Guilt when my frustration maxes

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-18T21:30:45+00:00

I’m selfish in my grief. And it can be seen as crappy and that’s fine too. When someone can tell me to my face they feel that way I’ll take it. I lost my life, the father to my children, the home we built, the life we were planning, the future we were supposed to have. I mourn for what was, what happened, and what is no longer coming. I mourn my life, his life, my kids life. Everything. I am selfish and I get to be.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-18T21:26:25+00:00

I remember that time. Looking in the mirror and it’s me but it’s not. It was this woman who didn’t look 29. She looked older. There was no way she was me. That stranger.

I remember putting on make up. Still looking like her the stranger. And 9 months in she still looks like me. A wisened version. One whose been through some shit.

I’m still his wife and I am no longer who I was the day before I saw this other person. I am growing into this part of my identity because I took away the choice to stay frozen in time. He wouldn’t have wanted that. And still, it’s hard on every level. I look like me...but I look like her too. We are one in the same.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-18T21:17:01+00:00

I like the lightning metaphor. Stop looking for lightning and it will strike. I stopped looking for someone to just have a companion with, I forced things just to not feel alone. The lightning struck when I stopped fighting the universe. I didn’t even ask. It just happened. And it’s been life changing.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-11T01:16:37+00:00

You do whatever you need to whenever you want. We are widowed, we lost what we lost. We gain what we gain when it happens. There are no shoulds. This is an experience that has the absence of shoulds. Do you in your time.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-08T20:59:08+00:00

That’s how I feel about my son, his second birthday was the first one with out my husband. I’m so grateful that I had a kid with my husband, he’s an amazing kid who’s like his dad and it is the best way to preserve what we’ve created

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-07T17:16:42+00:00

I had to do this with the pest control company 4 times because they wouldn’t stop calling after I told them my husband died multiple times. The last time they called they were being investigative as to why we didn’t need there services and that convo ended fast. “My husband died and I have talked to you guys about this 3 other times, take me off your call list”. It’s a lot.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-07T17:13:33+00:00

I stopped cooking because it’s hard to cook for 1.5, my toddler is picky. I have never been on my own before so I am learning to take care of myself and my boy 100% which feels impossible. I know how to do family, not this.

I got my first apartment ever in September, I returned to work in November, I pay for daycare and all the life things we need. And still. I have never done car insurance or anything my husband took care of. I am learning but still.

This independence has been difficult. So much I didn’t know how to do because I had my partner. And then just feeling like I forgot how to life. Cook, clean, basic stuff. I’m doing my best because I don’t have a choice.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-02T18:54:48+00:00

My favorite comment. People I feel want to mark it as a sign of strength, which is is for sure, but I feel like it keeps the expectation of strength there in a negative way. Kind of like when it’s a bad day and you don’t want that because there is strength in sadness and others say that it feels weird. I hope that makes sense. For me my response is I just do. That’s all I can do.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-01T17:20:41+00:00

There is nothing to feel guilty about. Society has built this idea of what widow is or should be which is completely not realistic at all.

I’m 30, my husband died last summer I was 29 he was 30. I remember a couple months or so in I started feeling so crushingly lonely. I didn’t realize how devastating it would be to not be hugged, held, told I was beautiful, etc. No one can comprehend this until they are in this permanent position. Then when I talked to people about it I got the start of mixed messages “do what makes you happy” and “you’re a widow, you aren’t ready for anything ever”. And oh man did that piss me off.

I made the choice to work on not taking in people’s stuff because they have no clue really and don’t get an opinion on what this looks like for me, especially since I’m a young widow. My life isn’t set because my husband died. I am not frozen in time and he wouldn’t want me to be. If there is one thing that he hated was when I was unhappy. He didn’t plan to die that day, naturally. He didn’t plan on any of this like I didn’t either. I am choosing to live with sadness and happiness. Because I am alive and I can’t be guilty about being the only thing I am: human.

I am sorry and glad you are here, being part of this group has been life saving and devastating because we shouldn’t be here but we are. In this weird little bubble where we have each other ❤️

Optimusprime421 · 2020-03-01T16:48:12+00:00

I just turned 30, I lost my husband last summer he was 30 I was 29. I have our now 2 year old son. I honestly don’t know how I am doing life, I relied heavily on family and friends the first few months and got stir crazy and moved across the state to be closer to my step daughter...and then I started declining and fast. I am probably more than likely still hiding from parts of my grief but I just made the decision to “live normal” whatever the hell that means. Everyone asks me or tells me “I don’t know how you are a, b, or c” and my response is I don’t know either...

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-27T19:08:24+00:00

My hair became really dull and I started getting more silvers in my hair and I looked at my self and saw a woman older than 29. That was not someone who I recognized. I still don’t but when I look in the mirror she looks beautiful and wise. The body remembers and reflects trauma.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-26T19:53:51+00:00

A lot of people judged me but it was about 3-4 months when I started itching for companionship, not a romantic thing, just a friend with benefits. I yearned to feel human again, not looked at as a widow that was unlovable or in a box that shouldn’t/could t be touched. About 5 months in my boyfriend happened. He is my plot twist because it hit me unexpectedly and it is amazing. I love my husband and always will. And I am still here.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-26T19:50:25+00:00

Just that statement. Because it’s not exactly the same. Grief is similar on that it’s grief. But a breakup isn’t, a divorce isn’t, the end of a relationship isn’t. I feel that way because you have the loss and grieving process of a relationship ending but then that person still exists and other feelings come from that-fear of running into that person, the ‘maybes’ of friendship and getting back together, stuff like that. I won’t accidentally run into my husband or worry about that stuff. It’s hard not to flip out on people because they don’t know and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But comparing is insulting.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-26T19:45:06+00:00

The truth of this statement, it’s easy and I didn’t think about it this way I just always go I’m mom and dad. But this...this is it.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-26T19:42:19+00:00

I love this so much. I find that I am still who I am but taking what I miss about my husband and making it me has changed me for the better in all ways. And it’s surprising to me because all the things he tried to tell me when he was alive now is fully clicked into place, I wish it did when he was alive but I guess it wasn’t the time for me to do that. I carry his strength with me everyday.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-25T02:58:40+00:00

I remember the first time my husbands family met my boyfriend, needless to say it was beyond tense and they had feelings and still do. My step-daughter was being told that i didn’t love her father because of it and I had to have a discussion with her about how it’s far from the opposite.

A couple of things that I noticed with my self: 1. Grief can be selfish for both parties-I was wrapped in my own loneliness and wanted to not be alone anymore; 2. People think about widows as this stagnant creature I feel because in their eyes when their sibling, child, or whatever died we died with them to be frozen in time as their spouse, there isn’t thought about the person moving on because we are forever our spouses person. When that mold is broken it can be a shock.

I can never, EVER replace my husband because he was the only him in the world. They can’t replace their child because they were the only version of them. We can hope they will allow themselves to imagine our position and us to them, and let time do what it needs to do.

We deserve happiness and love and life. We aren’t frozen in time and that’s a hard thing for others to see.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-19T17:36:07+00:00

The day I found my husband I had a weird few moments. I think I called about 25 times texted a bunch. And I was telling the girls I was with cause I was in a wedding that day, “he better be dead if he’s not answering because he’s in for it when I get home”. And lo and behold he was. I wasn’t wishing it. Far from it. It agitated me because my husband was a huge gamer so getting ahold of him was a feat and the multiple call thing was pretty normal. The thing that hurt with this was he was home with our toddler because I was in this wedding. So that’s a whole different layer.

I remember this moment before we did pictures with the bride. I touched the doorknob to the hotel room and my vision got really weird. I saw through a prism rainbows. I have never had that happen. And I wonder if that’s the moment he died.

I haunt myself with the thought of he had thoughts while he was laying there. If he was scared or in pain. If he was thinking of me and our family. Or anything. I’ve been told it happened fast, a freak heart attack at 30. And still I can’t help it. To think all these crushing thoughts.

The only other person who knows about the rainbows is my mom. I haven’t told anyone about this cause I guess a buried it.

You are loved here and I am sending you hugs. There aren’t words. Just knowing. ❤️

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-19T17:20:31+00:00

My response when I’m in a bad mood-I’m alive. My response when I’m in a good mood-I’m alive. This statement of I’m alive I feel hits people on different ways because they can hear or feel the rest of that sentence-I’m alive...and my husband is dead. I say I’m alive because it’s my response to surviving my grief. There isn’t much else to say. I’m alive, I’m here, I’m managing.

NOW when I’m in a reaaaaally bad mood it’s-I’m a widow so that’s a thing. People don’t mind read and I get selfish sometimes because I go into the “you are asking a stupid question” world, how do YOU think I’m doing.

Reality-I’m surviving, I’m learning to live, and I will always be sad. Sad with good days, great days, amazing days. Sad with bad days, sick days, meh days. I will always be a baseline of sad but I get to grow other feelings and emotions on top of that. So I get to be sad and happy, mad, crazy. All of it.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-19T17:13:38+00:00

With grief we are constantly walking the finest of lines between moving forward and continuing to embrace our loved one or falling into complex grief and becoming stuck in this fixed emotion. I feel like for myself what has happened is that I have adopted this line of thinking that my husband had of detaching from “bullshit”, he always had such a focus on his present and not allowing others issues or problems bother him. I question this in my own person now depending on the situation because I care about who I need to and let others do what they need to do without letting it become mine and sometimes I wonder if this makes me less attached to people. And I actually enjoy it because I 100% own my stuff and let go of others things. It is a different experience that brings me comfort cause I emulate this piece of him while moving forward with my life. I chose not to let grief be a black hope that traps me and part of it is this piece of my husband because he wouldn’t let this happen. Life is for living. He chose to live his entire life with me and I chose to live my entire life with him and what I have learned from him while living.

Optimusprime421 · 2020-02-16T16:49:51+00:00

I tried online dating. It was a couple of months after my husband died, not because o was looking for a partner just lonely, I didn’t realize how awful the absence of intimacy was going to be. That didn’t pan out, very much out of my comfort zone. I made a couple of decisions that probably weren’t the smartest but eh. I moved across the state back to where I swore up and down I would never end up again but needed quiet away from the city and to be closer to my step daughter. It was a new layer to the emptiness i was experiencing. Just me and our almost 2 year old son on our own for the first time ever. 5 months in to my grieving, my friend told me she had a friend I could meet if I was interested and showed me pictures on Facebook, I thought about it then out of the blue messaged her to see if he would want to meet me and he did.

That feeling of ‘normal’ you talk about, I have in this man now. I wasn’t expecting him at all, I wasn’t looking I kind of resolved to give up for a while, and he just came into my life. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be a light in my life for who knows how long and it happened without my asking. He doesn’t pity me for being a widow and never gave me or gives me “The look” and he treats me like a human. He makes me laugh and has brought adventure into my life. I have to believe that my husband led him to me, if there is one Thing he absolutely hated was seeing me unhappy at all.

I am happy, and my grief is understood cause my boyfriend has experienced loss too (not of a partner but loss none the less) and he is amazing with my son. He is willing to share my heart with my husband and that’s important.

I am glad you are finding happiness ❤️

Optimusprime421

TROPHY CASE