Some days...

[Locksley]

I've posted on this forum exactly once, so I feel a little weird about posting this.  But I don't have anyone else to say this to, and people here will probably understand some of what I'm going through.

 

Even years later, some days I feel the loss as if it just happened last night.  I feel that same soul-wrenching pain, the fear and shock.  The guilt that comes from being alive while she's not.  I question all of my decisions, wonder if she would have lived a better life, had she lived instead of me.  Knowing she would have lived a better life. And then I realize, again, that it isn't just her that I'm mourning, it's me.  The person I was, the life we had built together.  Our friends, her family, shopping trips, jobs, everyday routines. All gone.

 

I look in the mirror on days like this, and I don't recognize myself. I don't know what I'm doing here, who I am, what I want. Maybe it sounds cheesy and dumb, like a cliche you'd see in some melodramatic movie, but I don't like who I see in the mirror.  I want that person gone. 

 

Maybe some people are able to hold on to the lives they built after losing a loved one.  I couldn't.  I couldn't hold on to who I was.  I could go on about how I didn't have family to support me and help me through my mourning, or how my friends abandoned me when things got tough.  I could rant about a lot of things,  but the truth is that I was weak.  Weak in mind, body and spirit.  I have always been weak;  it's the one thing about me that didn't change after she died.  She gave me strength.  She showed me how beautiful the world could be, when all I had was a grim, ugly life that I probably wouldn't have survived without her.

 

Sometimes it takes hours for all of this to go through my grief-stricken mind.  Sometimes it takes seconds and comes without warning,  like a tornado. The result is always the same: I glance in the mirror and close my eyes long enough to remember what she looked like last time I saw her alive. Then I either have a mini nervous breakdown, complete with a panic attack, or I go completely numb.

 

I'm not sure what the point in writing this is.  To rant?  Share my pain? As a distraction?  I don't know.  But I know it's long, so thank you to anyone who reads it.

[sojourner]

I'm not even 2 years out so not as time-qualified as others, but still wanted to let you know you're heard.  I know I have a whole lot more to work through and reconcile in my being. And I think most of us do experience how we also lost our own existences, as we knew them, when our loved one perished.

 

For myself, I think its good to express those experiences of grief and find ways to articulate them in a group like this which *knows* those things of loss, as you did, instead of stuff them down.

[Virgo]

I think evaluating yourself and sharing your feelings here shows a lot of courage and strength.  My husband has been gone for almost two years and I have had a lot of the same feeling as you. Fear, pain, guilt, and regret. They come in waves, but less often than before.  I'm sorry you haven't had a lot of support from family and friends. I hope you find support here.

[donswife]

I do understand what your going through or at least my version of it

I am glad you posted here

I will look in the mirror and see the face that no longer smiles or how my eyes have become dull

Then I try and remember the person he fell in love with and try to get that spark back

It comes and goes but I do get it back in little bits

I hope the same for you but even if it doesn't, know we do get it and we can be your support

 

[Guest TooSoon]

I've been mourning the loss of the person I used to be and the life I used to live, the loss of the unbridled optimism that was so much a part of who I was "before," and everything you write makes perfect sense to me.  it took me a long time to figure out that that is what I'm grieving and not my husband's death.  The death of certainty, even though I know that the concept of certainty was and is an illusion.  Life now seems not to have anything I can count on, nothing is clear anymore, I'm not sure what to believe in anymore.  Sometimes i worry that there is something wrong with me but I try to remind myself that this might just be part of the deal.  Sending solidarity. 

[Trying]

I mourn for the husband I lost, the innocence I had, the life we lived together as a family and with our friends, who I was and who my children were.  It's all changed, we have all changed.  There are times I torture myself by thinking he would've handled all of this much better than I am and that our kids would be better off if I was the one who died.  There is no point in thinking that, of course there is no way to know how he would've handled it and we weren't given a choice of who would survive.

 

Keep reading and writing here, for me it helps to know I'm not alone and that other people understand.

[BrokenHeart2]

Yes, I understand what you are going through and I can totally relate. I feel the same way. Im not who I used to be and still trying to figure that out. At a bit over 2.5 yrs out.

Wow it's amazing how we all grieve diffently with so many similarities at the same time.

Hugs to all you wids!

[Bunny]

Thank you for starting this thread, for sharing with us.

 

There is still much I don't understand, or like, about this new person I've become. In some ways, I feel like widowhood has only served to emphasize the weaker aspects of my character, though I do try to give myself pep talks about the improvements in other areas.

 

I just can't seem to get a handle on things, still feeling pretty unmoored- but remain ambivalent about it. Well, when I'm not feeling overly-anxious about it, that is.

 

 

[Jen]

I think you summed it up perfectly, Locksley. I'm so sorry. For all of us.

[SoVerySad]

I've been thinking about this same issue a lot recently. Any sparkle I once had is gone. So many people have told me that my husband is still with me - that a part of him always will be. I do believe that is true, because we were so connected. Yet, if that is true, then it makes sense that I am no longer the same person. A part of me is now with him as well. My belief is that someday we will be reunited and perhaps I'll feel whole again.

 

I don't think it is weakness. I think I need to adjust my expectations and realize that I can't be that same person again. I miss being her. Just as I'm having to adjust to missing my husband, I need to adjust to missing the old me as well. It is not easy. I don't like the new me either, but I'm still a work in progress (at least I hope so).

 

If I might give you another take on the weakness aspect, it takes a lot of strength and courage to fully give yourself to another person, to allow them into your most intimate thoughts and fears, to love and trust completely. I don't think you were weak. I also don't think you are weak now. You are injured, just as if you've lost a physical part of yourself. It takes time to learn to adjust to the effects of the loss and I suspect some of the pain in losing our loves and our prior selves will always be with us. Not because we are weak, but because we were strong enough to really fully invest ourselves in another person. Just remember how rich that level of love and commitment made the lives of our spouses.

 

Sending you tight hugs...

[stormywx]

I can absolutely relate to this. Friends disappeared, no support at all. Weak. That's a good word. I feel totally worthless now. Like a shell of who I was. He was my world, my reason for living and the reason for my happiness. I'm lost and every day it starts over...I focus on my belief that I will see him again, otherwise I would have gone insane by now

[b1inker]

I know how you feel, the friends just kind of cough and shift uncomfortably, no one knows how to talk about it. Especially when you are in your late 20's/early 30's. You isolate yourself and people think they should give you time but you are just scared, lonely, and sad. I would hope someone would invite me to things but I was too scared to get out there and connect with friends again so we'd drift apart.