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Rose76
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Default Jul 09, 2021 at 10:14 PM
  #1
My significant other of many years died over a year ago. For the first 3 months I was in bad shape, but then I pulled myself together. In recent months, I was fairly ok. I'ld get a weepy spell now and then, but I'ld recover in an hour and focus on what I needed to get done.

Since Monday, I've been very depressed. Today I hardly ate. I am not keeping up with anything. I don't wash dishes. I don't get dressed. I don't have the strength to get up and do anything. When I try, I just feel sore all over.

I have no interest in my life or in my future. Much of the past year I did care, but I've lost interest. I am not into self-harming. I just wish I could drop off the face of the earth.

I stay home alone most of the time. I hate going out even just to bring in my trash barrel. I need to find people to connect with, but it feels too stressful.

Wed. I see my Primary Care. I want to tell her that I've gotten very depressed. But I'm afraid to even say anything.

People who know me and like to be around me act like my S.O. never existed. For a year, I've hardly mentioned him. I don't believe in moaning and groaning all the time. On the rare occasion when I mention him, they say nothing, and the subject gets quickly changed. I'm sick of that.

What's wrong with people that they want me to act like everything is normal? I do act as chipper as I can around others. I'm sick of that. I need someone IRL to recognize that sometimes I'm in pain. . . . . . . . . . So I want to tell my PCP that I'm not ok. I fear she'll tell me that there's nothing she can do about it. Last year I talked to a psychiatrist who had no empathy. So I never went back to him. Last year I was in a psych hospital for a week, where the staff was very caring. I left there greatly improved.

I don't need to go inpatient to a psych hospital. I do need some kind of help. I don't know where to go.
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Default Jul 09, 2021 at 10:48 PM
  #2
It's so difficult when people around us just expect us to move on and act like everything is normal, when inside we feel it's anything but.

Please do tell your pcp how low you are feeling. I don't know what is available in the states, but have you considered grief counselling?

Don't beat yourself up for feeling the way you do. Your feelings are real and they matter.

Missing the man I loved.

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Default Jul 22, 2021 at 06:35 PM
  #3
I had coped well with my grief from Sep 2020 until recently now. A weak ago, I went to the ER c/o terrible weakness and fatigue. Turned out I was severely anemic and needed a blood trasfusion. Then they did tests. They think I have GI bleeding. More work today. If it shows critical anemia values, PCP will send me tomorrow to the ER, where I might get another blood transfusion.

I've been pretty healthy most of my adult life. No surgeries. No big deal health issues. I thought I had a few more years to go before aging would diminish me. But today I could barely walk from my car into Sam's Club to get my prescription.

So I got yearning for my boyfriend. If only he were here, I wouldn't feel so bad and sad and worried and alone. He'ld comfort me. Back when be could walk, be loved to cook for me. I try to imagine him being here now in his healthy state and all the things he would be doing, so eager to see me get better. I kind of take solace in how nice he would be, if he were here. I can see him in the kitchen making one of his specialties and hoping I'ld like how it came out. If my feet were cold, he'ld go get a pair of his warm socks and put them on my feet for me, like I was a kid
He would go to the store and het ice cream for me. Then he would find a good movie for us to watch together.

I still need him. But he's gone.
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Default Jul 28, 2021 at 04:14 PM
  #4
does it help you to be able to talk about him on here?

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Default Jul 28, 2021 at 11:59 PM
  #5
Quote:
Originally Posted by MtnTime2896 View Post
does it help you to be able to talk about him on here?
Yes, it has.

I'm doing better now mentally.

I got a prescription for Ativan because I had become severely anxious. I only had to take it twice (though at a higher dose than was ordered,) and it broke the hold of the anxiety. Past two days, I haven't been anxious. When I've felt severe grief, it would bring on strong anxiety. But, lately, that doesn't last very long.

I've been able to straighten up my house a bit. It sure is nice to have a spouse or domestic partner who can take over when you just can't do much. This is the first time in years that I've been ill enough to need help. That's why the doctors have been willing to order help in the home for me. I could have had a visiting nurse, home attendant and physical therapist - all coming to my apartment. A social worker encouraged me to accept the home health attendant to do things like wash dishes for me. I declined. I decided I could wash dishes myself, and that would be my physical therapy, so I wouldn't need PT visits either. I'm perfectly capable of doing things like that.

No stranger coming into the home can provide the support of having a person who loves you there. I'm coming to accept that I'll never have that again. So, as I get better, I'll try to streamline and organize my apartment so that it's easier to keep up. In the years ahead, I'll have more times when my health is impaired. That comes with getting older. This is simply my first experience of being somewhat physically impaired and being so alone.

I had been thinking of adopting a dog from the animal shelter. But now I realize I would have no one to take over care of a pet, if I suddenly were not at home. When I needed to go to the hospital, it was a sudden emergency. I couldn't just leave a dog at home alone for days. I wouldn't have had time to arrange boarding the dog at a kennel, or with a professional pet sitter. My few friends really would not have been up to pet sitting. Being alone with no family near imposes certain limitations on my life. That reality is really sinking in now.
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Default Jul 29, 2021 at 07:32 PM
  #6
i'm glad the ativan is doing some good for you.

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Default Aug 31, 2021 at 07:11 PM
  #7
I've lost interest in the future. I feel as though my life from here on in is like a prison sentence I'll be serving.

I have absolutely no self-harm inclinations. I just wish my life were over. I don't have the kind of painful grief I had a year ago. But I've lost the hopefulness I managed to have for a period of months. I just want out of here.

I can cope with him being gone. I just can't seem to find much value in what I have left without him. I know that's each person's responsibility to find their own way to make life meaningful. I don't have the energy. Others find me companionable and want to get together with me. I stay home by myself because I don't find them companionable. I don't want anyone coming over. I don't want to visit anyone. I don't want to have to listen to any of them . . . to have to entertain them. I can make myself sociable. I just don't want to bother.

I guess I don't really respect those who are available to me. They each get in touch with me . . . to get some need met. They mean well. One wanted to bring me an ice cream sunday the other day. I declined her offer. Said I had just eaten. Had she come by, she would have planted herself for a few hours. If she were willing to watch a movie with me I wouldn't mind. But she'ld be insulted, if I put the TV on. On the phone, she converses better. When she's here, she goes quiet and waits for me to verbally coax her out of that. She'll reach up into the air, stretch and stare straight ahead. Then she'll hang her head down and stare at the floor. Then she'll rest her face in her hands, staring with unfocused gaze. That's my cue to start interviewing her. That's what she's waiting for. She wants me to draw her out . . . let her go into relating a chapter of her life. I know enough now that I could write her biography. It's a one way street. She likes to be the object of attention. People like that can suck the life out of you. I'ld rather read a magazine.

Staying alone like I'm doing is not healthy either. I don't know what to do.
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Default Sep 01, 2021 at 05:26 PM
  #8
keep talking here ((rose76)). don't isolate completely.

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Default Sep 22, 2021 at 03:56 PM
  #9
That's the weird thing about grief, it's not linear. It seems to go round and round in circles sometimes. Just when you think you've moved from one stage to another, you can find yourself a step or two back again. For everyone else, the world carries on, but everything just stops when you are grieving.
It doesn't matter if you don't feel sociable, that you don't want to engage with people. Just do what feels right for you in the moment. Try and take care of yourself as best you can.
Thinking of you.
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Default Sep 22, 2021 at 05:13 PM
  #10
I find grief is like a swamp that is always there and I try to avoid falling into it but sometimes I walk off the path and end up in the swamp. It is a difficult thing to deal with for me because it does not just disappear. There is a loss and nothing can restore what was lost. I can refocus and look elsewhere for fulfillment and that does help, but there are still raw edges that sometimes hurt and are emerging again.
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Default Sep 26, 2021 at 01:27 PM
  #11
I'm doing better. I appreciate the responses above.
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Default Sep 27, 2021 at 07:15 PM
  #12
I still grieve over people I've lost years ago. Missing them, wishing they were still around. I can't imagine how hard it would be to lose a spouse. Are there any other widows around you can talk to? Maybe here. You can start a thread in relationships to see what happens.

And, of course, continue to talk to us here.
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