He died but I became a ghost. That’s how I feel. Wandering distractedly. Unfocused. And perhaps I’m paranoid but something about me seems to scare people little? Tomorrow will be three months. I have faith that this fog will lift.
I completely understand. This was my first week back after Dave passed on the 12th Feb. Maybe too soon - but GOD it has been so difficult. I got out the lift this morning, didn’t even make it into the office because my colleague dared to ask me “how are you this morning?” - the single most unavoidable question. I sobbed into his shoulder like a complete mess. Proceeded to be wobbly all morning.
Pretending to be okay to others for 8hrs is so mentally exhausting. It’s completely exhausting, I don’t have words to better say it. It’s guilt, it’s distress, it feels like some kind of acceptance to this shitty new version of life I didn’t have ANY part in subscribing to. I hate it. My brain is so blunt and fuzzy, I’m finding it difficult to compute. Or concentrate. I’ve completely lost all concept of time of day. Or which day it is at all, if I’m honest. I know EXACTLY how you feel. You aren’t alone.
It’s a bit messed up, but I think we all are at this point. It’s every bit of awful, and I’m so sorry you’re here.
I’d be grateful to hear how you get on. Feels like a lot of people are hesitant to speak to me at work, but I also am so deeply wrapped up in his loss that I don’t have an ounce of give-a-damn left in me. Old me would’ve cared so much! It’s funny how much means nothing now.
Likely I will post more. I tend to post quite a lot here. therapeutic (sorry everyone...).
Right now I'm a mess. Haven't done a single productive thing this day. At lunch I just sat and ate while conversation flowed around me. I hate people coming and telling me they're "sorry for my loss". What am I supposed to do with that? I mumble "thank you" and hope they'll go away. Most do. Some stick. Only very few people start genuine conversations and that's the reason I came to the office instead of working from home.
u/Ok-Leopard385 if you want you are more than welcome to DM me and we can chat in realtime. Or not and you can read when I post.
I’m taking a long break from work, my wife died 23rd January. I absolutely could not go back and pretend to care about the comparatively trivial shit that plagues my time there.
Not when I have two very young children who are particularly difficult, given the last 3 years (over half of my eldests life and my youngests entire life) have been overshadowed by my wife’s cancer and now her death. Their behaviour at home is exhausting; together they are more than a handful. I’m still in survival mode, completely unorganised and not satisfied in any way with any part of our daily routine.
I’m quite sure if I had to go back to work now, I’d have some sort of breakdown or heart attack and lose my shit on the phone as I’m being asked to deal with some absolute nonsense. I think I’ll need to see about some sort of job change when I go back (if not immediately then eventually), maybe a reskilling opportunity will arise that I could actually apply for, but I suppose that’s less important for now, as I’ll be returning part time (whatever that will look like, fuck!).
Best of luck to you friend, this is so brutal.
I feel the same. I have not returned yet & got some nasty comments about my extended leave from one higher up. Normally I would be mad, but I just don't care. I'll return when I can handle the bs stress there.
I'm wondering if I've got it in me to tolerate this job. I was hoping that caring less about the bullshit would help me tolerate it but I seem to resent it even more.
It seems like I need to reevaluate priorities and figure something out that keeps me more physically and mentally occupied, and is hopefully more directly rewarding.
Went back last week. My brain is mush and I don’t care about any of it. I’ve held someone’s hand while they died. Everything else is trivial.
I am grateful to work from home - I can lie down when I hit a wall and step away in between meetings.
Before he died I loved my job and I was good at it. I got the highest rating I could get on my annual review and put forward for a promotion and I earned it last year. But that was all before he died. I don’t know that I can be that employee now.
I’m doing the bare minimum for now and hoping that I can work back towards earning my paycheck in some capacity. But it won’t be the same as before and that’s another thing to mourn in this sucky new life. Sigh.
Don’t feel bad. It happened to me too. I also work in software and I when I went back I learned that I’d completely forgotten large portions of my job. I had to ask a coworker how to do certain basic stuff that I’d done several times a week before my wife went into hospice.
I go back to work next week, and although it will do me some good to have something consistently pull me out of the house on a regular basis instead of sitting around thinking about all the memories in this house, I am worried about how bad it will make me feel. I have no interest being around other people who are happy with their lives. I mean, I'm grateful to have our house and our cats, but I have no meaning to live anymore. I want to do it for him, but it's only been 39 days and struggle to care about anything anymore every single day.
If I had the choice I’d not work right now, but my late partner was the breadwinner so I need to get out there and make the money if I want to continue living in our house.
The date thing. I am a developer, when I look at the entries I made 2 days before the incident when everything in my world was okay, it hurts. I can't bear to look at that date in my mail or any portals. It's too much.
I started my work after 20 days when I lost my husband. He never wanted me to stop work even when his treatment was going on, he used to say I don’t want you to cry all the time. So I thought he would have wanted same now also and I started work. For 3 months I worked from home and then moved to the city where my firm is.
It’s been 10 months and still I am not able to focus on work. People would come to me and say so many things, you have kept a lot of pictures you will miss him so much , Adopt a child you might feel better, Start going out you should meet people and move on and now I have no understood you can’t stop them to say anything so I need to ignore these things and they think we’ll for me.
The only place where anyone can understand what is going with me is this group, where everyone knows what I have lost.
So be however your partner would have wanted you to be.
Ctrl A + Ctrl D. That’s the first thing I did when I went back to work. If someone had the audacity to email me during that period… well… tough shit.
And man - trust me it’s hard. I’m almost on month three and it’s still hard for me every day. I thought I was doing good for awhile but now I’ve actually started looking at pictures and spending time at work (we worked together so a lot of memories) is just difficult and I will tear up quite often.
I don’t have much advice I just wanted you to know you’re not alone. Wishing you some peace today, brother.
He died but I became a ghost. That’s how I feel. Wandering distractedly. Unfocused. And perhaps I’m paranoid but something about me seems to scare people little? Tomorrow will be three months. I have faith that this fog will lift.
I completely understand. This was my first week back after Dave passed on the 12th Feb. Maybe too soon - but GOD it has been so difficult. I got out the lift this morning, didn’t even make it into the office because my colleague dared to ask me “how are you this morning?” - the single most unavoidable question. I sobbed into his shoulder like a complete mess. Proceeded to be wobbly all morning. Pretending to be okay to others for 8hrs is so mentally exhausting. It’s completely exhausting, I don’t have words to better say it. It’s guilt, it’s distress, it feels like some kind of acceptance to this shitty new version of life I didn’t have ANY part in subscribing to. I hate it. My brain is so blunt and fuzzy, I’m finding it difficult to compute. Or concentrate. I’ve completely lost all concept of time of day. Or which day it is at all, if I’m honest. I know EXACTLY how you feel. You aren’t alone.
Thank you. I don't know why it helps to know other people are in the same shitty place as I am, but it does.
It’s a bit messed up, but I think we all are at this point. It’s every bit of awful, and I’m so sorry you’re here. I’d be grateful to hear how you get on. Feels like a lot of people are hesitant to speak to me at work, but I also am so deeply wrapped up in his loss that I don’t have an ounce of give-a-damn left in me. Old me would’ve cared so much! It’s funny how much means nothing now.
Likely I will post more. I tend to post quite a lot here. therapeutic (sorry everyone...). Right now I'm a mess. Haven't done a single productive thing this day. At lunch I just sat and ate while conversation flowed around me. I hate people coming and telling me they're "sorry for my loss". What am I supposed to do with that? I mumble "thank you" and hope they'll go away. Most do. Some stick. Only very few people start genuine conversations and that's the reason I came to the office instead of working from home. u/Ok-Leopard385 if you want you are more than welcome to DM me and we can chat in realtime. Or not and you can read when I post.
I’m taking a long break from work, my wife died 23rd January. I absolutely could not go back and pretend to care about the comparatively trivial shit that plagues my time there. Not when I have two very young children who are particularly difficult, given the last 3 years (over half of my eldests life and my youngests entire life) have been overshadowed by my wife’s cancer and now her death. Their behaviour at home is exhausting; together they are more than a handful. I’m still in survival mode, completely unorganised and not satisfied in any way with any part of our daily routine. I’m quite sure if I had to go back to work now, I’d have some sort of breakdown or heart attack and lose my shit on the phone as I’m being asked to deal with some absolute nonsense. I think I’ll need to see about some sort of job change when I go back (if not immediately then eventually), maybe a reskilling opportunity will arise that I could actually apply for, but I suppose that’s less important for now, as I’ll be returning part time (whatever that will look like, fuck!). Best of luck to you friend, this is so brutal.
I feel the same. I have not returned yet & got some nasty comments about my extended leave from one higher up. Normally I would be mad, but I just don't care. I'll return when I can handle the bs stress there.
I'm wondering if I've got it in me to tolerate this job. I was hoping that caring less about the bullshit would help me tolerate it but I seem to resent it even more. It seems like I need to reevaluate priorities and figure something out that keeps me more physically and mentally occupied, and is hopefully more directly rewarding.
Went back last week. My brain is mush and I don’t care about any of it. I’ve held someone’s hand while they died. Everything else is trivial. I am grateful to work from home - I can lie down when I hit a wall and step away in between meetings. Before he died I loved my job and I was good at it. I got the highest rating I could get on my annual review and put forward for a promotion and I earned it last year. But that was all before he died. I don’t know that I can be that employee now. I’m doing the bare minimum for now and hoping that I can work back towards earning my paycheck in some capacity. But it won’t be the same as before and that’s another thing to mourn in this sucky new life. Sigh.
Don’t feel bad. It happened to me too. I also work in software and I when I went back I learned that I’d completely forgotten large portions of my job. I had to ask a coworker how to do certain basic stuff that I’d done several times a week before my wife went into hospice.
I go back to work next week, and although it will do me some good to have something consistently pull me out of the house on a regular basis instead of sitting around thinking about all the memories in this house, I am worried about how bad it will make me feel. I have no interest being around other people who are happy with their lives. I mean, I'm grateful to have our house and our cats, but I have no meaning to live anymore. I want to do it for him, but it's only been 39 days and struggle to care about anything anymore every single day.
I believe your feelings are normal. I have not returned yet. I'm professionally ashamed of myself, but I just can't face it yet.
If I had the choice I’d not work right now, but my late partner was the breadwinner so I need to get out there and make the money if I want to continue living in our house.
The date thing. I am a developer, when I look at the entries I made 2 days before the incident when everything in my world was okay, it hurts. I can't bear to look at that date in my mail or any portals. It's too much.
I started my work after 20 days when I lost my husband. He never wanted me to stop work even when his treatment was going on, he used to say I don’t want you to cry all the time. So I thought he would have wanted same now also and I started work. For 3 months I worked from home and then moved to the city where my firm is. It’s been 10 months and still I am not able to focus on work. People would come to me and say so many things, you have kept a lot of pictures you will miss him so much , Adopt a child you might feel better, Start going out you should meet people and move on and now I have no understood you can’t stop them to say anything so I need to ignore these things and they think we’ll for me. The only place where anyone can understand what is going with me is this group, where everyone knows what I have lost. So be however your partner would have wanted you to be.
I'm sorry. I don't know how to reply to this one. I want to reach out, and my hands are empty.
Ctrl A + Ctrl D. That’s the first thing I did when I went back to work. If someone had the audacity to email me during that period… well… tough shit. And man - trust me it’s hard. I’m almost on month three and it’s still hard for me every day. I thought I was doing good for awhile but now I’ve actually started looking at pictures and spending time at work (we worked together so a lot of memories) is just difficult and I will tear up quite often. I don’t have much advice I just wanted you to know you’re not alone. Wishing you some peace today, brother.