The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale lists death of a spouse as the highest adult stressor we face in life. The list includes life events such as divorce, incarceration, retirement, and forty other life-changing experiences and rates them as to their perceived contribution to ill health.
Death of a spouse is allotted 100 points. Other life changes, from Divorce to Minor Violation of the Law rate from 73 down to 11. Tally your personal experiences against their scale of the likelihood of serious illness, and there you have it.
My point is not what ‘it’ is.
I would draw your attention to the gigantic gap between Widowhood and Divorce. 39 of life’s biggest stressors are collected within 62 points. But there’s a gigantic 27 point gap between all of life’s biggest stressors, and the death of a spouse.
Credit: https://www.dartmouth.edu/eap/library/lifechangestresstest.pdf
Many of the items on the list, including divorce, while certainly turning a life upside down on its head, actually result in an improvement in life circumstances once the initial change is adjusted for. Divorce, birth of a baby, retirement – all have the potential to change life for the better.
Death of a spouse, however, invariably ruins the life that was. What was is now gone. It’s not coming back. It can’t be replaced. Widowhood was never a desired outcome.
Every day is filled with echoes of, ‘What do I do now?’
The finality and unfairness of widowhood puts a stark and blatant end to everything that was. There is no other loss like it.
If this is you, you already know this.
But know, too, that what you are feeling is normal. It doesn’t matter what that ‘what’ is. It’s normal. There’s no playbook for getting through this.
What works for you, works for you.
You are feeling what you’re supposed to be feeling. Grief is a convoluted mess of emotions. Guilt, hurt, regret, relief, sadness, anger. It’s all perfectly okay.
What you do with those feelings is up to you.
Seek out the support and encouragement that works for you. You will likely have to find strangers – therapists, groups, new friends – as you will likely lose most of the people you were close to before your world fell apart.
I know, salt in the wound.
But widowhood is a rebirthing. You don’t like it. You don’t want it. But here is comes.
What that turns into is up to you.
Here at DragonflyYOU, when you’re ready to fight your way back into a life that’s worth living, we’re here to help you discover what that looks like.
Dragonfly You 
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