From: rstevew@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.personals,alt.personals.misc,alt.sex,alt.sexual.abuse.recovery,alt.support,soc.women,talk.rape
Subject: Re: Loss and how to adjust
Date: 25 Jul 92 11:13:35 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Armory

In article <1992Jul21.191115.12686@rchland.ibm.com> Pooder@vnet.ibm.com, but I can't receive e-mail, so forget it. writes:
>This looks like a good place to find some suggestions of how to get on with
>my life after having an almost unbearable loss.  I hope it is.
>
>Just over a year ago my fiancee, Bonnie, her son, and I were returning from my
>high school's 20 year class reunion.  I was driving.  As we left her folks' place
>I somehow failed to see an approaching train.  It hit the car on the passenger
>door at about 40mph.  Her son and I were severly injuried.  Bonnie was killed.
> 
>I have recovered physically and my mental abilities are mostly coming back, 
>but despite all I have been trying, I can't seem to get on with recovering
>emotionally.  I've been in a grief support group, I've been seeing a 
>psychologist (one with whom I had been working before the accident, so I 
>know and trust him), I'm in a group for divorced and widowed people, I have 
>friends and family, and I talk and talk and talk.  
>
>It seems like just when I get to feeling ok, everything comes crashing back
>down and I can't keep on.  My job is suffering, my kids don't get the 
>attention they need, and most things I used to enjoy have lost their flavor.
>So many things remind me of her and I just fall apart too often.  Or I go
>on autopilot and bury all my feelings with a frenzy of activities.  Neither
>works well.  
>
>I met (well, I knew her before, but just socially) someone new and got into
>a relationship within two months after the accident.  Deborah is good for me
>and very supportive, but I'm afraid of hurting the relationship with all I'm
>dealing with.  We've talked about just being apart for a while (how long?) to
>give me time to get through this, but that would feel too much like another 
>loss and I couldn't handle that now.  Besides, I like our being together too
>much.  It's getting more and more serious and I like that, but I'm so afraid
>something is going to happen to her, too.  We went to Winnipeg and back and
>had a wonderful time, too, but I still worry. 
>
>I'm living with so much guilt.  I caused the accident that killed Bonnie.  I
>should have seen the train and stopped.  I got involved with Deborah right
>away; it know must look like I didn't even care about Bonnie that much.  I'm
>not keeping up with my job like I should, because I can't handle the logic
>due to brain injuries.  My new job should begin next week, but I don't know
>if I'll handle that, either.
>
>I'm reminded of what happened so often.  I drive past the house we were 
>going to buy on my way to work.  Every time someone does something dumb 
>on the road and I mutter "stupid ^%$*" I'm brought up short with the 
>thought, "But they didn't kill anybody on the highway; I did."  I even fell
>to pieces when I found a broom that was Bonnie's in the laundry room.  
>
>I spent most of this morning in the men's room crying because of a letter I 
>saw posted on the misc.kids newsgroup.  Any ideas on how to go on?  It won't
>stay this hard, will it?  I can't keep on much longer if it does.
>
>Please suggest anything that may help.  Thanks,
>Pooder  -  Don Fearn   -    Rochester,  MN   
-------------------------------
Sounds like you are doing what you can. As one who has been through a
very painful breakup after 17.5 years of marriage, and didn't even see
it coming, I recall being virtually insane for about 2 years after before
the smoke started to clear. I can blame myself for our breakup, but a
good part of it was just that we didn't know somethings about each
other as well as we thought we did and we grew apart. At first they
will say to you that "time heals all wounds", and you will think that
they are nuts and that they simply don't know what they are talking
about, and you'll be right, of course, they don't. But whether they
understood or whether they had just been told by someone that that is
true, it really is true! And you will say to yourself, my god how can
I possibly live through several more years of this hell, and then
little by little the new memories will make the older ones fade a bit
and give you something to base a new perspective and a new life upon.
Hold on to your ladyfriend. She should know what she's getting in for,
because she WILL see you at your worst from now on and she will have
to know how you would like her to be there for you. And she will want
to know that if she is the person you describe. She doesn't sound like
a coward taking on a person in your predicament, and I think you may
find a lot of strength in her. Try to give some back just as soon as
you have any to give. And take care of your lost love's child, if that
has fallen to you, I don't think you mentioned that. If you didn't
mean to hurt your love, then just remember that accidents happen.
Humans aren't perfect, and I don't know what we'd do if they were. You
could talk all day about whatif's and blame, but it just happened. You
couldn't handle all the input the world was giving you at that crucial
moment and couldn't process the train. All of us have had near misses
that could have been disasters, we were just lucky, that's all. We
have all lapsed momentarily and corrected. Driving is only
statistically safe. But when you are the one it happens to, I know
that you feel like blaming yourself beyond any ability you have to
suffer for an imagined failing or to change what has happened. You
can't, and it's not your fault unless you want to try to comprehend
the totality of chance in the universe and how the world is so
powerful and huge and how you are so small as are we all. And then it
becomes a meaningless task which would only spoil the life that your
lost lover would have wanted for you, and that would compound the
tragedy, so just don't. I don't know how to say it but I have been
somewhere near close to where you were with a pistol in my mouth, and
just don't mess with it. The universe is too enormous for any of us to
fathom, and we have much less control of it than we imagine. Try to
get love back into your life and don't hold back. You will cry many
tears in your life, but have someone who knows why and cares. Even now
with your new found friend you are piling up the memories against the
horror that you lived through. It sounds to me very much like post
traumatic stress, so continue to seek help and keep talking till you
feel more like you've talked it out. I did that. I wore out some
friends doing it, but the ones I have found are special, and the ones
who stayed are very very dear. I was semi-catatonic for ten days after
my wife just announced she was leaving, not eating, nor drinking much
nor able to concentrate on anything, books, radio, TV, anything. I
just lay and kept praying that it hadn't happened and that I would
wake from this nightmare. I lost thirty pounds in ten days. My urine
turned red. I know something of what this is about. Go ahead and be
vulnerable even to strangers. It will help you, and you know? The
people that I didn't even know who I found myself telling everything
to are the people that I still know and care for to this day. That was
how I met them. It's been four years, and I still hurt, but I can
function and I can love. I have had a lover since and I discovered
that I had learned something new. I have learned to pay attention to
each moment with them and savor it, and when my last lover went on and
we agreed she and I didn't have that much in common, I had only a
little grief. I loved her, but I had learned how to let go and to not
have my ability to love suffer for it. I was ready for the next person
to come along and ready to love them tonight if the feel
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