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Death of my husband

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  • September 2, 2021 at 9:12 am #385581
    Jackie
    Participant

    In May this year, my husband of almost 46 years collapsed at home, in our sitting room, without any warning. I initiated CPR on him with a neighbour, but when we had got him onto the floor, he didn’t have a pulse. The paramedics worked on him for half an hour but he had died. I tortured myself that I should have been able to save him for 9 days until we got his post mortem results which proved he was unsaveable. We then had to wait 5 weeks before his cremation. I was the executor for his estate which meant 10 weeks of intense paperwork, a solicitor etc. It has been the hardest thing I have ever had to cope with. Since he died, unfortunate things keep happening to me, including being knocked over by an old guy on a mobility scooter, leaving me covered in bruises. Now 3 months on, I feel so angry and the sadness has hit me again like a tsunami. I am on a lot of anti depressants, a beta blocker and an anti-histamine to make me sleep. I am tired trying to cope with the house problems, the garden problems, the paperwork problems, I feel lonely and empty inside. I am scared of the future without him, things like Christmas will be so painful. I just can’t imagine how I can get through life without him.

    September 2, 2021 at 9:43 am #385591
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jackie:

    I am so sorry for your loss and for this drastic, unwanted change in your life. I can imagine how intensely and desperately you wish that your husband was still alive and that things remained the same. Things remaining the same is what protects us from anxiety, especially when getting older.

    Best you can, if you can.. make a workable daily routine for yourself: doing the same things every day at about the same times. I am guessing that you don’t feel like creating a routine.. or doing much of anything, but if you force yourself to create a routine, gradually and slowly you will feel better for it.

    And please, post here anytime you want to and I, for one, will be glad to read from you and reply every time you post.

    anita

    September 2, 2021 at 10:12 am #385592
    Peter
    Participant

    Jackie – So sorry for the struggle you find yourself in. Thank you for sharing as I think many can relate.

    I read the following from Matt Haig today

    A thing my dad said once when we were lost in a forest

    We had gone for a run. About half an hour in, my dad realized the truth. “Oh, it seems that we’re lost.” We walked around and around in circles, trying to find the path, but with no luck. My dad asked men – poachers – for directions and they sent us the wrong way. I could tell my dad was starting to panic, even as he was trying to hide it from me. We had been in the forest for hours now and both knew my mom would be in a state of absolute terror. At school, I had just been told the story of the Israelites who had died in the wilderness and I found it easy to imagine that would be our fate to….

    “If we keep going in a straight line we’ll get out of here”, my dad said

    And he was right. Eventually we heard the sounds of cars and reached a main road. We were eleven miles from the village where we had started off, but at least we had signposts now.

    I often think of that strategy, when I am totally lost – literally or metaphorically. I thought of it when I was in the middle of a breakdown. When I was living in a panic attack punctuated only by depression, when my heart pounded rapidly with fear, when I hardly knew who I was and didn’t know how I could carry on living.  If we keep going in a straight line we’ll get out of here.

    Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It’s about the determination to keep walking forward – The comfort Book by Matt Haig

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