I don’t want to carry on

[tunnocksreturns2019]

DH has been dead four years. Eldest DC profoundly difficult. Home life is unbearable really. Nothing to look forward to. Just long years without the love of my life. I’m so so tired.

DD just appeared. Hungry. She now has midnight feast of orange and home made biscuits. Will have to improve bedtimes ASAP... and now it is apparent I need to sort the cars’ litter tray. This family don’t let me clock off for long 🙄

No DC can’t stay with anyone. Parents are vulnerable, and I can’t put upon bubble family.

So sorry about your loss. I know you feel counselling is not for you - would you try something like mindfulness?
I am so sorry for how you are feeling. I wish I could just give you a hug 🤗
Please believe that life will get better. The pain and heaviness will feel lighter. I promise you it will. I remember your posts about your DH as my DF passed at the same time from cancer. It still feels raw for me.
Hang on in there....once this bloody covid is managed you will start to see some light. Please don't think you are alone. Sending you lots of love and hugs xxx

If you aren’t a member of WAY (widowed and young), you really need to join. Lots of people who will understand what you’re going through.

I don’t know what to say either but I know a few people have found new joy in taking in a pet

Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn, you may already have them! I wish you well

People are very insular when they have complete family units I find. Even pre covid. Maybe I was like that. It’s so long ago I don’t know. 2012 is the last time we were all here and healthy

This is an understandable way to feel, sometimes life is just horribly hard. You don't have to do anything right now.

Is there anything even mildly comforting you could do for yourself right now?

Gosh no, the last thing I need is another needy creature

I know it's you that needs support, however this may help the kids and you - have you been in contact with Winston's Wish?

How about cutting yourself some slack and only doing what needs to be done instead of what you feel should be done?

I don’t post on WAY - it’s not fair to the new widows to see someone in a state years on. They need to know things get better. For so many it does.

I am so sorry things are so awful just now. I just wanted to say if you can’t get through to Samaritans, text SHOUT to 85258 - it’s a text based service and that means it’s easier to get a response quicker.

As things can’t get better even though I’ve tried so hard, I just want it all to be over.

You are a great person. You are doing a great job. Your children love you very much and will take you very much for granted (kids have no idea as they are self absorbed horrors). What you feel is completely normal.

You are grieving, as are your dc. Counselling could be good for the kids and help the behaviours you’re finding difficult. You say It’s not for you right now, but counselling is just offloading to someone who isn’t a friend, who won’t tell anyone else..what’s not to love about that!

I’m so sorry you’re struggling op

Tunnocks I remember when your DH died. I can’t believe it’s been so long. You’ll be in my prayers tonight.

It’s so so so shit. But you can do this. You’re amazing and those kids love the hell out of you. Go to sleep tonight, we’re here for you tomorrow xx

Oh, you have so much to give but you have to take care of yourself before you can.
How are the 2 DC's being difficult? Maybe we can help a little with this side of things?

Bringing up children does often get more difficult (before it starts to get better) as they get older, especially when there is no partner there to share your load. I too am widowed and understand that gap that is left in your life. But my children are older now and I had my OH there during the sort of difficult times you are having; so I can imagine that the combination of missing him and having to deal with the challenges of bringing up children must be difficult for you.

I found the Samaritans brilliant - not only did they respond straight away and said all the right things, but they checked up on me a week later to make sure I was OK.

I think that you do need to find someone to talk to: CRUSE are good - they help people who are bereaved; also try looking up WAY (Widowed and Young; and Gingerbread. And the local CAB can often help.

I hope that turning to some of these practical organisations might help you to get on top of the3 parenting challenges that we all know well; and then you might have some brain space to deal with your emotional turmoil.

I truly do wish you lots of luck in finding a way through this - all this lockdown stuff will not be helping.

I feel for you. I don't wish to invalidate you, you're very plainly feeling exhausted and very down. I did want to point out, though, that when you say there's nothing to look forward to - you don't know that. You never know what might happen tomorrow, next week, next month. Feeling that things will always feel this bad is a perception and nothing more. You don't have to put any faith in it. Sometimes it happens that you feel very very low for a long time and then one day, it's as if a light comes on. There doesn't have to be a reason, even.

It's darkest just before dawn.

Hold on.

@tunnocksreturns2019 Loads of people who were widowed a long time ago post on WAY, please go there for support now. I am a relatively recent widow and promise you, you posting for support is fine. People here can sympathise as much as they like, but they don’t know the way other widows do.

You wouldn’t believe everything I’ve managed to do over the past few years. But now I’m totally out of steam.

@tunnocksreturns2019

As things can’t get better even though I’ve tried so hard, I just want it all to be over.

Stop trying, tunnocks. Just be. Even if being means feeling beyond rubbish. Just be. You don't have to make it better. You can just exist.

Feeling better comes on its own, when it's ready. It'll be waiting out there for you somewhere. It's like a fawn though. The more you try to get it to come close, the more it gets nervous and backs off. If you wait, it will come.

@tunnocksreturns2019, my heart hurts for you.
Every difficult stage of childhood ends. Doesn't feel like that when you're in the middle of a rough patch, I know. At 11 I thought DSS would break me. Today he's mid 20s and a responsible, caring adult. At 11, I would never have believed anyone who told me we would get to the stage of being great friends.
Grief doesn't go away but it will eventually get easier to live alongside.
You are a very strong person. You obviously don't feel strong right now but I've seen it on here through everything you've dealt with.
This is often a tough time of year when you're bereaved, made much worse by the current situation.
You keep going for your DC and eventually you will see a brighter future ahead. Don't judge yourself by other people's timescales. Everyone goes at their own pace. page
Sending you so much love.

Given how you're feeling, the tenderness of you offering your DC a midnight feast or home made biscuits and an orange has really touched me. I can hear you holding it together for the sake of your children and I can only imagine the colossal effort that takes.
Four years is a long time and you've carried you all through this far. You can do this! One day at a time, but keep going. You're in the middle now but things WILL change. You will feel better. You'll never get over the loss of your husband but you will take it in, slowly, until the fact of it lives inside you more and more comfortably over time. It will happen, but it's hard to see that right now.
You know the feeling when you've got the flu and you can't fully remember what it felt like not to have it and you're feeling so rough that you can't believe you'll ever feel right again? You're there emotionally. You can't imagine it being anything other than this, ever. But it will shift and you will feel different and there will be pleasure and joy and happiness for you again. You can't see it for yourself yet so all you can do is trust it's there and keep going.
Rest whenever you can, take any shortcuts you need to, prioritse your sleep. You can do it!

Tunnocks- I couldn’t bear to not reply to you. Your message has hit such a nerve.

Not the same I know, but I too have felt at the end of things this week. Marriage ended 3 years ago, new partner committed suicide 2 years ago, my two kids are similar age to yours and eldest is just soooo hard. Depression closed in lately and yesterday after days of suicidal thoughts I was secretly determinedly suicidal. I felt so low and empty I couldn’t even text anyone for help. I thought about posting here but felt too bleak. I was utterly convinced I’d come to the end of the road and felt my jug was totally empty.

However, and I say this tentatively, today has felt brighter. Some small things have made unexpected differences. I don’t feel happy (far from it). My circumstances haven’t changed (nor will they). My mental & physical health remains unchanged (and will continue to be a struggle). BUT.... I don’t feel that bone-aching, soul-sapping longing to be dead/asleep/escaped as much as I did recently. Something shifted.

Something will shift for you too in your thinking, I absolutely guarantee it. Somehow it just does. I am still devastated by losing someone I loved to suicide. But I’m going to try to not join those ranks.... fancy teaming-up together to help each other avoid that awful fate? I’d like that, and would value talking with you as you seem such a lovely person who’s had so much to contend with too.

You sound like you have been doing such a great job for the last four years and it’s understandable that you feel that you can’t go on, but you can. Concentrate on the next 10 minutes, the next hour, getting some sleep and then repeat....small steps. Children can be hard work even at the best of times so it must be incredibly difficult for you and must feel very lonely but there is always someone on here for you. Small steps tunnocks. Thinking of you 💐

Hey tunnocks. My df died when I was a kid. It took my mum many years to be happy again. For a long time there was me, little, who used to cry through the night. My siblings who were always depressed and used to shut themselves away, had no motivation and my mum was always worrying about them. I don't know how she got out of bed every day. She couldn't mention my dad without crying.

For years we were all just putting one foot in front of the other, taking each day, still feeling like we were reeling in shock.

My mum has made a nice life now, she's met someone who she lives with. She no longer has that look of grief in her eyes. We all made it through. Please message me if you need to.