Ten Rules to Help You Survive Widowhood
This was posted a couple of years ago by Adrienne.
It is good sense and they are shown with my comments.
- Don’t let fear control you. Your scary thing already happened, and – look! – you’re still here – I have worried about silly things in my health.
- If you need to cry, just cry. If you avoid it, you’re just going to feel like crap – I have done, but not much. I prefer to walk and admire the countryside or the city and just think.
- If you’re tired, sleep. Grief is exhausting – Perhaps, strangely I’ve not had a problem with sleep.
- You should look as good as you can as often as possible. Aside from the fact that this will help you feel better, it will encourage people to stop treating you like you’re completely sad and pathetic, even though you are completely sad and pathetic – I’ve done this, but I’ve lost weight, which I suspect is more to do with being a coeliac, playing a lot of tennis and exercising.
- Eat three meals a day. This sounds easy, but it’s not when you’re grieving – I only eat two with fruit for breakfast.
- Exercise on a regular basis. It will help you work through anger and depression, and it will also help you accomplish Rule #4 – I do this by playing tennis, walking and using the odd weight or two.
- Speaking of anger, find ways to deal with it that don’t involve taking it out on your remaining loved ones. You’ll take it out on your loved ones without meaning to, of course, which is why it’s important to try to channel as much anger as possible in another direction, such as picture books by Madonna – I’ve not had too much anger, except with the statistics of her illness. It was a million-to-one shot.
- Talk about your grief and the person you lost. Your existence is going to make people uncomfortable whether you talk about what happened or not, and people are probably wondering what you’re thinking and feeling even if they can’t figure out how to ask. Talking about grief is part of what makes it real and helps you work through it. Some people choose to, say, start a blog and then insist that their friends, relatives, acquaintances, and even perfect strangers start reading it – I’ve done all that.
- Travel. You’ll be sorry if you spend a lot of time avoiding your grief, but it’s good to take a vacation from it every now and again – I’ve done lots of that. But I can afford it.
- Avoid people who aren’t loving and caring. This is a good rule for life in general, but you really aren’t emotionally stable enough to deal with a bunch of nonsense when you’re grieving – Not sure, if I’ve done this, but I never suffer fools.
Adrienne’s piece was written for a woman as opposed to a man, but it works.
I have a few tips based on things that have happened to me. These may be more oriented to a man.
- Don’t get a dog – I was left with a puppy and it just took the mick out of my grief. I gave her back to the breeder. training a puppy is often a job for more than one.
- If you like sport and you haven’t got it, get Sky – My wife would never have countenanced that expense, but it has proved to be a lifeline at times, when the television is rubbish and you need entertainment.
- Learn to cook – I hadn’t cooked for years and now I generally do it all the time. See some of the recipes on this blog.
- Avoid divorcees – They don’t have a clue about widowhood.
- Do all the things your partner wouldn’t have liked doing – I went on a riding safari in Kenya. She would have enjoyed it, but I suspect she wouldn’t have ridden or camped.
- Don’t move – I’ve remodelled bits of the house and I still sleep in the same bed where she died. Some can’t understand that.
- Make sure your house security is up to scratch – You may well be vulnerable to thieves, as they will think that the house is empty more often.
- Keep all of your partner’s pictures on the walls – I talk to them and ask what she would have done.
- Laugh at all your partner’s junk mail – Taking some seriously can be upsetting.
- Don’t get angry at the waste you’ll see when you dispose of your partner’s effects – I still have the Amani trouser suit she bought a few months before she died and never wore. It’s a slim 10 and doesn’t fit anybody. It’s too good for a charity shop. At least most of her other clothes went to the Cancer Research shop, which had been flooded and needed stock.
But if like me and you’re in your very early sixties, remember you have at least a few and probably twenty years of life ahead of you.
My wife told me to move on. I will!
Casualty 1909
Just saw a bit of this on BBC1. When I was at Liverpool University in the 1960’s, the set used in the second series of this program, was actually the main Liverpool hospital.
A friend, who was a medical student, took some growth from underneath a floorboard and created something in a Petrie dish, that nothing could kill!
MRSA? No! But there were some awful bugs in those days.
Maltodextrin
I did think about calling this post the evil of wheat maltodextrin. It was close as that is how I feel at times, especially when I’ve got the runs from something that contains this as a cheap substitute for sugar.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about it’s production.
Maltodextrin is enzymatically derived from any starch. In the US, this starch is usually corn; in Europe, it is commonly wheat. This is important for coeliacs, since the wheat-derived maltodextrin can contain traces of gluten. There have been recent reports of coeliac reaction to maltodextrin in the United States. This might be a consequence of the shift of corn to ethanol production and its replacement with wheat in the formulation.
Other authorities on gluten maintain the source does not matter because maltodextrin is such a highly processed ingredient that the protein is removed, rendering it gluten free. If wheat is used to make maltodextrin, it will appear on the label. Even so, the maltodextrin will be gluten free.
The nutritional supplement industry and the food industry frequently make claims concerning ingredients derived from common allergens (such as soy,corn and sometimes wheat, which are ubiquitous) stating that the substance in question is so highly and completely processed that none of the original material remains, however, when tested in human blood of allergic individuals these substances do elicit reactions.
As do many coeliacs, even the traces of gluten in this sugar substitute are enough to upset me, so what are the EU doing. They are making wheat maltodextrin exempt from the allergy rules on gluten.
Who dreamed that one up?
I should think it was probably due to pressure from food manufacturers as it is cheaper than sugar.
But then sugar is considered evil as it makes you fat. So does wheat maltodextrin!
I generally only eat proper demerara sugar, as I have a lovely friend who was born there!
Coeliacs and Bi-Polar Disorder
I’ve been a coeliac all my life, but I was only diagnosed a few years ago. I wish I’d been diagnosed earlier.
The more I look at my condition, the more I find surprising links to other diseases.
As we all know, bi-polar disorder is something that is difficult to live with and control. It is not pleasant and in the worst cases it leads to all sorts of complications and trouble. So many families I know have all but been destroyed by mental illness of this type.
But type coeliac bi-polar disorder into Google and you get lots of stories about people who believe that the two are connected. Look at the snippet below from this article.
Sharla is a friend and a fellow blogger, her blog can be found at Jones Family Blog. Like myself, she suffers from bipolar disorder. But Sharla also suffers from celiac disease, as do two of her children.
Now is there a connection between coeliac disease and bi-polar disorder? And all of the other mental
problems, slight or otherwise?
Whilst I was undiagnosed, I didn’t suffer from too many mental problems, but I did suffer migraines, without any pain luckily, and various mood swings and temper problems. The migraines have gone and I’m a lot calmer, despite the other things that have happened to me.
But let’s look at the body and the mind from the point of view of an engineer. I was trained to be a control engineer, which is all about why systems work, so this might, or might not, give me a greater insight. You judge! Not me!
For any system to work well, and the brain is just a very complicated system, it needs to be supplied with everything it needs and all of the components must be in the best condition. Just think how poorly your car runs, when you haven’t topped it up with oil and water!
Now, coeliacs are often short on vitamin-B12 and folates, as their gut is damaged and these don’t get into the system. I still get an injection every three months to make sure my levels are where they should be.
This is what Wikipedia says about vitamin-B12.
Vitamin B12 is a water soluble vitamin with a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is one of the eight B vitamins. It is normally involved in the metabolism of every cell of the body, especially affecting DNA synthesis and regulation, but also fatty acid synthesis and energy production.
So if your vitamin-B12 is low, does this mean you might show all sorts of brain malfunctions, such as bi-polar disorder?
Type vitamin-B12 brain into Google and you get lots of interesting articles.
Like this one, where the research was done by the University of Oxford. And this article which says that the University of Highlands and Islands is researching the link between gluten and schizophrenia.
If there is one personal conclusion, then it is get your vitamin-B12 levels checked.
And on a general basis we need a lot more research, not just into this link, but into all the effects of gluten.
Richard Dunwoody
I was in Newmarket yesterday and saw him walking along the Bury Road in his thousand miles in a thousand hours challenge.
Good luck to him!
And donate as it’s all in a good cause.
Michael Jackson and Seve Ballesteros
The news is dominated by the death of Michael Jackson. I wasn’t a fan at all and the outpourings are in my view totally over the top. He may or may not have done things he shouldn’t and we can look forward to large amounts of allegations that can’t be verified one way or another.
Jackson may be dead, but long live the Michael Jackson industry!
Much more important news today is that Seve Ballesteros has made what seems to be a pretty good recovery from his brain tumour.
He was in a far worse state than Jackson and it shows that by focusing on the future and doing everything you can to help, you can make a recovery from the darkest places.
Good luck to Seve!
The Anonymous Widower 