Author Topic: How are you feeling?  (Read 1733 times)

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Offline Jillity

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How are you feeling?
« on: August 19, 2018, 08:45:31 PM »
I lost my husband four weeks ago and I am heartbroken and devastated.  I feel completely lost and I'm hurting like hell but I'm struggling on and somehow dealing with the practical aftermath of a death.  There's a welter of paperwork, all the financial matters, collecting the ashes and so on and so on.  I am just about keeping it together.  I don't want to sound ungrateful and I have some fantastic friends but they keep on asking me the same question, 'How are you feeling?"  It's beginning to get me down.  When my husband was alive we used to absolutely cringe when someone was reporting on a tragedy and the reporter said things along the lines of,
  'Your whole family has been wiped out in this terrible tragedy.  How are you feeling?'
Now I feel as if people are doing it to me.  Every time I post on Facebook the question comes back.  'How are you feeling?'  I keep getting messages and emails as well as phone calls,  'How are you feeling?'  It's only been four weeks.  With the best will in the world I'm not going to feel great am I? 
A lot of people have started badgering me about going out and doing things.  I really don't feel up to arranging holidays and parties and get togethers for friends. 
Does this always happen when you become a widow?  I don't know how to cope with all this.  I just want to quietly get on with things and pop round to the one or two friends who live nearby and carry on with my hobby which is dog agility.  I want the quiet and the space to build a new life when I'm ready.  I love my friends and they have given me huge support but they are putting too much pressure on me.   Any advice on how I can let people down gently would be wonderful.

Offline Philb

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Re: How are you feeling?
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2018, 08:32:30 AM »
As a society we simply don’t face up to death and bereavement, so we haven’t got a vocabulary to use. “How are you feeling?” Is a very poor way of saying “I’m worried and concerned for you and want to express this”.  I think there are a number of approaches you can take here. First of all, if you can, reword the question in your mind into a statement that your friends are doing their limited best to show concern, rather than wanting to actually know how you are.

Get yourself a stock phrase to return an answer “well it’s early days and I miss him more than I can say and I’m still getting to grips with this new world” and leave it at that. Or actually take the question and turn it around “well actually I’m struggling to (do something) and it would be great if you could help out a bit”

Post to Facebook yourself and say “Just giving you an update on how I’m doing so you don’t feel you have to ask....”

The badgering thing is a bit harder. They all mean well but they don’t understand the seismic shift in your life. I’d be inclined to put that into a Facebook post as well. “To be honest, I’m only just at the start of this new journey and need some time to shift things into a new perspective and it will take time, so I need to find my feet first”.

Your friends are of course tremendously worried for you; you don’t need me to tell you that. If you’re finding it too hard just say something like “in order to recharge my batteries I need peace and quiet to contemplate/meditate/think about things. I’ll be fine, but right now that’s my priority. I really appreciate you asking me, and I promise I’ll get back to you when I feel strong enough to take that next step.”

Hope that helps, and if it doesn’t, that’s fine as well - anything there that jars you, see if you can rework it or smooth it out into something that does!

Phil

Offline Jillity

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Re: How are you feeling?
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2018, 10:35:39 AM »
Thank you Phil.  I'm not very good at baring my soul on Facebook but I don't want everything I post to bring me back to my state of grieving.  I think a widow needs time and space to grieve in her own way.  The, 'How are you feeling?' question has got to me because it made myself and my husband cringe collectively if we heard a reporter ask that of a bereaved person.  I know my friends are concerned and I really appreciate that.  I have some friends who are giving practical help and then just letting me get on with it.  It takes another widow to understand what you're going through.  I can't speak for widowers.  I think men may cope differently but they hurt just as much.

Offline Karena

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Re: How are you feeling?
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2018, 12:58:05 PM »
 :hug: It isnt so much about who we lost whether we are widow or widower parent or child - but how grief affects us personally and for some that might be to get out of the house as much as possible, to seek increased social interaction and try and displace grief with frenzied activity, for others it will be to retire to our lair.Neither is wrong, there isnt a wrong or right way to grieve we have to do what is right for us.

to answer your first question though, yes it is something that makes me cringe too and it is something said often - but it is asked with different motives and thats whats really important not the words themslves  - journalists generally ask because they want a story - but sometimes because they want your story to create empathy among their readers which in some cases might lead to bringing some-one to justice or some further outcome (not all of them have purley selfish motives)

Outside that sphere of people, some will ask and hope you are not actually going to tell them, (but its better than those who cross the street or dive into a shop so they can pretend they havnt seen you)  - but others, and i think the majority of others,ask because they genuinley want to help and saying how do you feel means they are offering to provide an outlet for our feelings.
 Grief  isnt visible in the way a physical injury is but even with crutches and plaster casts people will still say how are you - while what they really mean is how can i help you.Those who do genuinley want to help are often left not knowing how they can do so with grief -whereas with the physical injury it is more obvious if you drop the crutch they will pick it up without saying, can i pick it up for you, or without you asking them too - but with grief it is less clear cut  - and so as Phil said asking them to do something specific will help, -whether that is practical -search out paperwork. or social - i dont feel like going out yet but come round and have a cup of tea with me.

Its a nightmare journey and very early days for you.I remember fleeing a shop in tears on overhearing two women talking where one said she had left hubby at home because he was a nusisance when she was shopping - and the other agreed with her - I  just wanted to really let rip and yell at them  - we do become perhaps oversensative to things others say -  and i realised later they wernt actually saying designed  to hurt me and they wernt actually saying anything i might not have said myself in jest, when he was alive.