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From: fmwulf42 on 6 Jul 2007 14:14
My late husband & I met on a Social Phobia support group on the web,
way back in 1997. He was American & living in Cleveland, Ohio, whilst
I was British & living in Scotland. We joined the group independently,
looking for fellow sufferers of Social Phobia, & and to see how others
coped with life. So, we wern't looking for potential partners. But it
wasn't long before we were e-mailing privately off group. Then we
discovered IM (instant messaging). Any way ... We were married a year
after we met on the web! We had 8 wonderful years of marriage, and
then he fell ill. Although he never smoked, he had lung cancer. From
the first signs of illness, until he died, it was just 6 months. He
was a wonderful, & very special person. We both meshed so well because
of our mutual understanding of our social phobia. Because our social
phobia was caused by different problems, we were able to support and
encourage each other.

But here I am now, just over a year from his death. I have fought good
& hard to cope - he fought hard to stay alive for me. He stayed in
denial right to his death. So I owe it to him, to fight to survive. I
am very lucky that I work in the NHS (UKs National Health Service) &
so was given lots of compassionate leave, and a sheltered return to
work. Plus my hospital also has a counselling service. So I have been
seeing the Nurse Specialist Counsellor once a week from the time he
was ill, and am still seeing her now.

I have been going to a Water Colour Painting evening class once a week
(although it has just stopped for the summer holidays), and a pilates
class once a week. Plus after signing up for an allotment when Dave
was still well, it finally came through 9 months after he died. I
nearly chickened out, thinking that I couldn't cope with it one my
own, but then decided it would be very good for me. So even though it
scared me - I decided I could always give it back if I could't make a
go of it after a year. So now I have loads of fruit and vegatables
growing, and I am getting lots of healthy exercise in the fresh
country air. So I so pleased with myself for coping with it!

To begin with I had the driving force of being so scared of cracking
up, that I would try things. I would keep going to my classes. I kept
looking for any thing else I could do that would help me. I plucked up
courage to go to a weekend course on Meditation & Relaxation. This
meant I had to travel along distance, and cope with being in hotel
sytle accomodation with out having Dave to phone at different stages
in my journey there. I couldn't phone him to say I had arrived
safely. ..... But the course was great. I did break down during one of
the meditations - and had to run out of the room in floods of tears.
But the group was really undersatnding & supportive. So when I came
home, I felt I had achieved some of my objectives - ie coping with
travelling with out Dave to phone, & staying over nights away from
home. I will need to do over-night stays for part of my job to go to
user group meetings - so at least I think I will cope with that now.

..... So here I am now ... very lonely, but still a social phobic. So
its really hard to survive again on my own, without the centre of my
universe - namely Dave.

I am trying to keep this e-mail short (honest!) - so I am posting
this, just to ask - are there any Social Phobics in this group who
have suffered a bereavement. If there are - my thoughts are with you.
I hope you are coping. I know there are Bereavement groups on the web
- but I don't feel comfortable there as I feel too different. So,
although I hope no one has been bereaved in this group, at the same
time it would be so good to find any fellow Social Phobics that are
bereaved.

Fiona

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