Disconnect

[mo12]

So I know this topic has come up before but I don't remember the conversation, I guess because I wasn't at this point yet.  I'm 16 months out and I feel like I'm doing well all things considered.  Taking care of my daughter, getting to work, even enjoying much of my time.  But, the person I feel closest too in the whole world, the only person I feel really knew me, is dead.  He's on the "other side."  I remember the awful, physically painful feeling of desperate grief in the early days/ months, where I felt literally torn between the living world and the "after," not sure where I would end up.  This is not that.  This is more of a strange feeling like it doesn't matter if I die, since that's where my other life is.  I'm not suicidal and not even depressed (anymore), and I'm not one of those people who are able to "communicate" with the dead, nor am I religious, but I feel a connection to the "other side" that sometimes feels much stronger than my connection to my life.  I don't relate fully to many people anymore. Is this coming out sounding totally weird? 

[Virgo]

I'm also at 16 months. I don't think it sounds weird. You feel like you're just going through the motions until you see him again. I feel that way at times. I have three daughters. I take care of their needs, the house, finances, but I just recently started doing more for ME. I'm going to the gym more regularly. I joined a bible study group at our church. I try to get an evening to myself every other week. I meet my friends for lunch once in awhile. It helps me feel more connected.

[BrokenHeart2]

mo12 I can relate to what you posted. I'm feeling sort of 'just don't care'. It's an aweful feeling isn't it. I don't have kids or pets here. That's what it's feeling like just passing the 2 yrs mark for me. I must say for me it's an 'ebb and flow' and different than from earlier on. I hope it keeps changing. And BTW, doesn't sound weird to me at all. I remember that feeling.

[Mizpah]

This doesn't sound weird to me at all.  In the beginning, you're in pain.  It's a whole different place.  You're not in the land of the living.  Now, you're kinda here, but you're kinda there.  For me, it was a stopover.  When I was around your time, I forced myself to date someone I wasn't very into (he was fine, I just wasn't there and he wasn't the one or one of the ones for me).  I did it because I knew it was good for me, but I was going through the motions.  I use this example not for the dating aspect but only to say I was kinda in the land of the living but also kinda among the dead still.  At about two years, for me, I felt alive again.  It's a strange in between time/phase. 

[mo12]

Thanks all.  Yes, "going through the motions," that's exactly it. 

[Jen]

I've been having internet connection issues, and when I was finally (!) able to get on tonight, I was going to post a thread with this very title and topic. I've been feeling disconnected from everything-- from my family, from my friends, from my life. Going through the motions-- yes, that describes it perfectly. I know I'm not dead, but I'm not alive, either. I'm just... here. I've been on an antidepressant for almost two months now, and I do think it's helping, but when my doctor asked me the standard depression screening questions-- "In the past two weeks, have you experienced decreased interest in things you used to enjoy? Have you felt down or blue? Have you had thoughts that you'd be better off dead?"-- I had to honestly answer yes to all of them.

 

I do everything I'm supposed to, but I don't want to do any of it. I don't want to be here. I have nothing to look forward to-- even things I should be excited about, like a couple of upcoming trips. Every morning I open my eyes, reality strikes, and I just think, Oh, no, not another day...

 

I don't really know where I'm going with this, so I'll stop. Just wanted to tell you that I feel similarly, and I hope we'll be able to look back someday and say, "Hey, we got through that." (((Hugs)))

[mo12]

JJ, sorry you're dealing with the same thing, but it does help to know people here get it.  In my "real life", people don't get it at all- they see me doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing and think that I'm fine.  We'll never stop missing them, we'll never "get over it"... but I do think we'll find "life" again...

[Jen]

... but I do think we'll find "life" again...

 

If I could hope for anything, it would be this. The nuts-and-bolts circumstances of my life haven't actually changed that much (except that everything is different, of course): same job, same kids, same bills, same schools and teachers and coworkers and so forth. Same trajectory, for all intents and purposes-- except that there is no purpose to any of it anymore. When I had Jim, my life meant something. Now it doesn't. I guess that's just a construct in my crazy little head, because really, so many things are the same as they were before, but I can't get past it. Love and companionship gave my humdrum life meaning. Now I trudge through the dreary, endless days with nothing to bolster me. I wonder if I'll ever find a reason to live again, as opposed to just exist... right now I'm not very optimistic about my odds.

 

It wasn't supposed to be this way. It just... wasn't.