Function vs Denial

[kailee]

It's been six weeks since the love of my life--my everything--died after a brief but horrendous illness. I have to do "things" to function--work at a demanding job, find somewhere to live (can't stay where I am), help the kids with their lives, take the dog out, remember to eat....

But in order to manage all these necessary activities, I have to live in a state of perpetual semi-denial. If I look at my loss straight in the face, I fall apart. So I have to keep tamping it down. Taking time off is simply not an option right now if I want to stay employed. But I know perfectly well that my delayed grief is just going to make things even worse down the road.

How do you all handle this?

[Guest TooSoon]

I am so sorry for your sudden and recent loss.  At six weeks, it is all still so fresh.  Be kind to yourself. 

 

Your post really took me back.  Also out of necessity and partly because I didn't know what else to do, I powered through the first six months until the school year ended for my daughter and me.  Unlike you, I did not have to move (or take out the dog) but there were plenty of other things to keep me busy.  After the school year ended, I took my daughter on a two week vacation ---- we just kept moving!  But the minute we got home, and I walked back into this empty house, it hit me.  It was probably about 7 months after my husband died, and two and a half years after he was diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer during which I was primary caregiver.  I was already pretty debilitated and traumatized before he even died.  Why do I tell you all of this?

 

I didn't consciously delay grieving.  It was always there but I held it in check until I was mentally, emotionally and logistically in a place where I could face it head on.  It was what my reality mandated, on the one hand; on the other hand, I took it on piece by piece rather than all at once.  When I did look it straight in the face, when I really absorbed the full weight and the big picture, I will admit that I crashed spectacularly, but at the same time, I was better equipped at 7 or 8 months to cope with crashing.  At two months?  Not a chance.  I was too unstable until 7 or 8 months to cope productively with my grief. 

 

So, what I am saying, I guess, is you will grieve in your own way, on your own timeline, as each of us has and does.  Somehow, it seems like I had some kind of primordial intuition telling me in those first months, "Not yet."  We will be here to help you through it, whenever it comes and in whatever form your grief takes.  Sending you lots of support! 

[kailee]

@TooSoon Thank you so much for your reply. It makes me feel like I have not actually lost my mind completely during this whole disaster. I am definitely still in shock and the worst part is still to come, but I just can't let myself go there yet.