Losing my mind(1)

Jamaicabound

I posted  early December that my dear husband had passed. I have cried just about everyday since. Christmas was not as bad as I expected, mainly because my son came down with Covid and we were all preoccupied with that. Talk about a weird blessing in disguise!! Because of this and the outbreak of Covid everywhere we had to cancel his celebration which broke my heart.

Anyway, I am now struggling with different emotions and would like to know if anyone else feels like this.  Most of my days I feel very lost and empty, but I will have random days where I look around and feel like my DH was never here.  It scares me. Is this normal?  

mommyandme (m&m)

I am so sorry for your heartache! I have not lost my LO nor is she my spouse.  I can’t speak to what you’re going through.  I’m thinking if you post your question in the spousal caregiver thread you may get a lot of supportive people there. I wish I could be more help. 

SusanB-dil

Heya JamaicaB - ((Hugs))

Sorry for your loss.  my LO's with 'this thing' are not spouses, either, but I hear you.  One thing that comes to mind is that all that time caring for him, all of a sudden, has stopped. That has to be a huge change right there, besides missing him. Give yourself time to grieve and also time to step out of that caregiver role.

i also do agree with m&m - check out the spouse thread... 

Stuck in the middle

There's nothing normal about grief.  Grief can take many forms, and what you describe sounds as "normal" as any.  I was out of my mind for months after my son died and did some pretty stupid things.  It gets easier with time but not nearly soon enough.

Someone to talk to helps.  My doctor prescribed an antidepressant and referred me to a psychologist.

I am very sorry for your loss.

abc123

I think we all deal with the loss of a spouse in our own unique way. It's such a personal loss, a private loss. When my husband died I felt hollow. I went back and forth between sadness and anger. I didn't know what to do with myself and felt like I had no purpose. I read several books about grief and that helped me. Your husbands death was recent, your pain is still raw. You need to give yourself time to heal. My doctor was a great help. He told me that I should acknowledge my feelings, no matter what they were, because they were my feelings. 

I'm very sorry for your loss. Sending you peace and comfort.

lizziepooh

I am so sorry your son died.

I did not know that. I am so sorry.

Stuck in the middle

Thank you, Lizziepooh.  

I'm not talking about the son I call DS.  I had two sons, one of whom died in 1994.  The younger lives in a group home about 20 miles from the home I share with DW.  None of us ever really got over the death of DS #1, but it's not so bad as it was.  When I say grief gets easier with time, I don't mean it gets better between now and Easter.  It takes time.

KatieKat1

Jamaicabound, I understand your heartache in losing your dear husband  and I know it is not easy to deal with the emotions that we go through when we lose a loved one. I lost my husband this past August and I have experienced exactly what you're going through. Sometimes I feel like he never existed or maybe he was just someone I once knew.  It is very strange to experience that feeling.  We were married 43 years and every day since the day he passed I have often felt depressed, lonely and wonder what my purpose is now.  I finally had to get some medication because I was at the point where I did not even want to get up everyday. I would love to feel his presence around me but that has not happened yet and maybe it never will. We had a good marriage but the last 4 years were very difficult since I was basically the sole caregiver until hospice came in at the end for about 2 weeks. When we go through the experience of dealing with a person with this disease it takes a toll on us mentally, emotionally, and physically.  We have to heal ourselves and that takes time. I hope you will do better with the new year coming upon us and please know that so many people on this forum have experienced what you're going through and that you're not alone and can share your feelings at any time. I don't have many words of wisdom to give you other than it does take the time and support to go through the healing process.  Since I am a person of faith I turn to the Lord for comfort and that has also been of great help to me. I also have my daughter and my three grandkids (my support) that live close by and I am thankful for them to get me through some of the most difficult days when I feel I need loved ones around me for comfort, understanding, and companionship.

Deanna_M

Dear Jamaicabound, 

I am so sorry for the loss of your dear husband. My LO is my mother, so my perspective is unquestionably different. But I have been seeing a therapist for several months now and we have been talking a lot about grief in our sessions. My mom has not passed yet, but I have come to realize that I am already grieving.

I want to share two things that I learned that have been particularly helpful for me as I am trying to make better sense of my own emotions.

1) there is no right way to grieve and all of us grieve differently. Our society is not particularly adept at accommodating/understanding the type of grief that comes with being a caregiver of someone with Alz/dementia. There is no "right" timeline, grief may not not linear, and may not perfectly follow the "stages of grief." This may sound like a pat response, but when I heard this from my therapist, I felt like I had permission to grieve in my way and to not judge my own grief and feelings through the lens of what I thought others were thinking or expecting.

2) your grief never gets smaller; rather you grow around the grief (in other words, you and your life get bigger proportionally to the size of your grief). When I heard that, it made me feel better about how I still grieve the loss of my father (which was in 2016). I am just more capable of carrying that grief than I was 5 years ago: it is still there though and that is okay.

Again, I am so deeply sorry for your loss. 

JDancer

If you post under the "spouse" forum you may find more people to connect with who have also lost a spouse. So sorry you are going through this. You are not alone.