My girlfriend died, just feel lost.

[Dagless]

I know this my sound strange (seem to be using that word alot lately) but I dreaded having this week off work. Last time I had a week off I nearly did something stupid on the friday but I managed to grab hold of something (or someone) which stopped me.

 

Well it's been another week and it's been all backwards. This time it was monday night and that someone grabbed hold of me, took a great weight of my shoulders and said "What you carring this round for, you don't need this". Sometimes the greatest words in the world are "I understand".

 

I would like to say to that someone that no matter how bad you may feel sometimes, you are NOT insignificant.

 

I guess thats two I owe you

[WaterIsLife]

Sometimes the greatest words in the world are "I understand".

 

I would like to say to that someone that no matter how bad you may feel sometimes, you are NOT insignificant.

 

I guess thats two I owe you

 

You are so very right on this Dagless. The words "I understand" are words we perhaps hear, or allow ourselves to hear, far too seldom.

 

I know that feeling of dread you talk of, looking forward to things. There are still tough times ahead too. I understand.

[Dagless]

Last night was kind of horrible. I couldn't get off to sleep, I don't know if it was this hour loss or what but I lay in bed and I started to remember stuff. More to the point one specific memory and it wasn't a pleasant one. I couldn't switch it off, my mind kept throwing it up at me. I didn't have nightmares but my sleep was very broken. The thing is I'm a little scared to get down to sleep now just in case it starts up again tonight.

[greensleeves]

Try not to worry too much about it, that will only make waiting for sleep even more difficult and the more you think about it the more likely it might be that it will happen again. If you have another sleepless night, try not to toss and turn...get up and read or watch TV or something. Or try to focus on some of the good times if you can...just do whatever you can do to chase away the bad thoughts. I know it's easier said than done, but getting up and doing something else may take your mind off of it long enough to get a better nights sleep.

[Daddy Bear]

This could be a naive suggestion and I apologize for that, but maybe as you lie in bed you can try to consciously list or reminisce about some of the times that made you smile while you were together, and this will keep random bad thoughts from entering your mind.

 

She would, after all, want you to remember the good things.

[Dagless]

Thanks guys, any suggestions are good. I don't know what's going on with me lately, it's like someone has started rebooting my emotions and old insecurities are starting to creep back in only they are made worse by everything that's happened and it's sending me all over the place again.

[greensleeves]

Dagless, it's hasn't been that long since you lost her...only three months. I think what you're going through is a normal part of the grieving process and maybe the past week or so has been worse for you because the 3 month anniversary was a couple of days ago. Time will heal but you can't speed up time...all you can do is keep going through the emotions, day to day and minute to minute. You write beautifully...maybe journaling would help.

[Dagless]

Three months. I hadn't even thought about it, Has it really been three months? Has it Only been three months?

[greensleeves]

I imagine that when you're grieving such a huge loss sometimes it feels like forever and other times as though it happened yesterday.

[Dagless]

All concept of time has gone out the window. I have had the days feel like weeks but the weeks have tumbled away like minutes, don't ask me where March has gone it flew past I didn't even notice. Some days it's all I can do to get past the moment I'm in. I've just gone along with my head down not taking much time to look up, there's not much to see anyhow. I don't pay much attention to dates, anniversaries it's like seeing a rain cloud on the horizon and dreading the storm, its pressure I don't need to put on myself so I won't. They're just days I'll march on regardless, I'm dressed for stormy weather anyway.

[WaterIsLife]

Yeah. That pretty much sums it up, Dagless. Thats the way it goes, at least for a lot of us. I wish I could say otherwise.

 

Time, place can easily become immaterial. They just don't matter so much anymore. Not when you're engulfed in something like this.

 

This is ok though. You know why? Because you see it. Even when it comes at you like a curve-ball that you didn't see coming, you still see it pretty quickly for what it is. Maybe thats surprising, but I've seen your posts and I would have to say that that has been a common theme.

 

This is good.

 

You'll weather the storm. Not just that, but you'll appreciate all-the-more those days that you don't have to dress for stormy weather.

[KG]

Dag,

This is completely normal! Keep weathering, OK?

KG

[Dagless]

My girlfriends mom and step dad have moved. I've seen the house up for let in the paper today. It just makes me realize that I won't see the kid again, I mean I knew it anyway but it just makes it a more real. It's like that little world we had, us three, it's really gone.

[stella74]

That's a hard one. Be good to yourself today Dagless.

[tiredofvampires]

Oh gosh, Dags, that's really sad.

 

I know that must be terribly, terribly hard!

 

But you are one of those very brave soldiers here, who just knows that it's another blow. You know there was nothing you could do about her death, and nothing you could do about this, now. Relinquishing is so hard...so hard to see little pieces of the dream change and to know there is no rewinding. But remember that you did the most you possibly could for that child. You were the best man you could be to him. And that leaves its indelible imprint.

 

I'm sorry, that's such a hard blow, but just keep safe to your heart the notion that the child is for you always in the same place. Your heart.

 

And you can send him loving energy as often as you desire, as often as you can. I do believe such things do reach others, just in subtle ways that we don't understand...but far underestimate.

[KG]

Dags,

Am sorry for you....that is a terrible reminder....

I feel for you.

Another of those bombshells, that appear out of nowhere.

Hang tough with us, OK?

Anything, PM me.

LG

[Portage]

I'm sorry Dags,

 

Having to officially say goodbye to a life you fully loved and had a loving role in must be devastating. I can't even relate.

 

I just wanted to know you are being thought of.

[Dagless]

I just want him to know that I never stopped loving him, that I never turned my back on him. I am grieving for him now too. It hurts that he is living with people who never really knew his mother and he'll never know the truth. I just hope that when he grows you he'll have the mind to see the truth though the lies they will tell him.

[luvursmile]

Im so sorry, Dagless. I cant imagine how you feel losing the woman you wanted to spend your life with. Youre in my thoughts. You'll get through this, though. I know you will.

[tiredofvampires]

Dags, you never know what will happen in the future. You are right, they probably will tell him lots of ugly lies. That would rip out my heart, too, I am so sorry you have to go through this twist of the knife as well!! Please know my thoughts are with you, as you grapple with that fact -- that this is also out of your control to affect, and that there will be things here that he will have to want to get to the bottom of on his own.

 

I would like to think of a way that you might be able to leave some kind of clue or trail for him. I will think on this. Is there any way that you know of, a way he might find out later?

 

You'd be amazed what kids go through to find their biological parents, and he WILL know that these are not his parents. So at least that much -- their being his grandparents will be obvious. And at some point, children who are adopted DO eventually seek out the truth. The truth Dags will always win, I believe that in my heart. However the circuitious path there. I don't know and can't imagine where his search might take him, but I do believe that there likely will come a day when he will seek it out, and you've got to have faith that should that day come, he just might have the determination necessary. Also, he will grow up seeing a lot of painful and damaging things, which is quite awful for you to contemplate, I know...but on some level, this might lead him even more to doubt all the things he's being told. We've got to just pray for his sake, that's all. And for you to know that nothing you've done is in vain, nothing she did was in vain -- nothing!

 

By the way, the period of time that a child's most important groundwork is laid cognitively is from infancy through age 4. Isn't the child 4 now? He had a few CRITICAL years with you and her. Some things will never be erased that he will need for a lifetime, believe it or not.

 

Just hang in there, mate! You are very strong and solid, you just keep knowing that you were the best this child has had, and that is unconsciously with him -- his memories of his mom and you and the love he got then.

 

((HUGS!!!!!))

[Dagless]

Something happened to me last week, a shift in thinking. I didn't want to post anything about it until I was curtain that it was a definite shift cus thoughts can just sway all the time. This may sound a little crazy but until recently I thought that if I though hard enough I could some how make things right, that I could turn back time somehow. I realised that nothing I can do is going to change a damn thing.

I have found myself on this new path and whatever I do now isn't because I didn't love her or wanted to be with her it's because I didn't have a choice and that it is ok to move on and be happy.

It's only been this past week I have been able to feel this way. Nothing is ever going to take away what we had, it is untouchable and in a place where it will never altered or tarnished. It's in the past and not to be forgotten, not while my heart still beats in my chest anyway.

[KG]

Congrats on moving to this new step...It is very difficult to push past the emotional curtain that hangs around us....keeping us from experiencing new things without our other in our life anymore...mine didn't come truly till it had been a year and a day.

It's the realisation that life is still going on around you, tho you thought it had pretty much stood still, while grieving.

Good for you, good for your heart....

KG

[Dagless]

I feel a change within me too. I've never felt more comfortable with who I am as I do right now. I hope this is a permanent change.

[tiredofvampires]

Dags, my heart is lifted so high by your wonderful new insight and higher ground.

 

It's not something that you can make yourself believe, before its time.

 

These things take place on their own schedule, which is the wonder of it all -- it sounds so circular to say, but one is not ready until one feels ready. All that you've come to the realization of can only really take root when your heart feels secure in believing the truth of the situation and finding comfort in the things that will never be destroyed or diminished. And all your realizations are completely true. You have learned a very valuable lesson in life, one that will be applicable to whatever other situations of adversity you face about control. We want to have control over so much in life, and we really have control over so little of it. It's a scary thought. But we do have the power to be aware, to see what it is that we feel, to embrace whatever we feel until that changes. We also have the power to choose our efforts and our values. Most people don't realize that we have very little control over our emotions -- that's a myth. But what we do with them, how we treat them, we can learn so much about how to handle, the way someone learns how to play an instrument and knows intimately how it responds to how it's touched.

 

I think you are growing in leaps and bounds in knowing your own self, and that's just so great to see!

 

I feel so good about you. I feel that you have your hands on the wheel, whatever the weather, guy.

 

I'm so glad and heartened to hear this latest news. And to know about your emerging new sense of confidence!! You should never forget that you are quite a special person. And quite an inspiration, as always.

[Dagless]

Thanks TOV,

There have been times I've tried to push myself and I just wasn't ready. One of the biggest things I have learnt is patients. Patients with myself, to not do things until I was ready. Not to let set backs get to me, there are things you can put right and things you can't. Sometimes it just takes time.