My husband died today

[Deleted member 12723]

@Medic72 I wish I could go with you as well. I would offer silent support to you for comfort. I know how difficult this anniversary is for you and I do not know the depths of your pain and anguish at the way he died. I think you are very smart is looking for ways to find closure for yourself. I wish I had thought of that myself. I will be with you in spirit. Sending you strength and healing vibes.:hug:

 

[scout86]

I'd suggest not worrying too much about the dog not eating. Unless they're sick (and it doesn't sound like he is) they'll eat if they get hungry. One of my dogs has always had an erratic appetite. Some days he cleans up all his food right away, Some days he doesn't eat. He's going on 13 now and has been like that since he was a puppy, so it seems to just be the way he is. I don't make a big deal out of whether he eats or not, just try to make sure another dog, since I have 2 these days, can't steal his food. In a sense, trying to encourage him to eat with treats is training him not to eat his food. It's worth doing when they're sick and need to eat even if they don't feel like it, but unless they're sick, you can sure make "Eat your dog food before treats" a boundary. I don't think you did anything wrong by taking him places for walks. It's kind of cool that you've gotten him to be so happy to go for rides. It seems a bit odd that he doesn't want to go for walks in the neighborhood though. (I had a conversation yesterday with one of my customers who happens to be a therapist. I described the issue my new dog has with coming when he's called and she said he has "reactive attachment disorder". I looked that up. :wideeyed: I hope she's not right!)

That woman is the most insensitive person on the face of the earth

Couldn't agree more! Maybe the time of year is a bit of a challenge for both of you, in your different ways. The death of a brother you cared about is a significant anniversary. Maybe it affects you both, but in ways that clash, not ways that help.

Did he already have the shells in his pocket?

All those questions are the worst, because there's no way to settle them! With my "adopted brother" who shot himself a couple years ago, I keep remembering the last time he called, about a week before he died. He put his wife on the phone because he wanted us to talk, even though I'm pretty sure he knew we didn't exactly like each other. I can't help but think that was him, trying to make sure "the family" was as connected as possible before he did anything, so we could be there for each other. (Actually, so I could be there for her, because that's the way things always worked. She was a bit like your sister.) I keep wondering if he'd already made up his mind and how did I miss what that call meant? Except that there's no way to know, now, if he was planning something or not.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to fix it.

To me, THIS is the hardest thing about caring about people. So often you want to help and just plan don't know how. You loved him. That was the most important thing you could do. You did everything you could possibly do. I wish it had been enough. Sometimes it just isn't. :( Just a hunch, but I'd bet the reason he went where he did, the way he did, was because he didn't want you to be the one to find him and he didn't want you to have to deal with cleaning up the house. I wouldn't say that to some people, but you know enough to know what's involved in that. I suspect him driving off was him trying to spare you from as much as he could. He loved you and I'm sure he knew you loved him. It's just that all the love in the world can't help someone who;s decided that dying is their only way out.

NO ONE gets the NEED I have to continue these traditions.

I do. In time, you'll make new traditions too, I imagine. You'll find your own ways to honor the relationship you had and the love you shared. If I can, I drive clear across the country once a year, to leave a flower and a rock from my part of the country on my adopted brother's grave. Kind of crazy, because obviously he doesn't know. But no one else brings him flowers and it bothers me to think that other visitors to the cemetery will think no one cared about him. I try to find other ways to honor his memory too, but you feeling like you have to finish this year in a particular way makes total sense to me, and I think it would to a lot of people. Just not your sister.

 

[NarcSis]

I went out to dinner alone. They sat me in a private table for two, likely because I was alone. I ate the meal I always ate and because there was no room for dessert, they packed it up for me to bring home. The waiter was very sympathetic when I told him that I'd come to honor our anniversary and my husband. I cried a little bit but I was able to control it even though I was on the verge of sobs.

A silver car exactly like his pulled in front of me on my way out and essentially "escorted" me to the city limits. I cried then, driving and sobbing hysterically, telling my hubby how much I miss him and how I'd done this for him and was he proud of me. Got home with a bottle of champagne, cheesecake and no makeup on my face anymore....but what cheered me up was opening that door and having my "little man" wagging his tail and entire butt, so happy to see me back home again.

I pet his little head and he immediately rolled on the floor wanting tummy rubs. How can you be upset after that?

Saying goodbye to this day is hard. My sister treated it like any other day but made sure to point out, "I was going to post something but I figured you wouldn't want any reminders of him today." Clueless!! She's one extreme or the other, there's never anything in between. I told her he had a name, and our wedding day existed, it wasn't just a figment of my imagination.

I had Zero wishes from my immediate family on FB but more distant relatives posted hugs and supportive messages.

My mother-in-law called, said she was ill on antibiotics and ended up with a yeast infection...??? WTF!? Why did I need to know that for? Then it dawned on me, I hadn't mentioned my dogs paw yeast infection on FB but I did send IMs to my sister with that info. It makes me wonder just how much this woman can watch about me online and it is Super Creepy!! Total invasion of privacy and totally against the law. I wish I could prove she was doing it.

@scout86, my dog was put on an oral anti fungal medication last week for his yeast infection between his toes, one of the side effects is loss of appetite, so I was trying to get him to keep eating in any way I could because the Meds could really hurt his tummy. Unfortunately he developed diarrhea in addition to his appetite loss so I stopped the Meds altogether. I read that apple cider vinegar applied directly to the toe beds works to cure yeast infections so I'll try it tomorrow. I'm just concerned because he's itching and biting his feet so badly.

I'm purely exhausted right now. Going out took a lot out of me today so I'm going to turn in.

Sending love and kisses to my husband in heaven on our anniversary. I'll love you forever, Tinny. I miss you.

 

[NarcSis]

My crazy dog tried to wake me up at 445am today!! I think he realized then that I'm not exactly an early morning person as I growled at him, "Hey! Go lay down, it's too early to be up!" He went sulking back to his bed and I rolled over and fell asleep again.

I was dreaming about my husband in a round about way last night. In my dreams I kept meeting up with people we used to work with and they were repeatedly asking me when my husband was coming back home "from maneuvers". I was confused each time they asked me because I kept thinking to myself, "He's dead! What the hell are these people talking about!?" Instead I always just answered, "I don't know." and would shrug my shoulders. The one girl said to me, "Bet you can't wait to see him again, he's been gone so long, probably the longest you've ever been apart." She was the medic on scene that day. I woke up feeling really confused.

Suicide makes no sense. There are so many wives or husbands of suicide in the world. For each of the hundreds of people in the group I joined, there is one person that doesn't exist in this world anymore, there is a person who died by their own hand; shortened their own life. Hundreds just in this group alone. Of those hundreds, many of us are spouses of an emergency services worker or veteran.

I know I have wanted to die on several occasions. I know I just wanted peace in my life because the pressure of it all was too much to bear anymore. I know the pain was unbearable in those moments and in those moments, you either have to ride the emotions and feel the pain or you act on it because that drive to act is so very strong and can come on so suddenly. I learned that those moments pass. I just have to ride them out, they eventually go away and you feel like yourself, in control of things again or at least, simply existing.

What is PTSD? Now they're saying that if you start to notice changes in your emergency services spouse, increased irritability, anger, increased focus on past injuries or recurrence of pain syndromes, withdrawing, a sudden pessimistic outlook on life, then your emergency services spouse is suffering from PTSD. Did my hubby have PTSD? Does it manifest in different ways when it's due to cumulative stress and not a single traumatic event? He had no re-experiencing but the extent that his old injuries (and newer ones) were bothering him was insane and no treatments seemed to be working to ease his pain. I was to the point where I was wondering if the pain was indeed all in his head. He was not experiencing Anxiety in any fear based way, but there was that one time he had what I can only explain as a panic attack before going to work - he got pale, clammy and felt pressure in his chest and said his heart was racing. His blood pressure was low, his heart rate was high and he was having more PVCs than normal.

My husband was a dreamer, he dreamed of winning the lottery to the point where over the years he got more and more desperate to win it and ease the stress he was feeling. He started buying more and more lotto tickets in a desperate effort to be able to retire to a more peaceful way of life. He had our farm all picked out. We had our retirement planned out. In his last few years he'd gone from a long-time permanent and capable partner at work to a complete f-up idiot who he finally asked his managers to remove from the spot beside him (this is when his mood started to degrade), to another "new" person he had to get used too, then another and another and finally after the third partner took a Job Share arrangement, he ended up playing partner roulette from shift to shift. I've said before just how stressful this type of thing is on a person who has always had a permanent partner. When you're in our field, you don't want to be babysitting your partner as well as handling an emergency. He got stuck with a lot of brand new people. They started using him almost as an unpaid mentor to the new recruits and he HATED it. He felt he was carrying too much weight and responsibility on his shoulders. He was planning to move to a less busy station this fall, closer to home so he wouldn't have to drive so far.

He was trying to find a way to ease his stress levels.

I was doing the same thing. I was not pushing him to do anything. He always told me that when he's stressed it helped him to be able to disappear into his computer games. We'd been through this before. He'd wake up, go to the computer room and I'd bring him his meals there because he would not leave that room for days on end. I eventually put my foot down because I rarely saw him anymore - so he bought a laptop, so he could sit beside me on the couch and "be with me." I settled for that because he at least used to engage with me to some extent and we would go out to eat or to the malls to walk or the park to hike and he wasn't so stressed out anymore. This is the same pattern I saw happening over the past few years but more starkly in the last year. He was now refusing to speak to me while on his laptop, he was no longer engaging with me and seemed increasingly annoyed when I'd ask him to go out and do things. Some days he just refused to answer me and sat playing on that laptop for an entire day and into the night. He was also drinking "blindly". He wasn't drinking to get drunk, he just wasn't mindfully drinking and would end up drunk and sullenly stalk off to bed when he realized he was feeling drunk. When we did have beer, he would open one and drink it like it was a soda, all the while never taking his eyes from his computer screen. I didn't know what to do to make him see that he was following some pretty bad patterns. Instead I just started nagging more about us needing to get out of the house and engage with other things.

He was making unhealthy choices. We were both under increasing stress. I was sleeping less. He was sleeping less. I was sleeping in the spare room more and more so as not to disturb him. I was trying to increase our level of exercise by hiking to try to increase the endorphin levels in him to combat the stress. It just seemed to make him worse, more irritated, more sore, more distant and resentful toward me. I didn't know how to reach him. I was doing everything I could without "throwing it in his face" that he was in trouble. Maybe I should have just said to him, "There's something wrong with you! Go talk to someone!"

I never once imagined he'd die. I never once imagined he'd have it in him to kill himself. I never imagined that in our "perfect", "fairy tale" life together. He was happy. He bought an entire super pack of pepperettes just two days before he died - he loved those things, I wasn't a big fan of them. He didn't know he was going to be dead only two days after that. He wanted to make sure we both had enough windshield washer fluid to get through the winter, so he bought two jugs for his car and two for mine. So in answer to the question of how long did he have those shells in his pocket? He wasn't planning to die any time soon, so it had to have been that night / morning that I heard those noises. He must have grabbed the shells and went to the basement because he'd had a fitful sleep, so he was obviously ruminating all night. He went to the basement shortly after he got out of bed,I heard him. I must have fallen asleep because i only thought I heard a door slam, but I thought it was an inside door. I wasn't ever sure what I heard because I was half asleep. I then searched the internet for mattress toppers to try to ease his pain. I know I was online at 710 and I know I heard that loud slamming noise just before that. I stayed online for an hour. I came downstairs at 810, happy to share my news with him, bringing hope to end his pain.

He was already dead. He was half a kilometer from our house and he was sitting in his car, dead, waiting for someone to find him.

I still wish he was just somewhere on training. I still hope I will see him again soon. I feel it so strong some days. I'm not ready to let go yet.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

:hug::hug::hug:

 

[scout86]

To be completely honest, it wouldn't surprise me if your husband did have diagnosed PTSD, and it very definitely shows up differently in different people. Just the little you've mentioned about his family makes me wonder if there weren't things in his past that caused problems he'd had most of his life. Saying that mostly because some of what you've said reminds me of my own family. And my version of PTSD is a lot different that what many members here talk about, but it's still pretty real. We'll never know and he won't get the chance to learn to deal with it, and that's really sad....

Good job with the dog training! YOU get to set the schedule. What with the medication, now I see why him eating (or not eating) was a concern. How's the yeast infection doing? Does he have long hair on his paws?

 

[NarcSis]

@scout86, I know my husband had a "break down" at one point during his career, said he was depressed and needed time away from the job because he was being "harassed" by a coworker. She was married and kept making inappropriate advances on him, he felt he couldn't do anything about it because they had the same circle of friends outside of work and she would flirt openly with him in front of her husband. He said at first he didn't know she was married, she led him on and then once he was hooked she told him she was married. This was actually AFTER he'd broken up with his first fiance - another disturbed woman who lied to him about exactly how old she was. He understood the entire two years they were together that she was his age, when she was actually 15 years older than him, sadly he only found out after her driver's licence fell on the floor. They broke up because he didn't know what else she'd been lying to him about their entire relationship - she worked late a lot. My hubby went through some pretty shitty experiences before he met me, so this "had to take some time off work" episode, I wonder if it was depression or PTSD.

I'm missing him so much today. I'm having a really bad day. I really wish I had someone I could just jump into a vehicle with and go for a coffee. I wish I had someone I could talk too. I've just been crying off and on since I got back from volunteer duty this morning. I miss him so so much, this pain is just too much today. Maybe I over did it this morning. I did three straight hours volunteering in the garden. my body is aching and I'm just exhausted.

My dog had a rough morning, well, it was good at first then the other people showed up and one of the ladies had her dog there. She insisted that they meet as her dog "is the perfect dog to reacquaint him with, he's so well mannered." It was also a tiny little poodle and 11 years old, so I figured it was alright but I didn't think this lady was going to try to do it when my dog was up against the vehicle with no where to run! He growled. I've never heard this dog growl at all in my 3 weeks with him. I told her to back off but she said, "no, no, he's just afraid, he'll get used to him." When he growled again louder, I said that's it. he's uncomfortable, let's leave him alone, he's scared enough as it is. My dog wouldn't even look at me! He was staring straight at the vehicle tire and his whole body was frozen - he honestly looked like a human when they dissociate. I had to get right on the ground near him and keep talking to him and softly petting his back until he was able to look at me. I kept it up until his tail started to wag, then I put him back in his "safe zone", the vehicle. I've never seen him so stressed.

He wanted to walk the neighborhood when we got home so I let him wander down the sidewalk. He was sniffing a tree with a built up area around it on the boulevard in front of someone's house when this old guy came out and said, "Hey, don't let your dog near my tree! I grow flowers in there please!" So I went to pull him away and he dug his front paws in and got stubborn, I had to really yank hard on his leash and hurt him, that's so wrong. I think I was mostly pissed because I saw this guy letting his own dog pee on their tree and kick up their "flowers" just yesterday morning and It's On The Boulevard, not on his lawn!!! I was so suddenly filled with rage I wanted to scream at that old guy. I can't understand why I'm so highly emotional.

I hate to say it but I'm feeling like I want to give up on life today. I know I've got the dog and I have to stay here for him but those feelings, those whispers are there in the back of my mind again. I'm feeling so sad and there is just so much pain when I think about how much I miss my husband today. I just want to scream and cry and scream some more. Those sensations are running through my body, like every nerve ending is on high charge and I just want to act to ease that sensation; just run and jump off a bridge or run in front of bus or something. It's like some kind of pull. I don't consciously want to die, I just feel like every single nerve in my body is firing relentlessly and I don't know how to stop it. My body wants to get up and run. Honestly, if I let it run, I'd probably drop from a heart attack in about 500 feet anyway, I'm so damned out of shape now.

Is this anxiety? Is that what is high-jacking my body again? Is it because I went to the garden and I "socialized" with people? There were 4 people there, all strangers except one. Was it the "confrontation" with the guy down the street? My muscles also ache from the work this morning, i thought that would burn some energy but it just seemed to fuel it, Something is setting me off and I don't know what. Maybe I need to crack a bottle of wine and sit sipping this afternoon. Is this what husband was feeling? This twisted up, fully charged, sad, angry, painful, anxious, just wanting to run feeling? He knew this. I described it to him so many times over the years, how sometimes I'd just get so super charged feeling like I was "crazy", like every nerve of my body was going insane on hyper drive. Is that what happened to him? I just....I know how hard it is to fight that urge to shut this down, permanently. I know when I get like this I end up on my bed sobbing and screaming and fighting to stay alive. I don't want to surf this wave today. God. I really hate this.

I may have to resort to ativan today. I need to be here for this dog.

Please send me strength. I miss him so much today, it hurts so bad.

 

[Sighs]

Hugs Medic.

 

[scout86]

Thinking if you and hoping you have a quiet night and a better day tomorrow. (I don't know if that's anxiety, but I know the feeling! I hope you can find the off switch and relax.) :hug:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

:hug:

 

[NarcSis]

I ended up not needing the Ativan, instead the dog and I went to the backyard to put the pool away for the season.

I was "distracted" and working off some physical energy. There were tears while I worked but I didn't care.

Of course my neighbors daughter saw the dog through the fence and climbed over the fence to come and see him, err, make him very nervous. I put him inside as his anxiety levels started to peak and he kept yawning and blinking his eyes. So I ended up "entertaining" a 9 year old Ot kind of bothers me that her mother didn't care that she just hopped the fence and the way her Mom asked her to come home? She climbed on a chair to look over the fence and said, "(Name) What are you doing? (To me) You know you can just send her home when she starts to bother you. She goes around bothering everyone." I almost said, "Wow, usually the parent tells a child what to do." And they certainly don't say things like that about their child In Front of the child. It seemed a little psychologically abusive to me. So I just said, "Oh there's a hint, I think Mom would like you to go home now." So the kid gets up and runs to climb the fence again, I told her I could open the gate for her...and the mom says again, "When she bugs you like that just send her home." I replied, "When you would like her to come home, just please come out and let me know."

How can anyone come out and insinuate their child is bothering people when the poor kid is just looking for attention and conversation! And to say it in front of her!? Wow.

Of course as soon as I opened the gate the kid shouted at her mom, "I'm gonna go see if X person is home!" And off she went running away, the mom says, "Oh there she goes, going to bother someone else." Totally didn't even care that her minor (adopted) child was just randomly leaving her sight! I think that mom never should have been a mom.

So yes, I worked off some of my energy and sadly, talked about hubby with a 9 year old because she was asking about him. Hey, I said I needed someone to talk too and the fates sent her to me. So thank you fates, she's such a caring, gentle soul, even if she can't focus for too long.

I also noticed something about the dog tonight, he likes to sleep with his nose under something, that's why he snores so bad - my husband used to half cover his face (mouth/nose) with a blanket when he slept and yes, he snored the same way!

I think I fell in love with that dog a little more tonight.

 

[NarcSis]

My sister is visiting for four days. At first she told me she was going to come today to "drop off" a dog bed, then she called and asked if I needed any groceries. When she got here with her bags I asked how long she was staying and she said, "Oh I thought I told you until Sunday." Nope. First I'd heard of it.

Almost the second words out of her mouth were to the dog, "Hi puppy wuppy, don't you remember me? How come you're looking at me like you want to rip my face off?"

My dog doesn't lol angry at anyone, but I wouldn't blame him either.

She's very tuned up and I need to stay calm. I wanted to take the dog for a walk at the local park tonight but it was jam packed with people, so she wanted to just go for icecream instead. I said the walk is not optional, he has to get out. We drove around while she whined about icecream but it seemed every park was full for some reason. In the end I took her for her icecream and because the dog wanted some he ended up falling off the back seat while I was driving. I was so terrified he'd gotten hurt. He just lay down whining and my sister ended up acting like she was angry with me!

Uggh. Hubby was always so good at mitigating this all. I prayed that he could just come back to shield me for a little while.

I had to listen while she insinuates that my past 8 years of PTSD was just perimenopause - because she's just starting and I've been diagnosed as in it for 3 years already...but no, she's the expert.

What is so wrong about accepting that I have PTSD!?

Oh and this all came about because I hit the curb while going through the stupid drivethru. She said, "Are you okay? Is something wrong? Well, you're driving erratically." I was driving erratically because I had to get her her stupid icecream and my poor dog STILL hadn't gotten his walk and I was VERY anxious about it. After he got hurt I ended up just taking him in the backyard, no walk tonight. :(

Now she competes for the dogs attention and if he doesn't pay attention to her she says things like, "Ahh, you don't like me anyway huh? You just look at me like you wanna kill me." He Does Not!!

I could really use the shelter of my husbands arms tonight. I want that arm around me that held me so tight and always made me feel safe enough to fall asleep.

Why did he have to kill himself? Why did he have to die?

I miss you, Tin.