I had an early morning freakout and it showed me quite quickly, that I was pretty much all alone.
You remember me talking about widows fog right? Apparently it’s your brain going into survival mode. I find this so odd because I felt that I was barely surviving. Apparently your emotional processing supersedes cognitive function resulting in less energy, loss of memory or focus. Because of that your sleep habits change, your appetite even changes. None of that sounds like survival mode.
I lost 20 pounds when he was taken from us, I began to fear that I was sick, I kept going to the doctors office because I was feeling off, my legs felt heavy, nothing seemed right. I had chest pressure in the middle of the night and I was panicking. He was no longer to my left in our bed to call 911 for me. I was alone with two little kids. I was afraid of everything. Was I having an anxiety attack? A heart attack maybe? I tried to just be OK, but what if I died? My little ones would be so confused and lost in the morning. My go to person was gone. He was my protector… and in this moment I was afraid.
Why Aren’t You Answering?!!
That’s what I was thinking when the phones just rang. After all, who’s going to answer their phone at 2 am? The first two people didn’t, you wonder why? Because I wasn’t their person or their family. They weren’t expecting to hear from me. Their phones were on do not disturb because all of their family were home. Who else would possibly be calling at such an odd hour? Me! Remember me!? I swallowed my fear and nervousness that I had LOADS of…I called and nobody answered.
For all of the ‘let me know if I can help’, they probably didn’t anticipate helping in the middle of the night, because why would they? It was new to me too. I’ve never had a dead husband before. I was not in a survival mode. I was alone, scared, and diminishing in every way. Fortunately, the third person that I called picked up. It was the most uncomfortable moment for me. I’ve never had to call a friend at that hour, what if she had to work. Furthermore, what if nothing was wrong with me? Who truly cares or even thinks about the random moments when I just might be losing it? It’s new to them, it’s new to me. You’re truly vulnerable and being seen in a new light, that even feels embarrassing in spite of the why of the matter.
So she came over, called 911, asked them to keep the sirens low due to our previous trauma. She called my sister who drove 40 minutes to be at the house in case my children woke up…which one of them did. This was weird and abnormal to my child who never expected to see someone other than their parents in the house at such an hour. My sister had to give some kind of excuse etc. etc. etc.
Bottom line, nothing was wrong with me! It was stress, fear and anxiety, all of the fun stuff that comes when your life gets broken. They gave me drugs that I was too nervous to take, and my dear friend drove me back home.
I was grateful that she heard her phone. My family probably would have been on high alert, but I didn’t call them because if in fact I was having a heart attach or something major, I surely would have died in the 40 plus minutes it would have taken them to get here. They’re not as close as my neighbors.
Moral of the story, if you read this and you have friends or family members in my situation, recognize that they might need you when you least expect it. We don’t always just need a meal. We need our spouse, or our other people who say they are there when we truly need them. And it just might be at 2 o’clock in the morning!
JUST A WIDOW BIT UNCOMFORTABLE AND AFRAID