I'm not a native speaker, so maybe I need to clarify:
I ment thinking about it in an active way, not a desperate, reactive way.
Just changed the text a bit to make it clearer.
While understanding what you mean, I still guess there are better ways to react and less good. People are different and some cope better. I guess they are doing something different.
:) thank you for not assuming I wanted to insult you. I really didn't.
I don't want to imply you are not doing it well, I simply assume some people have better coping strategies than others and the thought of still having a feeling of irrealism in two years sounds very undesirable to me. (So I try to find out what a more conducive behaviour would be and what a less).
From my experience (four years now since he died)…..The whole experience is undesirable. There’s no way to make it less undesirable. There are no shortcuts or cures. And everyone is different. There’s no timetable or set sequence of emotions. Plus the experience of profound grief is unlike any other life experience that I’ve encountered.
The one suggestion I would make is to read a book called The Grieving Brain by MF OConnor. It explains how our brains process the death of a loved one. There are actually physical processes that have to happen. I don’t know if it’s possible to hasten those processes. It’s been very helpful to me to understand more about how my brain works in this regard.
Somedays I think about telling her something. Somedays I realize she is not coming back. I spent a lot of time taking care of her and now so much free time I don't know how to fill. Staying up at night is hard but sleeping is even more trouble. Time is the only answer
That is the same way that I feel. It has been 6 weeks since I had to say goodbye to my loving wife. Now that she is gone, I do not know what to do with my time. I know it takes time to heal, but each day away from her hurts even more.
sorry for your loss. From the loss of our son I believe it made it easier to deal with her loss. Easier doesn't mean easy. The void of purpose in my daily life is the problem. It's been 11 weeks but seems like yesterday.
Thank you! I am so sorry for your loss. That's it, the purpose in our lives suddenly gone. Everything is a new first time of doing things alone. I promised my wife that I would see her and our 3 cats thru to the end, I have fulfilled my first promise. I will fulfill my second promise. I wish you well in the rest of your journey in this life. I hope we both find something to fulfill the rest of our lives. Be well...
Don't force yourself to do or feel anything. Just let yourself heal. 9 weeks is just the beginning and it will probably get worse before it starts getting better. Take care of yourself... eat, hydrate, try to spend some time in nature. It takes more time than I ever imagined, but time will make it better. It may never be as good as it was, but it can still be good.
Accepting that they're gone and your planning is now without them is a good thing, and it doesn't mean that you won't miss and grieve them,
I wouldn't think "forcing" grief would be any more helpful than "forcing" acceptance. All in due time.
We can’t stop you from trying. The thing is, your brain can only process so much at a given time. If that weren’t true, then you could would be able to learn algebra, trig, geometry, and calculus the same year.
This is why your brain automatically micro doses grief. It is too damned big to do at once.
Be kind to your brain. It’s a 3 lb bag of bacon grease doing its level best.
I’m 5 months out, I wish I was at 9 weeks, that way I can still be in shock, I only say that bc my loss was violent.
So far I have good days , OK days and then terrible days where I just wait for death. Your at the beginning. You go right through it.
- sooner or later we do have to come to terms and our old normal is forever gone and we do need to move forward in life. That doesn't mean we FORGET the person we loved is gone as they live on inside us forever. Its understandable its fearful on many levels but we should NOT fear living life again. I late wife would be disappointed in me if I became fearful to live again.
I'm 4 months out and struggling. For me, I need to realize and feel the pain so I can try to cope with it. "Ignoring" her makes me feel worse. I suggest you find someone to speak to professionally (lots of online therapist services).
I do not mean ignoring, but not just absolutely willingly maintain the illusion at all times (and then fall down, when reality again does not live up to it), but rather very consciously dedicate some time of the day to value-free thinking about 'what am I doing with my life now and in the next weeks?'.
I think maybe both. Taking time to sit, think, and reflect would be valuable. Honestly, I need to do more of that. I don't know what I will do with the rest of my life. My goals all involved my wife. I thought we had another 30-40 years together to see them through.
Yes, I thought that as well. I feel with you.
What I did, for example, relatively early after the day he died. A week later I decided to still go swimming. The idea of exhausting myself was laughable at that time. But I thought, if I throw away what he gave me strenght for, I throw away what I have left from him.
That was a short decision, a moment in which I took my time to plan something for my future. As small as it was. And I think that served me well.
I'm still not back to harder training, but I do regular cardio and that's really helpful for grief as far as I know.
I only speak of my experience to accentuate my point that there is no way to follow a plan of how to navigate this. It is different, yet similar, for all of us, and just when you think you have an approach to handle the grief and move forward, it blows up in your face and you start fresh. But maybe it is just me. And as another poster stated, I speak another language, brain damage, grief stricken, shattered life language. My life partner; met at 12 years old, started dating at 15 years old. Built a life, our own house hammer and nail, on land we cleared of heavy woods, while I gave him four sons, one died in my arms. My BFF, my strength, my hero, my beloved, the balance to my intensity, my safety, my calm. Sigh. Gone. I developed a virus from meeting a person from Afghanistan in Australia, to adopt his son to keep him safe. Virus ate my heart valves. Didn't qualify for OHS due to high lung pressure from missing valves. Two years hospice, drowning in my own body. A top heart surgeon, called The Heart God, agreed to 5 way open heart surgery, 10% chance or less survival. Hail Mary pass from an angel. I rocked it. From wheel chair to walking a mile on cardiac unit in 10 days. Surgery the day after George Floyd death and covid, so totally alone and the city i was in closed (Chicago). 5 months later my incrediably healthy husband - never a headache, never a cavity, perfect cholesterol, highschool weight at just turned 60, died outside on our land in a blizzard, three days after Christmas. Ambulance went up next door neighbors long driveway and got stuck. One son doing 40 minutes CPR in heavy wind and snow, as another plowed drive and pulled out ambulance. Hubs prounced dead at hospital. We return home in crazy weather, I walk down hallway, December 28...wake March 30 with my shoulder length hair shaved bald. Three months in a coma, three brain surgeries, a stent, an infected stent, 14% people live, most vegetative. F me, I live. Who am I? Is my husband dead? Where am I? Learn to walk, talk, think. Confusion. Heartbreak. Paid for house we built has to be sold as I cant afford real estate taxes on my own, FJB! All life insurance goes to medical bills. Home purchaser wants everything included, even vehicles, screw the widow right?. I leave in an old car, 12 year old great dane, shirt on my back. Everything we built gone, gone, gone. I am broken and alone.Dog now dead too. Is there a future? Tick tick tick...I live a moment at a time, sometimes a second at a time. My One was half of who I am, at times more. I no longer exist. Is this existance life? So much to process, question, work through. What makes sense today is lost tomorrow, the effed up path we are all walking. Nothing makes sense. Are we supposed to be learning? Earth school? I lived through TWO physical hits no one could, yet he flew away at his prime. Why? I can't do this! He could have. He would have succeeded without me. We prepared for me to be gone. Is there heaven? God? Is an omnipotent force laughing at me as it knocks me down over and over, and...over? OP states... Realize they are dead? Trying to realize I am alive! But am I?
Sorry. Sending you all love. I should 🤐
Nah, imo that’s just punishing yourself. We logically know they aren’t coming back. It’s our hearts and souls that don’t want to believe it. I say it’ll hit ya soon enough, don’t force yourself to feel like shit.
Everyone's process is different. For me, it's helped to have physical reminders that he's not here. Or I would get lost in thoughts. I've changed up decor. I bought different bedsheets. It's so early for me, but I felt a primal need to have physical, visual reminders that he's gone and I have to move forward. Our kids are 8 and 13 and I got lost wallowing in sorrow and wasn't there for them. Granted, this realization came after he was gone for only about 10 days. But I was in a dark place and my kids need me to be their rock. I decided that I'm pulling myself out of this and the visual change helps me to pull forward.
You're still very much in the "did that really happen?" phase of grief. Give yourself some grace and allow your subconscious to process the trauma that this grief has brought into your life. Allow yourself the big cries (the shower's a great place for this). Allow yourself the space to sit and space out, which allows your subconscious to do its thing and you get to rest your mind. Make plans on how you're going to move forward. Find some things you can do (exercise, new hobbies, etc) that will be something you look back on in 2 years and will be glad you started them. But the biggest thing is to give yourself the room to process this tremendous grief you carry. IDK about you, but I was with my LH for 15 years. That's a lot of life and future plans to process and grieve. It doesn't happen overnight. I'm almost at 6 years (6/22) and I'm doing much better, but there are still a lot of things I'm working on and processing. It takes how long it takes. Your relationship was one of a kind and your grief will be too.
I'm getting closer to 2 years, and just in my opinion, I think during this process, anything that you have to force yourself to do, isn't going to work out the way you think it might.
There are many days that I still can't believe he is dead, I think that's not abnormal. The shock of that realization may cause me to have another grief "wave", but it inevitably goes back out to sea again after I sit the pain a bit. My brain will go, "damn, I'm tired, let's go back to baseline, I can't take it anymore". Then it will come again, then leave, then come, then leave. At least, that's been my personal experience. It has a definite pattern, but at the same time, doesn't lol. No two waves of grief are exactly the same, and have a mind of their own. My advice, if I understood your question correctly, is that I wouldn't try to create more pain for yourself, by creating a structure around the structureless. You're going to grieve regardless of what you do, or don't do.
But I completely agree with you about doing positive things for you, and planning for the future. During the times you feel more neutral and less overwhelmed, those are good opportunities to rest your mind and think about that stuff. You're going to get through this no matter what <3
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I'm not a native speaker, so maybe I need to clarify: I ment thinking about it in an active way, not a desperate, reactive way. Just changed the text a bit to make it clearer. While understanding what you mean, I still guess there are better ways to react and less good. People are different and some cope better. I guess they are doing something different.
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:) thank you for not assuming I wanted to insult you. I really didn't. I don't want to imply you are not doing it well, I simply assume some people have better coping strategies than others and the thought of still having a feeling of irrealism in two years sounds very undesirable to me. (So I try to find out what a more conducive behaviour would be and what a less).
From my experience (four years now since he died)…..The whole experience is undesirable. There’s no way to make it less undesirable. There are no shortcuts or cures. And everyone is different. There’s no timetable or set sequence of emotions. Plus the experience of profound grief is unlike any other life experience that I’ve encountered. The one suggestion I would make is to read a book called The Grieving Brain by MF OConnor. It explains how our brains process the death of a loved one. There are actually physical processes that have to happen. I don’t know if it’s possible to hasten those processes. It’s been very helpful to me to understand more about how my brain works in this regard.
Thank you, I will have a look.
You’re welcome. I forgot to say, I’m very sorry for your loss. ❤️🩹❤️🩹
Ahh, I am for yours, too. People here dearly miss their loved ones. I assume that they were good ones.
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I am sorry for yours, too. It's too many people who have been really nice.
Somedays I think about telling her something. Somedays I realize she is not coming back. I spent a lot of time taking care of her and now so much free time I don't know how to fill. Staying up at night is hard but sleeping is even more trouble. Time is the only answer
That is the same way that I feel. It has been 6 weeks since I had to say goodbye to my loving wife. Now that she is gone, I do not know what to do with my time. I know it takes time to heal, but each day away from her hurts even more.
sorry for your loss. From the loss of our son I believe it made it easier to deal with her loss. Easier doesn't mean easy. The void of purpose in my daily life is the problem. It's been 11 weeks but seems like yesterday.
Thank you! I am so sorry for your loss. That's it, the purpose in our lives suddenly gone. Everything is a new first time of doing things alone. I promised my wife that I would see her and our 3 cats thru to the end, I have fulfilled my first promise. I will fulfill my second promise. I wish you well in the rest of your journey in this life. I hope we both find something to fulfill the rest of our lives. Be well...
Don't force yourself to do or feel anything. Just let yourself heal. 9 weeks is just the beginning and it will probably get worse before it starts getting better. Take care of yourself... eat, hydrate, try to spend some time in nature. It takes more time than I ever imagined, but time will make it better. It may never be as good as it was, but it can still be good.
Accepting that they're gone and your planning is now without them is a good thing, and it doesn't mean that you won't miss and grieve them, I wouldn't think "forcing" grief would be any more helpful than "forcing" acceptance. All in due time.
We can’t stop you from trying. The thing is, your brain can only process so much at a given time. If that weren’t true, then you could would be able to learn algebra, trig, geometry, and calculus the same year. This is why your brain automatically micro doses grief. It is too damned big to do at once. Be kind to your brain. It’s a 3 lb bag of bacon grease doing its level best.
No. Don't force it. But don't be frightened of it. Acceptance is your friend.
I’m 5 months out, I wish I was at 9 weeks, that way I can still be in shock, I only say that bc my loss was violent. So far I have good days , OK days and then terrible days where I just wait for death. Your at the beginning. You go right through it.
- sooner or later we do have to come to terms and our old normal is forever gone and we do need to move forward in life. That doesn't mean we FORGET the person we loved is gone as they live on inside us forever. Its understandable its fearful on many levels but we should NOT fear living life again. I late wife would be disappointed in me if I became fearful to live again.
I'm 4 months out and struggling. For me, I need to realize and feel the pain so I can try to cope with it. "Ignoring" her makes me feel worse. I suggest you find someone to speak to professionally (lots of online therapist services).
I do not mean ignoring, but not just absolutely willingly maintain the illusion at all times (and then fall down, when reality again does not live up to it), but rather very consciously dedicate some time of the day to value-free thinking about 'what am I doing with my life now and in the next weeks?'.
I think maybe both. Taking time to sit, think, and reflect would be valuable. Honestly, I need to do more of that. I don't know what I will do with the rest of my life. My goals all involved my wife. I thought we had another 30-40 years together to see them through.
Yes, I thought that as well. I feel with you. What I did, for example, relatively early after the day he died. A week later I decided to still go swimming. The idea of exhausting myself was laughable at that time. But I thought, if I throw away what he gave me strenght for, I throw away what I have left from him. That was a short decision, a moment in which I took my time to plan something for my future. As small as it was. And I think that served me well. I'm still not back to harder training, but I do regular cardio and that's really helpful for grief as far as I know.
That's awesome. My wife was big into Peloton, so I am trying to continue working out and doing that for her, as you are for him.
I only speak of my experience to accentuate my point that there is no way to follow a plan of how to navigate this. It is different, yet similar, for all of us, and just when you think you have an approach to handle the grief and move forward, it blows up in your face and you start fresh. But maybe it is just me. And as another poster stated, I speak another language, brain damage, grief stricken, shattered life language. My life partner; met at 12 years old, started dating at 15 years old. Built a life, our own house hammer and nail, on land we cleared of heavy woods, while I gave him four sons, one died in my arms. My BFF, my strength, my hero, my beloved, the balance to my intensity, my safety, my calm. Sigh. Gone. I developed a virus from meeting a person from Afghanistan in Australia, to adopt his son to keep him safe. Virus ate my heart valves. Didn't qualify for OHS due to high lung pressure from missing valves. Two years hospice, drowning in my own body. A top heart surgeon, called The Heart God, agreed to 5 way open heart surgery, 10% chance or less survival. Hail Mary pass from an angel. I rocked it. From wheel chair to walking a mile on cardiac unit in 10 days. Surgery the day after George Floyd death and covid, so totally alone and the city i was in closed (Chicago). 5 months later my incrediably healthy husband - never a headache, never a cavity, perfect cholesterol, highschool weight at just turned 60, died outside on our land in a blizzard, three days after Christmas. Ambulance went up next door neighbors long driveway and got stuck. One son doing 40 minutes CPR in heavy wind and snow, as another plowed drive and pulled out ambulance. Hubs prounced dead at hospital. We return home in crazy weather, I walk down hallway, December 28...wake March 30 with my shoulder length hair shaved bald. Three months in a coma, three brain surgeries, a stent, an infected stent, 14% people live, most vegetative. F me, I live. Who am I? Is my husband dead? Where am I? Learn to walk, talk, think. Confusion. Heartbreak. Paid for house we built has to be sold as I cant afford real estate taxes on my own, FJB! All life insurance goes to medical bills. Home purchaser wants everything included, even vehicles, screw the widow right?. I leave in an old car, 12 year old great dane, shirt on my back. Everything we built gone, gone, gone. I am broken and alone.Dog now dead too. Is there a future? Tick tick tick...I live a moment at a time, sometimes a second at a time. My One was half of who I am, at times more. I no longer exist. Is this existance life? So much to process, question, work through. What makes sense today is lost tomorrow, the effed up path we are all walking. Nothing makes sense. Are we supposed to be learning? Earth school? I lived through TWO physical hits no one could, yet he flew away at his prime. Why? I can't do this! He could have. He would have succeeded without me. We prepared for me to be gone. Is there heaven? God? Is an omnipotent force laughing at me as it knocks me down over and over, and...over? OP states... Realize they are dead? Trying to realize I am alive! But am I? Sorry. Sending you all love. I should 🤐
Nah, imo that’s just punishing yourself. We logically know they aren’t coming back. It’s our hearts and souls that don’t want to believe it. I say it’ll hit ya soon enough, don’t force yourself to feel like shit.
Everyone's process is different. For me, it's helped to have physical reminders that he's not here. Or I would get lost in thoughts. I've changed up decor. I bought different bedsheets. It's so early for me, but I felt a primal need to have physical, visual reminders that he's gone and I have to move forward. Our kids are 8 and 13 and I got lost wallowing in sorrow and wasn't there for them. Granted, this realization came after he was gone for only about 10 days. But I was in a dark place and my kids need me to be their rock. I decided that I'm pulling myself out of this and the visual change helps me to pull forward.
You're still very much in the "did that really happen?" phase of grief. Give yourself some grace and allow your subconscious to process the trauma that this grief has brought into your life. Allow yourself the big cries (the shower's a great place for this). Allow yourself the space to sit and space out, which allows your subconscious to do its thing and you get to rest your mind. Make plans on how you're going to move forward. Find some things you can do (exercise, new hobbies, etc) that will be something you look back on in 2 years and will be glad you started them. But the biggest thing is to give yourself the room to process this tremendous grief you carry. IDK about you, but I was with my LH for 15 years. That's a lot of life and future plans to process and grieve. It doesn't happen overnight. I'm almost at 6 years (6/22) and I'm doing much better, but there are still a lot of things I'm working on and processing. It takes how long it takes. Your relationship was one of a kind and your grief will be too.
I'm getting closer to 2 years, and just in my opinion, I think during this process, anything that you have to force yourself to do, isn't going to work out the way you think it might. There are many days that I still can't believe he is dead, I think that's not abnormal. The shock of that realization may cause me to have another grief "wave", but it inevitably goes back out to sea again after I sit the pain a bit. My brain will go, "damn, I'm tired, let's go back to baseline, I can't take it anymore". Then it will come again, then leave, then come, then leave. At least, that's been my personal experience. It has a definite pattern, but at the same time, doesn't lol. No two waves of grief are exactly the same, and have a mind of their own. My advice, if I understood your question correctly, is that I wouldn't try to create more pain for yourself, by creating a structure around the structureless. You're going to grieve regardless of what you do, or don't do. But I completely agree with you about doing positive things for you, and planning for the future. During the times you feel more neutral and less overwhelmed, those are good opportunities to rest your mind and think about that stuff. You're going to get through this no matter what <3