I've said it before, I'll say it again...

[Jen]

... but I really, really, REALLY just want to be done.

 

I was done counting. So why did I wake up this morning and immediately think, Two more days and it will be 20 months? What the hell difference does it make, anyway? There's no finish line. There's no magical threshold that we cross and find happiness waiting on the other side-- well, maybe when we die. If we're lucky...

 

Twenty months, and I'm no less adrift than I was at the start. Everything I've tried to cling to has more or less floated out of my grasp. I'm keeping my head above water, but barely-- and I get a good lungful every now and then when I start to go under. On Sunday (which was my daughter's 16th birthday, no less), my mother and I got into a screaming match, in which she accused me of making her raise my children while I'd spent most of two years "wallowing." Yup, that's me. Wallowing. No point denying it.

 

Yes, I'm taking meds. Yes, they help. But I'm still broken, I'm still lost. Still crying at work and at Starbucks-- sometimes I bother to hide it, sometimes I don't. Right now I'm sitting at the nurses' station with tears rolling down my cheeks. If anyone notices, they don't mention it. My liminal period is over; the statute of limitations has expired on sympathy for my grief.

 

For awhile I was feeling pretty good about myself. The one arguably positive side effect of misery for me was considerable weight loss-- the secret is to just stop eating for 9 or 10 months, no biggie. People kept telling me how great I looked, as if that meant I was all better-- you can't still be grieving when you're having to shop for new clothes, right?

 

Well, I started eating again last summer, and now I've gained 20 lbs-- about a quarter of what I'd lost. I try to be mindful about what I eat, I keep track, and I walk almost every day-- usually 2 or 3 miles. I expect it's normal rebound, but suddenly I'm worthless again. Fat(ter) lonely widow. No one wants me. I'm useless-- even my mother says so. Why not eat another peanut butter cup? I'm like Evelyn in Fried Green Tomatoes: too chicken to get really serious and get fit, or else say screw it all and get really fat.

 

I told someone the other day that self-pity is the last refuge of the damned. I guess that's why I'm still mired here. I just don't know what to do about it. I feel as though I've exhausted all my resources for support-- no one wants to listen to me whinge anymore. I can't stand it, I don't want to be here, I don't want to think about it another hour, let alone another month or year or decade. Of course I don't have another option.

 

I just needed to get that out. I'm sorry I haven't been around much... I just don't have much left to give. (((Hugs)))

[Jess]

(((Jen))) You know this is a safe place to say anything at all, whether you feel you are whining or not. We are an non-exhaustible resource for support. To be around, you don't need to have something to give, sometimes giving someone else a chance to give back support to you is important, too. I'm not going to pollyanna all over your thread, but I will say that you have have come such a long freaking way from when I first met you on these boards. You are too close to it to see it, but I think that is true of all of us when we struggle- that we can't see our own progress. However, coming a long way is not enough when you feel so down and I know that, especially when it feels like backward steps are happening. So, to that I simply want to say you have all of our love and support. We genuinely care about you because we see your worth. Screw anyone that doesn't and talks you into losing sight of it yourself. As for your mother, a screaming match sucks, but it sounds like she had it coming.

[mo12]

Hi Jen and Jess, it's been awhile. Jen, I hear ya. I can relate to the feeling of just being so done with this! Also, the weight loss and gain part

Jess, "I won't pollyanna all over your thread"- lol, love it!

[Guest TooSoon]

Grief is sneaky.  A week can feel like a year when you're on the emotional roller coaster.  A good day can evaporate in an instant for no apparent reason.  Going to the store to buy a loaf of bread can feel like trekking across the Sahara.  I've choked up, if not burst into tears, in front of my classes more times than I would like to admit.  If I have learned one thing throughout this process it is that while others can be supportive, they cannot understand what it feels like to have half of your identity ripped away and almost all of the eggs stolen from your basket.  To walk around in a world that looks the same but is unrecognizable.  They cannot understand what it is like for the one person to whom you directed both your inner and outward dialog to disappear or the magnitude of the echo the silence of their absence creates and how it is enough to nearly drive us to insanity.  Tobe so sick of your own company that you just want to scream.  Only those who have gone through it can understand it on a visceral level. 

 

One thing that has helped me immeasurably is to lean in and accept that my loss will be with me forever in one form or another - it is necessarily (and unapologetically) the defining punctuation mark in my life.  All of the things I believed in, put my trust in, worked for, banked on disappeared.  Where does one go from there?  I've stared myself down and acknowledged that no one can walk this road for me or provide a pathway out.  And it fucking sucks (are we allowed to use the f word?  If not, sorry.). 

 

But I've been doing it for a little bit longer and it has gotten easier - like comfort in routine as a new life for M and me begins to take shape, as changes seem less starkly foreign, confusing and scary and more just part of the way we live now (and I'm not talking about adp, I'm talking about this life the two of us girls live day in and day out).  Rather than think in terms of being broken, I prefer to think of it as wounded. Broken can be fixed and I don't believe that this can ever be fixed but wounds heal and leave scars.  That's how I feel, scarred. While I am inexorably changed, I can still tap into the blithe light heartedness, optimism and humor that I've always had but there is a seriousness now, a weight, an edge and there is also a fragility that comes with the knowledge that life is precarious.  Still, there is also some wisdom, clarity and strength, I think, that is gained in rebuilding your life from ruins, from being forced into deciding what really matters.  I've tried to view it as a matter of perspective, though sometimes it doesn't work.

 

Speaking of perspective, self-pity is a bit like guilt in my mind.  It is only self-pity if you choose to call it that and it is as useless as guilt.  Rather than self-pity do you think perhaps trying to see it as searching for a way forward?  That you must go through these emotions and ask these questions in order to find your way?

 

I feel like I just went on a bit of a rant there.  Sorry!  If you can't come here to say what needs saying then where can you go?  Sometimes we just need the release of letting it out. And Jess is right, you have come so far. Lots of love, Jen. 

 

[Jen]

If I have learned one thing throughout this process it is that while others can be supportive, they cannot understand what it feels like to have half of your identity ripped away and almost all of the eggs stolen from your basket.  To walk around in a world that looks the same but is unrecognizable.  They cannot understand what it is like for the one person to whom you directed both your inner and outward dialog to disappear or the magnitude of the echo the silence of their absence creates and how it is enough to nearly drive us to insanity.  Tobe so sick of your own company that you just want to scream. 

 

YES.

 

I'm so tired of being in my own head. Nothing seems real anymore... I can't trust what I see and hear. I know I am loved. I know people care about me-- rather, my brain knows-- but my heart can't be convinced. It needs constant reassurance, it needs to hear it repeated ad infinitum. But I can't in good conscience ask that of anyone- -it's not anyone's job to validate me or babysit my poor fragile heart.

 

I'm trying to find a way forward that involves depending on no one to carry me but me. You're absolutely right, there's no way out but through, and there's no one else to do the work for us. I know I should straighten up, shoulder the load, and stagger on under my own power. But there's this little lost girl inside me who can't stop crying, who just wants someone to take me by the hand and lead me out of the darkness. Someone else to be strong and take care of me, because doing it myself is too hard and too exhausting and I just don't want to!

 

Speaking of guilt... I feel guilty for feeling that way. I resent that I have to do this. I'm angry; it's not fair. That and $2 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but it is what it is... right?

 

I hate this. I've hated it since day one, and I still hate it. I hate not knowing, I hate feeling so abandoned and alone when I'm demonstrably not. I hate hearing my youngest son cry because he will "never have a dad again." I hate crying myself to sleep because no one will ever climb in beside me, hold me, love me "that way." I want to just NOT CARE, but I don't know how. So I moan to myself until I can't stand it anymore. Then I moan here, because y'all are the only ones who get it. And I'm so sorry for that...

 

Hugs and more hugs. I'm so sorry. It's got to get better soon. Surely...

 

 

[linda5]

((Jen)), just want to send you a big hug.  I feel like I take two steps forward and one step back.  Let's just keep taking those steps. 

 

I feel it's okay to yell at your Mom.  Until they lived it, they don't know what they're talking about.  Sending you hugs and more hugs.

[kjs1989]

Jen, I am so sorry. I still feel like I am watching someone else's life. When I allow myself to stop and think, "my god, D is dead," it is just so unbelievably overwhelming to me and sickening that I can't stand it. I want to throw up. I don't have any words of encouragement for you, except to let you know you are so not alone. We are all there with you. Hugs and more hugs.

[widowat33]

((Jen))

 

"I told someone the other day that self-pity is the last refuge of the damned. I guess that's why I'm still mired here. I just don't know what to do about it. I feel as though I've exhausted all my resources for support-- no one wants to listen to me whinge anymore. I can't stand it, I don't want to be here, I don't want to think about it another hour, let alone another month or year or decade. Of course I don't have another option."

 

This resonates, especially the last part. I used to be somewhat of a daydreamer, fantasizing and picturing my future. I don't do that anymore. Yes I still have so much to be grateful for, but without him the future looks just as bleak as the past almost year and a half without him has been. So instead I have stolen the motto "one day at a time" that's how far ahead I look as we never know what tomorrow can bring. I figure if I can get through tomorrow I can get through the remaining days ahead of me.

 

Sending you more hugs and support!

[Jen]

So many hugs... thank you all. Thursday was bad-- it was 20 months, and Jim died on a Thursday-- so I slept through as much of it as I could. It finally passed, and yesterday was marginally better. Today... another slap in the face. I got an email from Ancestry.com-- I'd signed up there a couple years ago, but hadn't done anything with it since I lost Jim. Apparently they just updated their records, and sent me a notification that there were "new hints" on my family tree. I'm on my lunch break, so I logged in to see what they were-- expecting 1940 census information on my grandfather or something. Instead, I get treated to the fabulous announcement that they've located records that "may pertain to" Jim.

 

It was his obituary and the updated listing in the Social Security Death Index.

 

So I guess that's it. It's official; he's dead. The government has added him to the Death Index and Ancestry.com has changed his "leaf" on my tree. It only took 20 months.

 

Back to work.

 

 

[SoVerySad]

Oh, Jen, I'm so, so sorry. How painful that must have been! Sending you the tightest of hugs and much love...

[Jen]

(((((HUGS)))))

 

I was okay yesterday... or thought I was, more or less. It wasn't a bad day-- long and busy, but all right. It went fast, so I didn't have much time to brood.

 

On my way home, I was calm, not upset, not particularly stressed-- just tired and bleah-- and I found myself calmly and (apparently) rationally thinking, I should kill myself.

 

I won't. Let me say that right off. But it was so strange-- it just seemed so reasonable. I was fairly numb, not really feeling anything but the same gaping emptiness I've felt for 20 long months. I'm tired of feeling-- or not feeling, as the case may be. I don't want to keep going. I don't want to do this anymore-- I know I have to (please don't call the white coats, I'm not going to harm myself or anyone else) and I will, but... just for a few minutes it sounded like such a relief. Just to be done. No more fear. No more missing him. No more loneliness and uncertainty and hurt. Just... peace and quiet.

 

Honestly, by every objective reckoning, I'm FINE. Home, family, friends, job-- all ticking along. I'm not as financially secure as I'd like, but I'm stable... I'm getting by. It's just this grief... it colors everything. The black hole inside me sucks all potential for peace and happiness away. I don't know what else to do... so I'm not really doing anything. I'm existing. Right now I struggle to get through every day just sdo I can get into my bed at night-- the one place I feel something approaching respite, but it's still empty. Cold comfort.

 

It is what it is. I'll stop whining. Thank you for hearing me...

 

[Trying]

You're not whining, you're reaching out.  I know you say that you would never harm yourself and I totally understand the feeling of wanting to raise the white flag and just surrender, quit this new life.  You have said before that you are on meds for depression, do you think talking to your doctor about trying something different may help?  I had to play around with meds for anxiety and insomnia a bit before I found what works best for me, so just a thought.  I am still, at 27 months trying to figure out how to stop the stress eating.  I know I feel better, have more energy, and my mood improves when I eat healthy yet at the first sign of stress I am mindlessly eating the bad stuff.  The emotions take over the logical mind too often.

[Jen]

I talked to my doctor on Friday, she adjusted my dose a bit. I'm not that fussed about it-- I think the meds are doing the best they can. They can't fix the situation, you know? And they do help. I recognize the depression when it creeps in, I can call it a liar to its face... it's been my companion so long, I can't really imagine life without it. IIWII. Lol.

 

The eating thing is funny. It's not stress eating-- it's anger eating. Punishment eating-- but I'm not sure who I'm trying to punish. (Ultimately myself, I get that. I do.) Mostly it's FUCK YOU WORLD eating. There is no sweetness in my life anymore, therefore I will eat a Hershey's kiss or three. I don't even like candy-- I've always been the sort who looked forward to Halloween for the costumes and would still have candy left when Christmas (or Easter!) rolled around. I hate peanut butter, but lately all I want is Reese's cups. WTF??!?!

 

I don't know what's wrong with me, except that I do. I just don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to be okay. I'm afraid to hope for better than okay. I'm just so tired... :-\

[Trying]

My heart goes out to you Jen.  Medication is not a fix all but I know it has helped me to deal with some of the complications of grief and I am grateful for it.  Talk therapy has been another big part of my coping strategies.  In the past few months I have watched my weight continue to rise and I realize that I still have some unhealthy coping mechanisms and I should probably go back to my therapist.  2 steps forward, one step back. 

 

[Torn]

Oh Jen...

 

  My feelings are so similar at 18 months.

  You made me laugh inside when you mentioned depression & meds and how long the "Jen" & depression has been a pair...haha

 

  You have mentioned the "lil girl" inside you crying and wanting to be lead out of the darkness.

  I think that's our JOY that's broken because of loosing the person closest to us, our spouse who through their love brought joy to our lives.

 

I'm at 19 months and to many things go threw my head aswell.

  Hopefully we will all find moments of peace and remember our happiness, I'm to new to know when it'll get better.

  After a good fit of tears and hyperventilating, I take a lil piece of xanax try to catch my breath.

 

    There truly does seem to be a deadline for 'others' of a time when they feel we should just be over it.

  Screw them, the haven't worn you shoes sugar .

[Freelancing]

Not to make light of your situation, I, too had fluctuating weight issues. I'm finally getting rid of my grief ranging in size from 2 -14. Now that I'm finally at the end of menopause (oh, the twat pain!) my body has changed into no longer having a waist, saggy breasts and a flat butt. Time for a push up bra to avoid breasts dragging on the floor. Belts and elastic clothing to keep the pants up and allow for no waist. I can actually say I'm glad DH isn't here to see this! I was almost 49 when he died and still maintained a nice figure. Mother Nature has taken over to age me out. Ugh!

 

All I can say is we are programmed to talk endlessly about our beloved in the first years. It does subside, then people wonder why you've stopped talking about her/him. Yeah, we do wear them out. For me, I just really wanted those I loved or cared about to remind me of good times they had with DH - to feel he mattered and hadn't gone on to be just a memory for them. Every once in a while, I'd prompt any one of them to give me what I wanted by saying "do you remember the time out at the lake when ..." or something similar just so they would talk about him. They slowly began coming to me with own stories and pictures - it was amazing.To all that knew us as a couple I'm still DH's wife. I'm okay with it because they know who I am now, what I'm made of, most importantly, I know who I am, where I'm going and amazed with myself for all I have accomplished in 8 3/4.

 

I know its hard, but it will get better.

[Freelancing]

I forgot to comment on the counting.

I finally accepted I was going to do it no matter what. It was just another needed reminder that DH is dead to help me accept it.