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Angry, frustrated and needing to vent 
Créé par Rabbit
07 janv. 2022, 2 h 10

I lost my husband almost a year ago now but it still feels like yesterday. 

This whole year has been a complete mess. Chaos on the job front, homelessness, and my own diagnosis with a terminal illness. I just don't know why I even bother anymore.  Except, for some reason, every day, I do. I wake up fresh, ready to be positive only to be let down before the day is done. 

After my husband's death, I had to move in with family.  I was supposed to have space to heal. Instead I found that my hoarding mother who had been "making room for me" had barely cleared enough space for my mattress. Next thing I know my brother is knocking on the door, threatening to harm himself because his girlfriend ended things when he sold his car to pay off his drug dealer.  In he moves.  I lasted a few months and took off to stay with a friend in small town middle of nowhere... it was great, until she stole from me.  She was my best friend.  I took off again and stayed with my father for a few months. Things were OK until he decided I should take care of him (because I was so good at taking care of my husband for all those years right???!!) and it triggered my PTSD from when my Bear died.  Back to emotionally unavailable mom, who is militantly ignoring me right to my face.

I could just punch someone, but that's not the kind of person I am. My teeth are clenched so tightly that I broke one of my rear molars.  My head feels like it's going to explode from crying. 

Please God, let me make it through the weekend when I can move into my own place.

Thank you for listening to my rant. I appreciate you all.

Rabbit 
 
Réponse de McRalph
08 janv. 2022, 15 h 14

Hi Rabbit,
that sounds like a lot to deal with and it sounds like you are having a normal reaction to a very abnormal situation.  Not only do you have your own grief and trauma but you are also surrounded by others with their own drama going on.  People who simply don't have room for you or your problems.  
can you see a therapist at all?  Maybe a neutral party to talk to would be very helpful.  Can you get help to get out on your own?  Healing is not going to happen in this environment.  I have found in my own grief journey that no one is going to help me.  I have to help myself.  No one around me has the bandwidth to support me because they all have their own crap to deal with and zero interest in being a support to me.  I have to get up and move forward every day.  
stress=expectations-reality
we have expectations of the people around us but when those expectations are not the reality we experience a lot of stress.  The reality is right now that life sucks.  Your family sucks, your friend sucks.  So accept it and move forward.  What can you do today, right now to make this situation better for you?  To get through the day as best as you can.  It's not easy but you can do it.  You've come this far. 
I am so sorry you are dealing with a terminal diagnoses.  That is devastating.  I wish I could give you a hug and support you.  Coming here at least was a step in the right direction.  Sending lots of love and strength and sanity your way! 
 
Réponse de Mert
15 janv. 2022, 2 h 47

Rabbit, I am full of admiration for your strength in waking up every morning ready to be positive.  After all you've been through in the past year I would expect your first impulse to be to climb under the bed and stay there!  You have amazing resilience and I hope you can give yourself some credit for that!

I don't know how to offer you comfort when everyone you have reached out to for help and comfort has let you down.  The one thing that seems hopeful is that you should by now be in your own place.  I really hope that you will find that makes a significant difference.  It will allow you to grieve in peace without being repeatedly dragged down by the behaviour of others around you.  It sounds like it's been years that you've been looking after others beginning with your husband during his illness and last days.  Of course that's a gift to be able to do that for someone we love but it is also exhausting especially when the caregiving is extended over years.  I hope you will be able in your own place to focus on looking after yourself and rebuilding your strength to face whatever comes next on your own journey with ill health.

You are a very strong and brave person!!!!  

Mert
 
Réponse de Rabbit
19 janv. 2022, 4 h 21

Thank you for hearing me, I truly appreciate your time and the care in your responses.

I am in my own home now and I don't know if it's better or worse. Days are OK when I'm distracted by work but the nights are so quiet. I find myself unable to resist putting my hands on my husband's urn, I get paralyzed by the touch of the cold surface.  I can't bear to be with him or without him.  Somehow I know this is deeply unhealthy. 

I have sought counseling but finished my allotted sessions. It was hard for me to be honest with the therapist, I don't know why...

Im hurting and alone.

I miss my Bear so very very much 

Rabbit
 
Réponse de Mert
21 janv. 2022, 18 h 20

Rabbit, I'm guessing that what's happening to you right now when you feel the pain is excruciating and when just touching the cold surface of your husband's urn causes you to freeze up is that the full depth and weight of your grief has been pushed down internally while you dealt with all the many problems you have faced externally since Bear's death.  And now that you're alone the feelings that it was unsafe to experience when your outside world was in chaos are all pushing up at once.  The feeling compelled to touch the urn and then feeling paralyzed is I think a part of the PTSD you were workikng on with your therapist.  I guess there's an aspect of compulsion there that may be unhealthy but overall the impulse to reach out and touch the symbol of Bear's passing and the container of his remains sounds pretty normal to me, and the response this triggers is natural but exaggerated by the PTSD.  

Being honest with one's therapist is hard until you've been together long enough for you to feel really safe, and when you only have a limited number of sessions perhaps there just wasn't enough time for this to happen.  Or perhaps you and your therapist weren't a good fit; that sometimes happens to the best of therapists and clients, and so enough trust and safety is never created to speak openly about the very hard things.  

The important thing I want to say to you is that nothing of what you're experiencing is in any way an indication that there's something wrong with you!  The wave of overwhelming grief and loneliness you're experiencing is the terrible price you're paying for having loved so deeply and suffered so much watching Bear die.  The brutal fact is that the more we've loved the more agonizing our loss.  Way out in the future there will be a time when all your wonderful memories of happy times with Bear will bring you joy instead of breaking your heart, but I know that's almost impossible to imagine right now.  The only way forward is through these dark days of missing Bear, putting one foot in front of the other, just getting through the days.

Please keep reaching out for help when you can.  If there's any way to get some more therapy with a different therapist it would be good to grab it; so much of the success of therapy depends on the relationship between you and her/him.  Or perhaps there's a friend you can talk to.  At least if nothing else, know that we're here to offer what support we can.

Mert


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