My husband died today

[Tinyflame]

Like @TreeHugger said ^^, mine will @Medic72 <3 :hug: xoxoxoxox.

(PS, I think the rose(s) & rock is really lovely xox)

 

[NarcSis]

Been awake since 2am this morning. Long, tough day.

I'm exhausted. Will update tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug: (((Medic))) :hug:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Praying for you Medic. Be strong, you can do this. My thoughts are with you.:hug:

 

[NarcSis]

Two long days.

The Angelversary day outing went well. I placed the stone & roses, stood for a moment of silence, my sister was crying but I didn't shed a single tear until I went to drive away. Only then did I burst into tears. We had to sit for at least 5 minutes while I collected myself.

I put his ashes in the backpack he always took to work, I had his coffee mug clipped to it and his survival bracelet.

It was cold but not extreme, so the hike went well. We had a picnic at the site of our last picnic together, well, tea and cookies, he loved drinking tea. I would have liked to have stayed in longer but I was worried about the dogs paws freezing. In total it was an hour and a half; a half hour hike in, a half hour of sitting and the half hour back out.

We rested for the afternoon and then went out to dinner, I ate a steak for him, just the way he liked it.

I was told they had a memorial for him at work. They added his name to the memorial plaque. One of his coworkers wrote a very touching fb post about him, I was bawling when I read it.

The first year is the hardest. Everyone can move on now. I'm still stuck thinking he's only at work. They're stuck thinking he's on his days off.

I had a home visit from a reporter with the local paper yesterday. She wanted me to go over what it's been like this past year. Tough didn't cut it. I talked almost non-stop, rambled a lot, got anxious when she wanted to know about my trauma, handed her a transcript that I'd prepared in past for the investigations and she looked at it horrified but didn't read it. I merely said that I still could not speak of my trauma without extreme anxiety and triggering.

We talked about mental health, about whether my husband was diagnosed with anything & what first responders could do to ease the impact of trauma - everyone wants to know how to avoid it, sometimes you just can't, sometimes there's that one thing that the universe could not prepare your mind for. Mitigate the possibility? Debriefings. On staff psych help. Peer support. Etc. (did any of that come to mind? Nope.) I did say education was key and not just the psychological stuff, they're medical professionals and they should take a vested interest in the science behind what occurs during trauma. They need to remove the stigma and by humanizing it through science and gaining an understanding of the injury perspective of trauma especially in their field. There's no excuse for any of their management personnel not knowing what PTSD truly is anymore.

I was exhausted again after she left. We all fell asleep around 9pm last night.

Today is, for me, the official start of the second year. It hardly seems like a month has passed since he died.

I wish he could come home, but I know for sure now that he isn't coming back. Maybe knowing that will help.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

(((:hug:Medic :hug: )))
You are SO strong! I'm sure you don't realize it at all, but I admire you for SO many reasons. A list actually, of things you do, and the things you say, are evidence of your deep strength, and the endless love you have for Tin!

I LOVE the word "Angelversary"! It's SO perfect for you to use, and now I will use it to describe the anniversaries that I have of my loved ones who are in heaven now.

You have a wealth of words that describe what you have been through, and have seen other's have deal with. You have personally witnessed how they have been 'broken" by a system that is not working for them, and that actually pushes them to the extreme thoughts and actions of people who are desperately suffering. I believe that someday, you will be able to use those words to help others.

I will continue thinking of you, and praying for you to receive strength on the days that you feel like you have none.:hug:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I am glad the day went as well as could be expected. Acceptance is the last stage of grief I think. You are very brave :hug::hug:

 

[joeylittle]

Sending love. Thinking of you. I cannot imagine what you are surviving right now - but you are surviving. :hug:

 

[NarcSis]

Yesterday was a whirlwind day driving to my sister's house and back for a day trip to get some extra things she needed. We drove into a pretty scary whiteout with the amount of snow we could only see 10-20 feet ahead of us. It's odd that during that scary bit when she was gripping the steering wheel and swearing, my panic dissolved into calm because I thought, "this is where I die, please bring the dog with me." It was the oddest sensation, almost welcome...and it wouldn't have been my fault. It would have been an "accident ".

I think that is the legacy of depression, the possibility of death feels sort of comforting and removes the onus from you for ending your life. I won't deny that I'm depressed anymore, I feel it in my core that heavy, loneliness. The emptiness of my future. The lack of true joy that persists behind the smiles and laughs. The want to isolate completely. The wish for better but nothing is ever good enough to erase that lump in your core. A constant disappointment with life an almost an inability to see good in things. Comparisons are automatic so there's Disappointment with myself for not being better, not being in love, not being able to have a 20th anniversary or get flowers from someone, or go places anymore.

I see the things I'll no longer get to do because he died. They're there stark, in my face and everywhere I look.

Just because a year has passed doesn't mean I'm suddenly free of the grief or mourning over him. Like, even though my sister still insists she's upset, she can't understand why I'm not falling over with laughter at her jokes or why I look annoyed when she's just being silly vying for attention. I'm depressed. I have every right to be. I've endured so much and I'm still here. I'd rather be here with the love of my life but if he was depressed he couldn't tell me.

Sad is not depressed. Sad is temporary. Depressed is deeper. Something wrong that you can't quite put your finger on. Feeling hollow behind a smile. It is persistent. It is constant. It robs you of your ability to connect with life.

It's yet another fight I'll have to wage now. I know I've felt alive before. I know what that feels like. I now know my next fight is to feel that in bits and pieces again. My job now is to find some way to see the happiness in the life I had with a man who decided suicide was his only option.

People looked up to him. He made people smile and feel better about themselves. He encouraged people to do their best and don't be any less.

He wanted to rest. He needed a change, but he didn't like change.

I found an email that he sent to himself just two days before he died. It said, "Hey, remember that promotion you told me to apply for? Well, I did and they didn't call. When I asked why they said they must've lost my application. I won't be listening to you anymore."

I don't know if that was the anger he wanted to direct at someone else (me? Supervisor?) or if he was actually talking to himself.

That supervisor application meant a lot to him. I know he felt he was being left out because of my situation. He was 52 and he knew he was never going to be able to rise in this company. He was tired of fighting them just as I'm tired of fighting them.

When he was told he had an enlarged heart, did that magnify what he was already dealing with? Of course. Was it his last straw? Yes. There was no more room left in him for anymore disappointment.

He couldn't feel the sun anymore. Without him here, it's now hard for me to feel it anymore either.

I'm so lonely without him.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I'm so lonely without him.

I am lonely without my husband and I am going on four years since he died. So maybe that never goes away, I just do not know yet.

Trying to start over and build a satisisfying life is difficult and I see you make majour strides. My husband was also my reason for living. It is not as bad as it was but I still miss him and get lonely. I am trying to rebuild a life but I still do not feel comfortable in my own skin yet. Some days are better than others and I can laugh finally again. Not much but it is a beginning.

Take your time.:hug:

 

[NarcSis]

Thank you @gizmo.

I cried during dinner today. One thing my sister doesn't get is how, especially at this point, I cannot listen to country music. I have to make a conscious effort to avoid it and anything that may exacerbate the depression. I'm doing okay right now but I need to keep my head above water.

So yeah, I cried during dinner, sad music in the background, a reminder of my hubby and tears. It still hurts.

She also made an insensitive comment yesterday after we watched a video on suicide and mass murder, "Holy. Makes you wanna blow a buncha people away and shoot yourself!" And then she laughed like it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever said. I was instantly hurt and sad and again, glad I don't let her know everything about me but also very sad because there is no one I can tell certain things to. My one person in the world is gone.

I miss having him here. :(

 

[NarcSis]

Uggh. Been awake since just after 3am. I startled awake because of a howl-like noise. It filled the room, I shot up and reached for the light looking at the dog and saying, "Are you okay!?" He looked at me with sleepy confused eyes and then I remembered my sister down the hall. I practically ran and started knocking on her door. I was met with a blurry eyed confused and scared sister who had no clue what I was rambling about.

I heard it. Loud and clear. In my head it sounded like the howl that diabetics sometimes make when their sugar is low - my sister is diabetic.

I've never heard the dog howl that loud in his sleep or ever. Usually he makes just audible yips or low barks. I mean, it had to be the dog, there's no other logical explanation.

I was in a half sleep anyway. My pillow fell off the bed earlier and when I went to pick it up I could smell my husband. I put the pillow back on the bed and just hugged his shirt so hard. It's been so long since his scent was that strong in our room, I just wanted to breathe it in and be comforted by it. By him being close to me again. Miss him so much.

Of course, after I can't find a source for the noise I heard, my mind thinks, "was he crying?" My husband that is. It did almost sound like the noise he made that day when he was crying. I'd never heard him cry so hard, it scared me.

I keep thinking now that I was so wrapped up in my own "being sick" that there was no room for him to "be sick" mentally too. Obviously his was way worse because I'm still alive, right?

The reporter wanted to know if my husband was diagnosed with anything. He wasn't. I think she wanted me to speculate but I just ended up saying that 90% of suicides had a diagnosed mental illness, so what about the other 10%? Are they just "undiagnosed" or are they "regular people" like you? Undiagnosed assumes illness wasn't caught and files those other 10% of suicides as people who had something wrong with them. It separates them and puts up that wall of stigma. Suicides are automatically mentally ill, can fit under one of the labels in the Big Book and are "not like me". Well, every suicide was just a person struggling to cope with life, they may have had different challenges than you and I* to overcome but they were PEOPLE. They were Human Beings. Brothers, Sisters, Fathers, Mothers, they were all humans just struggling to live and feel worthwhile.

Okay, down from the soapbox.

My husband could have been depressed. He could have always had that persistent emptiness in him but he hid it really well if he did - I knew a man who was optimistic and positive through the worst situations until those last few months as the stress wore him down.

My husband could have been developing PTSD - he was withdrawing, he was moody, he'd had what I saw as a panic attack as he got ready for work one morning (pale, sweaty, dizzy, nauseated) of course, because of his history of arrhythmia, we thought it was his heart. I checked him, all of his vitals were good except for his heart rate. I actively calmed him and he was okay after a half hour. He then felt guilty for booking sick from work.

The question really was, what label can we apply to him to have this make more sense. How can we make him "not like us" so that his suicide is less panic inducing to other medics out there. He had no "diagnosed illness" at the time of his death, he was under stress.

I've stated this repeatedly from the start.

The email he wrote gives me a greater clue to his apparent sudden crisis. He wasn't getting picked, he was purposely being passed over - again. The very next day, he's erroneously told he has a heart condition. He's not getting ahead in his job. He's going to lose his job. Life over.

He panicked. He didn't see past the fear. In those moments, the hours leading up to his death, his world was falling apart silently in his own mind.

He was crying. Hysterically crying. Crying is supposed to be a release. It's supposed to help relieve the stress. Maybe it did for a moment but then his mind kept ramping him up again. It was stuck in that spiral where you've just lost all control over your life. Everything was going to sh*t in his mind.

Is that an acute onset "mental illness"? Because if it is anyone who panics or becomes suddenly afraid is acutely mentally ill.

The fact is, he went into crisis, he panicked and he shot himself.

It really speaks to the power of panic and the importance of knowing how to ground yourself. Knowing when you need to do it and having a constant awareness of your internal balance.

It goes away. Panic and SI, they're transient states, but you have to know how to combat them.

I practiced these things, he didn't. He didn't need to, I was the one who was "sick". Those skills weren't there for him when he really could have used them.

I can't change what happened. I can try to make sure others don't fall into the same mind trap. I can continue to fight my own way back out when it happens to me again but I can't pull others out with me, it's up to you to fight your way out and let it pass. Crises end. They go away.

He didn't have to die.