe me. I have people around me to help, but there's so little for them to do. They keep waiting for me to crumple into a ball of depression so they help me, but I'm still functional - I donated his tissues, shopped 3 funeral homes, met with lawyers, crunched spreadsheets of our assets and liabilities, made most of the funeral arrangements myself, cared for our dogs, done my own laundry, helped my in-laws make travel arrangements, blah blah blah.  I'm sleeping normally. My appetite is returning to normal.

 

I'm not emotionally disconnected. I smile or laugh at things that are funny. I had a fight with my brother. Every now and then it feels briefly like I'm grief-constipated. I see something or hear something and I well up like I'm going to cry. I think "Here's my grief. I do miss him. I knew I did." and then it subsides before it takes hold. I keep thinking about my future, will I marry again? Will I every have the children I want SO BADLY? How? I worry that I didn't actually love him. That I wasn't as invested in our marriage as I fooled myself into thinking. I wish I was a lump of tears in bed so I knew my love for him was real.

[jeudi]

Hi Birdie-

 

I'm so sorry for your loss of your husband. I see myself in quite a few of the things you write about and know you are in the early, early days. I too cried and cried over his body until I was limp. And then I got on with arrangements and plans and making sure everyone else was ok.

 

And it sounds like right now you are busy and distracted and a lot of what you are doing are things you know how to do- like  you are on autopilot.

 

Later the quiet times will come and things will change. I remember being glad for the opportunity to fall apart when everyone was taken care of and had gone home and arrangements were made etc.

 

Grief is a long marathon and it truly is different for everyone but I think it is safe to say everyone does have to go through it to get to the other side.

 

Try not to get ahead of yourself. Take this a day at a time. Don't feel bad about laughing- it is a human thing to laugh and to find humor. Not everyone does but I sure did.

 

I'm sure to the observer I looked like I had everything nailed down and tidy. And then when I crumbled it was so hard to find a way to get all of my pieces back into any semblance of order. And I've known widows who were basket cases at first and who stayed in tears for a very long time with no signs of feeling and doing better until they finally found a way to survive.

 

Others will comment with their own advices. Until they do I wanted you to know I read your post and I hear you. Keep posting and reading here. It can be so, so very helpful.

 

There is a section on being childless and there will be others there who can help you with that unique situation.

 

xoxo

 

Judy

[Julester3]

You are in what I term as crisis mode where you work like a fiend to get things done. You are essentially doing everything and are determined to do everything yourself. You are keeping yourself crazy busy that you can't process,the death, absorb the situation. You can also see this as survival mode. I think this is normal for some of us. I was a lot like this and when it hits you, it hits hard. You don't want to feel the pain because it hurts. Does it mean you don't love him? Of course not! But be kind to yourself, allow people to help you when you know you need help. Time moves differently for people like us so take it easy, vent on us as you need to, sometimes typing it all out helps you work through what's on your mind. So sorry to have you here with us. Hugs for you...

[Wheelerswife]

I am so very sorry that you lost your beloved husband.  I have been widowed twice and my experiences were very different.  This experience is yours - similar to others, perhaps, but uniquely your own.  Please do not fret about your reactions at this point.  You love your husband and you will grieve in the way that you grieve.

 

Hugs to you,

 

Maureen

[HCMBirdie]

You are in what I term as crisis mode where you work like a fiend to get things done. ... You can also see this as survival mode.

 

Ugh. Yes, you're right. This is exactly it. Thank you for naming it. I am and have been in crisis mode because I am and have been managing a crisis -- and I'm pretty functional in a crisis.

 

With my husband being so young, and me having a pretty clear idea of what he would want... I felt an immediate responsibility to make sure his funeral would be on point and to make sure his friends and family were taken care of. People keep saying to me that this is mostly about me or worst for me or I'm most important in this situation, and it kept ringing false to me... we all lost him. But this makes sense now.... I'm depersonalizing the situation to manage the crisis because I feel like I owe it to him.

 

Its not a fantastic place to be, but its freeing to know what's going on with me. TY

[SaraJ]

Don´t worry, there is no wrong way to do this. I think many (including me) has gone through a phase of "am I doing this the right way?". I had a relative telling me that I "grieved the perfect way". My mother and I laughed so hard on that remark. The ones closest to you are the ones who sees the messy parts. I also went into a "could I find a new guy?"-thoughts pretty quick. Within maybe two weeks. I think it is a survival thing. I was nuts about my DH and really didn´t expect that I would even think about someone new. But somehow I guess it was a way to see if there was a shortcut of filling the huge hole in my heart and straighten out my broken life. It calmed down after a while. If I couldn´t bring myself to throw out DH underwear without breaking down it was not exactly time for me to go on Tinder.

 

This is a shitty experience, but it does give some reflection on your own needs and wishes. It´s a rollercoaster of feelings. In the beginning it´s a matter of going with the flow, if you feel like digging into the practical stuff it´s the right thing to do at the time. If you feel like focusing on others, that´s also the right thing to do. Just be kind to yourself, there´s no wrong ways.

[Mizpah]

There's a lot to do and a lot required of you in the beginning.  It gives you a weird laser focus on efficacy and tasks.  Once the dust settles, things change.  All you can do is take these moments as they come, and allow yourself that.  It's still very very early, and there is a lot to come, a lot of adjustments to your new life, a lot of emotions and numbnesses to go through.  Nothing means you loved him less - nothing that happens after their deaths can change what we shared with them.  That is now, for better and for worse, crystallized in the past.  Thinking of you

[MR]

Hi,

So sorry for your loss. There is nothing normal or abnormal when it comes to widow ship. After doc took her body to autopsy i drove the car myself straight to funeral home to make arrangement. I was crying but had to take care of kids too. Not much support from anybody so had no choice but to do everything myself. Please don't blame yourself for anything as you did what best you could do. Everyone's case is different. Take care of yourself.

[Toosoon2.0]

I, too, am so sorry for your loss.  There is no right or wrong way as others have already noted.  Like you, I went into "getting things done" mode and after the memorial and the paperwork and and and I just kept going - back in the classsroom, birthday parties and activities with my kid, planned a vacation - I just kept on going and going and going but eventually I had to face it and when I did at about 7 months, it hit me hard.  That was my way of coping with it.  It was the only way I could manage it at first.  I wasn't ready to grieve until seven months had passed.  I don't mean this to sound ominous in any way but you will find you way to grieving in your own time and on your own terms.  One thing this board has taught me is that, one way or another, everyone gets to the point when they realize the only way out is through.  For me this didn't start until seven months; for others, it starts instantly.  Our stories and our histories and our personalities and circumstances are all so different so it only stands to reason so, too, will be the way we grieve.

 

I cannot stress enough how much this community means to me.  I've met at least two dozen people from the board in real life (married one in fact) and have made friendships that made laughter possible when I thought it wasn't, who let me say b*t sh*t crazy stuff I could never have said elsewhere and who, well, just plain get it.  Reach out here or in other online widow forums on social media.  I chose this one and, honestly, it saved me from going insane.  I'm glad you found us but wish so much you didn't need to.  It does get better with time; I am sure everyone here agrees.  But for now, be kind to yourself (that's not meant to be a platitude.  Really, be gentle with yourself; take care of yourself as best you can and take the help when it is offered.  As someone said above, this is a marathon, not a sprint). 

 

Sending support and love to you. 

 

 

[matts225]

I am so sorry you had to join us here.  I lost my wife almost 3 months ago after an extended illness.  This forum has been very helpful in knowing that others have had the same thoughts and feelings that I experienced and that was comforting to me.  Visit the forum often and even if you don't post, read through the old posts for helpful information from others who have been down this path we are now on.  Take care of yourself the best you can. 

[Trying]

There is no right or wrong way to grieve and your grief will take on many different faces in the days, weeks and months ahead.  In the early weeks I was in crisis management mode and as long as I had tasks to do I could keep moving and keep it together for the most part.  There are so many details to focus on initially.  For me it got harder when my list of things to do related to his death shrunk.  At that point I was lost, I didn't have a purpose any more and returning to normal daily life seemed ridiculous.

 

Please don't judge yourself on top of everything else you have to deal with and don't let that label of "you're  so strong" define you. When I stopped being able to appear strong and capable people had moved on and assumed I didn't help.

 

I'm very sorry for the reason you are here but I'm glad you found us.  It's so helpful to have a safe place to share your feelings with people who get it.

[ScienceFan]

You could be in shock.

Everyone is different because of their personality type and their life circumstances.

I was in shock for about 4-5 weeks.

I couldn't trust myself to drive (I turned the wrong way on a one way street) but I was functioning.

I did what I had to do, made the decisions I had to make.

I burst into tears 6 times a day for 3 months.

I couldn't stand in front of the stove and cook for 6 months.

I call it my "deer in the headlights" phase.

As you read more posts, you will see grief isn't as cut and dried as people make it sound.

For some widows, the first year is the hardest and for some, it's the second year.

*hugs*

So sorry for your loss. My husband died suddenly too.

[Jessm1]

I also spent a few weeks not being that sad and thinking about how if I wanted children I’d need to consider moving on with someone new soon as I’m in my thirty’s. I feel guilty for the thoughts and I wonder f I loved him so little. It was a little over a month and I had a horrible week where it hit me and I felt devastated, but even then, it felt more like I was mourning a life I wasn’t going to get more than his death and absence. I feel I was selfish and horrible and still am. But, slowly, my missing him has started to sink in and a sense of needing to honor him is sinking in. I’m still very new at this (being a widow) and I don’t know if my story is in any way helpful, but there it is. Even if it just makes you feel like others can have similar moments.