i cannot imagine life after tom dies, cannot imagine life after this 5 yr ordeal. it has turned so horrendous in the past 4 months with the worst yet to come, will i have anything left inside to go on with, to face the inestimable pain of losing the only person i have ever really trusted, the only one who has truly SEEN who i was and understood me? i am wrung out, dried up, used up, with constant 24 hr stress, being the responsible party, unremitting caretaking.i have lived with impending loss for months, facing medical crisis after crisis. now every time i remove his bandages i do not know what ghastly development i will discover. it has nearly done me in. i would like to lie down next to him when he dies and just give a great sigh and expire. i am back in the past when as a child life was but one terrible trauma after another.  cant imagine what having my simple needs met would be like, such as adult companionship in shared activities, another responsible person to shoulder tasks and problems, sexual expression of love!  i have no way to support myself due to PTSD interfering seriously with having a job or taking college courses. i am seen as extremely competent, intelligent, highly functional and effective in everything i do...but i only do the things that i know my PTSD wont prevent me from doing. and people cant imagine that i am rendered into a whimpering or screaming little ball (diving under a table or behind a chair) of early childhood or even infancy in the face of an unexpected trigger of someone being hostile, irritable.. or if i see cetain images, hear certain sounds or words or smells.  how am i to face the world that i do not belong in or fit in, that world that has never understood me, all alone? i am so different from others, nothing resonates with society or others i meet., my safe haven, my interpreter, the buffer between me and that world will soon be gone. any day, any week tom will no longer exist. is there a "me" that can survive in the world  after tom?  i feel numb. (oxymoron?)