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Grief and Depression

ErinDay
Community Member
My husband passed away 18 months ago. He was 34. Our daughter was 9 months old. My husband was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and I cared for him. He passed away in our bedroom next to me. I fell asleep curled up next to him until his mum came into the room distressed that I hadn’t called the funeral director to collect him. I just didn’t want to let him go. I miss him and feel lonely. I keep playing things over and over in my head. The brutal chemo treatment, seeing him upset and cry because he wasn’t going to see his daughter grow up, him being confused due to the drugs and toxin in his body, and other horrible stuff as his body failed him. I can’t sleep, I get stressed and am depressed. I use alcohol to forget and turn my brain off. It’s an awful cycle, wake up, coffee, screaming kid, work, screaming kid, wine, disturbed sleep, wake up and so on. I don’t want to drink, I just don’t know how to turn my brain off. I don’t want to remember. Even the good memories are painful . He would be so disappointed in me. 
1 Reply 1

Sophie_M
Moderator
Moderator
Dear ErinDay,   

Thank you for posting to the strength and bravery to share your story on the Beyond Blue forums. We can hear you’re going through an extremely difficult time right now, dealing with the grief of losing your husband and taking care of a small child. Please know that our community is with you, support is always available and you're never alone with these feelings.

We are so sorry to hear about your loss. Support during a time like this is so important and we hope that you have someone that you can talk to and receive some support during this tough time. We have some options below that we encourage you to reach out to as it's important you can lean on someone at the moment. It’s normal to feel fear, and despair during this time, grief has no set pattern, and everyone experiences grief in different ways. It’s also important that you take care of yourself and reach out to others.   

It is a brave step to have taken to share your feelings and we can hear how hard things have been. Always reach out if you're feeling like you may be unable to keep yourself from acting on thoughts of suicide or self-harm, it's important to get some help. If you have a treating team, contact them. If you’re not sure who to call, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. If there is an immediate risk of harm to yourself or others, please call  000. 

Please know you can call our counsellors at any time, on 1300 22 4636. They can help you talk this through and will also be able to help you plan what's next so that you have that support in place. We'd also recommend talking to Griefline, on 1300 845 745 (6am to midnight AEST every day): https://griefline.org.au/  

Thank you again for sharing here and please feel free to update us with how you are feeling anytime.   

Kind regards,   

Sophie M