The Phantom Pain of Widowhood
Years after being widowed, the effects remain.
“So what’s going on today?” my therapist asks.
I shrug.
“You sleeping OK?”
“Not really. I wake up at 2 am every night. Churning. All this negative stuff,” I say, swallowing hard to keep the tears down.
He doesn’t say anything. Just waits for me to continue. My voice wavers. A tear escapes as I talk about my lingering job insecurity, a residual effect (perhaps) from going to work so soon after my husband’s death when I really wasn’t ready. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, or else I was concentrating on everything, but there was only so much that one person could possibly manage at once.
Throwing a job on top of the grief sent me into a tailspin and a job that I used to love and was good at suddenly became overwhelming. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, so it was difficult to see the point of self-imposed website drop dates, how well a search engine worked, or the latest marketing campaign mockups. I forgot stuff. A lot.
One of my bosses sent me an email that began with “I’m really disappointed in you,” and I lost it. I had to leave the office. I went to a local movie theater and sat crying alone in the dark with a huge tub of popcorn.
