How Do We Move Forward?

I got home the other night from a get-together with some wonderful friends.  These particular friends are members of a bereavement group in which I participated.  We elected to stay a group after the formal group sessions ended in the spring.  We get together biweekly and have periodic social events.  The other day was one of those events.  At our get-togethers, we always share what is going on with us.

I had been going through a rough patch at our previous get together, and I was pleased to report that I was feeling better, and head set some deadlines for myself to accomplish some things that I felt would help me move forward with my life.  The get together ended and we all went our separate ways.  By the time I got home, I had somehow transitioned from a hopeful and cheerful mood to a dark and scary place.  The confidence I had felt and exuded at the get-together had evaporated, and I was left feeling hopeless, abandoned and had no idea how to move forward.  It was a very rude awakening.

I spent a good part of yesterday trying to figure out why my mood had changed so radically in so short a time.  Nothing had happened at the get-together other than wonderful company, a few laughs with people who really “get it” (i.e. what we have all been through).

My sense is that there are many hidden impediments to moving forward from the grief process.  I can, of course, only speak for myself, but I imagine that the process is somewhat similar for all of us who have lost our spouse.  Emotions come and go and we may pass through a number of different emotional landscapes in even a short period of time.

Imagine that you build a life with your sweetheart over decades.  You come to define yourself as part of the marriage.  You develop a certain way of being.  One day, everything changes in the space of a moment.  You lose your loved one.  You are in your sixties.  Everything you know about your life is now null and void.  Like a ship steaming along at 24 knots that has just been torpedoed you keep steaming ahead as you take on millions of gallons of sea water through the massive hole in your ship.  Part of you just really would prefer to lay down and die. 

You are surrounded by artifacts and reminders of the life that is no longer yours.  You cannot imagine another life.  Do you move from your home?  Do you stay in your home and remake it so as to feel less pain?  Do you try at some point to find a new relationship? 

All of these unknowns are profoundly frightening.  You are lonely and you feel the pain of loss, but it is hard to differentiate those feelings. 

How can we cope with this?  How can we eventually move forward?  These sorts of changes are significantly harder for us who are older.  We have the benefit of knowing just how many things in life can go wrong.  Thus we are more resistant to change.  And often we are loathe to give ourselves permission for change, perhaps because at some level we feel that moving forward is somehow disrespectful to the memory of our lost love. 

But as harsh and unremitting as it is, we must face certain facts.  Our life will never be the same.  Our loved one is gone and will not be coming back in this lifetime. We owe it to ourselves to (in our own good time – we cannot force or hurry this process) to build a new life, whatever that life may be.  The answers are different for each of us. But to sit, frozen with fear, in the midst of our sorrow, does a disservice to ourselves and surely is not what our departed loved ones would want for us.

MPC:  07-29-2015

High Functioning Situational Depressive

I had been with my sweetheart, Susan for 17 years when she was diagnosed with stage IIIc ovarian cancer. Up to that time I had always endeavored to be a thoughtful, attentive and caring husband. And she acknowledged this reasonably often.  And when she was diagnosed, I took on the additional job of caregiver, medical advocate, sometime chauffeur (to take her to see her clients) and cranked the loving, attentiveness and thoughtfulness to the max.

I somehow convinced myself that our love would prevail against the disease. This was of course, a delusion, but not an uncommon one.  I have spoken to others whose families have experienced terminal cancer who felt at the outset they could beat it.  Some do, many do not.

When Susan left this life last November 28th, for a time I was simply numb. It was difficult to grasp what had happened, let alone how I was to cope with it.  I participated in two or three grief groups and learned a skill or two, met some wonderful people, many of whom are now friends and fellow 'bereavers'.

Nearly seven months have passed, and I have experienced significant ups and downs emotionally.  I am surrounded by an incredible array of supportive people:family and friends, customers and business associates. They have been and continue to be wonderful.  But I continue to struggle emotionally. It is very difficult for me to see my life as anything but pointless, having been robbed of the main purpose of that life, having been robbed of my very identity.

In essence I am living the same life I was when Susan was with me.  But without her, it seems a joyless exercise of dragging myself through each day, doing what is expected of me.  Intuitively, it seems to me that I need a major change in order to snap out of the blue funk in which I find myself. But what change? What does it look like?  Sell the house and all my stuff and move somewhere new? Join the French Foreign Legion? Run away and join the circus?

Situational depression cannot be treated with medication.  It passes with time and efforts made to cope and heal. In other words you just have to 'guts' it.  So through all of this one question floats to the surface.  And that question is this: what would you do if you were me?

07-19-2015

The Realities of Widowhood

There are many kinds of marriages. There is no one formula for success in a relationship.  My marriage to Susan was the kind that thrived on closeness, on real, deep partnership.  That is not to say we agreed on everything, or did things the same way all the time. But over the two decades we were together, we not only loved each other, but we also liked and respected each other, made each other laugh, supported each others' goals in life and worked together.

To lose that relationship is to lose a very great deal.  In addition to losing the love of my life, I have also lost who I am.  How is that possible?  I came over time to define myself in terms of the relationship, and if the relationship is lost, so then must there be a loss of self, a loss of many roles I played in the relationship, including caregiver at the end.  All of this is ripped away and the loss is devastating.

To those of us to whom this has happened, we find ourselves faced with a massive set of tasks, and at the beginning of the process, these seem insurmountable.  We must grieve and mourn.  We must absorb the loss, deal with the loneliness and recurring despair. And ultimately we must try to figure out how to rebuild a life, redefine ourselves and move forward. And this is not even to mention the myriad practical tasks to which we must tend, all of which have the potential to cause additional pain and suffering.

When our loved ones were still with us, we would face the various difficulties of life together, most often acting as one.  We would support and encourage each other in dealing with whatever would come our way. In our new circumstance, we must accomplish these tasks alone, without the support and encouragement of our partner.  We must get through the grief process, find a new way to define ourselves, put ourselves back together and find a way to continue with life after our truly devastating loss. And we must do so in a way that honors our previous life and relationship.

I am by no means there yet, but have learned to take advantage of each and every extended hand of help and friendship.  I have learned to accept help when it is offered, be it in the form of companionship, conversation or grief support.  I have learned to be open rather than closed.  To close yourself is to halt the grieving process, which is not healthy.

The process is not a straight line.  Right now, I have been feeling relatively awful for a week or so, missing Susan horribly, having numerous meltdowns, and being at a loss as to what to do.  But it will pass. Or it won't.  Such is the reality of widowhood.

07-12-2015