Flashbacks

[Elbel66]

Today I started to have flashbacks.  I did before, shortly after my husbands death (I am now 3 1/2 months out) but today was different.  Vivid flashbacks of sitting in the private waiting room in the hospital with my son and sisters when they came in and told us of my husbands injury and prognosis, and of waiting for my other son to get here from out of state while we were on the palliative care floor, hoping he would make it before his father passed, the feeling of my son's hug when he finally did arrive, remembering my younger son (19) asking to talk to his dad alone for a minute, both my sons telling me and my husband that we will be okay.  It feels like yesterday, the unbearable pain is back, it's like it happened yesterday, not more than three months ago.  I am waiting for this to be more bearable, I'm waiting for a break in the pain.  My heart and soul continue to ache each and every day.....

[widowat33]

It's so hard to relive those painful moments over and over again. I used to have flashbacks, of the police pulling in my driveway to tell me my husband had died in an accident, of telling my boys that daddy would never be coming home. Oddly enough that's really the only clear memory I have of those first few days. Little bits and pieces here and there, but the most devastating moments are clear. To be honest the two months following his death are almost a blur.

At a year and five months out those flashbacks don't happen nearly as often to me. I remember feeling like it was only yesterday and at the same time feeling like it happened a lifetime ago.

I can't tell you when it will become more bearable or when the pain and ache will ease, as we are all so different in our grief, but I want to wish you peace and a break from this heartache.

Hugs

[MauiMermaid]

I had flashbacks on-and-off for the first year or so. I'm at year three and they have subsided. Having found my husband (he passed away of sudden cardiac arrhythmia), I had the vision of finding him. The police also treated it like a crime scene afterwards and I had really sharp flashbacks of them being there and moving him. The final, and most haunting, was seeing him one last time before the coroner took him away from me. That vision still lives with me but through therapy I've managed to soften the blow.

 

It will get softer over the time. I can tell you I didn't think I'd live that first year. I thought my own heart would stop from that much constant pain. Please know that you will in fact come through this. It's difficult to imagine now but you will. Take it day by day and be kind to yourself. It will start to get more manageable over time. (((Hugs to you)))

[swilson]

{Hugs}. Sorry you're dealing with these flashbacks. The worst one I experienced was the night I had to take a friend to the ER where my wife was DOA. I tried going outside for relief only to see an ambulance roll in with a patient, which was a replay of when I saw the Paramedics unloading my wife with a fireman performing CPR. Those vivid memories are brutal and we never know when they might hit us.  :'(

[sakeraki]

The flashbacks I get have changed. For a while they were messy, nonsequential memories that completely paralyzed me. Every time a flashback assaulted me I felt nauseous, confused and truly, genuinely scared. I was afraid of the moment or the situation that would remind me of the scream, the scents, and the sight of her on a pool of blood. It was torture.

 

Over the last few months, as I started to piece together moment by moment what happened, I still get those odd flashbacks but I'm no longer afraid. Its just something that happens. I close my eyes, shake my head, bite my lips, clench my jaw, and wait for it to be over. I even talk to myself outloud to get past it quickly. The nausea is gone, the fear is mostly gone, but the sight is still vivid and I won't forget it for as long as I live. I don't think there is something worse after that.