Will it ever feel better

[Melissa brown]

Hello. So here I am now ..two months and 6 days since Damon passed. And I feel worse than before. So far he has missed a prom with my oldest,  a new licensed driver and his first car for my middle one, and the goal winning point scored by my youngest in her soccer game. We have missed Easter, mothers day,  lots of end of school year events and my sons high school graduation next week. These are all supposed to be happy times but I dread them. 

 

I've gone back to work and quickly realized I need to work part time. I work as a RN and taking care of people is not what I want to be doing. I put in everything I had to help damon and wasnt able to keep him alive.

 

So my question is , does this get better? Or am I going to feel like I'm just existing for the rest of my life? 

 

Sorry for this being so long..just need some encouragement.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Melissa brown
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[RyanAmysMom]

God bless you for being able to carry on and accomplish so much since his passing!  

 

Just a couple of random thoughts, as I've read a couple of your posts today:

 

Over time, yes, it will get better.  I recall asking the same question.  I didn't believe even at 16 months out that it would ever improve.  But it will. Slowly.  You may not see it day to day, or even month to month, but as you reflect, you'll see it. 

 

We assign a lot of "power" to days on the calendar - you mentioned Easter, Mother's Day, etc.....  Try to remember to take each day as it comes.  The day will come, and the day will proceed, and the day will pass... and you'll survive. 

There are some days, however, that you may want to prepare for:  Father's Day will likely be tough..... but you are tough, too.  Start planning and thinking now about how to not let the day overwhelm you, but rather how you can turn it in to a "fun" day of reflection and remembrance.  Ask the kids how they'd like to observe the day.  

 

Hang in there!  

 

 

[Toosoon2.0]

I am sorry you are struggling.  I am a college professor, and my husband died in February 2013 one week after spring semester started.  Somehow I managed to get through spring semester but I found the end of the school year to  be the world's most horrifying prospect - all of those events you cite, all of that time to confront reality, having to go out in public with my then 6 year old daughter (to the pool, for instance).  It was not the lowest of my lows but it was a difficult time of year for me and remained that way for the first couple of years.  

 

Its great that you have realized that you need to work part time.  I tried to do too much, too fast, and I paid for it dearly later on.  Take this time to grieve.  Grieving takes both time and energy.  It took me longer to get to the realization that I couldn't just "power through," but once I got to that point, I started to treat grieving like a job.  Something that required my attention and intention, but like I said, I didn't get there until about 6 or 7 months.  

 

I second what RyanAmysMom said above - the first year I went into Thanksgiving without a plan and it was a disaster.  After that, I decided to skip Christmas entirely by taking my daughter away on vacation.  With time, you will find your way through this.  From the vantage point of six and a half years now, looking back there is no way I ever could have imagined the course my life would take.  It does change and it does get better.  But as I have said before and will surely say again, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  Above all else, be kind to yourself, be forgiving of yourself, and try to remember that there is no timeline; there is no "proper" way to grieve - we all have similar but unique paths through this. 

 

Also, I made a lot of friends on the former iteration of this site, mostly people along the same timeline as me.  We clocked hundreds of hours on the telephone, sometimes met up in person and many of those people I still count as trusted confidants to this day.  I cannot stress enough how important those relationships were early on when I felt like no one in my "real life" could relate.  If you feel comfortable reaching out to others here, I encourage you to do it.  The people I connected with here have saved me and my sanity countless times.  

 

Sending support.  

[PaulZ]

Hi Melissa, it will get better in time.  It did for me at least.  I'm a pharmacist in a busy dispensary and have always prided myself on upgrading skills and taking on new abilities whenever the opportunity arose.  I had zero interest in this after my wife passed.  I was just doing my best to get through each shift.  I also cut back to 4 days a week from 5-6 days a week.  It was the first time in my life I ever took time to reflect and have time for myself and that was very valuable to me(and still is).  I can take some enjoyment and pride from my work again, but this only started about a year ago, almost two years after my wife died.  It took about that long for me to feel like myself again and feel like I'd found my identity again.  You're doing well being there for your kids and working as much as you are in a challenging job.  Keep your head up, you're doing great!

[Bunny]

...you learn how to live with your grief. In the beginning it is...everything, it is in every single breath- so it feels absolutely unbearable, unbelievable that we can endure this kind of intense pain for much longer. Some get through it by keeping busy, some prefer to sit with the grief- neither way is wrong. At different times, I have done both. I admit, seven years later, I don’t care about holidays the way I used to, but I have made peace with that and simply celebrate them differently now. 

 

One of my favorite things to do is to bake, the more complicated the recipe the better, it is my form of meditation. I could not bake successfully for about...two years? every time I tried it was all tears of frustration and wanting it to be over with already. Now I can bake a cake that takes 24 hours to make, requires a long list of obscure ingredients, and love every minute. I am so very grateful to have this back in my life. It just takes time to adjust to this new life we’ve been given, to this new person we have become. I’m still working on being able to read a book to completion, but it’s getting better! 

 

Be gentle with yourself, forgive yourself, be firm with your boundaries, and know that you can do this, it’s just going to take longer than you want it to. 

[Julester3]

Yes it will. In the beginning and early days, it is unfathomable. But as time goes by, you learn more about yourself and your relationships with your kids get stronger, you can understand yourself and your needs better than before and things will be okay.

 

I once used this somewhere here but grief is like music. Life is the music. It was once so beautiful, grand, clear, and emotional but now it’s a bit distorted, muffled yet distinguishable. The point is you can still hear the music, acknowledge it, and recognize it. It may not be as matical or wonderful it once was but you CAN still hear it, choose to hear it. You are not cut off from life and thus you remember that you are capable and have the capacity. Be kind to yourself. It’s not a race to feel what is prescribed or perceived to be normal and good but to get to the point where you have peace and you can embrace this life no matter the challenges we have been given. Hugs to you today. 

[kflex]

It will get better, but the timing is different for everyone, as you can see on this forum. I truly think that we just learn to live around it, and I thought I would never move past the pain, and then I did, inexplicably. I will say, I saw this on Twitter long ago and it still remains the best analogy I've heard about how grief affects us:  https://themighty.com/2018/12/ball-box-analogy-grief/