I was active duty military, and he is also non-verbal and autistic.
The things she talks about, how focused she was and how hard it is to do any of that now, I've been experiencing exactly the same things. I find it hard to do anything, put anything together, etc. after 3 years of managing his care closely, being at his bedside all hours, having to scream at nurses to call away a code because he couldn't breathe (anaphylaxis), and a ton of other things. All of this while working 50+ hours a week, including remotely from his bedside.
It's like I burnt out that part of me. Maybe I'm slowly healing? But I don't feel like it. I get minutes or hours when I can hit that stride again and it's absolutely terrifying to realize that I can no longer keep it up.
I don't know that this comment adds anything to her story. I just felt like I understood her on a level that's hard to communicate and had the urge to share that.
It felt like I was running on adrenaline and cortisol for two years. Scrambling to find anything to help, steadily applying the steel tip of my proverbial boot to the backside of the healthcare industry, doing home IVs, changing ostomy bags, making sure meds were straight, trying to gently urge her to eat something at all, deep diving into the pits and snares of clinical trials, looking at adjunct therapies and arguing with doctors about our right to do those, growing to an ambient, everpresent rage over time.
When she passed, it all went silent, and then the world shut down.
I still feel like my brain has changed. It's difficult to put my finger on how.
In retrospect a lot of the time I spent trying to find options and understand the disease and its treatment would have been much better spent tending to the emotional needs of my family. I should have accepted much earlier that it was over and just prepared for that inevitability rather than clawing and scratching for options right until the end. I just didn't know how to do it.
I’m not sure what comes next but really hope that energy and happiness finds its way back to you with time.
And yet with the other choice you might have regretted "not having done everything you could have". That is the curse of those with the ability to actually do something. In many ways, those who do not understand and simply place their faith in doctors are less burdened.
You did what you thought best at the time; that is all you could have done. Nothing you did or did not do was a mistake.
There are no "right" answers when facing mortality. My sympathies for what you went through, and I hope you are doing better.
No way. If you had done that you would have felt even worse for not trying everything you possibly could.
This is resonates with me. My father died from cancer a year ago, the bit that survived two treatments was extremely fast moving. I had a business with him, and I spent a year trying to do as much of his job and mine to help him out. But he wanted to work, and I think it was good for him to have forward looking goals.
It feels like every day I am trying to figure out how to make my brain work the way it used to. And almost every day I am trying to decide if we had a bus factor of 1. Fortunately I have family support, and a part time job to keep me busy and bring a bit of money in.
I think about the emotional support and I think we did the best we could have. My dad was clear about listening to the doctors about his options. We spent some time reading about options and researching. But it was clear to all of the immediate family that we lacked the depth of knowledge needed. It was interesting to read about and learn about the techniques. And we were able to get advice from medical family friends. But his team was very good and thoughtful. We also thought the treatments were working. Until a later scan showed a small blip and before we could understand the options and decide he was in the hospital and terminal.
I still feel like I'm moving through the motions of running our business, but not actually doing it. Or something, it is a frustrating feeling that I am trying to fix but maybe I can't. Or maybe it will take years.
My sister died of ovarian cancer right at the start of COVID. My big sis, 1 year older. Even though the oncologists said early on that it was extremely aggressive and wasn't responding to treatment, nobody in the family could process it. Oddly, except myself. I live an hour away from them and I think that separation allowed me space to process the inevitable. I tried to be that person who took care of the emotional needs of the family, and my brother in law. But I didn't have a single person to "confide in" because nobody accepted that she was going to die, including her. She had just had a baby a few months before (IVF, and tbh I'm wondering if that process kicked the cancer off). She had to look at her tiny baby and imagine him growing up not knowing her. You could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. Yet she couldn't bring herself to make little recordings, write emails or notes to him for when he's 12 or whatever. That's how much denial she was in - she denied him that sense of what it would be like to have her talk to him.
The first to give up hope was her husband actually. I suppose because he was closest to the front lines, and saw the toll it took on her, the constant downhill. And the dozens of other things that aren't cancer but are part of the depressing array of events like pleural effusion, blood clots, and the digestive system eventually getting blocked off with tumors. When he finally admitted to me that it was terminal, she had less than two months left.
My lovely wife is sitting across the table from me now wondering what "heavy stuff" I'm typing. I couldn't imagine being able to accept losing her.
I hope your life is recovering.
My brother in law met a lovely woman just over a year ago. She has two kids and he had his one. They make a great family unit and she's good for him. Even in practical ways like taking turns bringing the kids to school or sports, covering for him when he had to work late. My family get along with her too. I know it still hurts him to think about what he lost but he's very much a "get on with life" person, so he gets on.
Which is all to say, I hear you.
I quit my job in 2021, physically incapable of continuing and wanting to end it all, thinking if I just make it through each month it'll eventually get better and it never has. It only got worse like the universe kept ratcheting up the difficulty. My abusive partner only got more abusive as I didn't have a job (but paid all our bills) and couldn't muster any energy towards relationship milestones as the abuse and depression crippled me. Years of enduring this only led to now being abandoned and feeling worse than ever, like there is no upside worth the calamitous downsides in life.
Slowly starting to see some light. My two young kids get me through this, they are with me every other week and give purpose to my life, they are best thing ever.
I hear you too. Don't be scared to ask for professional help. Meds can make a difference.
Seeing people's testimonials made me feel better so I thought I'd post mine.
You don't know how much, when, how or why, but it will happen. I consider someone blessed if they make it to middle-age largely "intact."
When you're young and unencumbered and largely undamaged you need to use that time in any way you can; inevitably you'll end up "walking wounded" one way or another--less than you were--unable to return to who you were before whatever(s) happened.
When I was young I'd encounter older men that struck me as "defeated", tired, incurious, dismissive, and I'd never understood why until the last ~half decade or so of my life.
I really think human "life" and vitality is something that does get "spent", often against your will.
I'm slowly healing and learning how to live a new life. A life that I like. But it's been really fucking hard. This wasn't in the manual.
I hear you both (and anyone lurking :). Much love to you all.
Battered husk is the best description I can think of for how I felt.
It took a while, but I was extremely lucky to find the right combination of therapy, SSRIs, and life changes to drag myself out of the hole. I now have a stable job doing something that sparks my interests and makes a meaningful contribution, and my love of life has returned. I still have the occasional day where it feels like I start to backslide, but they are getting rarer.
I want to reassure anyone who feels tired, burnt-out, and hopeless, that things can and do get better.
I feel like I'm constantly mourning who I used to be, like it was a different person entirely and there's no getting that level of empathy or patience back again.
My son is non verbal, non mobile.
We live the life of the Servant. We used to define ourselves by our profession, now we define ourselves as "special needs parent". This is a step closer to actually being more human. How trivial our lives were before, how we wasted so many hours on shit that didn't matter!
> It's like I burnt out that part of me. Maybe I'm slowly healing? But I don't feel like it.
You've probably heard it, but maybe to help remind, I just wanted to say - It's okay to be burnt out and do little or nothing. I believe it's the minimum requirement to healing and it _will_ take years maybe even a decade. I was cheated on and that affected me for 2 years and that's trivial to the road you walk.
I've been doing my own thing for close to two years now, trying to heal.
Maybe I will someday. Until then, I somehow manage to keep up with his (still elevated) needs and try to be a good husband and father to my other child.
That level of understanding between you and her should be universally shared between everything that is living. This way, support can always be found.
I wish you and your family all the best. The same goes for Bess, as I told her many times. I wish I could give you a hug, make you feel protected and capable, as the hero that you are.
I apologize if I overshared, hth.
She had a simple fever cramp (her second) in the tub and nearly drowned because of it.
This was roughly a year ago. I remember walking out of the building at work in trance, looking for a cab, after I got the call, thinking my daughter was dead. She was back to normal (apart from the nasty infection that lead to the fever cramp) on the next day. Buy my wife and I have never been the same since. I entered the apartment 2 days later, and the tub was still filled with water and some of my daughters hair, and there was blood on the living room floor because the medics gave her sedatives and she kicked against the syringe. While cleaning my daughter's blood from the floor, I got the distinct feeling that she really died and that I was just in a very long dream in which she survived, and that I would wake up very soon to a world of sorrow. That feeling has never left me. It may explain why most things now feel completely irrelevant to me, including work.
We quickly bought a house 6 months later and left the apartment. I now realize that this was mostly motivated by the fact that we couldn't stand the look of the bathtub anymore. It was also because we simply weren't afraid anymore of the debt, of the additional work, of moving. Fear is something that only remains a numb feeling after such an experience.
She is 5 now. The worst part is that she fully remembers. A few weeks ago, she freely and cheerfully explained in daycare that she once was bathing and then cried "mum" and then "fell asleep under water". At dinner a few months ago, she also explained that to us and then laughed and mentioned that "mum must've thought I am a mermaid" and happily continued eating. It crushes me just thinking of it.
If my wife had folded 2 or 3 shirts before entering the bathroom, my daughter would be dead now. If my daughter hadn't yelled "mum!" the second the fever cramp started, of if she would've yelled it under water, she would also be dead now. In this probabilistic decision tree, the leaf where my daughter survives has a probability that is negligibly small. To my very great surprise, I have found that this inevitably leads to religion. I have never been religious before, but I have indeed found great relief in prayer and sitting around in empty churches.
Life to us is now nothing but walking on a thin crust of ice, which spans over an infinite hell of fire, horror and torture. At any time, without warning, the ice may break.
My life has a stark demarcation of before and after that, and sometimes it feels like nothing is quite real since.
Me and my wife had a horrible experience ourselves where our 2 year old daughters best friend(also 2 years old) drowned in their family swimming pool after figuring out how to open the door herself. I know this wasn't nearly as close to heart as the other stories in this post, but receiving that text on a Saturday evening was super tough and me and my partner was crushed for months after it happened. It's now been 10 months and we rarely think about it anymore although we did end up in a house WITHOUT a swimming pool, so in a way it's still with us.
My grandfather ran me over when I was 6 and nearly killed me. When he ostensibly realized what happened, he took his sweet time to exit the vehicle while it was pinning me down, slowly get out, stare at me, and then made sure to run over me again while moving the vehicle. The only two things that saved me was that he was driving a light pickup truck, and my bike folded around my chest and neck and prevented the wheel of the truck from crushing them. I will never know if he saw me and ran over me intentionally or not, but I was in plain view waiting for the bus and he never expressed any emotion at any point over what happened.
I was crying and shaken up and traumatized, but he made sure I still got on that bus without so much as a quick medical checkup. I felt very numb and isolated for a long time after that. No one around seemed to understand that I'd just experienced a near-death experience. I also didn't receive a new bike for years, seemingly out of spite.
The rest of that event - why I walked away from the group, whether I was called back or just lucky, or even what I thought or felt when I went into the water - all gone. Can't remember. Only that afterwards, it felt odd how panicy mum was, and that she immediately insisted on swimming lessons.
So when I was five, this was an experience like "any" - How was I supposed to understand that I had a close brush with death, or what that even meant ?
(I wish your daughter a long and happy life, and may neither her nor anyone have to experience the feelings that you did, or my mum)
No permanent injuries on our end, but what you said about walking on a thin crust of ice rings true. And feeling like there's another reality where things didn't turn out OK. All the best to you, I am glad your daughter is OK.
One day my wife said she was going to give our 4 year old daughter a bath, then I find my daughter by herself in the bath and my wife all the way across the house in the bedroom. I asked “Why aren’t you watching her?” The reply, “She’s fine. She knows how to swim and the water isn’t even that deep.”
I work remotely in the upstairs bedroom and will occasionally come down for water. Half the time I find my one year old eating alone in his high chair in the kitchen, with my wife doing something in the bedroom. “Where are you? What if he chokes?” “You don’t trust me. He’s fine. I can hear him from the bedroom.”
My wife will get in road rage incidents. People flip her off and yell threats at her as she slingshots through traffic with our little kids in the back seat. “You’re going to crash driving like that.” “Stop telling me how to drive.” Someone pretended to pull a gun out on her after she swore at them. “You’re going to get shot.” “No I’m not. I can tell if any of those people would have a gun.”
She also has severe ADHD. Our daughter got under the sink when she was two and ate half a dishwasher detergent pod before my wife noticed and called poison control. Another day when my daughter was two my wife forgot to shut the gate at the bottom of the stairs when she came upstairs to talk to me during the workday. Suddenly I hear a series of thuds and cries. Our little girl had fallen down the flight of stairs after trying to follow my wife without her noticing. Same thing happened to my 1 year old son under the watch of my wife’s mother.
I’m so scared that one day I’m going to get a call about something horrible that has happened to my kids either because of my wife’s inattention or anger issues.
This is how I've felt every time a friend has tried and failed to commit suicide. I'm so sorry.
You used to be a superhero. And you still are. Remember who you are.
You were drowned in frustration. But now you acknowledge the reality of the present situation, it's time to execute the new accomplishments that will prove your greatness.
I lost my dad suddenly just two months prior, and my grandma shortly before that, but the loss of your partner (and in this manner after she refused help and I watched helplessly as she spiralled in her last year) eclipses any grief or pain I had experienced before or could have even imagined.
But I wanted to show a little appreciation for the OP and others on here sharing their devastating losses. Knowing love inevitably turns into grief but that that is a more universal experience makes me feel a little less alone. Small blessings but at points like these, we take whatever morsels we can get.
My son took his own life on February 1st, 2023. I feel like someone took a huge melon baller and scooped out the middle of my chest. My wife and I had been trying to get him back on his feet for two years at that point. He died quietly about 10 feet from me. The family cat kept trying to get me to open his bedroom door. I kept trying to respect his privacy. I finally took her hint.
He was the best person I knew. I imagined vicariously living a much better life through him. I still feel like a fragment of my former self. He was a sometime contributor here, by the way, under jwmhjwmh.
Anyway, I give my love to everyone here sharing stories of their losses. I find sharing memories of these loved ones is more comforting than platitudes, and certainly more healing than pretending nothing happened.
The most meaningful thing someone ever said to me, after my daughter was stillborn full term, was: "There is nothing to say."
I would describe my wife similarly, it sounds like. Kind, value-driven, cared too much, was the biggest personality in the room but somehow always made people feel seen and heard. But also deeply troubled and hid a lot of it, even from me I’m discovering.
Sending love your way as well. I agree, platitudes or things like “they’re in a better place now” or “looking down on us” make me only feel worse, but genuine compassion does help feel like the weight isn’t on our shoulders alone, even for a little rest.
I hope it gets better for you. It has for me.
I also decided to go visit one of our favourite places (Thailand) to get away for a bit, meet up with a friend, do some writing, and make some new memories here. It’s been really hard at points but definitely healing too.
You won't be the same person after, but in some ways that's good. Highly recommend grief counseling. Feel free to reach out if you need help from someone who has been through it.
When I failed to stop an acquaintance from killing himself a few years ago [1], it really fucked me up. I barely knew the guy, but I couldn't stop myself from feeling guilty over it, and I still have nightmares about it.
It led to a severe funk of depression that I still haven't gotten over, and it's led to poor sleep, poor performance at work, an increased irritability towards pretty much everyone, and I'm not completely convinced that that will ever stop.
I've seen therapists, taken various medications for depression and PTSD, trauma dumped onto pretty much anyone who will listen, and I think I'm a worse person now than I was in 2021.
I guess the likelihood of an event like this happening approaches 1 as you get older, but it doesn't mean it's not terrible.
[1] Written in some detail here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29185822
I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference.
This inevitability is something you should stave off as long as possible. Meet new people, add new experiences, learn new things while avoiding the siren call of nostalgia and the comfort of limiting yourself to the familiar.
Yeah I know, that's not really why I feel guilty, at least not exactly. I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything. Even if nothing would have changed, I still think I should have tried to do something, even if it was futile.
It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021.
I mean, I realize that no good comes from feeling bad about myself over it, certainly not for three years, but human psychology is pretty annoying sometimes.
I had a friend die by suicide. Shortly after I met him for the first time IRL. It messed me up.
I’m sure you’ve heard it before but for the gallery, there’s the “in the moment” suicides where the thought comes and people act on it. If anyone feels that way, please call a hotline, it really is just a temporary feeling that will pass. Then there’s the “sick for a long time.” My therapist described this group as having an unhealthy brain. They’re taking in inputs like normal, but producing harmful urges. That sickness isn’t a thing others can counter or take on for themselves. There’s professional help if you (the reader) are feeling like this constantly. But like all sicknesses sometimes even the best treatments aren’t enough. (Therefore we should not blame ourselves for what we could have done differently).
Knowing that still doesn’t make it better, but it makes it lighter. For me, anyway.
I know that this ultimate freedom is also ultimate selfishness, because the loss is felt by your close ones, not you. But this makes me perhaps an asshole, but not sick.
I was someone's last phone call. I lost her when I was 16.
Things happen and you adapt to survive it. And survival mode isn't made to make you happy, to become more generous or to expect more loyalty. And once your worldview changes for a pessimistic one, it'll taint everything around you (especially the new interactions with people)
Yes, some people change to be better: and that means (and I say it painfully) that many of them were the ones that caused unnecessary pain in others.
Some reference: https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experie...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_...
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Those who have experienced loss understand that sometimes we have to step back from things, life, our careers. It’s ok to do it. It’s your life, and the one of the greatest joys of life is: you get to choose how to live it.
I hope you bounce back. But take your time.
which is why I feel like I'm slowly becoming assholes because it's hard to have that kind of emphatetic feeling while still being sane in nowadays world. It's kinda sad that to have a healthy mental someone need to be less emphatetic.
don't know if that's actually true, of course.
Grieving while being a new mom must be brutal.
As always, yes and no. I'm a single father, my partner died when our daughter was 1.5 years old. A baby requires constant attention and care, so I didn't quite have the option of falling into some kind of depression and just doing nothing.
That said, I quite miss the abundant free time I used to have in my other life. Nowadays is constant battle about the littlest things. I pour the milk the wrong way and get screamed at for 15 minutes.
All too familiar.
Occasionally I stop to think what would I do if my SO passed away suddenly. I've found that it's easier to think about my own death than this.
Anyway, I hope you'll get some much needed downtime eventually.
Don't know if this was your intention but this comes across as if having a depression was a choice, which it rarely is with any kind of illness.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/secure-a-bright-future-for-bess-a...
It was a quadruple loss - losing the company I wanted to continue, losing my mother (who had provided emotional support), my father (who had previously been full of good advice), and then realizing that the support system that remained was not available.
Obviously this is different from losing a partner and father-of-a-child to cancer, but emotionally I recognize my own state ca. 2.5 years ago in this article - complete with the realization that the person I was before all of this is not around any more.
For quite a number of people the early 40s have some pretty brutal transitions in store.
That said, the nadir of the grief and loss is also in the rear-view mirror, and a few years later things are definitely looking up. We may not be the person we used to be, but there is such a thing as wisdom, and I think I have a much more nuanced and empathetic world view today, and a deeper appreciation of the value of lifetime.
For me it was caring for my dad in the hospital during COVID and his surgeries around the time. I had to often wake in the nights to drain his catheter. For some reasons, my mom would find it disgusting. And for some reason, not only did I not, my love for him only increased. We also spent a lot of time together which made me almost see him as an entirely a different person than the one I had known all life. It also increased my respect for him tremendously.
40s is such a coming of age time for us men. Its almost like the dawn of a new age.
My knees do feel like they hurt slight. Like just a little. And of course the hair begin to grey. All of a sudden you are in a totally different phase of life altogether.
Interestingly during that crisis a comment I found on HN about a book (Hannibal and me) helped me a lot to overcome that phase.
After reading a hand full of the comments, I am scrolling over the rest, thinking "wow", it's HN, which I read it almost daily to scrutinize nerdy blogs, startup gossip and API critiques. In a way, it feels good that these same people are indeed "real" people with "real" problems, not robots or perfect beings of sorts who only IPO their tech and end up billionairs, flesh-and-bone humans.
Reading this I wished I could just give a big HUG to everyone out there suffering for whatever reason; we all just have one life, let's live it in meaningful ways, let's help each other and be good to one another because anything else is really not worth it.
Worn out, grief-struck after enountering death or other loss, sad, traumatized - it is all horrible but I believe anything can be overcome. No, you won't be the same, but the other version of you can heal, can still live a good - perhaps more aware, humble, slower and more thankful - life, taking it one day at a time.
I'll be throwing in a "prayer for anon." - for everyone who posted here and the OP tonight: may their (your!) suffering cease, wounds heal, and meaning become clear in the end.
One thing I will suggest is a death doula. Birth doulas are very good if you can afford them and worth the money, at least ours was. I really wish we'd gotten a death doula too, to help out with all the dumb things about dying. The paperwork, the adult diapers, the cleaning of a large human, bedsores, the funeral homes, etc. It's a lot of dumb little things that add up in your head that will make it want to pop.
Anyway, reading this piece was going back to a place and a person I was. I get that feeling of living on stress and adrenaline. I took up drinking at night to help out, and that wasn't smart, it wrecked the little sleep I was getting. I should have gone coffee addict or vaping instead. No, honestly, nothing was going to help in the end.
I get the alonenese, the total burnout. For about 3 years afterwards, it was nothing but mechanical robot me. Not a lot of real feelings beside rage, which I barely had the energy for. The first year flus didn't help at all either.
It is better, but like some Dr. Who transformation, I'm a new me now. I have all the memories, but I'm not the old person. I know that sounds like 'Duh, we're all like that dummy', but this time, maybe due to the compression and intensity, it feels different. Like, you thought your first kiss would change you, and it did, but not as much as you though it would. The experience of being a new parent and having that kid's grandfather die within a month, that changed me a lot more than I thought it would. And I really don't like who it changed me into.
It gets better? Maybe, I don't know yet. I hope so.
My in-laws already prepaid for their funeral burial and arrangement and my wife's, and his own fathers as well. So when it all happened, it as a lot less stress. It was still emotional, but everything was handled ahead of time.
It might seem morbid to think about, but if you can preplan your funeral arrangements so your loved ones don't have to, it's definitely one of the better things you can do. Also leaves them free of having to foot the bill.
He had to scramble NYE to find somebody to take the body and then scramble and replan everything because the funeral home had been investigated by the state after a fire and was no longer operational
My FiL's passing has left a yawning chasm in me and an empty ocean in my SO's life. The club members are right, I think, you never really get over it. Time is not long enough to heal that wound.
And it's impossible to understand unless you've lived it. I think that's why its a 'secret', those on the other side just aren't going to understand. It's like trying to talk to someone in French by speaking English slower and louder. You have to go back a long ways down the communication chain, down to pure emotions. And no one wants to do that unless they have to, not just because it's too raw (and it is), but also just because it takes a really long time.
I have heard the 'just go to counseling' part too. Its ... well ... rage inducing. As if that could ever do any good and get me back to the person I was. I hear that too about veterans and their experience back home. Like we just defective and just go get fixed so that way we can go hiking and go to bars and concerts again and so you're not so sad and a bummer all the time.
Like, um, fuck you, you fucking child? Sorry ... ? Have some compassion and ...
But no, it's that they weren't there, they don't know, they can't, and that's a good thing.
You've crossed a bridge, you can't go back. They haven't, yet. They will, and then their pain will let them know your pain. And it will suck, together, for a little while, until that pain comes again in a new way.
Honestly, I can see why old people are so dour now. All these holes in their souls from all these dead people they knew.
Yeah, so, therapy didn't really help, I think you can tell.
About a year after my marriage split up I went to the marriage of someone close to me. During the ceremony I had severe chest pains and was pretty sure I was having a heart attack. I didn't want to disturb the ceremony (they were exchanging rings!) so I figured I'd wait 5 minutes then get up and call an ambulance.
The pain went away, and I didn't do anything about it for a while. Later I had a panic attack when at a new GF's place and had to leave.
Eventually I went to a therapist, and they pointed out these are symptoms of PTSD and trauma.
Anyway, I'm fine now. But it wasn't until I had the physical symptoms that I believed the impact of these things wasn't just something I could ignore.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/takotsubo-cardio...
Being at a wedding might trigger a strong physical reaction from your breakup.
Once you can endure that pain while remaining calm enough to hear Bateman narrate my pain is constant and sharp... in your mind, you'll be "alright".
I'll pass along some wisdom that was imparted to me at the time. A friend told me: "Life is for the living". I'm still here. It's my duty to keep carrying on in spite of it all. It's what my son and mom would have wanted. Honor their lives by carrying on in the life you still have.
I think one thing I worry about is my daughter possibly not growing up with a mother. Like how that will affect her.
It's been traumatic for myself personally, but it hasn't been ...I'm still highly functional and I'm still continuing to live life to the fullest.
Don't worry about that! My daughter lost her mother when she was 1.5 years old. It's important to have a sensible female role model. A grandma or an aunt will do just fine.
Please do take good care of yourself!
So far, he’s completely fine without her. He claims he has memories of her, but I think he just remembers photos and videos that we’ve watched together. I don’t think he knows what he’s missing.
How do you retain that connection, or do you just leave it in the past?
The initial conditions don’t have to be war or child abuse. A car accident can cause it. A variant, Complex-PTSD, is often caused by traumatic events over time that cannot be escaped, like caring for a dying loved one.
It’s dangerous to you and it can be hard to treat, but it often is treatable. The best thing I’ve read about it (and boy, have I read a lot about this) is The Body Keeps the Score — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-th.... Pete Walker also has published several books, and has many important and useful writings on his website — https://www.pete-walker.com/
PTSD doesn’t go away. You just cover it up until it explodes again. Please, if you think this is you, read more and try to get some help.
Shit goes crazy then you pick up the pieces and move on. The trick is to not drag anyone else down with you.
I asked that question so many times (for reference, see my comment on Jake's thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41163619 ). I asked it of my late wife. I asked it of my therapist. I asked it of my daughter, when she was sleeping.
"Is this my life now?"
The first few months were terrible. Then things started to get better. Before anyone jumps and says "a few months?! That's nothing!", there's a thing called "anticipatory grief". Look it up. (Besides, each grief journey is individual. Besides, who are you to criticize me?).
Then things stopped getting worse. For a while life was flat. Colorless. Dark. I moved through the motions. Dropped my daughter at preschool, worked from home, picked her up, went to the playground, went home, dinner, bedtime story, lie in bed doing nothing. Rinse and repeat. Go to sleep early to avoid feeling.
Then it started getting better. And better. And even better than that. Therapy, meds, pushing (omg so much pushing), friends, a new love. Things got continuously better. I'll never forget that year, but I also now know that I can survive what I think is the 2nd worst thing that can happen to a person. I know it cannot break me.
And I think Bess found that out too. Parts of us died with them, but new parts are growing. Parenthood parts. Discovery parts.
I remember watching my wife to make sure she was breathing. Then at the hospital. Then she wasn't. And it was terrible. A loss I cannot even describe, a part of your own soul that is torn out of you. Yet, that part was painful. Not just that, also in pain. In some sense, I was relieved she was no longer in pain. Even more relived she didn't have to witness her mom passing away. The world turning darker and more despair filling in. She missed on milestones, but also on sadness. And, at the end, I miss her but that part, slowly, became more bearable.
To Bess - I can't promise it'll be ok. No one can. But it'll get easier to bare.
It was a few months out from my wife’s passing, and your Irreverent Guide recommendation has been one of a few genuinely helpful things for me so far.
At the time I passed over the children’s book suggestions, but my daughter might appreciate them now.
My personal view is to hide nothing, NOTHING, from my daughter. The tears, the grief, the pictures, the videos. Talking about death using "death" and not "passed away". Talking about the memories and feelings. About a person no longer being here (not spiritual so no "heaven" for us, no waiting to be reunited). And, so far at least (just closing on 2 years, daughter grew from 4.5 to 6.5), it seems to be working very well. She's happy, active, well adjusted, charismatic and not prone to tantrums or worrisome behavior more than any other 6 years old. And her being happy makes me happy. I KNOW my late wife would've been proud of us both.
Death and destruction is the outcome of age, on a molecular, cellular and mental level. The foundational issue addressed by religion, because how else to deal with the unfathomable dread of "nothing gets really better, ever".
Take solace in the fact that this is true for most of your fellow creatures.
The concept of a happy ending, living happily ever after is a dangerous illusion. The best part is likely in the middle, or not at all. The end is pretty much always shit.
Zen, Stoicism, Rebirth ... so many concepts to cope with this simple, basic fact. You get born, you grow up - and then you start dying.
In a few years I probably won't be able to. I'm a married father of two, and every year stories like this hit me harder.
It pulls no punches, and is completely devoid of self pity. Relentless, ruthless reality, coming close to detachment even, but it's all so personal.
Incredible post.
Here is an excerpt where author William Irvine highlights Marcus Aurelius' thoughts on fate and grief:
> Marcus also advocates taking a fatalistic attitude toward life. To do otherwise is to rebel against nature, and such rebellions are counterproductive, if what we seek is a good life. In particular, if we reject the decrees of fate, Marcus says, we are likely to experience tranquility-disrupting grief, anger, or fear. To avoid this, we must learn to adapt ourselves to the environment into which fate has placed us and do our best to love the people with whom fate has surrounded us. We must learn to welcome whatever falls to our lot and persuade ourselves that whatever happens to us is for the best. Indeed, according to Marcus, a good man will welcome “every experience the looms of fate may weave for him.
Today, when I experience regrets and sadness that I can't control, I think; it couldn't have happened any other way.
I think of things in a similar way. All possibilities collapse into the only outcome that was ever truly inevitable. Reality is like the centre of a ven diagram with an infinite amount of circles. No "would of" no "should of' or "could of". Just "is". Only once we accept something can we move past it. Some people don't like this idea but I think that they just don't understand or want to acknowledge how much power the current moment holds.
There is a lot more suffering to be had when we try to escape our current suffering. A good example of this is drug addicts. On a long enough time line all forms of escapism eventually turn into prisons.
If you are reading this and want to disagree or explore these ideas I suggest the following. Sleep 2-4hrs one night then take a cold shower in the morning. As you find your mind and body trying to move away from the discomfort accept your circumstance. Stand still with the water passing over your face and focus on the freshness and crispness of the icy cold water.
I'm sorry to deflate the mood, but holy damn, that is one banger of a line. So much said so briefly.
And when your love dies and leaves you an empty husk, you can look back and embrace that loss that emptied you. Don't hide from love/loss. Life won't leave you alone, life has infinite love and loss.
You guys are some incredibly admirable and resilient people. Infinite respect.
My self-diagnostic is mild burn out with a stressful work trying to get our start up to service, mild depression due I think to working remotely in my apartment, barely going outside even on weekend (my only human interactions are through zoom).
I am trying to improve, but it feels that the energy spent during the past 5 years to dig that hole, is equal to energy to get out of that hole... and honestly at this point, I don't know if I can.
Quitting could be an option, but I have been working since I was 20yo without interruption, never had to really interview, just got hired or pulled from current job. And that feels scary to me now over 50yo to quit and maybe change career for something more social and less taxing.
I honestly do not know how long I can keep doing what I am currently doing. I need to keep myself in check to make sure that I do not go too far in that hole.
Whatever it is you are fighting with, never forget that you have far more subtle influence on your kids ten you might think. Letting things slide can have far more devastating conseuqneces to your relationships then you might think. If you dont get your act together, you might end up as an estranged parent a decade or two down the road.
I'm sorry for what you've gone through but appreciate your sharing it.
but we're not. we change, moment to moment, forever, endlessly -- it doesn't stop, ever. not when we go to sleep. not when we go through a traumatic event. not when we die.
a stark reminder of our fragility. i hope the author can find peace.
Time does heal though. It never stops you loving someone but it lets you gradually put something together out of the wreckage. The person you loved is no longer in pain, no longer suffering. The problem is feeling that nothing can replace the hole blown in your world.
Nothing does replace it exactly but you gradually build a different structure that makes life bearable. Other people need you (especially your child) to create that structure for them and when you start to do it you will see the value of overcoming your own pain.
> Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little and have a cup of tea. > > — Elder Sophrony of Essex
It's a quote from the end of Lars Doucet's post, Losing my son.
Stay strong, and if not strong, then just stay.
Trump and Musk are killing the very research that has a shot at saving lives and preventing these families from being torn apart. NIH and NSF are being gutted. Universities won't be able to do bio research at all under the new 15% cap on NIH indirect costs.
These decisions which save no appreciable amount of money have a real impact on people whose children must now grow up without them. As a new father this is really heartbreaking.
From their perspective, the origin of this thread is someone using a tragedy to emotionally manipulate on behalf of bloated institutions and their administrations — and every bit as monstrous as you believe their views are. Perhaps even more so.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_Magical_Thinking
I can only recommend to read « Éloge de l'amour » from Alain Badiou (and Nicolas Truong). It defends love as a conscientious and willing alterity of yourself, but a non-controlled alterity, an alterity puts in the hands of another.
That’s why, I think, people does not help that much someone that lost a love saying him/her will be more focused on them-self. Because the lost was absolute part of them-self, and not something they actually suffer from.
It's been three years and now I can manage my life on a certain level. But all those unsightly, dark struggles still haunt me. I never overcome them. Deep down I know, I'm a runaway, forever.
> You guys had loved ones?
There's so much societal attention to loss, but any complaint about the inability to form meaningful relationships in the first place is usually met with enthusiastic "git gud". Nobody cares about the slow burnout of knowing that you'll always be on your own.
Which makes sense if you think about it. A person going through loss must've had the skills to get what they want in the first place, which means they might useful to the society, they deserve a second chance. A person who cannot get what they want most likely is inherently incapable of reaching their goals, which means they're not as useful, and not worth crying over. It's like all those people paying attention to celebrities and their problems, but ignoring the homeless. The former might release another beautiful song, the latter will not.
Adorable. Your mom loves you because it's tremendously beneficial to the survival of the species and the culture, not because of some higher ideals.
All i can type is that it reminded me of some music and songtext that may or may not help give it all a place and time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpV3fO5Alto
About a month ago, I checked myself into a local hospital. I had severe ascites. My CO2 levels were 70%. My heart ejection fraction was 20%. I could barely walk much less breathe. I weighed 340 pounds. I had severe edema to the point that not only could I not put on socks, but flip flops barely fit on my feet. I could sit, tilt backward, and the edema in my back would act as a kickstand. Drinking a cup of coffee or eating anything more than half a burger would put me into a bout of physical pain that would last 2+ hours, and the only way to get past it was to lay down.
The hospital staff did paracentesis on me. They extracted 6, 10, 17, and 4 liters from me via a tube shoved into my abdomen. They put me on an around the clock Lasix drip and put a catheter in me. I urinated 2 gallons a day for 2 weeks. I entertained myself by watching the tube running from my junk to the catheter drainage bag, watching as I would periodically have bloody urine because I was passing kidney stones with so much force that they didn't have time to hurt due to the sheer amount of fluid coming off of me. After those 2 weeks, I weighed 215 pounds. My heart's ejection fraction improved to 50%.
Turns out my right lung did not have a connection to my right artery. And I have an unknown mass in my right kidney that they suspect is cancer. I had basically been operating my entire life with half an oxygen supply. As a teen, I had big time CFB athletic talent but didn't have the stamina and it was frustrating. And now I knew why. My right heart had started to weaken. They did ultrasounds and CT scans and angiographs. The cardiologist said that my heart had no signs of damage and my arteries were completely fine, so at least I had that going for me.
So after not having seen a doctor since 1992, I was stuck in a hospital for a month getting around the clock medication and daily blood work and weekly paracentesis (which will be happening forever). All my blood work is normal. I also have AFib, which is the main thing they need to treat and might even help to fix some of the backflow which causes my abdomen to fill with fluid. My blood pressure is normal for the first time since I was 6 years old. When I entered the hospital, it was 187/114. Now it's 105/80.
So in the course of a month, I went from having no doctor and no time in a hospital to a month long hospital stay accompanied with short term disability and a prognosis of needing weekly drainings forever along with 4 specialists and a primary care physician and about 8 prescriptions. I also saw a psychiatrist for the first time ever after having struck out multiple times with Betterhealth goons who wouldn't listen and kept trying to make me meditate.
I am a fundamentally different person than I was when I went in. I refuse to be that person ever again. I will prioritize my own needs over other people's feelings. I will be active because I want to be. I've got a plan to take my life back from the depression that hung over it for years. I have 3 or 4 product ideas that would make a hospital stay better and make the staff's lives easier without dealing with HIPAA. So yes, it sucked, yes, it was expensive, but it helped me gain perspective and while I wish I wasn't sick, otherwise it was totally worth it.
When I look in the mirror now, I notice all the places where my body reveals what I’ve been through. And I wonder, in a way that I wouldn’t if Jake were still alive, how this new body appears to others who don’t view it through a lens of love.
35 years down the road I am single again and thought of that girl who didn't happen. I did a little digging and found a recent selfie she'd taken. She's in her 70s and I still see the same artist and dancer I fell for a lifetime ago. That she stayed with me that way - it makes me feel hopeful about what people can be to each other.
What I left out of my OP is I was competing with her longtime boyfriend and my odds never were good (I did come close a few times tho). He owned an upscale restaurant, for starters. He was also a genuinely good guy. I know they were together a long while; I'd be happy if they still were.
Regardless, I'll be up that way this fall and hopefully we can get caught up.
Her husband was a frequent HN user, and their story was known here. This is a continuation.
I love seeing the human side of HN. This is an extremely unique perspective, a beautifully written but horrific snapshot of a woman's life when her husband - a man like many of us - dies prematurely while she's pregnant.
It's relevant in ways that another LLM article can't be.
i dont come here for middle aged emo bait. i wanna read HACKING NEWS
people dont come here for sad life stories they come here for hacker news.
if people post stuff like this I cant find the cool tech news, and people who want to post or see cool tech news wont post or comment on it either. there is a dynamic range of attention on the front page and this consumes it. I see it as an emotional ddos attack. Because you cant criticize it. If you do people get mad. This post is like a viral email that tells you to resend or else you hate jesus or something.
Plus it just violates common sense. why dont i go to cats.com to see some cats. oh thats weird its all sad posts about dogs that ran away. "why dont we post that on dogs.com". then they get mad at me because its insensetive or something. sucks dogs ran away but why even come to cats.com if its all dog posts. Half of hacker news posts are midlife crisis posts some days and when it hits that threshold i cant find anything about lisp or compilers or whatever, I leave and dont come back for months and then you lose the tech interest. curation is important.
somebody died. thats sad. makes u sad. maybe deep to some people. but its not hacking news.
theres nothing novel about this post or perspective anyway. somebody important dies in your life you get sad and have to rebuild and forget. youll have to redesign your own personal religion to get through it. it sucks this person was sad. its the worst thing in the world to them. hope they get better. okay but i dont want to see it on coolcatpics.com.
and THIS is HACKER NEWS.