Suddenly alone- partner dead

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Thanks guys - went to see my therapist and talked to my AA sponsor. Doing OK.

I'm really afraid of going back to the place I was when Tom and I met.

In those circumstances I was a think tank geek where the management would even pay your bills if you were too out of touch to handle it. One of my collegues did not even know who was the president. I was undiagnosed with no social skills - didn't even know not to hang up on people once my quetions were answered and had never been in a social situation like a party at a bar or out dancing or hanging with people for fun. Actually I did not think I could survive outside a very sheltered environment and Tom blew me out and helped me work on growth so we could be a couple. Before him I'd only formed emotional attachments to my grandmother and several animals.

Tonight I feel totally overwhelmed and want some reasurance that I won't back slide ... maybe a written guarentee of progress.

Am also following my shrink and sponsor's suguestion to call people Tom and I associated with every day, clean the house and have people over, etc. Very scary and I'm sad

I second that.


If your husband really did just die: I am deeply disturbed by your passiveness and handling of the situation.

And on top of that I am sorry to hear about your loss.

My husband died in Kehei Maui. Police report 0700547. It looks like a cardiac event.

How can people share and support others when they are shot down for doing so. What do you think I should be doing - self destructing??? That is what I am trying desperatly not to do.

If there is some sort of list of what to do when - please share. I'm asking how other aspies have dealt with loss and what questions one asks.

If there is another forum that the group thinks is more conducive - I'll gladly ask to get the topic moved. In the mean time

sderenzi and steve_cory... sometimes it's easier to get stuff like this out in the impersonality of the net. I think I understand your mix of skepticism and disbelief from the perspective that there are people online who'll fabricate stuff of a gory personal nature simply for attention and shock; however, there are also people who just don't know what else to do or how to get it out sometimes, and doing so online can provide a level of catharsis just by seeing the words on the screen in some cases.

julieme... closest I can come would be the separation and divorce of my first marriage and that comes nowhere close to your experience, and even then I handled it poorly and did a lot of denial and booze and drugs and I really don't recommend that. There is a list of grief symptoms and the common order of them but I've found that most people I've known grieve differently.

Have you gone through the five stages of grief?

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

http://www.coping.org/grief/stages.htm

You only think you do, when you're not around an they have their buddies I garuntee they're discussing whether or not he's slept with you, and if he would. They also are likely saying he should..... so in effect it's not true.

I'd guess that one who is grieving would like responses that acknowledge that yes, this is a difficult & unpleasant experience-however one deals with loss is appropriate for that individual.

I was bereft when my husband said he wanted a divorce-in terms of "how will I survive alone ?" on so many levels-emotionally, financially, and more. My ex was my partner, companion, other half. I made lists of my basic needs, and had to call up lots of gov't. & community agencies, in hopes of finding help living alone. I went back on welfare and began seeing counselors again (and was dx'd w/AS). My lack of outside-the-relationship social life (and being a non-working person) made "starting over" even tougher.
I'm lucky to have found a wonderful new person, so I have time & distance from that painful experience. If you're into books, I recently read & would recommend Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking"-it details the year after her husband has sudden cardiac event that kills him.

I'm trying to think of a non-inflammatory response and failing, so I'm going to leave it at: 'your statement is provably false', and then I'm going to ask you if this is the most appropriate thread to be posting your conspiracy theories.
Yes, some men are like that. Not all.

Oh, dear, sorry about that. What did he die of?? I hope to know so I'll know to prevent that from happening to me! It was also preventable was it? And how old was he?

(I hope my post isn't insensitive. Interacting with people is like walking across a minefield. Whereas you don't know if the next place you'll step on will contain a mine, Aspies often don't know if the next thing they'll say will cause a negative backlash against them. They might say something with good intentions, but it happens to be misinterpreted as a harmful statement to others. We all know this all too well, don't we?

And to complete the analogy, the neurotypicals walk across the minefield with a metal- or sonar-detecting helmet that gives them a heads-up-display (HUD) of where the mines are. Red arrows point to red glowing outlines of the shapes of each mine on the helmet's HUD screen, therefore, the neurotypicals know where NOT to step! Great analogy, isn't it? )

Why are people bashing someone on an ASPIE FORUM for being calm and collected after her husband's death? And calling it weird and scary??? Many aspies react to the loss of a loved one in a non-typical manner such as this. I myself do not get terribly upset when someone close to me dies; I cry a little, selfishly, because I don't have them around anymore, but I certainly don't go through any of the histrionics and "five step grieving processes" that seem to be the natural response of NTs. It's very hard for me to understand and be supportive to someone in grief, because it's so alien to me. And it's not that I don't care about people, of course I do, I love very deeply and intensely; I just don't feel that a dead person has really gone anywhere at all. They just aren't physically present in my life anymore. It's just like someone who lives far away from me so I never get to see them. I don't get histrionic about someone moving to another country, why would I about death?

(julieme, I don't intend this to speak for you and how you feel about this, I'm just making a point that aspies deal with things differently and we don't need to be judged on an aspie forum for being aspies!)

Everybody deals with grief differently, even Aspies.

It is not uncommon for people to be able to be able to talk about it frankly and open as there is a degree of emotional detachment with that method of communication. Same with online forums, they offer that emotional detachment that enables people to talk about things they could never do verbally.

For many the internet provides the only place people can talk abut things with the necesary emotional detachment to maintain objectivity and judgement. Just look at the number of grief, abuse, rape victims forums that have sprung up over the last few years. I know, for me, there are things i have talked about on THIS forum and others I cannot disclose verbally even with close friends even if i can print them letters (and have done with some things).

It is wrong of people here to give Julieme stick. This may well be her only non-emotional outlet to discuss these issues.

I'm hoping people have not misunderstood shock and grief and attempts at showing enough composure to 'commuicate' the problem to others as PASSIVENESS.

PERSONALLY-if you have I believe you are worth being beat down and dragged behind a pickup.

not really,
but at least smacked around.

now is not the place for you to learn, and anothers grief is not the place for you to learn it.
so back off this girl or I'll request you be temporarily banned for assaultive behavior.

I mean, how dare you???

What a downer!

Those people who attacked this lady's posts, how would you like it if someone really close to you died suddenly? We all react differently to grief and some people seem to be passive when they are really in a state of shock.

I don't know how many people remember the Lindy Chamberlain case in Australia in 1980. A lot of people thought Lindy Chamberlain was guilty of murdering her baby because she seemed very calm about the whole thing but in fact, she was in a state of severe shock (as one would be) and could also have been a person who preferred to keep their emotions private.

I think if any of you can't say anything nice to Julieme, it would be better not to say anything at all.

Whoever attacked Julie and invalidated her grief.... I got some words for you I will not repeat on a public forum


Julie,

Don't listen to these imbeciles who attacked you, you deal with your grief in your way. If you need to keep posting to get it out.

I'm so sorry for your loss, it must be a terrible ordeal for you.

I can't even begin to think how terrible it is. If you ever need a cheering up every now and then, I'll do my best. sderenzi stop being such a c*** about it, ever heard of a thing called shock?