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Walking dead...

Discussion in 'Finding it Difficult to Move Foward' started by Shreddie, Aug 27, 2020.

  1. Shreddie

    Shreddie Member

    Hi all, I’m new here. I would like to engage in conversations- hearing from others and their experiences. My grief is all encompassing and I feel like I can’t function and it will never change. I don’t want to live like this and see no way out ...so I entertain thoughts of ending things all of the time. I used to have a great life and I was very productive and my work was fantastic. I worked out etc etc. For 2 years I have barely been able to get out of bed every day and I really have no interest in the day ahead. I dread it and don’t want to live in it. I wake at night to the same thoughts. Anyway, I’m reaching out as I’m on the end of my rope and have no idea how to carry on. Life has left me - I’m empty and hopeless. I’ve dug deep and I find little reason to carry on. I feel like I’m alive so that others won’t have to deal with my departing. Nothing there for me. Does anyone else feel this way? How do you function each day?
     
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  2. ainie

    ainie Well-Known Member

    So sorry for your loss and your pain. I have been fortunate in escaping depression with this grief thing. However I have been the person my daughter turned to for support. (my husband died in October/19, her Dad). She felt there was no reason to gone on as she missed her Dad so much and why bother with so much effort when we are just gonna die too. It has taken about 6 months of meds and counselling for her to get well and see that life can be better again. Please keep reading and visiting here. Seek professional help if necessary it can really help. My husband was sick for a long time with cancer and he adopted the motto "life has changed, not ended" and he made me promise to live by those words when he was gone. East, sleep, get outside some every day and slowly it will get better.
     
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  3. I know this feeling because I’m still in early grief. I second that suggestion. I am going into therapy and I can’t suggest strongly enough that you do the same. How do I function each day? I don’t, not even remotely, so I’m reaching out for more help. I hope you find the will to do the same. If other people survive these things then we can too if we can get to the support we so desperately need.
     
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  4. LivingHope77

    LivingHope77 New Member

    Hi. My dad just passed July 29, 2020. I understand. I was doing so well. I have even found an extended family at a local church. Everything was coming together. Then covid came and my life was turned upside down. I was surrounded by support, engaged in bible studies, volunteering and even working at my church. Then my dad died. Things came to a head with my mother too. I found out she has had mental illness and that her inability to empathize has affected me my whole life. I have had to take care of my mom and when my dad got sick, instead of my mom taking care of him, I was in charge. She just caved. Not because she cared for my dad but because she was upset for herself. She is actually coping very well with my dad's death. So now I am grieving a parent who died and another parent who I'm healthier not being around. I am single and can't find things to do anymore.. because of CoVid. My church isn't even open and the bus services have been changed dramatically..so much so that often passengers have to get off one bus to get on another..and because of disorganization, miss the second bus and have to wait another hour to catch the next one..often in 95 degree celcius weather. I feel stranded and alone and purposeless. I have professional help. But I'm so numb. I used to cry freely. Now I can't let it out.
     
  5. Chris M 2000

    Chris M 2000 Well-Known Member

    Hi, Shreddie. How long ago was your loss? Try to just think of accomplishing one thing at a time for now-even it is just getting out of bed every morning. Then move onto another small step, maybe taking a walk. Your healing will have to come in very small steps-no big goals for now. Over time the heaviness and deep pain of the loss will begin to lighten a little and then not occur so often. Don't give up on yourself. You can make it through this. We care about you and want to help in any way we can.
    Chris
     
  6. Shreddie

    Shreddie Member

    Thank you all for your replies. I haven’t been here for a while. It’s good - but terrible for all - to have contact with people who experience this horrible grief. Through all of this I have not only the loss of my family, but many of my friends, my in-laws, love and support and care of my spouse, everything And everyone has left my life. All I knew is gone. It takes everything in me to make it through the day period, and sober. I never used to drink or seek escape but I can’t bear reality. It is terrifying and awful. I want to offer support to people here and not just gripe but I’m in serious crisis. I have professional help and meds and all...it’s not really working
     
  7. Shreddie

    Shreddie Member

    Thanks Chris, I appreciate your support
     
  8. Chris M 2000

    Chris M 2000 Well-Known Member

    It was the title of your page, 'The Walking Dead' that caught my eye. I thought: what an apt description for how we feel.
    Thank you for being honest about your feelings. I don't consider that griping. It sounds like a call for help. You sound desperate. I was desperate when we lost our 28-year-old son to suicide in Dec. 2000. It completely pulled the rug out from under me. I had a relationship with God and up until that happened, I thought I knew how life worked. You could pray to God and He took care of the problem. I had it in my mind that life worked a certain way. When we lost Shawn, one of the first thoughts that came into my mind was 'You don't know anything'. I mean anything. I had prayed and still lost my son (even though I knew Shawn was praying for God to take him out of this world which was a constant torment for him). I knew the only way to survive this was for God to carry me through this unbearable pain and grief, and to wait for Him to bring some healing. So in my mind I kept thinking over and over 'only God can help me'. At the same time I told God he must have been wrong when He said He would never give us more than we could bear. I did not see how I was going to get through this day, much less more days after it. The heaviness of it all was almost unbearable (as you already know). So I kept walking one day at a time, thinking I would never make it. I thought about suicide for myself, but I knew it was unacceptable because I did not have the tormented mind Shawn had. The grieving with me was a very slow long process-but here I am 20 years later realizing it was not God who was wrong, but it was me. He brought me out on the other side of something I thought it was impossible to bear. He kept my marriage intact through all of it. A very large percentage of marriages break up after the death of a child.
    I continue on now because I care about people like you who are hurting as bad as I was. We are walking down the same path. Not a path chosen by us, but nonetheless a path that has been chosen for us. We are here still to help each other get through what you are suffering.
    I care about you and know if you will just hold on one day at a time, you will enter a new life-one that will be bearable. One where you will care about things like your work and working out and want to live on. We want the old life back, but we don't have a choice in this. Just take small baby steps into this new life and don't expect too much out of yourself too quickly. Change will come. Just the fact that you are getting up out of bed is a big accomplishment. Hang onto hope with all your might.
    I pray God will protect you from any harm.
    Chris
     
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  9. Howlingdawg

    Howlingdawg Member

    sounds so familiar
     
  10. Shreddie

    Shreddie Member

    Thanks C Marie for caring and writing. I have had some energy return via meds and friendship but the well, the core, is still black and empty. It’s scary. Terrifying actually. I’m a night owl and ideally sleep until 9 or so - this morning I woke up at 4:45 and I’m writing here an hour later because once I’m awake the torment starts immediately. It’s just a life of hell- it’s been over 2.5 years of this and it just feels unbearable. The constant anguish is exhausting. The holidays are horrid- I find it impossible to celebrate the Christ as the saviour of me when I can’t get out of the pit. Where is the saving? Its the first Christmas that I haven’t done a single thing related to faith, the biblical story, church or anything like that. It wasn’t even intentional- just totally natural. And I used to love Christmas and be humbled by the incarnation and Christ’s sacrifice. Now it all seems pointless- a story and ideal that is for people who are like I used to be. Clearly the dark emptiness has seeped down to that core. I prayed and prayed and sought pastoral support and therapy and went to every church function for a very long time...and I just got worse and worse. People don’t get it at all. It seems like God doesn’t get it either. The only improvements came when I gave up on that and found 2 different drugs and a friends support. Real support. The kind that can handle anything and still stand unwavering after the onslaught. I run to him every day in different ways as a lifeline, literally. And I drink to numb the pain and run outdoors and work to shift my brain. It’s all teetering over the abyss which brings about a terror that is wreaking havoc on my health. How is this a life? If anyone reading has made it this far to the end of my rant for this morning, I’m impressed. Sorry that there’s no light for you in my post; I’m here to try to help others as well, I just hope that I can do that in the midst of all of this. Thanks for reading
     
  11. MyBoo

    MyBoo New Member

    Hi Shreddie,
    I lost my soul mate five and a half months ago to cancer. I relate to you completely. I am not suicidal, but I don't want to live without him. I don't sleep and was on meds for the first three months, but they didn't help me. I am talking to a mental health counselor since November, but I really don't feel like it's helping. I just want to not wake up in the morning. I am in no way shape or form religious. I visit his grave every single day without fail. I don't want to be near people or talk to anyone except HIM. I feel like my close friends (all 2 of them) and my co workers feel like I should be moving on and "over" this by now, but I feel like it's getting much worse. I lean on music. A LOT. From the minute I get up, while I'm working at my desk, in the car, while I'm cleaning up the house, and while I'm walking. (I walk 6 miles a day-- that really seems to help me mentally). I listen to music that we shared, we traveled a lot together to see concerts, one band in particular. Sometimes the music hurts, but most times the crying through the music helps a lot too.
    What do you do when the only person you want is the one person who is gone? I feel so weighed down by grief. I know you do too. I get you. I'm sorry you are in the shape you are. I hope knowing that someone out here understands gives you some relief.
     
  12. I have had significant loss of self identity and struggle moving forward. There are days that I’m an empty shell so lost and alone and they come out of nowhere. I look in the mirror and some days don’t recognize what I have become, but I try to accomplish tasks and see something good in each day. I try to tell myself that his chance to live life is gone and he would never want me to not go on because he couldn’t. Some days I believe it and others I don’t. I have found groups and resources for support as my family is unable to provide the support I need. Feel free to reach out and message me if you would like to talk further.
     
  13. chris57

    chris57 New Member


    Dear Chris I havent had this traumatic experience but I wonder if you have heard the story of another Christian Rick Warren who also lost his son to suicide..
    I am wary about sending you this link as I do not know anything apart from the fact of your terrifyingly honest post and the fact that I also have a faith in the God of the past present and future.
    You may do with it a you wish But you may nevertheless find SOMETHING in it you can take and use
    .How to Get Through What You're Going Through Intro | Pastor Rick's Daily Hope - YouTube
     
  14. 1Longstem

    1Longstem Member

    Dear shreddie- understand where u r coming from
    - lost the love of my life 17 months ago to cancer . We were married 33 years - met 35 years ago. - it’s been very very hard but I know I hve to keep going & make him proud of the life that I still hve & that hopefully I can make a difference DON’t give up !! The caring ppl On this site understand & want you to reach out
     
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