@scout86, my dog is starting to push my buttons and try my patience, he's refusing to eat today, he's also refusing to walk in our neighborhood now - stands by the car and wants me to drive him somewhere to walk! I guess that's my fault for taking him to the fields each morning to garden. I was getting so frustrated with him this morning, I felt like I was treating him unfairly like how I used to treat my husband; angered, irritated and frustrated. I made him eat some of his breakfast this morning but it wasn't much; oh but he'll eat treats, high fat, low quality treats, he just won't eat his food now for some reason. Uggh. Oh and my sister said "put peanut butter in his Kong." So I gave her money to bring some peanut butter the last time, she brought this all natural mushy runny stuff!! My floors have to be washed every time I feed him peanut butter! Grrrr! What was wrong with regular commercial peanut butter? "Oh but this is the kind I buy." was her reply.
Oh and the hits just keep on coming from my sister. That woman is the most insensitive person on the face of the earth when it comes to me. I posted another "dear Tinny" post on FB like I've been doing every day since he died and it was about our anniversary and how I'm planning to go out alone and have the same steak dinner we always had together, she replies to my post with,
"Go to the butcher. Make your own steak at home and then you can cry and have your steak and a glass or two of wine . Also share a piece with Angus and cheers to the years that you had with Tin. He'll continue to watch over you and Angus forever." (little hearts and doggy emoticons)
Everyone has "liked" her suggestion so far. I'm the only one who's pissed. NO ONE gets the NEED I have to continue these traditions. NO ONE understands that I'm closing off the things we used to do - I HAVE TO go to that steakhouse for dinner tomorrow. It's closure. I NEEDED to go to have his favorite meal on my birthday, Lamb Shank because I had to close off my "last birthday with him". We started this year together, this year wasn't finished. I have to finish it like we should have together. I have to do the things we would have done. This is how I am seeking closure to "Us".
Besides, who wants to cook for themselves when they're feeling like crap. If I don't move tomorrow I will spend the day in bed crying. It's the hardest thing I'm going to have to do but I will start the day looking after the dog first and then leave him so I can go for dinner and finish this sad task. I'm not sure if I will mark our anniversary ever again after this year or if I will make it about me, have a steak at home and celebrate MY anniversary, not OUR anniversary.
I don't know if it's me that gets irritable around this time of year or if it's my sister that gets super Self-Absorbed and insensitive. Either way, ever since I developed PTSD I've noticed that this time of year she seems to pick and poke at me until I break and we end up fighting. The fact that my husband killed himself this year makes no difference, the pattern seems to be repeating. I'm very irritated by her sudden lack of sensitivity to my emotional state. I wonder now if the PTSD just illuminated something that has been going on my entire life, something I just couldn't see before. My T always suggested that it is because my brother died in September, so she tries harder to cover up her emotions by becoming aloof and making light of everything, where I face the feelings and allow them to be.
I dreamed about my husband last night. I can't remember the dream but I know I was with him, I could sense him and feel him and I remember his hand in mine and him smiling at me. I was lying on the floor last night when the dog got up and came around to curl up in front of me, then he leaned back into me and wanted me to rub his tummy. It reminded me of our last night together, hubby lying on the floor and I went up behind him and wrapped him in a hug. I rubbed his back and he rolled over to look at me, his eyes were haunted and sad. "I'm so sad." I'll never forget that. I felt uncomfortable, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to fix it. I just smiled sadly at him and kissed him on the forehead. I feel like my sister now because I said, "We'll figure it out. You're going to be fine. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not going to die. We'll go see the doctor. It's nothing."
I never once said, "I know, I love you. I understand how scary it is not knowing." Instead I tried to say in a back-ass way that he needed to stay here with me now and right in that moment, there was nothing wrong just an idea of something being wrong. Just his mind screwing with him and showing him hopelessness and devastation.
He wanted to sleep downstairs on the floor that night. Did he already have the shells in his pocket? Was he planning to die that night after I went to bed? It makes me wonder now. I heard a velcro sound one night and a loud crash, like the door of the bedside table slamming shut and then the lid of one of his fireproof boxes opening - was it that night or was it the night before? Was it that morning when I woke up and ended up going to the bathroom? How long was he carrying the shells around?
Just recently, I was going through his stuff and I found a velcro pouch in one of his fireproof boxes; I hadn't given it a second thought earlier when we'd gone through his stuff he had these little pouches everywhere. Turns out it was an ammunition holder. Inside was a box of shells, maybe 8 with one missing. Was that the shell that killed him? When did he take that out of there? That morning? That night? Nights before that? I wish my mind could put things straight!! All I remember is hearing the noise waking me up from a dead sleep and then hearing him moving about and telling me to go back to sleep. I'm not sure what day that was. Why in hell did I not know those shells were there!!! What was the point of keeping them there!? How long had he been considering dying!? From the day he bought his first gun?
His first gun was a high fps pellet rifle. That thing could go through a plank of wood siding at 50 feet. We took it to my brothers house to target shoot once and we were using his old garage as the back stop. We were firing at an old empty gas can on a chair and trying to center the scope. When we went to check the target, we discovered that the pellets were going through the target and then THROUGH the wall of the garage and inside! As there are no doors on the garage and we had no way of knowing if anyone was walking in front of the garage, we stopped firing and readjusted our target so that it was in front of a concrete block wall - even then the pellet put a deep depression in the blocks. At 50 feet!! The rifle was long and would have been difficult to point at oneself, so fairly safe, although I did attend a scene where a guy jury rigged a long rifle to shoot himself with, so I still was afraid of it, knowing it's "power".
For his second purchase he bought a short barrel shot gun. He did this without my knowledge or approval. We were in the sporting goods store, I was looking at clothes while he wandered around (practicing my being comfortable away from him in public ), after a few minutes I became a little anxious so I went looking for him and as he approached me down one aisle he said, "Don't get mad, but I bought another gun. It was on sale!" He seemed excited about it. I was upset. Even more so when he said it was a shotgun. I told him I didn't approve and that the guns scared me because I didn't want anything in the house that could kill me. I knew how sudden the attacks of suicidal feeling could get me and I knew how intense the urge to die could be. I asked him why we needed a shotgun, especially a short one and he said at the time "so it's easier for you to use if you ever have to defend yourself." but my mind now sneers, "All the better to point at yourself with."
I hate the thought of guns now. I hate the sound. I hate seeing them. I hate, I hate, I hate and yet, there are still some in the basement, an airsoft rifle that shoots plastic pellets and a high powered pellet gun that I am afraid to go near, the one that has a trigger lock on, that I have no clue how to take off. A constant reminder of the thing that took my husband from me. Oh and a case of target shells, at least 20 boxes of target loads and three containers of pellets. The police never took any of that away from here. The investigators knew I had PTSD and battled with suicidal episodes and still they left these things in the house with me. It makes me shake my head over and over - I have no licence to possess these things!! Now I'm holding on to them almost as a warning, or even in some ways as a potential future, I'm not sure, really. All I know is that at some point in the future, they too will have to be "closed" and removed from this house. I'm not sure when I'll be able to do that, but when I'm ready to Move On with My Life, then I can put those things to rest.
@gizmo, I wish you were here to go to dinner with me, to be my "strong" knowing how hard it was for you to have gone through it.
I'll write again tomorrow to let you know how my dinner went. Send me strength, I'm going to need it.
