My husband died today

[AngelKeeperJ]

((( Medic )))
:hug::hug: Standing with you during this hard time!

 

[jenneigh]

He committed suicide. I don't know what I'm going to do now.

I am so sorry for your loss. I don't know what to say.... I recommend speaking with a counselor, as soon as you can. Sending you positive vibes.

 

[NarcSis]

I went to lunch with an old coworker today. We naturally started talking about the upcoming anniversary and I went into more detail with her about that day. I think we were actually talking about how distant my family is and I started talking about how on that day when I was in severe crisis and needed my family, it was actually my sister-in-law that came to me. I don't think I was hugged by any of my other family members. All I remember is being grabbed and wrapped in a massive bear hug by my sister-in-law. My family all defaulted to "Work Mode", they stiffened up, got professional and began speaking to the cops and the coroner, they didn't come to me. My sister was the only one who came and hugged me ever so briefly but because she was in uniform she just fell in line with everyone else too.

I needed my family and although they all showed up and were concerned and shocked, they weren't concerned enough to drop the public persona to just be my family members...just be people.

My friend started to cry, likely because I was too. I was sitting there in the restaurant trying desperately to contain the sobs that wanted to burst out of me. I was almost in panic mode trying not to completely break down there at that table, especially since I was right next to her 8 month old baby. These were things that I haven't been able to say out loud to anyone since he died. I have no one to talk too. I used to talk to my hubby about my family but now I have no one to talk too about them and who they make me feel. I mean, it's one thing to write it down but to actually hear yourself saying these things? Uggh, it was so damned heartbreaking.

I caught myself saying things like, "oh we do that too..." and then realizing what I'd said. He's been dead an entire year and it doesn't feel like more than a week has passed. I've written in here practically every single day, all of my days and experiences are recorded in here but in my mind, in my heart, it feels like barely any time has actually passed.

Oh my god, It's been A YEAR since he killed himself already!! A YEAR!! Oh my god I just miss him so much.

I just kept thinking that this is not real. That he would just pop up somewhere somehow and everything would be all okay again but it's never happening. I'm never going to see him ever again. I'm never going to be able to talk to him again. All of these things that I used to be able to share with him and not be judged about it, all of the things I felt safe saying to him, none of that exists anymore. I have no safe person to be with anymore. He was it.

I posted a creative piece online the other day and naturally my family automatically think it's speaking to them, so of course, they all interact with the post and comment about how they think about me all the time and they're with me in spirit even though they can't be with me in person - and they drive past my town to go somewhere else, and they call other people to speak to them but not me. Nope, I'm alone and when I say I'm alone, they all come back and remind me that I'm really not - yet I look around this room and there is the dog, there is no one else here, the phones stay silent and it's been at least 7 months since the last one of them (other than my sister) came to my house.

What is wrong with me? What has always been so wrong with me that they never felt close to me? Why do they call my sister up and invite her out to dinner? Why do they say things like they feel so comfortable and at home in her little house? Why am I forgotten by even my own flesh and blood?

I know how hubby must have felt inside now. If we didn't make the effort to go to see his family, we never would have seen them, in fact, after the wedding we stopped going to visit them because we felt it was time they made some effort to come to see us....and so the next time I see them is at his funeral. We were married for 12 f'ing years for crying out loud!!!

My family rarely stopped by to visit me after I moved in with hubby. I'm the one who moved away so I guess it was up to me to go back to visit them and I did. every set of days off during the summer I was up at my mom's house and everyone would come over. After my mom died, I would go up and no one would come to visit, the other brothers wouldn't stop in to even just say Hi but if my sister was there, they would show up, visit, even come over for drinks. I used to ask my hubby, Why do they like her more than they like me? Stupid, I know, but I couldn't help but see the difference in how we were treated. I was the "mistake", the "baby" that you don't pay attention too and the "grouch" that no one ever knew how to to connect with.

Uggh. Hubby was my only friend. He was my only trusted companion. He was my everything because without him I have next to nothing in this life anymore. But I can be okay with that, can't I? I mean, so many people live alone in this world, why do I have to be so broken up about it? My sister has been alone her entire life and she's "okay".

Am I okay today? No. I'm not. I'm so f'ing sad. I miss him so g'damn much right now, I'd give anything to just be with him again.

I burst into tears when I was driving with the dog to the park today. We went into the park and I walked him to the last place hubby and I were last year around this time - we went to the picnic table nestled in a stand of cedars where we'd had our last hiking lunch together. I stood there at that table and I asked him where he was. I practically begged him to appear to me. I thought I felt his hand in mine. I just wanted to set up camp there and just stay there waiting for him to arrive.

I feel broken today. I just feel so lonely for him. I can't stop crying right now.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug::hug::hug:
From what you have said... I think that your family is WAY below your intelligence level, and are intimidated by you, and Tin as well.

Your sister "wears" the family "costume". They don't know how to be REAL. YOU are real, and they don't know how to be real. THEY are the problem, not you!

I am glad you got to see and talk to your former coworker. You needed that.:hug:

 

[NarcSis]

I needed it but I just can't stop crying now. If I'm not asleep, I'm "so sad" and crying.

It just hurts so badly tonight.

The newspaper published the article and he was mentioned and so was the other girl who now has a book out and the new girl with the fitness studio - not me whose whole issue was that I was ignored and mistreated from the start because I have nothing to offer.

I'm not famous so I'm not worth mentioning.

I read the article online and I just wanes to die. My first thought was, "You have to f'n die to get any play in this town."

My husband will forever be known as the paramedic that killed himself and not the one that saves so many lives or won so many awards or a great guy, nope, he'll just be the paramedic who killed himself.

"Medic, I'm so sad."

That's what he said to me. Why the F didn't he add,"I want to die!"

I'm so sad right now....I want to die. I know how that feels Tin. I know because I've been there and I'm there right now.

I needed you, Tinny. :(

 

[Jadie Rose]

I wrote a piece for the reporter, it was done in the style of my blog posts, socially conscious voice....

My heart goes out to you dear Medic72...thoughts and prayers with you and your family! :hug:

 

[NarcSis]

So, I just got off the phone with my therapist and we spent the hour doing this "new" therapy she's been trained in that she thinks is a miracle cure for releasing trauma and pain, it's called Image Transformation Therapy (ImTT).

I was very skeptical, I mean, imagining a your pain/fear as a color and then deconstructing the image of it? But as we were doing it I was actually aware of the image that caused me to feel fear active on some level in the background while I was consciously attending to this guided imaging/breathing/deconstruction exercise. I could feel myself stimulating areas of my brain in sequence and it came to me that perhaps while that image that causes me to react fearfully is pulled out in the background, I'm actually restoring a normal level of neurotransmitter flow around it and essentially reducing the reactivity that the image generates in the brain??? Like the exercise itself was acting as a modulator for the hypothalamic reactivity associated with the fearful memory.

I don't know. She promised that it would remove the fear associated with the image permanently. I'm still skeptical but only time will tell, right?

The image that I worked on wasn't a memory per se, rather a disturbing image that my own brain created that generates extreme pain and fear when I think about the day that my husband died. It is the image I generated of him there in that car, alone, cold, dead with his eyes open and his head slumped to the side. Okay, so weird, now when I even type that whole thing out, I can see the image itself like I've always seen it but I do not react to it with any emotion whatsoever. It's a blank hollow image. Weird.

Is it merely the power of suggestion? Hocus pocus is all it takes to remove the reactivity of trauma?

Then again, this was not a real image. It was an image my own brain created as it was searching for answers and trying to fill in the gaps of the things I do not know and could never know. I never once saw him in the car. I looked from several angles but I could not even catch a single glimpse of him. Now that I think about it, this image is really an overlay from an image I'd seen at work. The man was dead in his car, I honestly can't remember if it was a car accident or if it was a suicide, but he was there, wearing a dark coat, it was winter maybe, he was in his driveway or on a roadway, all I remember is houses in the background, he had a thin face, wrinkled, a mustache, gray hair, his head was tilted slightly to the right on his shoulder, he was stiff with rigor, the skin on his face was very pale, his mouth was slightly open, his eyes were open and clouded. I think the car was black too. I'm not sure. Wow. This could have even been almost 20 years ago when I was student medic. Wow. There have been so many over the years, I think I totally forgot about this one.

Why did I associate that image with my husband's death? My husband had a thin face with a mustache. He was in his car. I guess that was enough for me to bring that buried image forward and give it life? Wow. So very weird.

I'd love to see some imaging studies of the brain while the technique is being applied. I wish the two sides of the psychology weren't so darned separated from one another, the science is actually important when you're working with an organic structure and trying to understand it's functions.

All I know is that before the session I'd done very little other than take the dog for a walk but after the session I felt like some kind of section of weight had been lifted from me. I actually feel calmer and less internal pain. So strange.

We started the session with me crying because I said that I had been waiting for him to come home. I had placed this value on the anniversary day as the day it actually becomes true, the past due date where if he doesn't come home before that then it means that he is truly dead and never returning. It's the date that those hopes and dreams of him walking through the door die too. I'm not the only one who has those either, so many of the suicide widows have those same feelings and anticipation. I felt like I was going to be the one whose miracle came true, as I'm sure each of them feel too, that somehow they are the exception to the rules of this universe. he won't be the exception. I am a widow. I am alone from here on in, He IS dead and he CANNOT come back from that.

Do I believe in transformation in some form? Yes, perhaps not physical but I do believe that we change in some way, we can't just end and disappear, we are far too complex an energy to just disappear. What we become, i do not know and whether it's a consciousness, I have no idea. I like the idea of other dimensions, I think because it is scientifically possible. There are so many things about our own universe we do not know. Anything is truly possible.

There's a song that's been stuck in the back of my mind all week and I keep thinking that he put it there, it's Yellow by Coldplay, but especially the lines, "Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything that you do, yeah they were all yellow" and "your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones, turning in, to something beautiful, do you know, for you I'd bleed myself dry, for you I'd bleed myself dry."

He's not gone. He's just turned into something beautiful. I wish I could be there with him but it's not my lot in life. It has to be okay here without him. It has to be. I have to be okay without him. "look at the stars, look how they shine for you and everything you do..."

I miss him still but the pain is less today. I'm hoping it's like that tomorrow too.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

(((Medic)))
I am glad you have found some release! That therapy sounds like the one my T has used. It's called "brain spotting.

I DO believe that certain techniques of "brain work" and imagery can work. After all, it is our amygdala that is "written on" when we are traumatized, so why wouldn't intentional writing on the brain not work to some degree?

I also believe that anything is possible, and that love is an energy and energy doesn't die, but changes form. It's possible that he is free now, to be your spiritual companion, just as any other idea or possibility can exist.

Have you thought about getting an adult coloring book, and either colored pensils or crayons? Art uses the logical side of our brain, versus the emotional side. It's worth a try. Painting or drawing would work too. It's not about whether or not you stay in the lines.

Keeping you in my prayers!:hug:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Medic:hug: I am really struggling right now and cannot be much of a support at the moment but I do pray for your well being at this fragile time in your life.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

 

[NarcSis]

So after the therapy treatment yesterday, I am a little miffed. You know how we always say when we're in the midst of agony that we just wish it would go away? It's gone away. I feel nothing today. I am not sad. I am not mourning his loss. There is no pain that leads to sorrow. I feel like I just got ripped off from finishing my grieving period. I'm upset that today feels like any other day with me doing my chores, singing, playing with the dog and not feeling a damned thing when at this time last year my husband was lying on the floor crying his last hours away.

I continued working on the memory quilt hoping that holding his t-shirts and inhaling them (clean) would help me to connect to the feeling of his loss. Nothing. I went through his lock boxes. I picked up the box of shells that I'd been afraid of all year, the box with the two missing that he took that morning. You would think that this would be enough for me to feel something; blank, nothing. Just the teeniest twinge of sadness maybe deep, deep inside of me, but this should have torn me to pieces, especially this close to the anniversary of his death.

I was looking through his pictures, picking out ones to put on the quilt. I hate to say it this way but the lack of connection to them made it feel like I was looking at pictures of a friend, not my poor husband who shot himself and left me broken. My therapist was so excited when I said yesterday that I could think of the image I'd had of him dead in my mind and not feel afraid of it or experience any pain when I thought of it almost immediately after the therapy procedure. I know her motivation was well intentioned but again, I seem to be getting ripped off of the necessary growth here. She was so proud of herself for doing this "miracle cure" for me so that I wouldn't be in so much pain - I'd rather feel the pain, than to feel blank about the man I spent 20 years of my life with. I hate to sound unappreciative.

He was my husband. He was my life. He was my everything and now I'm just blank when I think about him, as if he's been gone for years or something. it's quite disappointing. I want my pain back. It was my right of passage. I've been trying all day and I hear my therapist gleefully saying after the procedure yesterday, "Dr. Miller said that it won't come back ever again."

I'm trying to find my pain again. I want it. I want to finish mourning him. I wasn't finished. :(

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

:hug: Just a thought...your memories are so much more than pain...