My husband died today

[scout86]

Now I think I'm going crazy - I swear I read two more post replies in here last evening but I open this up today to respond and they are not here...I Swear I read them, I swear.

I'm pretty sure I read them too. So, for what it's worth, it's not just you.

 

[desiderata310]

No no.... there was a crash of the site last night. There were posts lost permanently due to an issue with back up of the forum. You are definitely not crazy

 

[NarcSis]

@desiderata310 Thank you, that makes more sense.

 

[NarcSis]

My sister is here for two days. After she got here, I realized why my internet was $50 over cost last month. Apart from my using Netflix and my regular use of the Internet she is CONSTANTLY glued to her phone!!! I mean as constant as husband was before he died!! She essentially comes to visit my internet connection!

If I go silent, she doesn't notice. If I'm talking, I'm just background noise, she doesn't notice. I mean she knows I'm talking but when I ask a question if it's not silence it's a distracted "Ohhhh yeah." (Which often doesn't make sense to the conversation!)

It's him all over again but it's the WRONG part of him. That was the part that took him away from me. That was the part I hated, that addicted, not living in reality, disconnected BS that doesn't HAVE TO exist - all you have to do is put the damned phone down!!! Treat me like a Real Person. Make me feel like I exist, like I'm worth something to you.

He hardly spoke to me in those last few months. He was constantly glued to that stupid device! When he did speak, it was AT me not TOO me, like she's doing. These things are ruining communication!

I mean this is CONSTANT. She's telling me stories from her newsfeed, telling not discussing. She jumps from topic to topic with no lead-in, so I'm left answering in the context of the original story and she looks at me confused and says, "No, I'm talking about X" so I'm the one who feels lost. I'm not reading what she's reading!!!!

Uggh. Why didn't he just put the stupid phone down and practice being real, being here, present, WITH me and ALIVE!!??

I don't think I was even real to him anymore. I wasn't what he needed me to be anymore. Maybe that's why it was so easy to let go of me.

I want to be so angry at him but the guilt....

Angry at him for not knowing how to express himself? That's not fair. Angry at him for wanting to die because he was in pain? That's totally not fair.

Angry at him for leaving me here alone. That one seems selfish of ME! I am angry at him for leaving me here alone but I was already alone BEFORE he died! Thank you for that, stupid computer, stupid internet, stupid handheld devices!!! You took my husband from me! You stole 20 yeas of my life! You still everything I like bed about being alive!

I was real. I was worth something.

I as boring, never changing and always the same. I couldn't compete.

I want him to come home but if he did, he'd just take me for granted again. I exist. I'm a person. When I'm dead will they regret not knowing me? Will they realize I'm more than just a memory captured in pixels?

We wasted essentially that entire last fall together disconnected from one another, despite my increasingly desperate I Love Yous and I Miss Yous and stopping him to force hugs or touching his leg as he passed by me. Had I not done those things, would he have died earlier? Would something else have set him off? I just wanted US to be alive together!

I just want him to come back to me, ALIVE and CONNECTED to ME.

 

[NarcSis]

Wow autocorrect really messes up your highly emotional train of thought!! Grrrr.

 

[NarcSis]

I cried in public yesterday. My sister and I went shoe shopping. The cheapest place I've ever seen for quality shoes is called SAIL, a sporting goods store. Hubby and I went there all the time. He bought his guns there. Everything reminded me of him - like he was there in those camping supplies, wandering through the clothing aisles....it was familiar and comforting but knowing those guns were just up those stairs gave me anxiety.

He died because of that store.

I tried not to think about it. I tried to be present in the comfortable familiarity of the aisles. We saw a beautifully colored baseball cap on a shelf, I picked it up, on the brim in small font were the words "Life is good", the same brand as my hubby's favorite baseball cap.

I began searching; not really realizing I was desperately doing so. He wore that baseball cap that day - he had to have because I can't find it anywhere. It was his favorite ball cap, he wore it every time he left the house. After he died, I wanted to wear his ball cap. I searched our entire house and could not find it. I've been looking for one exactly like it since then.

I turned toward the men's section and there on a shelf in the distance were the same colors of his cap. I practically ran toward it. It wasn't the same kind, the logo shape was different and it was a rip stop material not the canvas type material of the one he had. Regardless I picked it up and held it, then the tears came.

It was all I could do to hold back the sobs threatening to burst from my throat. I stood there with a flood of tears spilling off my chin, wiping weakly at my eyes and making these choking noises as I looked helplessly at my sister who made no move to try to comfort me. She later admitted that she was going to walk away because she didn't know what to do - my in-laws all over again.

It took me a few minutes to get myself under control again; the employees were all just staring at me. I honestly didn't care.

I'm so horribly sad inside.

I dreamed about him last night, then it turned to a nightmare and then I had nightmare after nightmare all through the night.

I'm so tired. I'm not alone but I'm so lonely. I'm so wrong without him - everything just feels so wrong. He wasn't supposed to die that way.

He loved that cap because he said as long as we were together, "Life is good". He wore it everywhere - even to his suicide.

Life is NOT good without him. I'm missing him so much today.

 

[NarcSis]

I'm one of the few who hasn't seen the "candid" talk about mental health online that the young royals did for the Heads Together organization, so I watched it this morning. They make some good points about how people should not be afraid to speak about issues that are causing them psychological distress and unburdening oneself of feelings that you may be trying to bury is far healthier than burying it, yes, all great and wonderfully salient points; they even hinted at a personal connection to grief and psychological distress but maybe I didn't hear what other people were hearing. I've been hearing/reading people talk about this interview and how it was so unbelievable and amazing that they spoke about their own mental health so candidly on camera and how brave they were etc. etc.

I guess I expected more, the Princess hinted at the difficulty she had knowing just what to do with her son and how to look after him when he was first brought home, but I didn't hear the true connection, there was no admission of frustration or sleepless nights or tears shed or anger - parents NEVER talk about those things and this is why so many young people these days get such a HUGE surprise when they become parents. Prince William (it feels so wrong to type that, it's too casual, like i actually have no right to refer to him at all) spoke about his work and how difficult it is to deal with the things he deals with and has seen but again, the actual personal connection was only hinted at there was no admission of human reactions; lost sleep, nightmares, unable to get images out of his head, fear, all of those completely human reactions that anyone would have being a rescue chopper pilot. Prince Harry was more vocal about how he buried the pain of his mother's death and how suffering can occur beneath what we see physically, again great, wonderful and salient point about mental health but he never said anything about HIS suffering after his mother's death like I cried, or couldn't sleep, or was angry or confused or very intensely sad. The keys were missing.

I know, we're not supposed to look at the royals as human and I'm sure for the royals who are sitting on an imaginary pedestal being held to a higher standard of appearance than we are, this was really letting their hair down but I think for those of us who are actually in the muck and mire of mental health suffering, it was pretty much a gloss over - good attempt, yes, but less human I think than the media made it out to be. Now, that being said, there is another interview out there in cyberspace where Prince Harry apparently speaks of his mother's death and his need for psychological support more candidly, I have yet to hear that one, so I'm reserving judgement on it.

Anyway, it made me think about all of the deaths I've personally had a close connection too in my life (so yes, the interview had the desired effect). My first loss was my grandmother, my mom's mom. I was young, in elementary school, she was choppered out severely ill, we all watched the chopper land in the school yard. I went to the wake and the funeral, but being young, I want to say around 9 maybe or younger, we were encouraged to play outside as much as possible while the adults said their goodbyes. I don't think I had any true or real emotional connection to the event, not that I remember but I do remember my mother being very sad and depressed, my gramma came to visit practically every other day, so my mom lost a big part of her life. I missed her coming to dinner. I missed the walks we'd take to visit her and our cousins who lived with her, so our routines really changed, but she was emotionally distant from us. Grief and sadness? I don't remember having those.

My dad's parents were long dead by the time I was born, so I never knew them - my dad was 15 years older than my mom and I was the last of 8 kids, so by the time I came along, his mom was already dead and his dad, well, we never really knew where he was or who he was, so there was no loss to experience. My grandfather on my mom's side, again, even though I knew him, I didn't know him well, there was an emotional distance and he never accompanied my gramma on her visits, so even though his loss was empathetically sad for my cousins, it wasn't really a personal loss for me. No great grief reaction.

With my Dad, his death was prolonged over the course of half a year, so I think by the time he died, I was more relieved. I had gone through the grieving of him before he died. I lived with my mom then after I came home from university. But yes, during those six months, I was angry, I had sleepless nights, I prayed for him to die or just get better, anything to stop the moaning from his constant pain. I was afraid, afraid his death would be dramatic and horrific. I was sad and angry that any God in this universe would allow such suffering and I was angry at the universe for placing me in the spot where I would have to watch the man I admired and held up on that pedestal as superhuman, whittle away to nothing, soiling himself, crying out in such pain and I couldn't do anything to help make it better for him or for me. I was always ashamed to admit how much of a relief his death was, it made me feel guilty.

My mom's death was unexpected. It placed me in a bad spot having to start a resuscitation in a hospital that seemed to be filled with incompetent people who couldn't recognize what was going on. I suffered intense complicated grief after her death. I suffered intense guilt for not recognizing her condition right away, for not acting quick enough, for not being the paramedic I was supposed to be and for not saving her life. Hell, when I look back on my mom's death, I always remember that first day when she crashed before my eyes, I don't remember the code team resuscitating her several times or the next three days going from intensive care to palliative care to her ultimate death. I didn't sleep for three days. I was walking around in shock. I was crying and a complete mess in the weeks and months after her death. It took me two whole years to realize I still wasn't better and something was terribly wrong with me. Nights at work so intensely angry I was yelling at patients, pacing the garage for 3 or 4 hours while everyone else slept, punching things and getting into tussles with unruly patients. I only realized it one night when I finally broke down during a talk with my advanced care preceptor that I needed help. I took time from work and spent the next two months in counselling twice a week dealing with my complicated grief. I got my head back on straight and I felt like I could take on the world and I essentially did for the next 5 years until PTSD, then the world I knew disintegrated.

I guess you could say that my next loss after my mom was me. The me I knew and loved and grew up with and built from scratch died after she walked into a washroom in an office building one rainy spring morning 9 years ago. I was just starting to accept her loss. I was just starting to see how she's changed and how I was able to salvage some of her, enough to make me start to feel like a person again anyway.

Then my husband, out of the blue, committed suicide. I'm still in that loss. I'm in "loss mode" and I don't know how long that's going to last. I get angry. I get sad beyond any sad I've ever experienced in my entire existence, it is painful, like my soul is tearing apart. Like the me I struggled to put back together with the pieces missing has fallen apart again and I'm trying to find pieces that no longer exist anymore. The holes are bigger. I bleed a lot from them. Inside that hole-filled container that is now me, is this tar-like black, heavy goo that I can't get rid of and it boils and bubbles and makes me feel horrible grief and pain. And even the counselling doesn't seem to make it all better. Nothing seems to be able to touch this one. Time,maybe but while I want to be far away from the loss and feel better, I don't want to lose how connected I am to him. Like, healing that pain would take away my connection emotionally too him. I'm afraid to disconnect from him like I do with people now. How I was with him before he died.

I remember having that conversation with him. How I tried to explain the concept of emotional disconnection and how I didn't understand it and how I knew what i was supposed to be feeling but for some odd reason, that I surmised had to be physical and organic in some fashion, I could not FEEL the emotions I knew were supposed to be there. It was like a switch was turned off. At other times, I could feel but only very slightly, especially things like happy or love or compassion or caring. I didn't understand why only those things were blunted and why I could feel things like anger and rage and sad and frustration so easily and so intensely. I told him I knew I loved him, I reassured him that despite how I might act or seem, I truly loved him but it's easier to express anger or frustration when you can't feel anything else. A lot of the time, I would look at him and feel nothing, blank, like looking at a rock or a wall or a photo and it made me sad because I knew I was supposed to feel connected to him, even on a tiny human level, I was supposed to feel the love, the connection, the humanness...but I didn't. I knew in my mind what I was supposed to feel in my heart and it was (and still is) frustrating to not be able to FEEL those things. He could have been a stranger to me on some days and I wonder if that is why he just gave up and shut down - he became that stranger to me. I hardly knew the man that walked out of this house that morning, I knew what we were supposed to be, what we had been but I no longer knew who we were together.

I lost me 9 years ago. So did he. We tried to carry on as though nothing had changed. I tried to be the old me for him. I then tried to get him to accept the me I'd become. I don't think he could do it anymore. It was too much.

And I just wish now that I could say to him, I'm getting better! I was getting better! I was learning to accept how I'd changed! I was starting to come to terms with losing the old me and accepting the parts of me that still existed and build her back to something new, something we could both be a part of.

He's dead. He's not coming back. I don't know how long it's going to take me to realize that fully. I don't know how long until I don't feel destroyed inside or covered in tar. How many more nightmares? How many more sleepless nights? How many more tears and times begging for him to come back? How much more lonely? How much more afraid, small, defenseless, naked and vulnerable? Just when I thought I had it under control again.

You know yesterday, I picked out three of his winter coats from the front hall closet and I decided that those are going to be the first to go out. I don't know when I will get rid of them, whether it will be to charity or whether it will be in the garbage (I hate that option, he should still be helping people) but I decided which ones are going to go. Psychologically, that's a step forward, right? That's a small step toward acceptance? Is acceptance the same as healing?

How long does it take to recover from suicide? How long does it take to recover from losing the love of your life? How long until i can just be with him again? Will I ever be with him again?

I miss him so much, this ache just won't go away.

 

[NarcSis]

Huge no-no's after a suicide that I have been told of are quips like, "I was killing myself laughing." or "So embarrassing, it made me want to kill myself." or "Uggh, wish he/she'd just kill themselves." and the biggest one, "Oh go jump off a bridge."

The other day I was telling my sister a story about something that happened to me and it was so hilarious, I automatically said what I've been saying all of my life, "I was killing myself laughing..." It was an automatic response that seemed appropriate and then once it was out of my mouth, guilt and embarrassment because I shouldn't be saying those types of things as a suicide survivor. I shouldn't - because someone who took offence to the statement told me that I should take offence too. I thought about the statement after and I couldn't see any relation to suicide in it - I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, I was dying, I was killing myself simply because I couldn't stop laughing - I wasn't doing it on purpose, it's actually what happens when you're laughing so hard you actually can't breathe back in or breathe properly. Hubby used to tickle me so hard sometimes that I couldn't breathe, I mean, seriously, I could not breathe, I'd get scared, my face would feel like it was going to explode, I'd get angry and kick him to make him stop just so I could breathe. Can you die laughing, probably not, but it really feels like you could and it's not a suicide thing, it's actually a murder thing, lol.

Other people like to tell me what I should/shouldn't like now. How I should/shouldn't behave now. What I can/can't do now. All because he died by suicide.

The other day we were shopping and I showed my sister a nice shirt I thought would look good on me, it happened to be mostly black with some silver on it, she said, "You shouldn't be wearing black anymore, your period of mourning is over." It was actually quite hypocritical because if I talk about the "hot" divorced guy down the street, she gets all weird and judgey, "you would ACTUALLY date someone else?" In all honesty, at this point no, but I'm not doing anything that I didn't already do while my husband was alive - make jokes about "hot" guys. It was way safer making those jokes when he was alive because there was NO possibility, but now that he's dead, my jokes are taken as serious and I'm judged harshly for it. Oh and then I get the, "I'm not needy like you." speech.

I am not finished any "period" of mourning. There is no set period. My heart still aches as badly as it did the day he died. My soul still shreds repeatedly like it did the day he died. Underneath the smiles, the appearance of function, there is a blank nothing that feels nothing and enjoys nothing and would rather just lie down and do absolutely nothing until I expire. That used to be there after PTSD but since his death, it's gotten...bigger? Deeper? It's swallowed more of the me that was left. The only reason why people think I'm doing so well is number one, I don't let them see anymore, my continued sorrow is not "socially appropriate" and two, social media, which gives a false sense of the lives people live because the only pictures that appear are the smiles and the only stories that are shared are the adventures.

It still hurts so much. I am lonely because there is always going to be a piece of me missing now but the fact is, I am still alive and there is nothing I can do to bring him back alive. I don't know where he is, whether I will ever "join" him again but I prefer to think of him as always near me simply because I still feel the love I had for him IN me. Our love still exists because I am still here. I believe he is somewhere that I can't see him. I want to believe that he can see me. I think this is why I started writing notes to him backwards every morning on my shower door. I tell him I love him, I miss him, I'm lonely, I'm sorry, I want him back, I need his help, etc. etc. I've gotten really good at backward writing. If he's looking in at me from some other dimension of existence, then I want him to read the things I'm writing to him.

It helps me to think I'm not alone, that he's just out of my reach, but I can still talk to him and ask his advice, even if there are no replies. Isn't that what most people do when they talk to God? I even find myself saying things like, "I'm sorry" if I'm doing something he wouldn't have approved of seeing in the past or would have never seen me doing, like going to the bathroom or dying my upper lip hair, lol.

Is that called moving on or healing? Because it helps it hurt less often. It feels like another stage of acceptance. When it all comes down to it, I'm alone in how I get through this, so I'm doing the best that I can. I don't know if I'll ever stop missing him like this; miss him so much.

 

[NarcSis]

I dreamed about him last night. We were together for most of the time but I only remember one part, I was leaning against him, he had his arm over me like he used to when we'd be on the couch snuggled together. He was singing a song to me but he couldn't remember the next line, so I helped him, "Since you've gone I've been lost without a trace, I dream at night, I can only see your face, I look around and it's you I can't replace, I keep crying, baby, baby, pleeease." He sang the line, "Oh can't you see, you belong to me, my poor heart aches, with every step you take." he was looking me in the eyes and I was smiling up at him giggling. You know, he had a perfect singing voice, he sounded so good and it was HIS voice. In life, he had this half whisper thing going on when he'd sing, a hoarse voice even when he sang loud, like he was holding back and not relaxing his vocal cords. In my dream, he was hitting every note, carrying the tune perfectly and his voice sounded so perfect - I always knew he could do it.

But whoa, loaded dream, huh? It doesn't take a dream interpreter to get that one. Anyone ever hear me say I miss him? I woke up after I realized what the song was that we were singing. In the dream, they were just words, once I was awake, I realized the meaning of them. I keep crying baby, baby, please.

I wanted to be back in the dream with him. I realized partially that he was dead just as I woke up. But he wasn't dead in that dream, he was alive, he was SO alive, better than he'd been in real life. I think that's why I woke up, my brain couldn't comprehend the situation. It got confused, it couldn't consolidate the fact that he was there with me, feeling real, looking real and sounding so real when on some level it knew he was dead and didn't exist and shouldn't exist anymore. I hate that. It robs me of time with him.

Is that what death is going to be like? Just one long dream where you get to be with the ones you love and your brain doesn't wake up this time?

I wanted to go back to sleep. I wanted to be with him again, like it was but new memories, snuggled together and happy again. I just miss him so much. No amount of hiking or punishing myself eases this pain inside of me, this loneliness that seems to be me now. People tell you to get exercise - what helps ease depression and helps you cope with mental illness? Exercise!! Well, guess what, I'm climbing hills that make my legs cramp and burn, while my lungs scream for air and my knees threaten to give out. I'm hiking an average of 5-7 km a day. I've gone through a full pair of shoes already and my dog has muscles in places you never see muscles on dogs. Am I suddenly feeling better? No. I'm sorry, it makes me feel good WHILE I'm out there. It lasts for a little while and then the tar at my center oozes out and starts to burn again. I miss him so badly and it hurts so much and I don't know how to get rid of this ridiculous lonely that seems to be eating away at me, nothing seems to appease it.

I feel like I need to lay down and just stay there for a few days. How do you get past it when the love of your life commits suicide?

 

[NarcSis]

I try not to look at photos of him. You know I've posted a photo of him on fb almost every single day since he died but I rarely sit and look at the photos of him. It makes me sad and confused and torn up inside. Even trying to remember the fun times in the photos, it just brings pain in my heart.

I looked at a photo of us last night, we were smiling, leaning against one another seated on a rocky shoreline on one of our hikes. I stared at his face and thought to myself, "You were real. You existed. You were here with me. You were just here. When are you coming back? I need you to be real again."

No amount of saying "he killed himself" helps to make this any more real for me. It's like I've walked into a boring nightmare that I can't escape from. Days pass by too fast, they melt into one another and I feel like I'm not resting even though I do sleep. I often have little concept of what day it is, Sunday to Saturday has no meaning anymore. I used to know the day so I'd know when he'd be with me on his days off - I'd sit here doing things to show him I could still be productive, I still had value, I still had purpose.

I don't know what my purpose is without him.

Dog and I live alone. I cannot work. I have no close friends. I'm on an extremely limited income. It's not "freedom". I see why a lot of people die so soon after retirement. There whole purpose is now missing.

The weird thing is, I don't mind it for the most part. I have less PTSD intrusion in my life because the demands of my day to day are so few that I can handle it. There's just that guilt part that keeps saying condescendingly, "As long as you have functioning arms and legs, you should be working."

Maybe that's why I'm trying to get myself established as an "artist". Once I make this commissioned piece, I will be able to apply for grants, increase my body of work and apply for shows. I can work if I want, when I want and there is no pressure to continue. It won't define my life or try to dominate it like regular work did.

I know hubby was feeling trapped. He was getting older. He didn't know what shape he'd be in by retirement 15 years from now (then) because he was already in so much constant ache from day to day. That job he loved so damned much was killing him anyway but he couldn't see himself as anything else - besides after 25 years the money couldn't be matched anywhere else.

He couldn't lose his job. He had to support us, at least until we could afford to get me better. Does counseling ever make you better or am I just wasting precious dollars?

He had to support us...me...then he just up and killed himself. What did he think was going to happen to me? Did he even care?

I'm fighting to stay alive again. I want to give up at least once a month. The depression is so pervasive and no amount of exercise gets rid of it. This is the legacy he left.

He and I used to dream of our retirement. We'd buy a house with some land out in the country. We'd have two dogs, a barn for our tractor, a small guest house, a pond, chickens and goats. Hubby would make extra cash cutting lawns or doing snow removal and I would paint professionally, maybe have a small home gallery. We'd take hikes through the woods on our property, we'd ski or snowshoe in winter and we'd live our lives in peace, finally after all of our years serving others. We deserved that.

I have that unencumbered life now. I don't answer to anyone. I can do what I want, when I want and I don't have to follow any schedule. It's not right without him. I was supposed to share this life with him. I wasn't supposed to be alone in this. :(

 

[Deleted member 29920]

(((((((((medic)))))))) thinking of you, wish I could bring him back for you

 

[NarcSis]

I was scrolling through this thread re-reading some of the posts and was shocked at an add for a book called Love Yourself like your life depended on it (I think it's a book, I couldn't look too long). Anyway, the cover is a shadow figure with a gun to their head. It didn't sit well with me at all; pretty triggering for me right now. :(

Well, it's been three months, but the article that I was interviewed for in February is out. Apparently it's mental health awareness week and they felt it was finally an appropriate time to run it. When my sister told me about it last night, I breathed an internal sigh of relief, no more paranoia about my former employer sending someone to check up on me for their case.

It was hard to read because the only reason it even exists is because he died. Heck, the title even mentions, "paramedic husband's suicide". The entire article is about my dog and how he's helping me so much to cope in this aftermath. She also mentioned that I didn't qualify for a service dog because my social circle was too small - we lived essentially an isolated life with few friends. I thought it was a GREAT point to highlight because social support is so key to managing PTSD symptoms that it leaves those of us without a strong social support network essentially disqualified for help from a service dog. The organizations I contacted wouldn't even consider me for a trained "companion" animal because I didn't have anyone in my life. It struck me as odd that people can raise children on their own but service dogs? Nope, you have to have friends or family living near you to be allowed to have one. Thank heaven for the rescue organization who thought I needed someone and the dog needed someone.

I wouldn't have survived without this dog. I still have some pretty rough times even with him but he gives me a reason to stay alive. My sole purpose right now is to look after and care for him and give him the best life I have to offer. I love this dog. He saved my life when no one else would.

I wish he could have saved hubby too.