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I spent hours online when Matt first died. Anyone who has been plunged into grief knows this: the computer becomes your companion, the vehicle of your search. Click after click, searching for something to help, to find someone who sounds like you. Hour after hour, I found no one. Platitudes, emoticons. Casual acquaintances suddenly wanting to be my closest friends. Visceral slaps from the mindfulness folks telling me I must have had something to learn: clearly I created this reality. The nightmare of sudden death turned even more bizarre.
It took months. I stretched and connected in desperate ways, trying things I never would have tried in my Before. I joined groups. Yes. Groups. I tried email match programs. I searched relentlessly, read and discarded books. I stitched together a small community. And oh, we were so hard to find: “Gretel’s crumbs through the forest of grief,” to quote the beautiful Dr. J. I still found myself alone in grief most times, learning to avoid anyone who spouted platitudes. But my people, the people I found, they did, in fact, save me. When you find the ones who resonate with you, when you find your true reflection, something deep inside you eases, just a bit. Something settles down, grounds you.
I don’t want it to be so hard to find anymore. I don’t want a sane and grounded response to grief to be unique and unusual. I don’t want any more people like me, searching and not finding, searching and feeling more alone. We are statistically small in number, but we are here, and we deserve the nourishment of community and good words. In our lives Before, we sought out the core of things, the underneath of things. Every minute of every day, someone new joins us here. I do not want them searching. I do not want them to feel like they are alone in the pain that has erupted in their lives. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m writing. I will do whatever I can to be visible. To be a place of connection and nourishing words.
There is a way to come to grief, to be in grief, without changing it, without making it less than or smaller than it is. There is a way to stay present to what is real and true. And that way is not made by emoticons and platitudes. It is not made by dumbing yourself down to fit the current and established monikers of grief. The way is made by staying true to yourself, by seeking shelter in the love you knew, by finding those who walk this path, as best they can, beside you.
If you’re here, I’m sorry. And thank you.
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it has all felt unbearably lonely for the last 213 days, in ways i never would have dreamed possible. i feel like a leper … the reality of my situation making people who i once thought i knew turn away from me in their discomfort.
i am hearing familiar words here, a voice to the clamour of thoughts inside my head that has dogged my days since april 6, 2014. thank you for sounding familiar.
you are quite welcome. And, feeling like a leper: yes. I know that one.
Most of my adult life I have been an introvert who has had to force herself to appear to be an extrovert, to try to fit in. I feel this even more deeply since the loss last October of my husband, Mitch, my life partner, lover and best friend. We were married for 28 years and he was truly my soulmate and we did everything together. We were so close and were rarely apart. I find that when I am out in public, even with people I have known a long time, that I have to put my game face on, which is totally exhausting. I have several close friends I can talk to, except about this one thing. The fact that I can’t “feel” Mitch with me in any way, can’t close my eyes and see his face, and I almost feel as though our life is disappearing and I am losing him, not just his physical presence. I would have thought that because we were so close, that I would be able to “feel” my husband’s presence as I hear so many people talk about, but I have not experienced that. I want signs from him, but there have only been 2 or 3 times that I felt I did receive a sign from him (or maybe it was just wishful thinking). I thought I would be able to go back and remember our life (things we did day to day, special trips we took, special occasions) very vividly and to “feel” what our life was like. But I feel dead inside, numb. When I try to recall memories of our life, it always feels so flat, so two dimensional, like reading a book instead of like watching a play. I feel there is something wrong with me that I can’t really “feel” him anymore. I am not expecting to feel him in the literal sense, but more in a deeply emotional sense. It is so hard to describe to other people what I am feeling, even to my therapist. I am ashamed to admit that I have difficulty feeling or to express it to anyone and I have become obsessed with it and trying to figure out what I can do to enable myself to “feel” Mitch and our wonderful life. The harder I try, the more elusive it seems to become. It makes me feel very desperate and alone. People keep telling me that if I would just “let it go”, that it will come to me. But I don’t know how to trust that if I “let it go” that it won’t just be lost forever and I can risk that. So it is very hard to “let it go”. It feels as though there is something very wrong with me that others can “feel” their lost loved ones, and I can’t.
I am in the process of listening to the audio version of “It’s OK That You’re Not OK” and am finding it extremely helpful, and an affirmation of what I have been going through, how extremely difficult this has been and continues to be, even a year after Mitch died. That what I have been feeling is not abnormal. But I need some additional help on this one aspect of my grief, so I can find some sort of peace. I am a “doer” and have done a ton of online research and not found anything to help me specifically with this and thought maybe you could help.
Dear farm girl, you posted on the day of my beloved Tim’s sudden death in his sleep. I feel a connection with you for that reason and I am so understanding of your description of the clamoring tongues spouting nonsense.
I hope you are letting nature help you. I figured you must live on or near farm country. So do I. My Tim and I moved to the country in the last 4 years of his shortened life and it is my greatest comfort now, along with our 4 cats. He lives in them and in our land. At least that is how it feels to me in my bones.
Wishing you peace,
Marilyn
Grieving introvert is a good name for how I have been, especially lately. I don’t know if it is people are uncomfortable or if I am just acting strange. Thanks for
helping me to feel normal in my own skin.
you’re welcome, Aggie.
I have just passed the 4-month mark of losing my best friend/boyfriend/soulmate. I have experienced a wide range of emotions & feelings. It was a meeting with a grief counselor, she told me that I was struggling with my identity since losing Steve, so now having that playing & replaying in my mind I started to do some research. Part of the research has landed me here, which has truly been a Godsend. After much surfing of the net & book reading in the last month, I have recognized & been able understand the stages of grief that I am going through, and that I’m not losing my mind. I just worry that I’m going to be stuck in my grief for the rest of the time. Thank you for sharing your story & offering the much needed information that is helping others & myself. This is the hardest thing that I have ever had to deal with.