Another really hard day.
I (34F - 28 when he died) lost my husband (28M) five years and five months ago… typing that out sounds crazy. Five years and five months, both long and short. A moment and a lifetime. We were together almost 9 years when he died. He overdosed after a two year battle with addiction. I was the one who found him, I tried my best to save him, but I was just 10 minutes too late.
Present day… most of my days are what feels normal. Most of my days are okay, I even have good days. Happy days. My life since he died has been hard (obviously). Grief, depression, anxiety, PTSD, executive dysfunction, financial struggle, debt piling up, burnout, pet death, secondary losses, struggles with in-laws.
In the past few months, things have been falling into place and I’ve had so many good things happen. Adopted two kittens, made a year with my chapter two, a huge raise at work, spending time with my in-laws again. My life is not bad… my life is actually good, until you consider the fact that I had this devastating tragedy happen. I could feel 100% happy in areas of my life, but my life will never feel 100% happy… does that make sense?
I’m living two lives, I’m loving two people, I’m letting grief and joy coexist, I’m letting happiness and sadness coexist. And fuck, it’s hard… it’s so hard. I remember when I was living a normal life… normal sadness, normal anxiety, normal problems, normal struggles.
Now I have a dead husband. Now I have PTSD… I live with PTSD. I have done EMDR therapy, I still see a therapist regularly, I’m on antidepressants, I only drink on special occasions, I’m active and I try to eat healthy most of the time. I’m doing everything I can to take care of my mental health. I don’t feel like I have PTSD until something random triggers me.
Yesterday I had a real bizarre experience selling a TV on Facebook marketplace. Long story short, I had to call the cops on the buyer because he was drunk and aggressive trying to pay me less than what was agreed on. He started to threaten me. He left before the cops came.
I’ve had increased anxiety since that interaction yesterday. And today I was paralyzed by anxiety. Not about the incident yesterday… just general anxiety and I couldn’t pinpoint it. I started crying in the evening and thinking about how torturous losing your spouse is, I thought about how I have to carry this forever. I thought about how no matter how good I take care of myself, no matter how much I heal, I will always be so aware of how I feel like life robbed me. I realized the incident yesterday put me into fight or flight mode. And that’s why I was feeling all the things I felt today. I haven’t cried this hard in a long time.
I just thought about how my peers don’t understand me. They don’t understand what I’m carrying. People don’t understand what this like. People see us and they think we are living normal lives because we’re not crying every second of everyday anymore. But behind closed doors, this is what goes on. We still cry. We still hurt, we still grieve.
I don’t know where I’m going with this post anymore… I’m sorry it’s so long. I just needed to get these words out. I needed to tell someone who understands me. Today has just been hard.
If you need a hug, I’m sending you one ❤️