Quote: People who grew up with 2.5 siblings, a dog in suburbia, and parents who loved and respected them are a rarity.
I agree with this, but I also think that what Happy has been through is also a rarity-- I hope. I think most of us were in normally dysfunctional homes, but hers was criminally negligent and it's a miracle she has survived intact.
Regarding how people treat you when someone dies-- at first they do offer condolences and that is much appreciated. I compare the early days of widowhood to being set on fire and shot into outer space, where you are just in free fall, tumbling and burning. When I woke up every morning, there was just this heart-pounding TERROR that settled over me. I expected to be sad, to miss him, to feel immobilized, but the raw fear was unexpected. Many people have panic attacks in the grocery store when they see his/her favorite food. Many people cannot bring themselves to go back to the church where the funeral was held. Some people leave everything at home exactly as it was... a friend left her husband's shoes where he had taken them off in the living room for a couple of years. Throwing away their toothbrush, medicines... awful. OTOH other people strip the house of all reminders the same day or very soon. NOTHING makes you feel better, so it doesn't much matter what you do. Only time-- lots of it-- makes any difference. No way to rush the process.
Later, unless they have suffered a similar loss and really understand, most people tend to disappear, and there is a subtle pressure to "get back to normal." The length of time others deem appropriate for mourning varies, but generally you are expected to be mostly "over it" by the end of the first year. Different people react in different ways to the loss of a spouse, but for most of the widowed people I've been in contact with, at one year, far from being Over It, it is, in fact, finally dawning on you that they are NOT coming back EVER. When this really sinks in, it is a huge shock. It took me at least two years to come to terms with the loss, although I have a widow friend who lost her husband the same time I did (almost five years ago) she says she still misses him more every day. I made an intentional effort not to be like her. In fact, I was hurting so much that I told people at the time he died, "I don't want to be feeling this bad in a year."
Before I became a widow, I was one of those people who didn't know what to say, who didn't bring up the deceased person's name for fear of "reminding" the mourner. As if they could think of anything else!! One of the things widowed people tell me the most is that no one talks about him/her anymore. They never here his/her name... it's as though others are trying to act like the person never existed. Some of these things apply to other losses... but there are some things about being a widow that are unique.
Thank you so much for your expression of condolence and for asking about this subject. It really means a lot to me.
As for your not wanting to revisit your past... clearly it is affecting your present life. This is too big an elephant to stuff into a shoebox. If you find a counselor, you can say, "I want to do some work on this, but frankly, the idea of going through every detail is abhorrent to me right now. Can we do this in baby steps?" Remember, the shrink is someone YOU hire to help you get where you want to go. If you don't like him/her, move on. If you got a bad haircut, you'd dump the hairdresser, right?
Ironically, my husband and I had a saying when facing something unpleasant, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
You are a tolerant person to have your MIL living with you. I think this is commendable, and it seems to me one of the ills of our society that our elders are relegated to institutional living.
Having said that, does having her around all the time serve a hidden agenda for one or both of you by preventing you and your H having to face each other alone?
