Grief & PTSD are not good bedfellows!

Babe -

I want to talk about grief.  I hate GRIEF and I want to kick the SHIT out of it (I know, watch my language, but I’m just so pissed right now! I’m like your mom, we have a descriptive vocabulary!)  I want it to rear its ugly head to me so I can give it a piece of my mind! Somedays, I feel nothing.  Nothing sets me off and nothing makes me sad, and I go about my day like it’s just any other day.  Then out of nowhere, it just hits me like a ton of bricks, and I can’t breathe and my heart is beating so rapidly that I feel it’s going to jump out of my chest if it beats any faster.  Looks like Anxiety Thursday came early this week.  It started Tuesday night and is hitting me hard right now.  All I keep seeing is the look on your face before you passed and hearing you say, “I’m going!  I’m going! Hurry up!”  I just want to explode-- I keep trying to push it out of my mind, but it keeps coming back.  When I see the look on your face in your final moments, I start to panic, my heart races, and all I can do is cry and call out your name, “Babe! Babe!”

How could this happen to us?  Is this really how our story ends?  I just can’t accept that - I CAN’T.  How can you leave me?  HOW? I don’t get it.  I just DON’T!!  You didn’t even get a chance to fight.  The universe didn’t even give you an opportunity to fight for your life.  It happened so quickly that I didn’t even get a chance to try to grab it before it shattered right before my eyes.  I see that moment playing over and over in my head and I just want to burst.  Why is the universe so cruel?  How can it just take you away from me like this?? I don’t get it.  I just don’t.   

I keep seeing you on your knees fighting to breathe, yelling “I’m going! I’m going! Hurry up!” after you regained consciousness from your seizure.  Honestly, the last thing on my mind was that you were going to die.  I would have never guessed in a million years that today will be the last day I ever see my husband alive.  That never even crossed my mind.  But you knew.  You knew.  You looked scared and worried.  When they brought the gurney, before you got on, you gripped both my shoulders and we both just stared at each other.  We were speechless.  I was in tears.  The last thing you saw before you passed was me crying and scared, and the last image I have of you is you fighting to breathe while on your knees, gripping my shoulder, staring at me with your scared and worried eyes, unable to say a word.  I can’t accept this is how it ends Babe.  I cannot.  I just can’t.  When do I wake up from this horrible dream?  When?