And thanks for these remarks ... for many years I was almost totally disabled by the guilt of survival, knowing it should have been me who died instead of my troops. In just two meetings this therapist helped me a lot.

In the next few days a relative of mine will die, and i feel nothing about tht compared to the loss of this therapist life.

While it might be normal to feel like we have some connection to the deaths, I still go back to the point where I don't want any close relationships -- it all leads to pain. And besides that, what if I'm the next one to die? Then the other people will feel the pain.

It's all way way confusing and illogical. Thank you for being here.

QUOTE=Open Eyes;1847268]The truth is that yes when we lose someone we get confused and often feel fear.
And this is because we are programmed to survive. When we see that another has not survivied well, we get very upset because it goes against what we are programmed to do, survive. So, what you feel is normal. It takes time to understand that yes, this does happen, life if really fragile and we do have to accept that yes, others do not live a full life.

But, the one thing that it does do for us is draw us further into finding ways TO SURVIVE and as a result we do live longer lives. We now have many ways of addressing the different causes of dealing with the loss of life. And, we keep trying and we are living longer because of it. But we do not have all the answers yet.
So with every loss we are reminded of just that. We have a hard time with that.
It is a normal reaction Troy.

Every day we live, we must somehow realize that life itself is fragile and we must take time to live and take pleasure in WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE in spite of seeing that OTHERS DO NOT GET THAT CHANCE.

Open Eyes[/QUOTE]