[JaneC]

Today I finally started talking.

Sorry this is long......I just needed it out and to see if anyone else can relate.

I chose something that is really very minor, and I felt soo guilty for being so incredibly overwhelmed just trying to talk about it. I feel like I have no right to have felt so hurt by this, so affected by it even today. The reality is that there is soo much that I have NEVER talked about, to anyone.

I hope this doesn't trigger anyone else, but just in case........ please be warned......(although I doubt it because it's really is not a major thing I would say for most)

I spoke about my ex husband, how he developed cancer shortly after we got together and watching him fight it for many years. The most difficult moment of it all, that I have not allowed myself to look at(really I have not allowed myself any feelings about any of it).....was the day I went back to hospital after dashing home to cook for him which I did every day as I slept at the hospital this time while he was in an isolation room after a transplant. I arrived back, and he was in a very bad way. The staff had been busy with another patient who was close to death and had missed his obs, and as it turned out......well......he almost died that night and I watched all of this.......and..........it was horrific.

I know this is not a big deal, many many people have to see this sort of thing and are not as affected by it for so long. I just think, because I never had any support then, and I never allowed myself to be anything but positive at that time to ensure my husband could be however he needed to be, to ensure that he felt as supported as possible.......I just had to "suck it up" and be strong. I never have allowed myself to feel any hurt ever in my life, I always switch off and carry on.

I asked my T today, what does it even look like to grieve. When I was talking about this I became so overwhelmed with emotion, pain, and I said I don't want to be feeling this. My T was quietly telling me to allow the feelings, to try to sit with them, then as he said and try not to shut down........I just drifted away. It was too much, as it happened I realised it was happening but I could not stop it...........it kind of feels like a tv screen slowly powering down, as all of the emotion is shut out, all of the feelings in my body disappear and I just end up staring out the window. I could hear myself describing the events but I felt nothing.

Since my appointment I have felt constantly tearful, cooking dinner tonight I found I was crying but had to stop as my boy was in the other room. I had been having many memories and overwhelming feelings and nightmares for about 3 weeks until about a week ago..... when I realised it was the anniversary of the end of my marriage. This is why I chose to talk about it to my T. So now all of these memories are now right back in front of me, al of the emotions are washing over me. I am exhausted, physically. My head aches, and yes........

I know I am going on and on. I apologise, I just feel very alone right now with no one that I can turn to for comfort or support. SO I came here.

I am also worried, because this is a small small small beginning on the list of huge traumas that I need to talk about......and it affects me like this. Oh, this is hard. It scares me. But it is a start.

Thanks for reading if you made it all the way through, not sure what I need here, so thanks for reading.

[Open Eyes]

((Jane)),

This is NOT a small thing at all, and certainly nothing to apologize having a need to talk about.

Step back for a minute and ask yourself if your son went through this and was struggling, what would you say to him? Your son is a young man who's wife is compromised this way and he is trying to stay strong for her but deep inside "he is scared" and he feels he has no right to be?

What you are apologizing for in your post is really saying a lot about how you believe that you should not have this problem and you "think" you are imposing. That is coming from deep messages you have unfairly received from others that should have been giving you permission to have your own feelings long ago. Well, that is not your fault, and I think it is time you realize that you have every right to have your "feelings".

I have some of these messages myself too. I was put into a position where I had to be the strong one too and hold back my own feelings so I could take care of everyone else. I have to admit, I am good at that, helping others, but it's really hard for me to share "my" challenges. For myself, I have a long history of getting messages from others telling me "not to feel or talk about my problems because that is being selfish", I have been invalidated in some big ways in my life.

Jane, that was a big challenge and I don't think you had any help with it either, from what you have described of your family, they were too self absorbed and did not have the skills to pay attention to the feelings and needs of others.

It is high time you talked about this, and you definitely deserve to mourn it. I know exactly how you feel and the exhaustion and the headaches and being very tired and weepy too. What this means Jane, is you have been holding all this back for too long and it is time for you to finally mourn it. I think this is also coming out because you have a T that you can trust now and you are beginning to let your guard down, and that is good.

What you are describing is very scary, a very challenging experience for someone to go through. I hope that you don't in any way blame yourself and think you didn't do something right somehow. There are situations that get thrown at us that are traumatic like what you are describing and often we can be "strong" for a while, but that doesn't mean we should stay involved with something that begins to wear us down and deplete us or overwhelm us to a point where we need to get away from it. Another person had a big need and you did your best, but hun, you have needs too, we can't go along giving to everyone else to a point where our own needs are not met too.

I have a feeling that you somehow feel you failed and you have been afraid to open up about it because there is a part of you that is afraid you may get the response that is critical of you in some way. It is not that you don't "feel" Jane, you have been feeling all along, but what you are really concerned about is "guilt". You already have that going on and have a deep battle going on, because you need someone who can really validate your side of this traumatic experience.

Jane, you did not stay with this man and you are questioning that in some very deep ways. ((Jane)), it's ok, you did not fail in any way and you need to have that validated. And you also need to be "appreciated" for what you "did do" in that whole scenario. I don't think that has happened for you, and you definitely deserve that. Often, when something like this takes place the focus can be all about the other person and not enough on the person who is also going through this kind of scenario and is also challenged and scared and suffering too. And I can see that took place with you, and you needed help yourself but you don't have that kind family that has the capacity to see anything other then their own needs and opinions.

Jane, as human beings, we have to have the ability to survive too, we can't just completely self sacrifice or feel guilty if we don't. You definitely need to hear that in a big way, and deeply comforting and validating way. This is not some little nuisance thing, it's a big deal and nothing to be ashamed about at all. I am so sorry you have been alone with this challenge too, because you definitely deserve to talk about all this and mourn it. Please, do not let any guilt in either, don't allow yourself to feed into that, because it can happen and with PTSD be a magnified challenge.

I don't know if your weeping and exhaustion is "fear" about this challenge or if you are finally just beginning to allow yourself to "mourn" it. Jane, it's ok, don't feel guilty and afraid, you were thrown into a situation that is very challenging to anyone in that kind of scenario. There is no such thing as "failing' either or anything "wrong" with anything you felt in that entire scenario. You totally deserve to talk about it and get that all validated too. Once you finally talk about it all and get validated, you are going to realize all that too, in a big way. And you will mourn that, the way you deserve to, and you are not guilty of anything either.

(((Big Caring Hugs)))
OE

[Verity81]

It certainly isn't a small thing! If my husband got ill and nearly died I would be extremely traumatised! I know what you mean though by you feeling it is minor and you don't know why it's still effecting you as I feel the same way about my some of my traumas.
I'm starting prolonged exposure and today just mentioning a trauma that happened 18 years ago made me burst into tears and say to my therapist 'I'm stupid, other people have been through worse' The thing is how it effects us is due to a lot of things and you have already mentioned your lack of a support system at that time.
So don't judge your reactions they are what they are and the main thing is that you are trying to deal with them. Please practise as much self soothing and compassion as you can during this process. Love and comfort yourself as you would a fragile child, parent yourself. This will help you cope with the painful emotions.
Good luck x


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[MotownJohnny]

It needs to come out - when it does, it will gush out like a waterfall. Let it. It's a necessary step in the process.

[JaneC]

Thanks for the replies.

OE, I agree that I am feeling a lot of guilt. But it is not because I left my ex at all, I stayed with him for a number of years fighting the cancer, and through him becoming incredibly selfish(understandably) afterwards, through having our son and unitl he became emotionally and verbally abusive and left me when our son was not 1, because I was really struggling with post natal depression on top of all of this unresolved grief and pain.(I see this now, not then). I do not feel guilty about asking him to leave, after I had him back and tried to work on rebuilding after he deserted me when I needed him the most. That, I do not feel guilty for. Sorry to jump on that comment.......but, well there are many things attached to that statement that touch on some very deep and painful wounds for me.

What I feel guilty about, right or wrong, is that I was not there to see him deteriorating sooner. I had left and was perhaps away cooking or something for too long. I feel guilty that at that time all I wished for was for someone to ask ME how I was doing, if I was ok, if I needed anything. I feel guilty for wishing that I had support, when it was not me having to have all of those dreadful procedures that I witnessed for 2 and a half years.

I was living in England at the time, a world away from any family. His family from Europe were not supportive, in fact just the opposite. And I did not have the ability to be able to reach out to my friends. I had been living away from them for almost 2 years in another country, and when I returned to England to be with my partner, it was a short 4 months together and he was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. I find it so hard to ask for help. And later, much later after it was all over my friends told me that they thought I was soo incredibly strong and positive the entire time, they wished I had asked help because they truly did not know I needed any. As for family, they were so far away and whenever I called them, they only asked how my partner was doing. I never mattered.

I truly thank you all for telling me that I need to let it all out, I need to mourn......I agree, it is what I said to my T also......it is just so terrifying for me to feel those emotions, that I have never allowed myself to feel, not for anything. It feels suffocating and overwhelming.

My T used all of these adjectives to describe how it must have felt at that moment, and expressed that all of them were valid and that it must have been incredibly overwhelming. Then he asked me a question......... How did you keep going every day? I don't know, I just had to. That is a theme for me, I just have to keep going. I have put everything away into rooms in my head, shut and locked the door tight and never ever dealt with anything.

There are no more rooms, and the doors are beginning to open.....I know this will eventually be a good thing, just right now it feels incredibly scary. And lonely.

(yikes another long diatribe, lol, sorry.....and thanks for reading and responding)

[Open Eyes]

(((Jane))),

Please don't apologize, you have the right to write out as much as you need to. Much of what you said was what I was thinking actually. I didn't deal with a husband who had cancer, but I dealt with a husband who was an alcoholic and I was alone a lot too. I did the same thing as you, I found ways to lock my pain in different rooms and shut the door and kept moving forward. My T asked me just about the same question your T asked you, my T didn't know how I managed to keep moving forward with all that I dealt with.

Jane, when you talk about the doors opening up OMG, that is exactly what I have said myself.

I had loneliness when my daughter was little too, my husband was still an active alcoholic, then when my daughter was six, I just could not take it anymore and I put my foot down. That didn't stop the challenge, it just switched it over from first the drinking/drugging and then it was all about him staying sober and his meetings. I was very lonely "a lot". My H had his drinking buddies, then his AA buddies, but I was out in left field somewhere trying to raise our daughter and be a good mommy.

I am sorry (((Jane))), I am so sorry you didn't have the support you needed. I "do" understand the "doors" too, me too. Just take it slowly Jane, and sometimes yes, the emotions can be overwhelming. You are not alone with that, it does get harder for a while, but after a while it begins to feel like you have taken a big load off too. There is definitely anger hiding in there too, so it's ok to let that out, even if you need to vent it out here ok? You can even PM me if you need to let it out but not so out in the open ok?

One day at a time ((((Jane)))), you have support here, you really do when you need to have others who understand the challenge.

Oh yeah, and my husbands family was more about him than me too.

(((Caring Hugs)))
OE

[JaneC]

I'm sorry you have had a similarly tough time OE.

You know, your offer to PM is kind......I just don't know how to say yes to that right now. I really do struggle with connecting with people. Most who meet me don't understand it, they say I am so friendly and confident etc.........I am friendly, but I am not confident. I am very good at playing a part, putting on a mask. But thank you for the offer, and eventhough there is some anonymity here I just can't yet.

That is soo weird and useless isn't it?

Tonight after dropping my boy at his dads, I just broke down. I think I really am grieving or something because I am having all of these thoughts about missing what we had, and being sad when I see him doing with others what we had always planned to do and in fact used to do. Is this grieving? When I dropped my boy these 2 other couples and their children arrived as I was there in the driveway, and was finally introduced as Leif's Mum. They were going for dinner, with my boy's other family.

I just slunk away, my boy not noticing because he was soo excited to see his friends, and I felt awful. I have been crying on and off since. I did not allow myself to feel any of this when we separated 5 years ago. It just seems so wrong to suddenly be experiencing this, so wrong and so hard.

Sitting here, alone, at home my pain is sitting right in front of me and I don't know where to put it. I am going to say it............I really just need a hug. The only person I get those from are my boy. It's just not the same as feeling hugged and protected and safe in the arms of a partner who loves you. I feel like that is lost to me forever now. Tonight, I do just feel so broken.

[Open Eyes]

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Jane))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Yes, I think you are grieving Jane. But part of the grieving is about plans "you" had that you "did" try to hold onto in invest yourself in, that were not holding together. You went through quite a challenge with your ex and you did hang in there and try, but you needed support and your ex did take things out on you and was not there for you. When you dropped your son off you were grieving being in a healthier situation and what you were seeing was more about remembering that goal, not what is there now. Your ex is still the same person, he did treat you badly and your relationship with him did not fill "your" needs. A healthy relationship has to be about each partner meeting each other's needs, it can't be about one partner having to give of themselves and give even though they have needs and are put into a situation that you were put in where in spite of your efforts to be strong and attentive, you were punished unfairly. It would not have been as hard if your ex recognized everything you did do, if he was grateful, caring and recognized "you" in all the mess that took place. Yes, he was all about the "I" and everyone around him supported that, you did too for a while, until he took his anger etc, out on you, he did do that and so much so that you had to leave that relationship.

He is still the same person Jane, and he could very well have continued to take things out on you and be selfishly hurting you, which is not love and appreciation, but abuse. If you had stayed Jane, the scenario that you were looking at from the outside yesterday would have been you in it, but still stuffing your feelings behind doors to maintain some kind of picture/illusion and far from what you had really wanted. All you would have done had you stayed is prolong the stuffing because his family is still the same and you didn't have what you needed from your family and your friends, if they were true good friends would have been telling you that the reality of your situation was not healthy for you to try to keep maintaining.

It could very well be, and probably really still is "all about your ex" only he is with someone that didn't go through what you went through and get punished and have to stuff way too much. I am sure there are times where this other woman is stuffing.

Jane, if you had stayed with your ex, you would still be going through what you are going through now you know, and if you are with a person that is all about "himself", going through this PTSD is a lot harder. Take it from me, having a person who hurt you badly in your space constantly while struggling through PTSD is very, very hard. It is even harder when again, you would be suffering and the sympathy goes to your ex. And believe me, because of how people do not understand PTSD, they say and do things that only make it so much worse. I went four years with that until I finally found a good therapist. It was so bad for me that I got dangerously suicidal, and even though I tried to say how bad it was, my husband still kept a loaded handgun in the night stand next to our bed, even though I said I wanted to shoot myself. Luckily I had a therapist who saw just how bad it was and got my husband right in immediately to tell him it was serious and he needed to pay attention and stop hurting me.

For me, the one thing I poured myself into that was so healthy for me, my ponies and horses and business, when that was destroyed in front of my eyes, that was it for me. And when my family was "mean" to me when I broke, I have had never been so hurt in my life. Like you I gave and gave and stuffed and stuffed and fixed and waited and was often VERY ALONE. And it just seemed like I was supposed to be grateful that my husband finally got sober, that he finally admitted "for himself to get rid of guilt" that he had cheated on me, and I had to learn how he had the maturity level of a 12 or 13 year old and WAIT for him to grow up and learn how to recognize the buttons that he would push for me to "mother him" and not mother him. Yes, all was well as long as OE kept stuffing.

You "do" have a lot to grieve, but just make sure you don't blame yourself for somehow not staying in that picture trying to make that "dream of something good" that did not take place. You cannot bake a cake without the right ingredients.

I have times where a door opens and there are so many emotions that come out and I need to finally vent it out. And the one thing I hate, that makes it so much harder is when the person next to you says it's in the past, let it go, it's over. Or yes, "but I got better and worked at it", and his getting better and working at it was god awful hard on me. Yes, his family supported him, and did not see how hard it all was for me, it seemed like no one did, and that was more than clear to me when I finally broke too.

Not only do I have that but the one thing I spent so much time on, my haven that was destroyed hurt me so bad that when I go out there and "try", my brain deep where my conscious mind seems to not control wants me to avoid it because it just brings reminders of the trauma I experienced for so long out there. And for 7 years what I saw destroyed has been questioned, not heard, and not supported fairly because I had to deal with yet another human being (my ex lawyer) that was mentally challenged and failed me AGAIN. Being stuck with this mentally declining person for so many years in spite of my many efforts to reach out just opened up so many doors that I didn't even know where there, and I could have lived out my life without these doors blowing open too.

Well, didn't mean to get into me here. I just wanted to tell you I know, but to also make sure that as your doors open and you mourn, the times you feel guilt, it's important that you do mourn the right things, because you definitely deserve that. And Jane, when you say you are sorry when you share your pain here, understand that what you are doing is saying you should not be heard that somehow your "need" is wrong and you apologize and feel guilty about "your need to be heard and validated". What you need is to realize that is just not so, that you deserve to be heard and validated, that is the path to finally healing Jane. YOUR NEEDS "ARE" IMPORTANT and you should not be "dismissing" your needs, that is not "healthy or right".

Also, I totally understand how it can be uncomfortable or can feel wrong to express your needs here or even in a PM. I have felt exactly the same
way myself. I ended up dumping in a thread which is not like me, but only because I just had too much I could not seem to hold in somehow because of what is taking place IRL for me. I was lucky the person was
understanding because I did feel guilty about it. So I do know all about the guilt yet the need to talk somehow too. Take special care of yourself this weekend, get rest, vent here if you need to, and do lots of self care and don't feel "guilty" because you deserve to take care of "your" needs Jane.

((((Big Warm Hugs)))))
OE

[JaneC]

OE, yes I am not grieving losing my ex, but I am hurting for things that I had to witness him going though. Even though he turned into a pig, or I came to see the real him, I did love him at that time and he like no one else deserved to go through what he had to.

And you are right, I am grieving for the loss of what I had hoped to have. It sucks. It is going to be even harder to see this every week, every time I drop my boy to their home. But at the end of the day, is there any point dwelling? What is that saying...... We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned for ourselves in order to have the life that is waiting for us.

Yes, I have switched to invalidating myself, to telling myself to just get on with it. At least now I see it. I just have had enough of feeling bad right now....so I will bury my head in the sand for a little while and pretend none of this is happening. At least until I try to sleep tonight, then who knows what will happen! Ugh

Thanks for the support OE. Surely I don't deserve it.

[Open Eyes]

(((Jane))),

Ok, I want you to think about something, because I have done this myself, exactly what you have been doing and I have seen others struggling do it too.

You are turning your anger "inward" do you see it? This in not the way to go or feed into Jane, but this does happen when someone is struggling with PTSD. Yes, you do deserve my support, especially right now because I know very intimately where you are and I also know it is not being fair to yourself.

(((Jane))), it is ok to have "anger" because it is part of the grieving process, but you need to be careful not to allow yourself to feed into it too much, always keep in mind that PTSD magnifies our emotions and all our senses, so with that in mind being patient with "self" and doing self care and reaching out for support is very important.

Yes, going forward is important, and you are doing that which is very important. But, you also need to be able to grieve whatever was a "loss" to you too. We heal and grow when we grieve and we grieve with people who actually listen and are willing to support you and actually give you the permission you need to grieve. You need to remember that you "are" a human being and we are designed to "grieve" our losses because in so doing we grow and learn and we do that with others and after we learn how to grieve and grow we become the kind of people that understand the need so much better and we become people that are capable of helping others as they grieve too. Jane, we are emotional beings and we have been designed this way for our survival and to group together too and bond. When people do not have appropriate human emotions, they don't respect or care about others, they become a danger to others and a threat to our survival as a species.

(((Jane))), the way you have struggled and were alone with so much challenge and kept trying to push aside your own emotional needs until you now suffer is proof that human beings are not designed to go through life not being allowed to have emotions and emotional support from others. You need to dig deep and empower the nurturer for yourself, I know it's there Jane because you have expressed it many times when you talk about your son and you have offered support to others here in the forum that are struggling too. If your son somehow failed at something, he would have anger and anger towards self, you would sit with him and help him through that Jane and in so doing would calm him down and empower him to keep going forward and keep trying. That is how we are all supposed to be Jane, that is our human design.

Jane, just about everyone has subconscious skeletons, your ex had them too and when he was challenged some of that came out and was directed at you and you did not have any support for that. Often when someone finds another person to throw their angry subconscious skeletons at, they continue to keep doing that to that person, and that is always unfair to that person and we see tons of that in this forum and the victims of abuse forum.

Jane you did your best, but you are only human and no human deserves to be punished or become a punching bag that is supposed to be able to stand there and be beaten up emotionally by another person, no matter who that other person was/is, no matter what "love" had been established. You had a right to what you wanted in a healthy relationship, it is how you were designed to "want" because we need to establish that for a healthy environment for our offspring. A woman will try very hard to create that kind of relationship and she will be forgiving and strong many times, however, there comes a point where if her efforts are not working and it is unhealthy, a woman must have enough strength to walk away. And when that happens, there will be grieving, but it never means the woman really failed. Yes, there can be anger and all the other emotions that take place when that happens, but that is "not" punishment and that is also something that has to take place. It has to be there in the female so that she can walk away from having a dysfunctional environment for the offspring. If we did not have that then our offspring would imprint that the way men and women relate is the man should be like this and it is ok to take his emotional challenges and angers out on the female. That doesn't work in establishing a healthy environment for our overall human survival. And where that takes place there is more violence and social unrest in societies, they tend to be much more aggressive and destructive of other human beings and the offspring fails to become productive parts of a healthier overall society, and it burdens that society and can cause deteriorations and overburdening.

You need to consider a bigger picture in your struggles Jane because it is really important in your healing and growth that you do deserve to have and share with others.

Please think about what I am saying, I know it is a challenge, but I really do not want you to "feed into" the wrong emotions and I know that can be hard at times, but I also know you can get past this part of the grieving process but you need to be patient and keep doing the important self care.

((Understanding and supportive caring Hugs))))
OE