I started having counselling shortly after DH died. It was through a local hospice, and it was limited to 12 sessions, which I paid for.
The final one was last week, and on Saturday it will be 6 months since he died.
Perhaps I should have waited longer - who knows 🤷♂️?
But I did find a lot of it very useful, although very repetitive - then again, perhaps that's why it was useful 🤔.
It mainly gave me tools to use to manage my grief and my guilt. It helped me understand that I did do everything I absolutely could to help DH, and that his death from very late diagnosed stage 4 lung cancer/stroke was inevitable and way beyond my capability in terms of medical knowledge - so therefore feeling guilty - while understandable - wouldn't help me in the long term. That decisions made about his care were made with the knowledge that we had at the time, which wasn't necessarily the whole picture.
It also gave me tools to manage relationships with other people - when to say no, and how to ask for help. And gave me 'permission' to just cut people out if I didn't want to interact with them, which was strangely liberating.
The counsellor also helped me see that although I feel so alone and adrift, I do have a much wider support network than I realised, albeit not necessarily the most visible or noticeable. But acknowledging that there are neighbours keeping a quiet eye out (I had a random text from a very kind neighbour whom I barely know, asking if I was okay and if I needed any help, as she had noticed that my bin wasn't out) and work colleagues who discreetly check in every few days, has vastly helped me deal with the anger that I feel towards those I had regarded as close friends, and who have now disappeared.
Of course it's not the same as having DH - how could it be? But it did help. In a small way.