Month: February 2022

Remember in the movie Groundhog Day how Bill Murray’s character was stuck repeating the same day over and over and over again? Every morning when he woke up the same song was playing on the radio, he met the same people on the street, ate at the same cafe, and just repeated everything again and again and again. No matter what he did, he couldn’t escape that day. He was literally stuck there.

This is what happens to me every day. There’s a loop that plays over and over again in my head of the events from 3 a.m. on Friday, October 8th to 2:37 p.m. on Saturday, October 9th. The scene plays repeatedly in my mind like an endless loop, and no matter how hard I try I cannot stop it from playing. It’s like one long, continual horror movie that I never wanted to see and I can’t get up and leave the theater because I’m chained to the seat.

I try to think of other things but it’s always there. It’s like a steel plate in the front of mind that I can’t move. I’ve used that description of it before and it’s still very much true. That steel plate is comprised of all the painful memories of that day and a half when our lives were ripped apart by an event we never saw coming and still to this day can’t believe happened.

I try to think of happy things but the loop comes right back. I try to push it out of my mind with more happy thoughts but it’s no use. It’s relentless and shoves everything else out of the way so it can be front and center. It haunts me all day, every day. It haunts me in my sleep. There is no reprieve, ever.

I want this loop to stop playing. I don’t want to see it playing over and over again anymore but I don’t know how to make it stop. Some days I’m afraid this loop will continue to play repeatedly till the day I die.

People tell me I need to smile more. To be happier. It’s hard to be those things when all you can see inside your head is this traumatic loop playing over and over and over again. If they could be inside my head they’d understand why it’s so excruciatingly hard to smile or to be happy, when all I can see and hear is the repeating images and sounds from that horrific day and a half.

I know others see the heaviness in my face and body language. It’s hard to hide. I know they see the pain and sadness in my eyes. If they were viewing what I am every day in my head they’d understand.

I imagine this kind of loop plays in the head of all people who’ve experienced extreme trauma. My heart bleeds for every single person who’s ever endured this because I definitely know their pain. It’s unbearable and at times seems unsurvivable.

This trauma is real. I feel it. My children feel it. My grandson feels it. I wonder how long this will last, or if it even ever goes away? Only God knows that answer and He hasn’t told us when this ends. All I do know is that the events of those 35 hours are seared into my memory and I can’t make the repeating loop of it stop.

Every day seems like Groundhog Day to me.

This is going to be an ugly and very blunt post. It won’t be pretty and it will have bad language. It’s an outpouring of raw grief and despair that I just can’t hold in anymore.

Dying is the easy part of this whole thing we call life. Some people think it’s the hard part, but that’s total bullshit. It’s the living that those left behind have to do that will kill you. It’s the picking up of all the shattered pieces and trying to put them back together again the best you can that will bring you right down to your knees.

It’s trying to get through every second of each day without having a nervous breakdown because you just don’t know how you’ll survive. Some days are manageable while some are downright fucking brutal. It’s those days where you cry most of the day and then more at night. It’s lying awake in bed not being able to sleep even though you’re exhausted.

It’s being angry a lot of mornings because you woke up when you didn’t want to because you just want to go and be with the one that left you behind. Being left here feels like you’re the loser in an ugly, bloody battle.

It’s trying to maneuver through the unfamiliar territory of doing all the things your significant other did for you that you don’t know how to do yourself and hope you don’t fuck it all up like you’ve already fucked up all the other things in your life.

It’s feeling like you’re wearing out the ears of your friends who you spend way too much time crying into about how everything in your life is in a state of ruins and you don’t know how to fix it. It’s also trying to hold back as much as you can with them because you don’t want them to run away in the other direction when they see you coming or hear you calling.

It’s trying to figure out how you’re going to pull together what’s needed to pay your debts before the final deadline and then it’s too late. It’s hoping and praying for the best in this situation.

It’s doing the best you can trying to learn a new job that you’ve never done before and feeling like a complete failure at because it’s all so foreign to you.

It’s trying to smile to the world when you feel dead inside and nothing even remotely close to happy. Smiling and happiness are excruciatingly difficult to fake. A blank face and misery are not.

It’s feeling like you’re a burden on everyone, including yourself. It’s hating yourself for this because you shouldn’t have to be a burden on anyone, but yet you are. It’s this feeling that makes you withdraw and not want to tell anyone how hopeless you feel most of the time.

It’s being angry at yourself for the state your life is in. It’s being painfully aware that you are solely responsible for it and no one else is to blame for it except for yourself. It’s being disgusted with the person you see in the mirror everyday because you had your whole life to get your shit together to prepare for the future and you didn’t. It’s feeling the internal head shaking from others who want to say this very thing to you but don’t because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. It’s okay, they don’t have to say it. I already know they’re thinking it because I can feel their disappointment in me. Their disappointment in me doesn’t even come close to the disappointment I have in myself.

It’s the stress of all of the things above piling up on top of all the other stress that’s crushing the stress you’re already under because your loved one died so suddenly, unexpectedly and tragically and left you alone.

Hell exists here on earth, among the living, in those who are left behind. The nightmare of trying to survive the aftermath of your loved one’s death is all the hell your soul can take. I’ll take the reprieve of dying over this living shit any day.