Throwing in the Towel

Yesterday was an awful day for me, my Wednesday started like it normally did with a yoga session which I love doing.  However after my session I felt this heavy burden and dread of what day lay ahead of me.

I had my CBT appointment at 13:30 and I did not want to go.  My homework was to write down the exact events that took place when my husband passed away and amazingly I had actually completed this homework on Monday.  The minute I put my pen to paper my hands began shaking and I felt physically sick so I immediately stopped.  I am a touch typist so I got my laptop out and started to write the events down but I was still shaking and feeling sick the entire time, it was that exact same feeling at the pit of my stomach when I had just lost my husband.

I felt proud that I had written it all down and printed it off but felt like absolute rubbish physically and emotionally.  My next task was to read what I had actually written.  Did I do it? Not a chance! I think it was good enough that I had actually written it down, I did not need to be subjected to reading it over and over again and reliving the whole event every single time.  Apparently this is part of the therapy and it becomes easier.

My therapist said I had a skill of avoidance.  I could not have agreed more.  She read what I had written and immediately just sat there and went okay wow, you did extremely well writing all this down followed by have you been reading it like I asked.  I laughed at her and said I have written it, you have read it and I think you're lucky you got that considering how I felt when I wrote it.  Okay she said but for the next 3 weeks I want you to read this every day, I just stared at her with no expression.  She then said it will get easier I promise like I was meant to believe her.

I walked out of the session feeling like someone had run over me with a bus.  I was exhausted and felt like every piece of happiness that remained in me had been taken away.  At that point I felt like throwing in the towel and saying that's it I'm done.  I went home and just lay down on my bed staring into space, I thought this is supposed to make me feel better and I just feel worse. 

So tomorrow is Friday and I haven't read that paper yet.  Am I going to do it? Well if I said no then I may be cutting my nose off to spite my face so yes I am but for now I will avoid it, afterall it's a skill of mine!

Photos

I used to be one of those people that had photos everywhere in my home.  I had them in my living area, my hallways, in the bedrooms, I literally had them everywhere.  These photos were always ones of loved ones, family members that lived near and far.  There were photos of my husband and I, there were photos of us as a family with our daughter.  Then one day I decided enough is enough, I have had enough of these photos staring me in the face when I get out of bed in the morning, when I eat my breakfast, when I go out and come home, I look too happy and I do not feel this way now.

So one by one I took each photo out of their frame and stored them away.  My issue was and still is, is that I would get all these mixed feelings when staring at these photos.  I would feel the love that I had felt when that exact photo was taken, I would feel how happy we all were, and then I would feel angry and want to throw something across the room in rage because all of it has been taken away. Why should I look at these photos any longer, they are no longer a reflection of how I feel inside.

My home now has only 2 photos that I can visibly see and even one of these photos bothers me.  It is a photo of my husband and I on our honeymoon, whenever I look at it I feel sad, sad because he is no longer here with us and then I get angry.  I loved my husband so much and to see a photo of us both standing there looking so happy is just wrong.  It is just a painful reminder that he is gone but I cannot take this one photograph down because then I am afraid, afraid that he will think I don't love him anymore even though I know that is not true.  So I still face this photograph day after day.

In my hallway I have a picture frame with the word "Love" written in the middle still on my wall which stands empty.  I decided that I was slowly going to fill these frames with new pictures, pictures of our memories now.  Over a year later and this frame still sits on the wall empty.  I just cannot push myself to find photos to fill it with that will bring me joy and happiness.  If you've had a similar experience or are experiencing the same thing then I would love to hear what you have done.

CBT Time and Tears

I have my appointment with the therapist in an hour and for some reason I am dreading this session. There is no particular reason why I feel this way, I just do not feel open to it today.  I have been debating with myself back and forth for the last 2 weeks whether or not I want to continue with this form of therapy because it is going to be opening a can of worms that I have worked so hard to keep closed.

Why do we do this to ourselves? We know we have a problem and we know that the problem needs to be solved but we are scared to face the problem to solved it even though we know that once we've faced it then it will begin to get better.  Somehow hiding and keeping it within seems to much easier but it really isn't in the long run.

I have found out that my every day life has become affected by what I hold in on the inside.  I will take on and take on and keep taking on and when I do let go I do it alone in my time and behind closed door.  I find it very hard to express my emotions to others, in fact I find it hard to cry in front of others and this alone can be a problem for me because if I don't show tears then people think I don't have emotions which is far from the truth.  I remember when I had just lost my husband, I would be sitting having a cigarette and I'd start to feel tears at the side of my eyes because I was thinking of him, I then remember that people instantly started coming towards me to give me a hug and comfort me and as soon as they'd done this one gesture I had frozen and my tears had dried up.

I fear that I will go to the therapist and show a lack of emotions and she will then see me as having no feelings towards this situation.  In England they have a group of young widows and widowers that come together at a weekend and do a workshop somewhere in the countryside, it's basically a group of people of like mindedness coming together and sharing their experiences and things like that, I desperately wanted to go on this workshop because I felt it would be good for me to meet other people who are in a similar situation but I have stopped myself from going.  The number one reason is that I cannot cry in front of others and I fear that I will be frowned upon for having a lack of emotion even though I am crying deeply on the inside and will release the physical tears later when I am in private.

If you experience this or are experiencing this then I'd love to hear about it.  I would like to know that I am not alone. It does seem odd to me especially when I see other release their tears so easily.

Throwing Away

When my husband passed away we had only just moved into our first rented house, before this we had been living in apartments and we were excited to finally have a bigger place and a garden.  22 days later he was gone and I was left to make big decisions.

My biggest decision was to move countries to go and live with family members, it seemed like the best solution at the time because I could not imagine living in the same house where I had witnessed such a heartbreaking event, it made me physically sick.

Our boxes of possessions still sat in the garage for us to unpack, I had only managed to really unpack the things for the kitchen and our bedroom.  We had only moved countries 4 months previously and had sold all our old furniture to keep shipping costs at a minimum.

There I sat with this decision to move countries and with it came the sorting of what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to sell or donate.  How could I have made rational decisions in such a state?!  However I plough through our possessions, a lot of baby things I had kept for when we had our second child, I put all that aside because that dream was now shattered.  I donated most of my husbands clothes, all his work shirts, t-shirts, trousers, shoes, etc, now I wish I had kept these because later on I found that some people had made beautiful blankets or pillow cases from these items.

I slowly got through each room in the house and each box in the garage.  The emotions that I went through were excruciating, I remember sorting through the boxes and silently crying, tears were literally pouring out my eyes but I kept going, I kept sorting and I kept throwing away our past and our future.

Today I sit with only a few possessions that were my husbands and I keep them in a keepsake box, this box will eventually become my daughters when she is older.  The biggest thing I have of ours is our photos and videos, I am so afraid of losing these files and have backed them up about 3 times on different devices.  I read somewhere some years later which made me feel better about only having a few items left that were my husbands, it said it's not about how many possessions you have, it's about the memories and they are more important than any possessions,  this is so very true and this has comforted me somewhat.   Keep your memories close, they are more valuable that you realize.

Awkward

Losing someone we love and very close to us is in itself a very difficult thing to come to terms with, another thing that is difficult is dealing with the awkwardness that comes from people when we speak to them.

Slowly but surely the people that I had spoken to previously with ease have somehow become awkward around me and avoid me at all costs.  I can totally understand this as I have had people around me that had lost loved ones and you know you get that feeling like, what must I say, what if I say the wrong thing, I wonder how they are coping, should I ask them?!

As someone who has lost their husband, it would be nice for people to know that they should just keep being themselves to their friends and loved ones after they have suffered such a lose.  We almost feel like we have had to deal with such a massive loss already and then to deal with losing friends and family due to awkwardness it becomes all too much to bear.

It still happens to me three and a half years down the road.  As soon as people find out that I have lost my husband they almost shut down and don't know what to say to me, even if I am the one to start the conversation and I am bubbly towards them.  I now find myself hiding the fact that I am a widow.  Of course having a child instantly brings up questions about my partner and I am not about to lie.

I remember going to get Chinese take away one evening with my daughter, as we place our order we sat down to a very young friendly lady who was waiting for her order.  She started to talk to me and my daughter and we engaged like people do until eventually the words popped out of her mouth to my daughter......."I bet you're a real little Daddy's girl, I know I was when I was your age." How do you respond to this, luckily my daughter ignored her and didn't engage in her question and we moved swiftly from it.  I also still wear my engagement and wedding rings because I have not felt ready to take them off.

I guess what I am trying to get from this post is, is that if you or someone you know loses someone close to them, the best thing you can do is be yourself.  Talk about the things you previously talked about, if the person who has lost someone wants to talk to you about their loss then they will let you know and believe it or not, sometimes they don't want answers or solutions, they just want a pair of ears that will listen, we just want to be treated like we were before the loss, as a friend!

How to Continue

Today I find myself questioning how to continue with this blog I have created.  This is not the first time I have found myself in this position.  I am sure we all have so much to say but struggle to know where to begin.  So perhaps let me begin with who I am and what has got me here to write.

I am a widowed single mother trying to raise a daughter by myself.  I lost my husband three and a half years ago and I have been to hell and back with having to come to terms with such a massive loss in my life.  The way my husband passed away was very unexpected and traumatising, I physically watched him die and to this day I question whether I should have known, could I have saved him if I had seen the signs sooner?!  I have emotionally beat myself up over it and I am still beating myself up.  He was a fit and healthy 31 year old, we had our whole lives still to live together and in a blink of an eye it was all gone.  He was gone, my family was destroyed and things would never be the same again.

However through all this I have kept my head held high, I have got out of bed every single day to take care of our daughter and kept things as normal as possible for her.  I think I have done pretty damn well considering the circumstances. 

I have turned to my faith a lot through all this and I have found it comforting.  I believe that God and his angels watch over me as well as my husband who I now believe is an angel himself.  So that is just the beginning of who I am.  I hope that you'll join me on this journey that I continue. :-)