My husband is GONE and I need TO SCREAM/crabbylady support thread (merger of threads)

Parent Cafe
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<p>crabbylady,</p>

<p>Traditionally, wakes have served to bring together mourners to share their grief and memories and stories. I’m hoping that this virtual wake can give you and your daughters a place to come for support and understanding. </p>

<p>Rage here with safety- and keep coming back as you travel through this. Your grief will change - sometimes fast, sometimes not fast enough. The ache will get bearable- as hard as that is to believe right now. </p>

<p>Look to your memories for smiles and laughter.</p>

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<p>crabbylady, also know that you have a virtual “minyan” here. :slight_smile: I love hearing and reading stories about your beloved DH.</p>

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<p>Crabbylady-</p>

<p>so wonderful to hear from you, praying for you and your daughters.</p>

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<p>Thank you for checking in and sharing your grief and anger. We are here for you 24/7.</p>

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<p>Crabbylady, I am continuing to keep you and your family in my meditations in hopes that you’ll find peace and comfort.</p>

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<p>I am thinking of you.</p>

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<p>This is me SCREAMING !!! Today is a bad day. :frowning:
I have many government forms to fill out… I was told to check the “marital status box” as SINGLE. I freaked out and told whoever it was I was talking to in Rockville - THAT I AM STILL MARRIED - MY HUSBAND IS DEAD!!! He got kind of quiet. I hate these GD forms.</p>

<p>You will be happy to know - I am healthy enough to recognize that we can’t do this alone - we all have appointments with a psychologist. He wants me to get meds - I am resisting.</p>

<p>Tomorrow I see the lawyer for the first time. I have never needed a lawyer before - not sure how this is going to go. Amazing what you think you share/own as a couple and what paperwork you have to have to prove it…</p>

<p>PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TONIGHT to program in to your cell phones the identifier - ICE1 and ICE 2 - IN CASE OF EMERGENCY contacts.</p>

<p>ALSO - Please make sure you have a will. My husband took care of all the financial issues - I knew he was taking care of us -He tried to tell me - I was clueless - I had no idea … If it weren’t for the fact that we have had the same financial advisor for the last 25 years I would be more lost than I am now - if that is at all possible.</p>

<p>I can’t stand the quiet.</p>

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<p>I am sorry that you have had a particularly difficult day. My parents are lawyers and their office does some work with wills and estates. Hopefully your lawyer is kind, patient, understanding, and clear with you about what needs to be done. I understand not wanting to go on meds. Consider it, but if you decide that you don’t think you want or need to at this time, your psychologist should respect that. If not, switch. You’re right about ICE numbers. Parents should make sure their college kids have ICE numbers in their phone, too. Wishing you peace.</p>

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<p>Crabbylady, I have been a lurker but have been thinking about you and your family. I am sorry you’re having a particularly difficult day. Any kind of bureacratic paperwork is an ordeal but this has to be horrendous. </p>

<p>I understand your resistance to medication. It is something I would resist as well. Just remember that the only right way to deal with your emotions is your way. Do what helps you, no matter what anyone else says.</p>

<p>Good luck and hugs to you. I’m sure others here will have better suggestions than I.</p>

<p>After my father was gone, I know my mother had trouble with the quiet. She found it helpful to have the TV/radio on in the background just to have sound in the house. She preferred soap operas and game shows, but now there are so many othe choices.</p>

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<p>So sorry. I support your resistance to use meds right now. Do what you feel is right.
LA</p>

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<p>I understand about the quiet. Do you have an mp3 player or a CD player? You might find that helpful - even for falling asleep to.</p>

<p>Don’t think you have to understand all the financial/legal subtleties right now. Your advisors should keep you out of trouble and they should understand that you will need things explained now and again later down the road. Let yourself have have multiple times to learn something. The rule of thumb a good friend of mine used was that it took hearing something seven times to learn something new.</p>

<p>Wishing you and your daughters comfort.</p>

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<p>[‘ICE</a>’ Cell Phone Plan Would Help Rescuers](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700879.html]'ICE”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700879.html)
I never heard of this ICE concept, crabbylady, so thank you. I will teach it to others.</p>

<p>Your husband took care of all financial matters. He loved taking care of you and your family, and he was a man who believed he was born to serve and to take pleasure in making a difference. I read the tributes as did many of your contemporaries and cyberfriends here. And we all come here to process letting our parenting roles shift, letting go and launching our children. We are so terribly sorry that you have lost your husband when you expected to see much more of him during his post retirement years. </p>

<p>Your cyberfriends remind you though…that you also took superb care of him. he was a brilliant man so we know he chose the partner whose companionship he valued and needed most in his journey in this world. You must have done a magnificent job raising his children and providing him with meaningful personal hours, respite and a place to refuel and have intimate time with you that was nothing like being at work…so that he could get up and go out and truly help others daily as a physician. His life was so much more grounded, richer and finer because of you. His adventurous spirit found what he needed in you.</p>

<p>I went through a reactive depression after a loss, though not one I would dare to compare with the profound loss you are facing. However, I got a great deal of positive movement out of talking until my feelings of confusion and grief crystalized into ideas and concepts I could view, articulate and then I could cope and view things a bit differently. Not at first. Completely “through a glass darkly” at first. In fact, I felt rather incoherent for a while. Not uncommon in fact to feel worse instead of better in the first session or two because you are so raw and unprotected in a vulnerable moment in your life.</p>

<p>I refused meds and like most reactive depressions, mine did abate for the better without meds. Meds in that time were not as effective and useful as they are in today’s world.</p>

<p>The one thing I would caution you about though is that you must be getting sleep and food and some routines to help your body and mind take in this huge alteration of your universe. Don’t ask too much of yourself for a good while. But take care of yourself the way your husband would want you to take care of one of your girls should she go through a significant loss. Repect your need for space and time for recovery. Give yourself lots of time.
Meds today have a very good purpose on short term usage…so you may want to give it a trial for only this transition time in your life. You do have some control re meds. You can ask a lot of questions and state your preferences. You can ditch it or change meds altogether. You don’t have to decide now.<br>
If you are an expressive person, and I asume you are, I would consider talking to someone in private, someone who you don’t have to protect from your feelings. So give the poor psychologist a shot (I am also a therapist.) If you don’t hit it off with him or her…try a second person…that is all just gut level…who you feel you can make better use of in such a personal hour and at such a personal crossroads.
Your daughters won’t want to burden you with their pain, which of course as their mother-- you instinctively know, which is why you are allowing them to find private time with someone. They will stifle how they truly feel for your sake. Ditto…You won’t want to scare your kids, and you will also run the risk of stifling your own pain without a neutral place to explore it.</p>

<p>By going to talk with someone for a few intentional sessions, you are essentially giving them permission to delve into their own losses…by setting the example yourself. Even if you find the local person to be less than a peak experience in your weeks… I hope you will go for a little while because you are giving your children the message that it is wise sometimes to stop, take stock in a safe place rather than stifle how they truly feel.</p>

<p>one of the great things about going to a counselor is that one day you will stop going! one day if you do agree to see someone for a few weeks…you will realize that there is not much more to be said or accomplished, or you have simply done all you care to do in that one on one setting…for a good while…and when that time comes, and spending time with that counselor winds up and concludes, and you disengage…it feels like movement and change, and a new passage.</p>

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<p>Something to consider: you will probably cycle in and out of your grief for awhile. There will be really bad days alternating with days that seem bearable. I’m saying this (remembering a time in my life of intense grief) – just because I think it helps to get through the bad days to understand that grief kind of comes in like huge waves. If you know that each wave will recede, then you will know that you can let it come without drowning. (I hope this makes some sense). </p>

<p>Do you have a pet? If not, you might consider getting one in the near future. I wouldn’t rush out right now to get one – it might complicate things if you are considering relocating soon. (I know from the obits that your family relocated to Alaska a few years ago from New Mexico as part of your husband’s job–so I am guessing that you may not have strong roots there without his presence). But with a small dog or cat in the house… then you get away from the deadly quiet… plus it can be a comfort just to have the company of a warm fuzzy creature.</p>

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<p>This suggestion might already have been made, but you might want to see if there exist any local “support groups” (I’m not wild about that term, but it seems to be the one generally used) for people who suddenly find themselves having to deal with the sort of awful, life-changing loss that you now have to deal with. Finding others to talk with who are sharing similar burdens and struggles can, I think, potentially provide some clarity and comfort. No one knows better what you’re going through right now than someone else who is also going through it (or has recently gone through it) herself.</p>

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<p>crabbylady-- I am so sorry you are having a bad day, hopefully this afternoon will be just a little better and if not then, tomorrow.</p>

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<p>Crabbylady, I understand your resistance to medications and if you feel strongly that you don’t want to take them, by all means, don’t.</p>

<p>I do know that they can help tremendously, though. If you do decide to consider meds, tell your doctor your list of why you don’t want to go on them (don’t want to be zonked, want to be able to be in control of what’s going on when you need to be, don’t want to be dependent upon medication, things like that) and make darned sure he/she listens to you. Some PRN anti-anxiety or sleeping meds can help as a <em>temporary</em> stopgap… for those “if I don’t fall asleep right now I will not be able to do what I must tomorrow” or “I am so overwhelmed right now and nothing I’m doing is helping me move beyond staring at this wall” moments.</p>

<p>It’s something to consider. If you don’t want to, don’t… The thought of medication was something I was once vehemently opposed to, but I have learned that there is a time and a place, and that it is a tool and an occasionally necessary crutch. It’s most certainly up to you to decide whether it’s necessary in your case, though.</p>

<p>Sending you strength today.</p>

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<p>May I suggest that get on a treadmill and run run run or eliptical and run run run until you are too tired to run anymore. It will help with the frustration about forms and clerks on the phone telling you to push yet another number and you will sleep better.</p>

<p>And through all your pain you still are helping others by telling us about ICE. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Crabbylady, my heart goes out to you.</p>

<p>What amazing people we have here on CC!</p>

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<p>Hi, Crabbylady!
So sorry for the loss to you and your daughters. If you would like to try a “natural” remedy such as small (300mcg) of Melatonin, some folks claim that is helpful in getting sleep. Exercise can be very cleansing–yoga and meditation can be extremely helpful for some folks, as can running as was mentioned by other posters.</p>

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<p>Crabbylady:</p>

<p>I so well understand about the quiet!You think to save some stories or bit of news to share with your spouse and suddenly you remember that he is gone and you won’t be able to share. You are used to doing things together, whether shopping or taking in a movie, and you cannot any longer. Would it help to have a friend accompany you for a while?
I am really sorry that you have to deal with so much all at once. Are there things you can postpone tackling or would you prefer to get them all over?
You are grieving, you are not sick. However, if you have trouble sleeping or if you have high blood pressure, some medication might be indicated. Do take care of yourself.
Thinking of you, always.</p>