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Not getting any easier

ab80
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Hi. It's been a while since I've been on here but I'm wide awake as usual and thought I'd post. I lost my partner almost 3 months ago. He died almost 4 weeks after diagnosis, no signs or symptoms other than one seizure. Lung cancer and secondary into the brain. It's only getting harder, I've pushed everyone away and just cannot seem to focus on getting back into a routine of work and family life. I feel like I'm failing everyone around me as I have always been the "rock" of the family. Everyone seems to want an emotional piece of me and at this point, I can't give them anything. I'm emotionally exhausted and would rather shut everyone out than try explain how I feel. The hardest part is accepting that I will never be the same person I was before. I was with my partner all my adult life and feel like I've been robbed of the last 18 years. My finances are all over the place and I'm still dealing with his pension who are dragging their feet because we weren't married. I haven't returned to work as yet and am being made redundant at the end of this month. My eldest son has moved out and it's just myself and my 12 year old at home now. I have a grandchild on the way but cannot emotionally attach myself to see this as a positive thing at the moment. Attempting to cope with so many changes is taking its toll and yet I can see my family and friends wondering why I'm not back to "normal", I feel like they're judging me on how I should act and feel. 

 

Apolgies for the long rant 

 

Alison 

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    I'm so so sorry to hear your news. 4 weeks from diagnosis to death is horribly fast. You are still in shock. Although my partner is still here, he is dying. We are two and a half weeks after they found a large, aggressive brain tumour and there is not much more they can do for him. Already, he cannot talk properly and is asleep most of the time. I feel that my life is coming to an end too. How will I live without him? I have absolutely no idea - especially because I don't really want to live without him. People are being very kind, but no one can touch the pain and fear and bleakness that I feel. We all know that we cannot keep anyone for ever; but I don't feel strong enough to live much longer after he goes. I wish you well; don't judge yourself. Just try to do one small thing every day for yourself - something that your partner would have liked you to do, or wanted you to do. I think that remembering that your partner would want you to be happy and to live well in their memory might just be a little path to explore and see where it leads. Sending you much love and support and absolutely no judgement at all!
  • Offline in reply to David.W

    I'm sorry to hear about your partner. I know how you feel although all that you are feeling just now didn't hit me until after my partner passed away. I went into total auto pilot making sure everyone else understood what was happening and taking care off him and it hit my like a bus about 2 weeks after I lost him. There's nothing I can say to ease your pain or make this any easier for you but I can send you a big hug. I just kept telling myself that my partner was just a few years ahead of me. Acceptance is the biggest hurdle and right now, I can't accept the massive impact this is having on my life. It's sounds like you are grieving already, preparing yourself for the worst. The pain is unbearable but as long as you take each day at a time, you'll get through this. I feel a bit of a hypocrite saying these things to you as I'm only just hanging on in there. I wish I had magic words for you. 

     

    Stay at strong and please stay in touch if you need to talk

     

    x x 

  • Offline in reply to ab80

    I guess I am making the same journey as you are.

    My Partner passed away on the 5 March 2017,  7 weeks and 2 days after being diagnosed with agressive recurrent liver cancer. He had had a liver transplant which we were told had gone well, but in January, after suffering what appeared to be a tummy bug, we received the most awful shock news that he was terminally ill and had but a short time.

    So after thinking that all was going well, we were devasted, shocked beyond description, angry, and my Partner's condition rapidly deteriorated. When he passed away, he was little more than skin and bones. It was heartbreaking. My soulmate was dying and there was nothing I could do.

    I was with him when he passed away, and I have never experienced anything quite like it. I believe that he was not in pain, which is in itself a relief, but my world seems to have come to an end. I can't accept that I am never going to see him again in this life, and so this life is now "nothingness". I can't concentrate on anything. If I try to read, I am quickly lost to it, and if I try to watch TV I can't tell you you what I have been watching. I seem to look at the screen but I don't actually absorb what it is I am watching. I have no motivation. I just want us to be together again, and if that has to be in the next life, then so be it.

    Some people have been supportive, but they are now starting to say things like "Come on! You must move forward!", or similar, but all that does is to cause me to drift away into my own little world. I should have many happy memories, but they are pushed out of the way with the awful time after he had been diagnosed ... happy memories are overtaken by flashbacks of those last minutes,

    So, I believe that I can claim to know what you are all going through. Life is "nothingness", and it is not getting better as time moves on. Remember though, our tears are the language of the soul, and they speak only of our love. In my case, there are many of them.

     

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