Should I hang on for a miracle or is it time to say goodbye?

[mysteryoflife]

This is a complex question so apolgies it is long. I feel that I need to make a decision inside myself and need help with it if someone can offer it.

Two years ago my then partner suffered a severe head injury which created a spiral and ricochet effect that has torn lives to bits really.

At the time of the injury, he recovered after a few weeks and seemed to be normal and back to himself but it left weaknesses in him that did not appear for months later until he was placed under significant stress.

All the symtoms of brain injury appeared very suddenly...personality changes, emotional outbursts, total lack of empathy and it also triggered very sudden onset of mental health problems - severe depression and mania.

At the time, none of us had any clue what was happenning.

This all happenned over a matter of days rather than years (he had to some degree been experiencing these symptoms but was hiding them as he had no idea what they were) so it all really exploded at once.

After he left us, things unravelled very quickly. He developed very severe depresion in addition to manic symptoms and over that period his behavior was like nothing I have ever seen before. He was being abusive to me, but could not seem to control it but at the same time was aware of it and the suffering he was causing to his loved ones which seemed to make things worse.

Sadly he just saw the GP and got some antidepressants and no one looked any deeper into things and he felt at the time the solution to feeling better was to just be left alone and I had no choice but to accept it.

Over a long period of shock, confusion and trying to make sense of it, I started to get suspicions about him having more than depression and spoke to headway and also posted here for advice and was told by you all and by headway to encourage him to get help. We were not really in contact at that point (at his insistence) but eventually he came around to listening and sought advice on it. While there is no scientific test which can “prove” that his head injury caused all of this, the doctors say there is enough evidence to make the assumption that his injury was causal in creating this situation and he is getting CBT and the right advice now.

He is still deeply depressed, very sad and says he has "black moods" much of which I think is linked to the loss of his family as I believe he loved us deeply and has to live with all of this.

I have felt some relief over finally getting some answers or an explanation that makes sense after being so confused for so long (thank you MN for advising me to look into this as at the time I felt I was crazy), but at the same time the answers are not definitive. He lives a quiet but relatively normal life with no emotional attachments and does not want to see me and only speaks to me rarely. I think it's just too hard for him.

I consulted with a specialist myself and was told that his illness may be permanent, his injury might have caused personality changes or he might get better from the depression and go back to the old person. Nobody really knows what will happen. Time will tell.

I am doing fine in terms of the healthy grieving. I have done the counselling and still go when I need to, I have a support group for it, I miss him every day, and my stepchildren too but the pain is part of the love I had for him and that's something I would never regret.

I am in a really peaceful place where I work off he assumption that I am bereaved, because it feels that way sometimes.

I still talk to him in my head and feel like he's around me all the time. I feel mostly (despite what happenned) that I was really blessed to have had a love in my life that was so great and I'm also sure that it was his love that made me who I am and provided me with the strength to cope with losing him.

I'm sad, yes, but in a healthy way and I am doing okay. Ups and downs but I have learned so much about msyelf and feel like a richer person in many ways.

My question is really about moving on.

I am told by the doctors that no one knows what will happen but that the idea of thinking he will retunr to who he was, realise he misses me and feels the way he used to and going back to a life together is pretty slim to say the least.

Practically speaking, I am late 30s, and lost a "family" here and would very much like to have one again instead of a lifetime without. It's just me and my child now and there's a lonliness there and it feels sad that I might never have that again or have that feeling of being part of a team truly as I was before.

All of that said, this man was the love of my life.

I have no idea how to let go if there is even the slightest chance I could have him back.

It wasn't for the children, I would probably pack a bag right now, show up on his doorstep and tell him that I didn't need anything back, but I was going to just be there, for however long, through whatever because I would rather be with sick, unstable and damaged him that nothing at all and that is how I really feel.

I don't know if making the decision to wait, to just make a life on my own leaving the door open for him to come back in 5, 10, 20 years is something that only makes worse what's already a very sad story.

I just don't know what to do?

How do you let go when there's still that nagging slither of hope?

But back to you...

I know this is so hard, but I really think you should try and access more support from friends/family in light of a conclusion that it is brain injury.

I am glad you are getting support from others, but sometimes we need our friends and family to understand too.

Keep posting :)

Something similar happen to my step-dad when I was 17. One evening, quite out of nowhere, somone walked up to him and punched him in the face; he fell and smacked his head on the curb and was in a coma for three days. We never found the guy who did or figured out why.

He didn't remember us for a long time, forgot his dad & brother had died, forgot where we lived, forgot his youngest children. After a few months the memories returned, but he was a different person.

Quick tempered when before he had been the mildest man I'd ever known. Poor personal hygeine, when he'd always taken a lot of pride in his appearance. Lacked care, lacked empathy, lacked any interest in anything at all really. His life was just get up, go to work, come home, stare into space, go to bed, get up, go to work...and so on. Nothing we did would interest him in anything else.

My Mum stuck it out for 12 years, but even though he improved some they split up in the end. He was simply too different a person. The man she knew was gone and she got sick of living a half-life.

Since the split (7 years now) he's actually improved a lot; he has a new partner and they seem very happy.

Thanks Party. I think the problem is really him - because he is none of those things and never has been,

Being honest living with him for years he would have the most obvious health problems and was of the mindset that going to the doctor was for fannies and one of the things I had to do as his partner was bollock him if he needed to see a doctor. He's also a person who sees the GP as God (in fact when his GP told him his behavioral changes had nothing to do with his had injury he tock this as gospel for a year and painted me as a lunatic).

On top of his natural "it will be fine if I bury my head in the sand" personality, he is also now alone. He sees friends only casually. He doesn't live with anyone. He has no family nearby who see him more than once a month and he come from a stiff upper lip family who believe brain injury changing someone's personality is about equivalent to atrology in terms of how seriously you should take it. If his arm was falling off his Mum would tell him he would be fine if he just had a nice cup of tea and he tries quite hard to fit in with that view of the world.

They find "drama" distasteful I suppose.

So he spends his whole life "managing" it, to the degree that he lives an isolated life with no emotional pressures, no close relationships, no one to notice his thought or feelings and he keeps a lid on the worst of it with anti depressants, exercise and his "routine" which he sticks to rigidly and panics if he deviates from.

I'm not in a position to be that closely involved -he finds speaking to me very difficult for whatever reason and he wants me kept at arms length. I think I serve as a reminder of something he can't think about, and I also have to (to some degree) to protect myself from being an emotional punchbag so I have to strictly limit contact because the upset from it make it difficult for me to live a normal life and be a good Mum.

I am not sure what treatments or help he is getting...he said CBT but he's hardly very verbal and I am going of a 10 line email rather than a long talk. I would hope that he gets the right help but for my own sanity have let go of feeling responsible for it or as if I can control the outcome.

What i am saying I suppose is that I don't want to get my emotions all invested in helping him, because that isn't my job anymore. I wish it was - but he doesn't want my help. I can't shove it down his throat and continue to feel like an annoyance to him. I've told him I am always here and part of finding a peaceful existence has been loving him enough to respect his wishes to leave him alone and let him do this by himself.

I hope he IS getting the best / right help but have no doubt that he isn't. I might as one last ditch effort ask him to at least speak to Headway and get some support outwith the GP system which has badly failed him.

"Letting go" of him, of my ned to help him,save him, protect him, bring him back has definitely been the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.

Thank you for that post TheRadiant and it brought a thought to me...

If he is a diferrent person, he might well be happier with someone else rather than me. After all it was th unique combination of our characters and personalities which made us love each other so much -and if he is irrevocably a diferrent person now -I would not love him the same way and he would not lov me the same way and maybe I am hanging on for a ghost.

I would have stuck with him though, forever through whatever, just really because I loved him so much before -but perhaps while the sentiment is right there is no real "love" in the relationship anymore.

He probably needs to find someone who doesn't remind him of the person he once was.

I feel so happy you have come so far with your boundaries since the last thread and have let go of trying to control/take responsibility for this. Absolutely the right approach.

I posted because I didn't want other readers to think there was no hope, or that doctors saying this is permanent is correct. In the future you may decide to do so more reading, or you may not. either is fine - put yourself first.

I remember from the last thread how kind you were, but absolutely you should not tell him this ?nformation or talk to him if it will make you feel bad,particularly with the complications with his family.

In the last thread we were unanimous you should put yourself first and that still stands, so I hope you don't feel my post was undermining that.

I do agree with the comments above about how he may be an utterly different person now, but this is understandably enormously painful for you. Sadly, major life events (and brain injury is very major) of all kinds can make people change and evolve apart.

Having seen some impact firsthand you would have been in for a very rough ride if you had stayed together. I always have one memory that first comes to mind when I think of brain injury. This was eight years after man's brain injury. Couple in their 50s. The wife visited her husband in a high security unit every weekend. She was so utterly in love with her husband, but so utterly broken at the same time. Sometimes he refused to see her, sometimes he wanted sex, sometimes he would try to hit her and we would intervene. I will always remember how she seemed so empty behind the eyes. Her level of sadness was devastating. She talked to other (younger) wives and advised them to leave (even though their partners exhibited 'lesser' symptoms), to put themselves first. She told them to go and live their lives while they still could (I think she felt she would never meet anyone else :( ) It's so hard to convey, but this woman's life seemed so completely joyless it has always stuck with me.

It's a weird sentiment, but I hope you understand my point - you should be so proud of yourself that you are not that wife. It takes an enormous amount of emotion work to get to the place you are at. Everyone deserves a life and to be happy.

Have you addressed (misplaced) guilt in your therapy? Partners of those with a brain injury often have to process a lot of guilt to realise that this is not their fault and they can be happy.

I am coming to accept these things partypopper. Although the act of turning your bad on a sick loved one (even if their sick mind tells you this is what they want) goes against it all doesn't it. Ricker, poorer, sickness and health and truthfully I was willing to accept that lifetime of caring for him in whatever state - not as a sacrifice or anything - but just because I loved him that sort of a way, than anything is better than nothing.

I've been told he did me a favour by choosing to do this on his own, and that he's released me from a lifetime of it. A part of me is slowly starting to believe it.

The boundaries are better, for sure. I've released him to battle this however he wants. I do think the counselling I get doesn't help because she approches it (and have tried more than one counsellor) in terms of dealing with someone who left - and that's never sat well with me because I nevr believed it. He would never have done this, not ever, in his right mind. So it's not the same.

I have guilt, yes. Partly because I didn't notice much closer to the accident that he wasn't sleeping and that he was tired and that he was not himself. Partly because i somehow couldn't change this. Partly for not insisting he saw a neuro after the fall.

Partly because I was there that day he fell and could have stopped him falling. I didn't. I had glasses in my hands and thought he was just wobbling on the top of the stairs...teetering and he'd at worst stumble. He passed out on the stairs is what I think happenned, because he made no effort to break the fall or grab onto anything or lean forward or change direction. He just went like a fling rag doll. I wish I could go back to that day, drop the glasses and lean forward and push him out of harms way.

I know we can'tt feel guilty for things that we didn't intend and I know it does no good. What I mostly feel guilty about is the idea of considering moving on...marrying again and letting him go.

It's good you are getting these thoughts out. It's not your fault he fell, it's not your fault he left, it's not your fault you are (rightly) thinking about moving on for a new life without him. How were you to predict that previously healthy person would fall like that? it's entirely logical you would think it was just a wobble. I wouldn't have known to drop the glasses either. It's not your fault you didn't insist on a neuro, how were you possibly to know? We have seen that properly trained GPs didn't even know what to do!!!

None of this is your fault. You are allowed to be human, you are allowed to be happy and to create a new life for yourself. You can't take responsibility for other people only yourself (and children until they can look after themselves)

doesn't sound like the therapist is helpful, it they are going to simply focus on 'he left'. the trauma is much more complicated than that.

I have go out so i'll be offline, but I check this thread later

Go easy on yourself :)

I know. Thanks party xxx

You aren't abandoning him by starting a new relationship, having a close male friend etc, moving to another place, starting a new job- I think for your DS sake you need to let go, and your own.

Staying in and thinking about what might have been isn't healthy, this far on. I know this sounds a bit harsh, but you have to face you're not part of his life, or his future.

You sound very nice, but exhausted with it all, what else is preventing you from moving on and releasing you and your DS from this?

I know I have to think of DS.

I worry he will be sick forever and won't have anyone to look after him

I worry he gets better and I have moved on

I worry that I will marry someone else and never love them as much

I worry I will waste my life away waiting and he gets better and STILL doesn't want me

I worry I am letting him down

I worry that it's bad for me to be happy if he's not ok

I am exhausted. You're right.

Prog about brain injuries on bbc1 at the mo if you're interested (or you may be watching it)

You can't be there for someone who doesn't want you to be. You have to let it go. He doesn't want your help. This sounds very blunt but you have to see it for what it is.

Who is going to look after you? Do you have close family and friends in RL who are your friends and your family?

I think you need a different kind of counsellor now, because the one you are going to is now extending your inability to move on. And you are free to do so, to go anywhere with your son and build a life that is fun and you owe it to him and yourself to admit that, want that, and make some changes.

mystery I also remember your previous thread. I am so sorry for your loss - what an awful situation.

I'm not sure how much good advice I have, but a few things occurred to me.

Two years - less in fact, if the symptoms only manifested later - is nothing in coming to terms with something like this. Don't put extra pressure on yourself by thinking that you have to resolve it immediately - just allow yourself to feel whatever confusion you do.

I would tell your friends and family what has happened as far as you can, and also tell them if what would help most would be for them to discuss good memories of him with you - they won't know that. The more people know the more real it becomes and the more you can get a balanced perspective on something so difficult and hard to understand.

It has also been my experience that if something my therapist says makes me angry, it's a sign that I need to work on that issue - it sort of flags up the things I'm really not okay with. (And often is a sign that what they are saying is something I really need to take on board).

Essentially I suspect that at the heart of your dilemma is a feeling of deep deep guilt (not that it is in anyway your fault of course) about the fact that in order to survive yourself you need to leave someone whom it is obvious from your posts you really love. And your therapist saying you need to walk away triggers that so you get angry in order to deflect the pain.

Thanks all.

I am going to move on.

I do still love him, but he's not the same, he doesn't want me and I am hanging on for what is very likely nothing as some sort of pointless sense of loyalty for a person who doesn't exist anymore.

If he was here, I am absolutely sure that he would tell me that he loved me, that he knew how much I loved him, that we'd had a wonderful life but it was over and he wanted me and DS to have another one, and another family. He definitely would say that if he were here.

I agree that the therapist making me angry is because they ARE right. They want me to move on and create a new life and a new future and I have been unable to do that because I was never ready to say goodbye.

I am still not ready, but want to be.

Does anyone know how to get ready to say goodbye? Is it just time and it comes naturally, or are there things you can do.

I feel like I need to be allowed to have that grief in the same way I would have done if he had died and that if I can work out ways to let it out it might enable me to move on.

I was wondering whether or not it might be an idea to grieve in thw way I would if he were dead. Like maybe have a special spot and bury something special between us and maybe have that as a space I can go and talk to him, or writing him letters. I don't know. I just fee like pretending he never existed instead of addressing the process of grieving him and saying goodbye is counter prouctive.

He haunts me.

I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell him all the things I wanted to tell him -even though he would say not to be silly and I told him every day

There won't be a formal goodbye where you hope he suddenly changes and says " stay" and will you be hoping he rushes after you and you have to move back?

Just make plans to leave and go. You aren't being cruel or abandoning because he doesn't want you there. And don't contact him for at least 9-12 months during which time you won't have sat moping or thinking what to say on a text or letter he will probably ignore.

It is very hard for you but, you are wallowing a bit and no, it wouldn't be better if he had died. He is happy to be alive, and has a different path. You can't change that. I think I remember you're previous threads - wasn't he dating as well? Sorry if I have that wrong.

No! You are not wallowing! You are grieving - perfectly legitimate grief. A complex and agonising grief, too.

I like the idea of some sort of ritual - it is why eg funerals are important markers for the bereaved to accept they have lost their loved one. I know in my experiences of bereavement (where someone has died), I have naturally needed to follow age-old, sometimes solemn, traditions to mark their passing. And in a very real sense he has died, he is not who he was and what you had no longer exists.

You sound full of ideas (see? I think we always know on a gut level what to do). One idea I had was a garden. After one particularly excruciating bereavement I wanted to wear a black arm band but resisted! Instead I wove a black ribbon through the christmas wreath on our front door, with his name and dates written on. You need a marker/s imo to celebrate what you had and to help you move forward without him.

Hi Lavender. no, he's not dated anyone since it all. I haven't seen him face to face for a year and I already moved away from him to protect myself. I only speak to him once in a while on email.

I do feel like I need to celebrate him or something. Sounds odd, but maybe

It's not a bereavement though, as such. It's very hard, as he has changed so much, and it's no ones fault - and clearly doesn't want or need you in his life. This is very sad and you haven't changed or done anything- it's not a normal demise of a relationship. It's hard.

Do you remember that woman, who was gf to a man held hostage for years? She stopped calling herself his gf and said friend instead. She must have been dying inside but she had to, to have the life she wanted. She didn't know if he would ever come back- and though he was released, they didn't get together. I guess I'm trying to say you have to face what you know is fact. And act accordingly. Your heart will be fine.

Concentrate on your DS happiness and fulfilment, then yours. Plan a cruise round the Greek Islands, read up on the history, take your DS and enjoy it. Or round Ireland. Take up a hobby, get a puppy, do agility with the dog and your DS- build happy memories and see someone who isn't judging you at moving on, and living a good life. I think in your situation, fake it tol you make it is good. Keep going, join a ramblers club, a dinner club.

Celebrate him:) once I bought a couple of bottles of champagne, some m&s nibbles and cried. Then I read a jilly cooper from cover to cover:) felt great the next day. Closure is fine as long as its closure. Organise the next six months with your DS activities, Christmas with friends/ family/ travelling etc and NYE. Every weekend you have a plan.

Then you can do that.

Of course it's a bereavement. No he's not dead but he may as well be. It would be 'easier' for op psychologically if he had died. There are not grades of grief. It's all grief. This one is particularly agonising with its unbearable twist.

Getting a puppy dog isn't going to cut it. It may be nice to have a puppy but it's not in any way going to uproot, obliterate, the agony of this. With all respect, lavender, I think you're talking out of your arse. You don't get this at all.

I've read all the thread and you've had some excellent wisdom and advice, I can see that you are allowing yourself permission to move forwards, baby steps will get you there quicker.
It's a complicated grief, but grief non the less.
Hard for you to understand and hard for others to understand and give you the right support.
My DH had a brain tumour which totally changed him from a gentle supportive husband and father into a mix of emotionally volatile, aggressive stubborn rejecting, all joined together with a lousy memory many physical difficulties and medical needs.
I hankered after the usual him, the old him that was steady and predictable.
In time (part time mostly) I had to accept that it was no good looking back, this was now him, this was the new 'normal' I didn't like it so placated myself that he would return, he would get better and this was merely a blip.
It left almost disloyal to accept the new him, but accept I must, it was a begrudging acceptance.
Each day whilst looking for glimpses of the old him I would tell myself this is the new normal, there were many tears, which confused him greatly as he had no awarenes of the changes, he often forgot he had cancer too.
I was lucky in that I had friends and a fab Macmillan nurse who listened supported and advised.
There are probably some online communities supporting people connected with brain injuries, I'm sure you would benefit from being able to even just read stuff like that, to validate your feelings and renew your resolve to move forwards, however you to choose to.
Give yourself permission to find happy.

Springy, you're very rude. People deal with things in different ways and often it's interesting to hear how others have managed and if you think it's a way that would suit you. If it doesn't work for you, there is no need to dismiss their way as rubbish and talking out of their arse.

Denying it is a bereavement is imo the talking out of our arse part. Those of us grieving for a living person need to grieve and not be told it's a matter of perspective, to get on with jolly pastimes to take our mind off is inappropriate and dismissive imo.

Anyway, apologies for hijack op.

Springy, people deal with things in different ways and at different stages. it's not talking out if ones arse. It's managing as best you can in a way that works best for you and your DC, family etc.

Thanks all. Have been busy moving house so haven't been able to respond. Thank you all for every word. It's been tiring moving, but it might well be the "fresh start" symbolically that I need.

Klaptout I am so sorry. I am just so sorry. I know how it feels for someone to be there in body but to just be someone else. It's so funny how much of us is encoded in that jelly-like organ and how lonely and confusing it feels. I am sure you miss you DH very much (the old version) and it's a reminder for me that if he were here right next to me...I would still be missing him because it's just not him.

I think the way our own brains and hearts work is that we need to label things and get closure in our minds. I think Springy understands that it might be best for me to consider him as "gone" as it allows me to grieve in a way my mind will understand.

Lavender, you are so right, I will find ways to celebrate him.

I feel in so many ways like I am slowly coming full-circle.

Two months of thinking he was perfectly fine and just danromly started hating me and behaving like a lunatic.

Eight months after that of him being a complete wreck...loving me one minute..exploding like he hated me the next and being so confused. Coping with the depression diagnosis and putting this all down to a nervous breakdown.

Accepting after a year of "treatment" for depression that he was just not coming back or being normal.

Accepting after 18 months that I needed to move on and let him get on with it.

Realising after 24 months what was actually the cause of all this, and that despite it providing some relief / making sense of the past couple of years - it actually just means that the person I have loved most (DS aside) is gone forever and never coming back.

New home now, new life, new school for DS. I got rid of ALL our furniture...even ornaments and vases and bedding and started it all from scratch. It was like every little thing remindd me of him.

I now have plates he never ate off. A bed he never slept on.

I'm going to take a quiet winter and muddle through some of this grief, with mixed feelings of both missing him so much and coping with the horrible emptiness he left - and also being incredibly grateful that I loved someone so much that their presence stayed with me the way his did.

I love the idea of getting settled and taking off on a cruise, grabbing at and eating up life after so long spent in shock and confusion and pain.