Unsettling dreams

[patchworkamber]

Hello all,
Its now almost three months since Keith passed away. My last post was just before his funeral when there was a discussion about sitting with the closed coffin, I did and found it hugely cathartic and a chance to say a final goodbye.
I get sad days and of course miss him still but my life (I,m 54) has to keep going and I am working part time and go out with friends.
Intermittently since he died I have had dreams that he has come back and is lyin next to me in bed. One time I think I woke crying as I dreamt I could touch and hold him again. Another time the joy of his return was tinged with anxiety , how I am going to care for him, the stair lift has gone , the hoists and all the myriad of equipment needed before he went into a home. Last night was the most unsettling as this time Keith asked where his clothes were and his books and dvd collection. ( I downsized these when he was in the home, if I had left it until he had died I know it would have been too overwhelming .)
Writing this I can see it is about guilt that my life continues, and if I am honest is pretty full, more than it has been for many years having cared for keith.
I just wondered whether I am the only oddbod to have such dreams or whether anyone else has any thoughts on the above?
Many thanks, gill

 

[LadyA]

Aw, gill - so sorry you are disturbed by these dreams. I'm 55, and my husband William passed away last August - he was 84. He had had an entire room stuffed with "stuff" - wall to wall, floor to ceiling books, dvds, papers (old emails, newspapers, magazines some going back decades!, files of clippings from magazines etc.) - even, he had stuff stacked halfway up the window, which takes up almost one wall of the room! Also, he had three (THREE!) desks in there, all screwed to each other, with shelves built on top of them and shelves built in underneath them. You literally had to squeeze in around the stuff in the room - he had even put bookshelves in front of the fireplace, blocking it. When he went to a nursing home in 2014, I felt that I wanted to clear that room out and redecorate it as a living room while I still had him to visit - so it wouldn't be so final as it would after his death. But yes, I can understand your feelings - it does feel a bit like packing them away - even though that's ridiculous. All the stuff is no good to us, and much better that someone else can use it. And it was no good to our husbands anymore.

Do you think your husband would be grudging you living your life - given that you did what you could for him when he was alive, and he is no longer chained by dementia? I know that my William, in his lucid moments, hated the burden he felt he had become. He hated all that came with his illness - and now that he is free from it, he would want me to be free too. Wouldn't your husband want the same for you?

Do you think you might benefit from some counselling? Dreams can be so troubling - they seem so very real. I'm sure that in time, they will pass. Three months is no time at all. Your husband's death is still very new and raw. Wishing you peace.xx

 

[nellbelles]

Hi

I can relate totally to this, I dream Tom is in bed with me, with me shouting you can't stay you have died, then like you I wonder how I will manage to care for him at home, because he can't go back to the CH because they know he had died!

Why? Heaven only knows? Maybe the guilt monster is still whispering in our ears? Maybe we have cared too much and for too long!

Thanks for posting this, I suspect we will not be the only ones..

 

[patchworkamber]

Thank you both for your responses, glad to know its not just me! That guilt monster doesn't want to let go does it? I know Keith would want me to continue with my life and much of the watching wildlife makes me feel closer to him. Maybe at some point the dreams will alter and there will be more of a sense of acceptance and closure. Cheers

 

[Katrine]

My father died 9 years ago. I have had a few dreams where he is here and I don't know how to explain that my mother has dementia. I don't want to seem to have taken over (I have) because he seems oblivious to the changes. Usually I dream of him in another place, such as a holiday house, out shopping in town, or living in a different house, not in the actual house where they last lived together.

It is wonderful to have him there but I'm fretting all the time about explaining what has changed without telling him "You can't be here, you are dead" because he obviously doesn't seem to realise that. I know it is a dream and that he's not really there. So instead of worrying about 'the truth' I have told myself to just enjoy the short time I have in his company; knowing that it might be months or years before I have such a dream again.

BTW, I have no worries that he is actually there in spirit. I have never felt that he is in my mother's house, nor hanging around his grave, nor anywhere else; I know that he went to a better place (possibly back to India, but I think it is further than that ). Despite his own agnosticism he has dozens of deeply Christian relatives on the other side who would have insisted on his joining them! Sorry if that offends or upsets anyone. I am just trying to describe how it feels to me.