Widows & Widowers Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.
A few of us have mentioned PTSD conditions surrounding the loss of our loved ones. Usually we think of PTSD as something that only occurs as a result of trama on the battle field.
However, losing our most beloved life partners in often very traumatic situations can cause PTSD. My family didn't seem to understand. Of course they can't.
Losing a loved one to murder, a horrible car crash, a long and torturous battle with cancer and its characteristics, a sudden cardiac event with surrounding panic/call for help are all traumatic. For me, 2 years that included 2 failed surgeries, weeks and weeks of hospitalization, being rushed to ICU too many times to count and living 24/7 at home running to turn up the oxygen whenever he would have loss of breath attacks. I was always on guard, watching his face for signs of panic or stress. He whole body swelled up with so much fluid at one point, he looked like a monster. All these things cause trauma to our hearts and souls.
It's been 2 and a half years since Joe died, and I still feel some of the PTSD symptoms. I wonder if they will ever be gone completely.
However, losing our most beloved life partners in often very traumatic situations can cause PTSD. My family didn't seem to understand. Of course they can't.
Losing a loved one to murder, a horrible car crash, a long and torturous battle with cancer and its characteristics, a sudden cardiac event with surrounding panic/call for help are all traumatic. For me, 2 years that included 2 failed surgeries, weeks and weeks of hospitalization, being rushed to ICU too many times to count and living 24/7 at home running to turn up the oxygen whenever he would have loss of breath attacks. I was always on guard, watching his face for signs of panic or stress. He whole body swelled up with so much fluid at one point, he looked like a monster. All these things cause trauma to our hearts and souls.
It's been 2 and a half years since Joe died, and I still feel some of the PTSD symptoms. I wonder if they will ever be gone completely.
Nessie from KY
It was awful that Bill died. But the way he died.............was brutal.
His severe cancer pain could not be reileved at all by modern medicine. They tried ...but shook their heads and they said "sorry" and raced out of his room.
To this day, the flashbacks make my heart race.
I am at present waking up nearly every hour or half hour because this is how often he would call me this time last year and then when I got up to see what he wanted he didn't know what he wanted and looked at me like he wasn't sure who I was. He would wake in the night feeling lonely and frightened no knowing what time it was or what day it was or even not sure where or who he was. He had an illiostomy and colostomy and one day he woke up from a midday snooze looked down at his abdomen and asked me what they were. He had had them for 16 years. One day he pointed at our british blue pedigree and asked me if it was a rat. I had to explain to him that it was a our cat and her name was Amber but still he was none too sure. I would tell him something and five minutes later he had forgot. He could no longer use his mobile phone or deal with anything financial without much prompting. He could not adjust the remote control on the hospital bed to move the bed up and down.
In the last two days of his life he was only awake for a few minutes at a time until finally he took his last breath. I still lay awake longing to hear his breathing and rerunning the horrific things I witnessed and he way this man was eaten alive by cancer which was busting out of his guts.
How do we ever get over such an experience, how will it ever not hurt to remember these things. Will I stay sane. Will this affect my son who also witnessed these things. Am I going nuts. Why does nobody seem to care or understand just what I have and am still going through.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/DS00246
The good news is that it is treatable. You don't have to suffer forever. Counseling/psychotherapy and medications are used. I had the counseling, I didn't have the medication. My sons also had counseling - they needed it too because they experienced it as well. Counseling wasn't simple for them, either, as they are both on the autism spectrum, both had survivor's guilt, etc.
One thing I did that helped me stop running the nightmare images through my head 24/7 was to take a notebook and write down in detail everything that happened. I cried my heart out doing it, but once I had finished it, I was able to close the notebook and tell myself that if I ever needed to go back to it that those memories and information were in a safe place and that I no longer needed to keep running them in my mind. It sounds crazy, but it worked.
I have recurrences of it around the death anniversary, and sometimes it's brought on by things in movies or on television. I am careful as to the kinds of things I watch. I have been caught off guard a few times. For instance, in one of the "Mission Impossible" movies, Tom Cruise dies of heart attack and his girlfriend has to revive him. I was watching this with my older son - the one who had to call 911 when his Dad had the heart attack - and my heart started to race, and I looked over at him and he'd gone white as a sheet. It was supposed to be a safe movie to watch.
I still have panic attacks in the car, too, from the accident I had on the 2nd anniversary of Cliff's death. It's annoying as hell. It's even harder now because I am not doing the driving - don't have a UK license, and the whole driving experience is different here. I'm working on not panicking.
I had PTSD pretty badly after being in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 in San Francisco. I got through that, but have had experiences that triggered it back, too. Luckily, it doesn't stay like it did that first year.
Thanks for bringing this up. I think it's important people know they may have this and that it is treatable.
Love and Hugs,
Martha
And I agree entirely - you CAN come back from it. I cared for my father through his final cancer - 6 months of watching my first hero suffer, wither, and die. I was at his side every day - arguing with the doctors, fighting for his care, taking him to his radiation appointments, keeping him company, moistening his lips when he couldn't eat, changing his socks because the nurses hadn't bothered, meeting with the priest and being there for his last rites, the whole nine yards..... It was hard, and for a long time after I had trouble remembering Daddy the way I knew him before that. Stories and photos helped. Every time I would have one of those nightmare images in my mind, I would counter it with a good memory. I don't have a lot of things that were my Dad's, but I do have a couple of things and I would hold those and remember him more easily as the healthy Daddy instead of as the dying and suffering Daddy. It's harder now to remember him as sick - mostly I remember him whole and healthy.
The same for Cliff. Mostly I remember him as he was, not that terrible morning. But because losing a spouse is so monumental and impacts you in every part of your identity, it took some more intensive work to get to that point.
But doing the work and making the efforts paid off. It is worth it to keep trying. If I had given up, not only would I have lost the good memories of Cliff but I would have missed so much of the good moments that have happened in my life since then. I know I must sound like a broken record sometimes, but it really is worth it to keep going.
Love and Hugs,
Martha