Mental Health - Widower Experience (WX)

I've been working on this article for a long time - and I'm still not finished - but due to current local events, I'm publishing the current state of it.  After a traumatic event, it is possible to help children feel safe with comfort, support, and assurance. We can help them deal with their fears, grief, and help them recover in a healthy way.  I have put together the following tips and recommendations based on studies and support from psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health experts who specialize in crisis situations. Whenever possible, I tried to provide simple tips on what to expect, what to do, and what to look out for. IMPORTANT - If you, or children or teenagers need support for their mental health, do not hesitate to contact a doctor or another health care provider for help or a recommendation.  1. Tips to assist children after the event  Make the child feel safe and secure. This includes physical closeness - all children, from toddlers to teenagers, ...

The day, the hour and minute my wife decided to pass away - the day, hour and minute she did it and when she was buried I will never ever forget. I know the word 'anniversary' is the one we use for such days - but in this context of dying, I do not like it - as I connect the word 'anniversary' with joy and fun - positive events. That's why I prefer the words: 'day of remembrance' Grief is a natural response to loss - and if you really loved someone, something - grief will stay as long as you remember the loved one - and that is OK. In the first days, the pain of loss can feel overwhelming. You may experience all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions, from shock or anger to disbelief, guilt, and profound sadness.Whatever type of loss you’ve suffered, there’s no right or wrong way of grieving - and a mixture or selection of these feelings will come up from time to time. from experiences to experiences even after years - and this OK as well. Plan ahead for...

Living with regret is complicated and can affect your mental health. Finding ways to cope with it can help you move forward. The good and bad parts in live, the success and the failures and mistakes are part of our growth. Sure a certain amount of regret is inevitable over a lifetime. Mistakes, missteps, and bad decisions are part of the human condition. We’re all vulnerable to wondering what might have happened if we’d done one thing and not the other, or if we’d only acted when we didn’t. But how we process regret varies from one person to the next. My learning is that regret can motivate us into action like: “I won’t let an opportunity like that slip away again!” or “If only I’d left the first time he/she lied to me” or “If only I hadn’t quit before the company went public”. There are those among us who, echoing Edith Piaf, insist that “Non, je ne regrette rien” in english: “No, I regret nothing" a song, as I already mentioned one year ago , my wife loved - and my wife and I am...

It starts as so often with awareness and honesty - awareness of yourself and honesty to yourself. Honesty of feelings is the pivotal factor for self-awareness . Emotional Honesty is ones capacity to consciously feel our own true feelings, our true emotions, as we experience them in our body. everyone experiences loneliness from time to time. The feeling can be especially noticeable around the holidays, Valentine's Day, birthdays, and times of extreme stress. In a world so big, it can be easy to feel alone. Loneliness can happen to anyone at any time, but even so, blue feelings are never fun. Thankfully, there are ways to cope and deal with loneliness, and they’re probably simpler than you may think. We’ve rounded up the best ways to help you start feeling like yourself again (plus explanations for why you may be lonely). Now, everyone is different, so all of these tricks may not work for you, but it doesn’t hurt to give them a try to see what does! Practice Self-Care When you'r...

Telling family, relatives and friends that one would like to die is not easy. And it is one of the most challenging, saddest and therefore most stressful tasks that you can imagine - but writing a letter to your partner, family and friends is helpful for really everyone - as it is the path to awareness and self-awareness. When it comes to dying - everyone wishes it would never happened to them.  My wife 'wrote' such an letter and explained why she want to die, want to die with dignity. As she was not anymore able to type it on her own - she did it together with her best girl friend - and they met exactly ten times to note it down - then her girl friend copied the letter out fair. The final version was 4 pages long. The first person (beside of myself) who read it was her mother. And really everyone was happy to hear, to read my wife's own words, her thoughts why she loved to live and what she loved - and to understand why her life is no life anymore - just existing - loosing...