NeuroTalk Support Groups - Grief and Loss, the Path Well Worn

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- Coping with Grief & Loss (https://www.neurotalk.org/coping-with-grief-and-loss/)

- - Grief and Loss, the Path Well Worn (https://www.neurotalk.org/coping-with-grief-and-loss/182843-grief-loss-path-worn.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by takinxanax (Post 975672)

I've recently come to terms with the fact that my husband of 20 years has always had effects from an old TBI. It has been a frustrating marriage! I feel like I wasted my life. When I think about leaving I feel so much grief but I don't know what else to do because it's not a happy situation. We didn't have children and we are kind of isolated because all he wants to do is go to work-which I'm grateful he can still do. Please don't tell me to take care of myself or join clubs. Been there..done that. I am talking about the searing grief of being 56 and feeling alone and wondering if it's too late to have a good life. Can't really make a move until grief is a little better under control, you know, not so overwhelming.

My Mom-in-Law.... thus you know how much I love her dearly.... "made the move" at about your age now so many years back. Having done it, she blossomed in joy with one whom she wed and it was as if she was reborn. She and he came to hold very very special place in my heart as my "parents" and he even came to refer to me as his child, such was our love.

Mom and Grandpa F knew twenty years of bliss together until he went to be with the Lord about ten years back. Yeah, Mom is pretty far along in years now, and she looks with great fondness at the time she had in the GOOD LIFE she came to know.

Blessings on you, :hug:

Thank you SO much

Quote:

Originally Posted by ginnie (Post 977727)

You expressed grief and loss from your own intimate experience. I am sorry you are going through all this with your dad. The human condition, it grabs us all, and it hurts. I wish I could grab you right now and give you a hug and tell you I care. I lost both my folks, have no contact with my daughter and grandchild, I know the pain you are feeling. We so need our faith, and each other when these traumas visit us. I want you to know that I may not write every day, but I read all the posts. You will be in my thoughts and prayers, and I asked my angel to visit your dad. I am with you as a sister Mark, and I never will forget you and your family in my prayers. May God and his son, watch over your family and give you the strength you need. xxxginnie:hug:

Dear Heart, you are a precious friend. Thank you so much for your message and your prayers,
Blessings :hug:

Manage it on his own

Quote:

Originally Posted by takinxanax (Post 980016)

Love it-"That would drive me nuts too"..ha ha. Kind of admits it, but says he can manage it on his own. I keep trying because I'm scared to get div. and move and stuff! What if I regret it?

Actually, seeing the "I can manage it on my own" phenomenon being played out through a brother-in-law of mine, I am certain such statements are hogwash. Last weekend, being with family mourning the loss of a sister-in-law to RSD associated matters, we had to deal with brother-in-law's dysfuntion, his berating me, his emotional pummeling both me and my blessed wife, and to tell you the truth, I HAD ENOUGH OF IT FOR A LIFETIME.... there, I shouted and got it out.... :(

When challenging brother-in-law to seek and GET help, having him sit in a chair opposite me screwing his face up and pounding his forehead with index finger saying "I am working on it myself.... in here" I am absolutely certain he is denying every opportunity to receive true help. He is a controller. He is lost. He causes harm with nearly every word issued from his mouth.

I am done with him. Don't need the "brain damage" anymore.

That is just my take on "managing it on his own."

Blessings, :hug:

Yesterday I went to our county social services office and met with a social worker that reviewed his neuropsych report. First of all he said it was a poor job and that my husband was ripped off. Then he said, he has learning disabilities but is high functioning in mechanical skills/thinking. He said is very adaptable and smart. This leaves me to know that a lot of his behavior is personality as well. Thanks for your posts about your personal experiences of "moving on". I started a divorce support group two days ago (he doesn't know it) and it was just in time because this weekend he is going to our cabin (I can't afford to) by himself and said "you can go if you want to." Huh? I feel so abandoned and alone, but I know that I will recover. I have plenty of stuff at home to keep my busy and am going on Mem. Wknd., that's if we are still together. It's hard to ride 4 hours with him in the vehicle. He keeps most of his money and I struggle to get by on mine and I need a car repair. Going to the cabin is at least $250.00
My heart is heavy but I know I will never be happy with him.

I need to stop sounding and feeling like a victim!

Hello takinxanax

It is so hard when relationships go their seperate ways. It takes time to move on. It takes time to grieve for it. It takes time to heal. While you go through this process if that is the direction you must choose, try to keep busy. Try to occupy you thoughts and your actions with other things. This is what I am doing. I went with my son on my first canoe trip in years. Peaceful on the Peace river. Each day I try to remember that not every relationship is meant to be forever. Be good to yourself. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. ginnie:hug:

Quote:

Originally Posted by takinxanax (Post 981918)

I need to stop sounding and feeling like a victim!

Hi TAK!

I get why you said this ----but you feel this way because you tried very hard and so long to make it work. His cognotive skills and emotional responses are not there to be part of any normal relationship. Which has made you feel isolated and alone and depressed for a very longtime. Don't beat yourself up over it ---give yourself time. Im glad to hear you reached out to a support group its really hard when your battling these types of situations in your head alone. It cause all of us at times self doubt everything. However--- something happens when you even just say the words to others---its almost healing for you. It helps you validate your feelings and thoughts. Im glad to read your taking postive steps for yourself.:D

Such A Blessing...thank you for this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark56 (Post 950377)

The human condition is well fashioned from personal perceptions brimming with grief and loss. I remember from my youth seeing my Grandpa, or at least his body, lying in a coffin on the evening of the visitation after we had torn across country in the Chevy to be with my mother's very large farming family. How could he be dead? I love him!!!!! I cried so many tears, so many tears.....

A childhood introduction to grief and loss up close and personal is a stark beginning to this episode of existence we refer to as life. Wondering how could he be gone, where did he go, what about Grandma, will I wind up there soon, and is it awful lying in a coffin thus- are questions which ran on a loop through my infantile cerebrum as clear liquid, salty, and which made my eyes burn, pour profusely down my cheeks. I felt ALL ALONE that night, all alone, in a room overfilled with people as my Grandpa lay silently just there. Not out of reach at all. And hadn't it only been a few months ago he had visited us in Colorado and he and I gathered blue bells to hold for a photo op while our alternate hands held large and very COLD snow balls. Tht photo is etched into the album of my mind, always ready to replay at a momentary command. My Grandpa.

Not long in life terms later..... maybe seven years or so, my absolute favorite cousin passed from a car wreck on I-70 driving his favorite Chevy Belair. His speed was high, so I am told. The results produced a closed casket affair. Me? Well, I was not allowed to attend, because my mom wanted the time to be with her sisters, and since I was a boy.... well, it did not suit for me to have been so shaken up. Not a manly thing, that. Grief. Chapter Two.

Three more grandparents in a row passed through the years, and as I attained greater age, wealth, and maturity I could take hold of the reins and attend to situations confering love and blessing on those who had loved me BEFORE they passed.... you know, being aware of their enfeebling health in advance of that long awaited appointment with mortality. I could leave on a jet plane and very quickly be at their side sharing my love of them. This I did, wanting each to know of their impact on my life and the joy I gained from their presence..... in doing this, I seemed to gain overwhelming peace as the moments of their passing came, then blew into the detritus of history as leaves along a deserted country road. So glad I took time for those very special people IN ADVANCE.

Almost two years ago now.... though there had been a good many more passings in between, our first grandchild, a little girl- Lilly her given name- passed through our lives as a lit match, especially the paper kind, rushes on toward its terminal extinguishment. She had developed with an awful genetic mishap in formation; one of those, who would have guessed kind of happenings. She came stillborn. I bawled as my insides melted then poured out not unlike the sorrow I had felt as a child when Grandpa, my flower gathering friend, passed. Lilly was here, but not here, we held her fleetingly so the sterility of hospital protocol might rapidly thereafter sweep in to whisk away remains..... simple that, the word remains. A little life prepares us for unparalleled joy, is swept away, and there are merely REMAINS where only a couple of weeks before we had known there was a kicking baby, felt still in mama's tummy. Sorrow without end in sight, the supply seemingly "tacky restaurant" style unlimited refills. The well of sorrows was creating a flood.

Far more recently, I learn last night with my family my Dad has untreatable inoperable cancer. Were he physically healthier we might be thinking in terms of treatment. Not so here.

Dad has that Alzheimers bug. You know the one.... many fear it so badly, they shun families affected by it for fear, seemingly, of contracting a non-infectious disease. Shunning. Shame. The really good stuff of which our society which comes together to spend millions following a popular cause or political gnat turns on a dime to pour separation, shame, indignance, and yes shunning upon folks who bear the calamity of something as insidious as Alzheimers.

Grief. Loss. I definitely felt Grief and Loss when, three years ago, Dad no longer remember I existed. For me, THAT was the day he died. In the meantime, the operating shell of his body continued to perk along. Sure, there were the haltingly embarassing moments of Dad coming outside to see family members off after a visit. He was attired in one of Mom's dresses. Seems he thought it was his bathrobe........ recently equipped with a back zipper. And, he who was a smart fellow engineering wise now polices the lawn of the family home for fallen leaves. It sounds pretty good, except upon realization he putters about the lawn with trashbag in hand picking ONE LEAF at a time from the grass to place it gently into the bag. This is not the person who was my Dad.

Cancer. Used to be that was feared more than Alzheimers. Not so now. Stir them up in the same body, and a rapidly terminal situation is at hand.

Last night, after learning of Dad's terminal illness on top of his terminal illness I sat and remain totally numb. The man I knew as Dad passed mentally three years ago. His body lingers. Lingering will now be accelerated to a finish line. I did not feel like crying. I worked through much grief and loss when Dad mentally died.

Now we wait.

Time will reveal the toll the blended diseases will exact upon my Dad. Will I cry? Are my tears all spent from grieving his loss years earlier? That broke my heart. This, I see as a release of Dad finally from the prison of mental morbidity in which he has been trapped these many years. A blessing as it were.

This road of grief and loss is now far too familiar. The losses have been far more numerous than detailed in this post. The road is one I do not like so much and it has potholes, cracked pavement, and the bridges are not so nice anymore. Familiarity is breeding a sense of discontent not complacence. I hope heaven will bring far more joy to Dad than these most recent of years.

Gonna pull the "car" over to the side of this road just now, I am tired, rest needed. Think I will just turn the key off for a while and sleep.

Grief and Loss consume my strength.
Even so, I am blessed,
mark56:grouphug:

Hello, Mark,

I know that this thread is almost a year old, but I am new here, and started reading some different threads...this one...is so very "special" and I needed to read it...I know you Believe...He takes us where we need to go...

I also experienced much of the same in my life concerning the loss and grief of many loved ones. The first was my mother who died from suicide when I was 9 years old. I did not experience the first coffin or even the grave yard, just a family meeting after her burial at my great Aunt's house. Which was full of "nasty" speaking of my mother's being in "Hell" because she had killed herself. That is the reason my father did not have us, my brothers and I attend the services...he was trying to protect us from this unspeakable pain.

Actually, I thought that for some reason, people had somehow lied to me and I looked for my mother many years, thinking I would find her. Every store, every street, everywhere...my heart was searching. But of course, she was never to be seen again....

My father remarried and it took a long time to accept my new step-mother...now endearingly I call her... Mom. Several grandparents like yours slipped away, some were step grandparents, some not. I did start to do what you described so well...as I was growing up, I realized this was part of life...this was where God would open my soul, spirit, and mind.

And then, like your grand-daughter...my own daughter, Gerri Ann, died in my 36th week of pregnancy. Carrying her in my womb knowingly dead was the most difficult time of my life. The Dr. wanted nature to take its course, allowing my body to go into labor on its own to deliver her. After a week...my own brother could not stand it anymore, I was calling him day and night looking for support...my husband at the time locked himself away...unreachable...my brother called the Dr. and my induced labor was scheduled....I briefly saw her because my own body required surgery immediately due to hemorage...and then a couple of days later after her autopsy which revealed nothing...I went to the mortuary while my babies milk was still dripping...and dripping...and then a few months later, my last living grandmother died...

About 6 years later, my father was killed in a car accident on his birthday. Everything stopped...I could not move...I dropped the phone when my brother told me...and I cried and prayed. Were he and my mother now together again? I prayed to know this for many years...I envisioned my mother in a rocking chair in Heaven and holding my little girl with my father beside them.

And then...my sister...died at age 53 from a terrible reaction to her third attempt of tissue being applied after her third degree burns from a house fire. This one was very different to me...different because I had been going through the possibility of having a brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma..and she and I shared our faith and love together...little did I know it would be her time to go...not mine.

A year later...my brother, died of a sudden cardiac arrest at age 50 on Thanksgiving Day. He and I were like twins, only 11 months apart, so this one burned a "hole in my heart". By faith, and continuing hope to see him again, I endured and am still working through this...allowing the hole in my heart to heal but still knowing that the scar would remain.

And now...and now...the Lord has given me a gift!! I recently had a brain tumor for real this time...and a craniotomy to surgically remove it...and in that process I had a Near Death Experience....and saw them...and spoke with them...and then the Lord told me I had to return..."It was not my time." I shared this with everyone at the hospital...everyone..to include the surgeon who prayed with me before my surgery, the nurses, my husband, my children...and now you. Heaven is for real...and YES, my mother is there as well...she had suffered from a medical condition that caused her suicide...God forgave her as He is willing to forgive and love us all...Jesus made sure I knew this...to share!

I know this is a long sharing...but hoping it Blesses those who need it.
Joanie

Hi Joanie and Mark

I re-read the posts. Grief and the human condition does come to us all. It seems that many lives if not all, are in stages of grief. Oh the tears we cry, for those that gone, and for those of us who remain. I don't think I could have gotten through some of it without my faith. Our own mortality steps ever quicker toward Our Father in Heaven.
Thank you for the blessings of these posts. It reminds me we are all part of this human family. Our destination isn't of this world but of the next. Hug those you love everyone, give an extra I LOVE YOU. Take the time with your parents and loved ones to squeeze each moment you have with them. That is what I am trying to do now with my tiny family that is left. I tell my son daily, my grown man how much he means to me. I pray for a family member who shuns me. I pray for my grandson I never got to see. :hug: ginnie

I am reminded of "Glimpses of Truth Thou hast for me" from a lyrical line which allows us to know such a wonderful key is placed into our hands. You highlight for all of us the underscore to all human existence.....; namely, God's embrace is known to all who will have it...... even hung on a cross on a hill in a refuse dump because God IS to all and everywhere AVAILABLE.

Your experience brought crystalline to your thoughts God's love and forgiveness transcend our own frail human capacity to live love completely. You have glimpsed the truth of your Mom holding your baby as your Father stands nearby. How beautiful a living moment of complete love realized at the hands of ABBA God.

How Beautiful......
How Beautiful is the body of Christ.....
I cling fast to the body which so exudes love and peace
which brings forth to each who will hear AND listen
knowing the stillness of calm and green grass
in the garden with the Lord.

Thank you so much, Joanie, for sharing in such a loving way,
You led us to drink once more this day from the everspringing well
of
Love,
and Blessing,
My prayers are with you,

Mark56 :hug: :grouphug: :circlelove: