My husband died today

[NarcSis]

My sister and I worked on the puzzle today and just spent a day in before she had to go home.

I must say, it's nice to have another voice in the house even though I get agitated after a while. Even just her being here feels better despite the fact that she spends her time glued to her phone.

I hate to say it but my husband was addicted to his devices. He cut me out and I always felt abandoned when he would disappear into his virtual world. Her doing it just reminds me of him.

I'm getting closer and closer to his anniversary date. I still haven't worked out fully how I'm going to mark that day. I think I'm definitely going to get a stone and either paint or marker his name on one side with his date of death and leave a single rose.

He used to get me roses every Valentine's Day. At first they were long stem red roses but I eventually asked him to get me my favorite, shorter stemmed peach colored roses. It always made me feel bad to have to cut half of the stem off of the super expensive bouquet.

I preserved the first bouquet he ever got me and the last ones he ever got me - I used to preserve each bouquet every year and replace them alongside the first one, so I still have the last flowers he ever gave me.

Wait that's not true. It's the Roses I have. The last bouquet of flowers he actually bought me was just a week before he died. We were at the grocery store, I saw them, he asked if I wanted them and I admitted I would love them so he bought them for me. I had them in a vase, they were just starting to wilt the weekend he died. I forgot about them until Aptil when I finally threw them out.

I giggle. He considered himself Romantic because he "bought flowers all the time." I guess in his head he did but the reality was that he probably did it spontaneously less than 10 times over our 20 years.

I don't think he ever realized just how much he didn't know about me. I think he knew my favorite color and was aware of my beliefs and morals but to stop and try to get a gift for me was impossible for him. I love painting. I do crochet. I love art. I loved reading. I fish. I love crystal. I like wine. I write...

I used to buy him stupid gifts when we first got together because I didn't know him but as the years went by I paid attention to the things he liked, his favorite chocolate, things he might need, places he liked to shop. Of course those were usually small gifts in addition to the things on his list that he'd prepare for me.

Could he have been more romantic and paid more attention to me? Yeah, but then he wouldn't have been him. I'm sure something would've been sacrificed to make up for it and I loved him just the way he was.

I don't think I would have ever guessed he would take his own life. I assumed his death would be either in a traffic accident at work or going to/from work or from heart failure well into his 80s. He always said he was going to live to 104. It wasn't a wish, it was a goal that he truly believed. I truly wonder if he thought he was invincible.

I wish he had been.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

(((Medic))) :hug:
Purple is thought to symbolize spirituality, and royalty...To me it's a color of strength. You are a very strong person, though you don't feel strong right now. You ARE a survivor!

If you do choose to put a stone in remembrance of your husband...if you write something on it...it helps to spray a clear coat of enamel or something similar to seal the writing. I have also lightly dusted stone with fine iridescent glitter so it sparkles in the sun. You can also make one for yourself?

You are in my thoughts and prayers ❤

 

[NarcSis]

I wrote this last night but was unable to post it because the server was down, so here goes....

It hurts so badly again. I'm in tears again. I miss him so much, it just tears me up inside, will it ever stop hurting this badly? He was a good man. He lived his life right. He did right by everyone. He put his job above all else. He put others before himself. And still he could never just catch a break. Nice guys finish last and he was the poster child for that saying. Someone always had to knock him back. Something always happened to knock us back down again.

I am okay when people are around. That's a lie. When someone is around me I am avoiding. I'm avoiding feeling this sadness, this pain, this intense loss. I try to stay distracted so that I don't have to feel this; so I don't have to be sad but deep inside of me at my very core I am so very sad.

I was okay today. I was distracted. I was walking the dog, doing laundry, trying to keep busy and working on that puzzle again but this evening I started thinking about him, about the severance payment that I don't know what is happening with and whether the appeals board is going to succeed in shutting us down and all of the fight and stress that we endured all of these years that took him from me would all be for naught.

I get anxious and I avoid. I avoided asking the lawyer for an update. Simply writing that email makes me quake in my shoes. I sat here and I just blindly trusted that he was taking care of things in the background and this evening I finally got up the courage to sit down and send an email to request an update from him. He wants to talk to me tomorrow on the phone. Anxiety levels just shot through the roof. Why can't I do these types of things anymore!?

I checked my email and there was one from a name I hadn't seen in a very long time. It seemed familiar so I opened it. It was a reporter. They want to know if I have any stories to share about my husband as they're doing a story about how our old employer now has PTSD support groups in place and have made other changes. I got so angry I wanted to scream. My husband took suicide intervention training because he wanted to get on the peer support team they were talking about implementing. Nothing they change now will bring him back!! Nothing they do now will change MY life or make ME any better! They can all fall into the pits of hell for all I care. I don't care about that service, I hope they all die, and I hope their managers die long slow deaths for the bullsh*t they put us through for 8 whole years. They took him from me. They did this to us.

His blood is on their hands and nothing they do from here on in will ever erase that. EVER.

Uggh. My heart feels like it could just explode.

It hurts so much again tonight. I miss him so much. Why did he have to leave me!? Why did he have to let death get him? Why couldn't he have just turned his back and ignored it like I do?

I think about his being dead and it scares me so badly. I'm going to die alone. I'm going to grow old and I'm going to die all alone and if I get ill, I will have to face it alone. I never wanted that. I wanted him with me. I thought we would have died together; a car crash, something that kept us together. Life feels so empty without him. I live for this dog now. My only other reason for facing the days is to see this fight we've been embroiled in for the past 4 years end. I have to hold on to see it done. He would have wanted that. He wouldn't have wanted me to give up or give in.

Uggh. He was my strong. He was my closest ally when I had to face them. I don't want to face them again, not without him. I want them to just settle this case and have it all done with so life can just continue like it was supposed to. Like WE were supposed too.

This was supposed to make things better for us. This settlement was supposed to put an end to our stress. This was supposed to keep us going and make things easier on him. He didn't make it.

Why didn't he kill me? Why did he have to go on alone. I wanted to be with him. He shouldn't have died alone. He shouldn't have died alone.

I miss him so much tonight. It hurts so bad again.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

❤(((Medic))):hug:

 

[NarcSis]

I scream about having my story heard and when it comes time to write something my mind goes blank.

I don't know what to write. What do I tell the media here a year later? That I don't know how I survived? That sometimes it still feels like I could die? Like some days I want to die so badly just so I don't have to face this ridiculous pointless life without him? That my worst fight is still happening and will continue to happen until our employer gets their head out of their as* and just settles this case? That despite my husband blowing himself away, they continue to abuse me by not settling this case?

Implementing a peer support team - which is actually what they rolled out, I checked with my old coworker who said it's only a peer support team not a PTSD support group and I say "rolled out" because this is the same team they kept stalling and stalling while my husband was alive, it's been in the background waiting for the go-ahead for at least three years now.

Implementing a peer support team doesn't help me move on with my life. Peer support doesn't help me now that they fired me. I have no peers anymore. I have no where to turn for help. And STILL they refuse to settle this case!!! "We're doing everything we can to make things better" yeah, for everyone else and meanwhile, they put us through absolute hell making me feel like I was faking my disability, while my husband had to sit there powerless watching me slowly being crushed by them. They changed the person I am today. If I'd had the proper support from them along the way, maybe I would have been able to transition back to the road easily. If they'd just believed me when I said I could not handle stressful situations...If they'd just believed my therapist when she said we were far from done with treating the trauma...If they'd just allowed me some credibility when I was trying to explain to them what I was experiencing and not pulled the bullsh*t Policy Manual stuff on me - my disability does not conform to a Policy Manual!

A peer support team would not have made the difference in my developing PTSD - the injury to my brain happened that day and I struggled through it trying to pretend everything was okay and I was still a "normal" person for months even WITH EAP support. It took the person I used to be but that didn't mean that it had to take everything from me, all they had to do was just be compassionate and understanding. They weren't and they kept us in hell for four whole years trying to force me back to work, untreated, and in contract positions which had a foreseeable end to them. My PTSD did not make me stupid it actually made me way more cautious and untrusting; the rules say that after 6 months of being back to work the workers compensation board closes your file and you are considered Successfully Returned to Work, hence the reason why the contract positions offered to me were 7 month contracts! I'm not stupid and I know posturing when I see it. I have a degree in Management and I've learned about poor management practices. I learned about these tactics for saving money, navigating the loopholes successfully and maintaining a bottom line instead of being human, compassionate and caring about the employee.

It's all bullsh*t. It's all too late. None of it will save me or bring him back. I don't care about other people in that job anymore. They made me take a career that I was so proud of and loathe everything about it and loathe the people in it because I can no longer be there in any capacity working with or for them! If we'd just been given the adequate amount of time to successfully treat this disorder, maybe I would have been able to go back in a support role of some kind or been successfully transitioned to a civilian division in some meaningful capacity that didn't make me feel like a stupid coffee-fetching lackee.

Meaningful work. That was all we were asking for. I held two university degrees, surely they could have found or created a position for me where I could have felt valued and safe and comfortable. But no, they just kept trying to force me into roles where I was meaningless and redundant and easily disposed of should the need arise. they kept twisting the screws until there was nothing left of me and I was essentially broken and useless as my poor husband tried to continue working "happily" for them and keep his nose down so they wouldn't start targeting him. Any little thing that happened to him he was afraid they were turning against him and that he'd be forced out somehow because of me and my situation.

His paperwork gets repeatedly sent back for some stupid administrative reason. He felt targeted. His complaints about operational issues get ignored or "lost". He felt targeted. His submissions for available positions or teams get "lost". He felt targeted. He makes suggestions for improvement and they get ignored or he gets made to feel like he's being ridiculous. He felt targeted.

Because of me, he felt targeted. If I weren't alive, he would have just gone to work and buried himself in his work and just continued on. Men have to have a support person around them, I'm sure he likely would have been dating someone before the end of a year.

I don't know what to write to them because I'm so angry. Nothing can bring him back. Nothing they do now can change my life and improve anything or make me feel any better about the career they took from me. They killed me. Then they killed him.

I want him to come home. I just need to be with him again. :(

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug: Medic :hug:

 

[NarcSis]

I wrote a piece for the reporter, it was done in the style of my blog posts, socially conscious voice. I received a reply today saying they're going to run it in their online edition, which means I didn't make pint, but oh well.

It's been two days of sudden tears, usually while eating. Sometimes it feels like my heart would explode. Our lawyer wanted details of his death as he'd never really gotten the full story from me - it was like living that day all over again, my whole body was on overload when I finished.

It's taken some time to fully calm. I've been trying to distract by going out shopping. I want to try to make a memory quilt of my husband's shirts so I went out and hunted down supplies. Unbelievably expensive!! But luckily I found a starter kit at Walmart for $30, so tonight I hugged and sniffed all of his t-shirts. The hardest part was cutting into them. I was in tears again.

I took a break and made some phone calls I'd been avoiding. In the first my friend said that her daughter makes t-shirt quilts, so she's going to have her contact me - wow, what a coincidence.

The second call was the hardest. Another friends husband died suddenly last Friday. They're well into their 70s but still it was not expected. She admitted she is still in shock and trying to wrap her head around it. She has her daughter to help however, she is also a widow and knows what this initial phase is like.

It was difficult to talk to her. I had to hear myself saying aloud again, "When my husband died..." Even now it makes me tear up.

Dead doesn't seem to apply to him. I don't know why my brain won't accept it. It just refuses to think of him as anything but gone, he's just "away" from me. Like it's temporary or something.

I don't want him to be dead. When the lawyer asked if I'd gone home over the holidays I said that I don't leave this house often because I feel him here. I can't be away from him for too long. We were always together. Other than at work we didn't go anywhere without the other. It just feels wrong when I'm away from this house.

I miss him so much. I miss him so, so much.

 

[Bibble7282]

I am so sorry to hear this x. Deepest sympathies x

 

[NarcSis]

The dog and I were able to get out of the house today for some serious park time. There is just something so restorative about being in nature, quiet, sheltered, just unfettered and free. The dog couldn't stop running and jumping it's been a while since he's been able to get out like that.

I "saw my husband today". I was down at the fields below the area where he died, there's a wooded area there where for some reason my mind always seems to think I would see him, like he's now "living" in those woods there. Anyway, the dog and I were staying to the center of the fields because of coyotes in the area and I caught a slight movement in the woods. I looked up and across the field and saw movement - I know it was probably a deer but for a split second my heart jumped and I thought, "Is that YOU!?"

After your spouse dies by suicide there is a constant search for them that makes no sense but your mind will do it anyway. We can 't wrap our heads around death and so our minds refuse to believe in it. For me it almost feels like hope. Like I go down to that area as though I hope that one day I will catch a glimpse of him wandering through the woods or hiking or just standing looking around enjoying nature. He was looking for peace. He admitted it in a way in one of our last hikes together when he told me that it was good for him to be out there. He didn't say it made him feel better, he said it was good for him - as though he was as aware as I was that there was something wrong with him and his moods. He knew he wasn't coping well but he never actually said it out loud.

I was having an online discussion with a man struggling to cope with his wife's death. He's going through a very rough patch in sync with his kids and they're hating each other and walking on eggshells around one another and just shutting down. I can't imagine trying to navigate that and then I thought about how I'd been with my husband in the last couple of months. I was so scared that everything I said to him, no matter how small would be turned around somehow and thrown back at me, misinterpreted or blatantly misunderstood. He was very internalized. He was very defensive. And so was I and I shut down as he was shutting down beside me. We weren't communicating as openly as we had been doing because it seemed everything I said was taken, magnified and used against me as an attack on him.

"Maybe you should talk to someone about how you're feeling about the way they treat you?" And he'd sit there brooding, silent then say something like, "So there's something wrong with me then? It's not that they're being assh*les, it's that I'm not reacting appropriately to what they're doing?" Ummm, YES! Thinking Errors! Catastrophizing! Magnifying the Negative! Feeling Singled Out! Perspective issues clouded by emotion! But could I actually say that to him? Oh Hell No! Any therapist or psychologist would tell you that it's important to be open but I'm sorry, with how sensitive he was being, there's no way we could have had an open and honest discussion with one another without risking him being angry and hurt. I didn't want to fight, he was under enough stress as it was on his own.

I didn't push anything because I didn't want to place him under further stress. I didn't know what to do. I knew something was wrong because of his silence, moodiness and passive aggression but when he started getting treatment for his neck and his shoulder injury, I thought as those improved, so would his mood. There was hope in our future! And then the physio guys f*cked that all up when first they separated his rib and second when they told him he had an enlarged heart! It still angers me so much.

Logic tells me there was no way they could have known that their stupidity in actually trying to read the full results on an x-ray readout would cause him to commit suicide but the angry part of my brain still says that if the question asked is "Was my rib broken?" the answer should have been, "No, here's the image."

I was recently asked if it's fair to say that my husband "was an intense person". I didn't know how to react to that. In comparison to everyone else in the non-emergency services field, yes, he was wound a little tight. Nothing short of perfection was acceptable to him and he was routinely disappointed in people. But so was I when I was in that same position - these were people's lives and mistakes are not acceptable. Psychologists say things like, "But you're a human being too." because they've never been in that job. They don't understand. Of course, if they say the wrong thing to their client and the client goes out and kills themselves, maybe they do understand that when you're dealing with the fragility of human life for a living, there is very little wiggle room when it comes to making mistakes. Mistakes cost lives. This was something hubby and I were BIG on.

Was he wound tight? His entire existence before becoming a paramedic was spent first in the security field and then as a railway police officer. As a security guard he once handled a case where an 8 year old boy was raped in a public restroom - he discovered the boy and was responsible for the investigation. They never caught that person. The case haunted him to his death. He often spoke of that case and said if he ever caught the guy he'd kill him. When I was cleaning up his paperwork, I found several copies of the composite sketch of that perpetrator in various locations. That case really bothered him.

As a railway police officer, he saw many suicides by train and another incident that really stuck in his head was attending a scene where a rail worker got coupled between two trains. it wasn't so much the scene as it was the man asking them to say goodbye to his wife for him because he knew he was going to die. I've seen that type of thing before and yeah, it's one of the worst things you could see, an alive person who knows in minutes they will be dead and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It makes you hate the universe for making you so damned powerless.

Was my husband "wound a little tight"? You would be too if you saw even half of the things he'd seen in not only one but three careers in his short lifetime. I didn't see the guy who was wound tight, I knew he was there but I saw the man who hugged me, the softy who cried watching movies, the guy who snuggled up to me and let me hold him like a child when he was feeling bad or tired. That guy wasn't wound any way at all. He was the man at his most vulnerable. He was the side the public NEVER got to see. He was the face that I was privileged to see and know and love. That is why I loved him so much, he trusted me with his vulnerable side and I trusted him with mine.

Of course in the few interactions he'd seen this person, he was "wound tight" because he was being protective of me. He was my bulldog. He was my protector. He was my shield after I'd developed PTSD. No one got near me without being growled at. His posture when we were out in crowds was always stiff and ready to fight to protect me. Yeah, he was wound pretty tight, he had good reason to be.

I miss him. I want my protector back. I want my little boy back. I want my husband back. :(

 

[NarcSis]

I still have PTSD. As if I needed another reminder.

I went to brunch with my sister and nieces today, it was a 45 minute drive away, but I was in a good head space today so I went. As we sat down to await their arrival at the restaurant, it dawned on me that my one niece is "with child". I immediately went into panic mode, I told my sister, "You need to move when they get here, you need to sit beside me, she can't sit beside me." Of course, when they arrived, my sister didn't make much of an effort to move and who sits right beside me??? I was panicked and afraid to look at her but during brunch I sneaked a peek at her and realized she is not obvious yet. I could calm down and breathe a bit again! Crisis averted and we had a good outing.

Afterward we met up with one of our sisters-in-law and decided to go to a movie. I haven't been to one since I last went with my hubby. That alone made it a little nerve-wracking for me, I'm not used to being in the "loud" without him there to keep me calm and I'm not used to going to a movie that he hasn't pre-screened the trailer for me. I was going in blind to this one because they were choosing the movie right there. I was glad that they chose a family oriented movie, Hidden Numbers.

Of course, I'm already in alert mode because of the brunch, the crowds and noise, not to mention missing my hubby something awful because the significance of this event (another first without him) and suddenly I need to go to the washroom severely. I had no choice. I could not hold it, so off I go to the washroom. Same color stalls as my trauma. I HAD to go. I breathe, go in and quickly do my thing. Automatic Flush. I almost lost it right there. My hands were shaking and I was whispering to myself, "Hurry up, please, just hurry...dammit belt, work!! God, I have to get out of here!" I could feel myself losing it. I could feel myself getting "pulled away" and my mind starting to tumble. I was walking and moving without even knowing why after that. I felt like I was in a haze and the worst part of it was I was with my sister and SIL who wouldn't notice and wouldn't know how to help me.

I felt so alone. I needed him so much in those moments. I kept thinking, "Jesus! I needed you, how could you just leave me like this!! You knew I needed you!"

I was not quite there. I didn't know how to work the ticket kiosk. I couldn't remember the name of the movie. I went to the cashier. I had my husband's free movie points card and was terrified to use it because I was afraid the cashier would ask me questions and I wouldn't be able to answer (No questions were asked, I got a free movie). When I'm panicked I can't focus, everything around me seems to be moving too fast and my surroundings are just chaotic and overwhelming. I had trouble spotting my sister and SIL. When I saw them at the condiment stand I went straight over and figured I could collect myself a bit (my hands were full and I was juggling things and trying to navigate through a crowd while my brain was malfunctioning). Of course, the second I put my popcorn down there's someone behind me saying, "Um, is that yours? Can you move that for me, hun?" As some stranger wanted into the spot I was in! I just needed a couple of seconds to get myself together!! Instead I looked at her and felt like I was in another world. My voice sounded hollow. I was suddenly extremely annoyed and frustrated and angry. I looked at my sister and almost yelled at her, "I have to get out of the WAY!" and I grabbed my things and almost pushed my way to the ticket taker.

By the time we got to our seats, I was on the verge of completely losing it and having a total gutteral sobbing breakdown. I'd been fighting tears since I left that damned washroom. As I sat there, with the pressure to function suddenly off, the tears started to pour from me and I began to rock and deep breathe to try to choke back the sobs that were trying to escape. I was asked if I wanted to leave - of course not, I'd just used my free movie pass! I had to get through this! I didn't want to spoil their afternoon. After about two or three minutes of deep breathing I was able to calm down and re-connect to the room again. The lights dimming down really helped too.

The movie was good. Hubby would have loved it.

My drive home was a white knuckle experience. The fog was so thick at some points I could only see to the end of my headlights, so maybe 20 or so feet in front of the vehicle. Passing oncoming traffic was scary as well because many people crossed the center line as they approached me. I was so glad to be home that I just sat down on the floor and hugged my dog.

I kept hearing my hubby telling me how much of a good driver I was as I was driving through the worst of that fog. He'd always say to me, "Best Code 4 return I've ever had was when I was with you! I always tell people, 'I could stand up in the back of the ambulance and we drove through a construction zone, stopped at several lights and I never once had to reach out to hold onto something, now that's how a lights/siren return should be.' I;d love to enter the Dakar rally with you as my driver!" He had faith in me. He trusted my skills even when I didn't.

We were in a crash once with my first vehicle. We got t-boned by a vehicle that ran a stop sign. I thought we were going to die. My airbags deployed and my only concern was that we were still moving and I couldn't see anything. I held onto that steering wheel and fought for control of the vehicle, I could actually feel the wheels fighting to take me off the road but I punched down that airbag and held on for dear life keeping the car on the roadway. Lucky too because if I hadn't we would have rolled down an embankment and into a field. Hubby broke his nose from the passenger airbag and I smashed my head on the driver's side window, cracking it. Neither of us went to the hospital but he ended up with two black eyes and I felt like my head was three times it's normal size for about two days.

My hubby trusted me with his life because I'd proven that I could protect him and take care of him. My worst nightmare was always having something happen to him. I never ever wanted anything to happen to him...I still wish I'd just gotten up early that morning, maybe he'd still be alive if I'd just gotten out of bed with him. I'd be hugging him tonight instead of planning to place a memorial stone at the place he died.

I painted up the stone yesterday. It's just a regular stone, like any stone you'd find on the side of a roadway. Pink oval-ish granite flecked with black. I painted his initials on it and his date of death surrounded by little hearts. I've sprayed it with a protective coating. I'm going to place it with a single rose at the spot he died on the anniversary of his death.

He should be home. He should still be here! He shouldn't have died like that. He shouldn't have died alone. Who came to meet him? Who is guiding him right now?

I loved him. He should still be here with me. :(

Rough day.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug: Medic ❤

 

[Deleted member 12723]

:hug: