Hi @cehwll5382, welcome to Connect and thank you for such a lovely message of support. You'll notice that I removed your private email address from your post however. Connect is a public site and we advise people to share personal contact information using the private message function. To send a private message, simply click on a person's @username and click Send Private Message. Naturally, by sharing here on the forum, your messages help many. Thanks for helping to build a network of support on Connect.

See the Community Guidelines about how to use Connect safely here: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/community-guidelines/

@cehwll5382, you are so right about the power of service animals. Did you see this discussion on Connect?
- What Pets Can Do: Health and Healing https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/what-pets-can-do-health-and-healing/
We'd love to learn more about you and Betty.

Hello Chris, thank you for your kind words. I have a little senior dachshund, Sadie, who is now 15 years old. She is my best buddy ever! I am so attached to her and she DOES bring me smiles and a sense of purpose. But being alone at this age is really getting to me. I've been divorced for 14 years and lost my son six years ago. It was a tragedy of which I will never recover. No parent ever gets over losing a child. He was the light of our lives. A proud Marine who served three tours to Iraq (his dad divorced me when he was on his third tour) but he never got his feet back on the ground when he returned home. He struggled with PTSD, TBI and alcoholism. The VA is a joke. I tried like hell to get him the help that he needed but they only pushed meds on him which made him worse. On the morning of 1/3/12, he sent a text stating that he could no longer endure the life he was living and couldn't see living to be an old man in the shape he was in. He lived an hour away and I flew like hell to get to him but when I got to his house, I found the police and the coroner's van there. He had texted a coworker who got there before I did. That moment changed my life forever. I sought help from a psychiatrist to help me with the depression and anxiety of not only the death of my son but also the grief of losing my 31 year old marriage. It was a hell a wouldn't wish on anyone. I truly felt like I was kicked in the gut when I was down at my lowest. I retired after I lost my son. I just couldn't get my shit together....fighting with his dad over my son's possessions (of which he took and sold), family and friends abandoning me because I wasn't the same person I had been before. To this day I am mostly estranged from my family; parents and three siblings. My anger is off the charts. All of the betrayal and loss I have endured have damaged me forever. I work HARD on forgiving those who left me when I needed them most but I can't forget. I have a couple of friends who are parents who have endured the same and we try to support each other. I am the only one, however, that is single and living alone. They are so blessed to have each other for support. The days are long and the nights are lonely. I did join a local fitness club this week hoping to get out at least once a day to exercise but it's tough to get out and do things alone. I will keep your email address and contact you soon.

Chris, I tried to email you at the address you listed but it came back as not a good address.

@sadiesmom I can't even imagine the pain of losing one of my children. A relative lost her son to suicide a few yeas ago and I think of her often, wondering how she is doing. I am so sorry you are having to deal with this. I am sure a person never does get over this type of thing but you do need to do the best you can in being active to keep yourself occupied.
That's great that you joined a fitness club. When I joined mine, about 6 years ago I think, I knew no one there but I got involved primarily in the aqua classes. I don't have any real friends there, not people I do anything with outside of classes, but they are my "club friends" and nice people. I hope you will find the same at your club. These days I am not going to classes since I can exercise as long as the classes are recovering from my knee replacement. The instructors are very understanding though and I could easily come late of start early but one of the things my ortho recommends is marching in the water so I go at off hours and do that myself, it's better for my knee than the class would be I think. One of the active class attendees keeps out email addresses and publishes them so I do hear from some of the people there.
I hope at some point that you may be able to mend the family estrangements. It may be up to you to initiate that even though you feel you have been the one wronged. I think in the long run it would be worth it to again have those family relations and support. Obviously they do not understand and maybe they never will, but that is not a reason for them to be estranged. I have a sister in law who will not move on from the loss of my brother, nor does she want to. I know she will forever love him and miss him but she needs to get out and live her life now. She pretty much has become a shut-in except for going to her grandchildren's activities. We are all concerned about her but we are all there for her too. Her home is like a shrine to the grandson she lost and to my brother.
JK

Meant to say that I cannot exercise as long as the class runs, 45 minutes to an hour. This is the pool, in the afternoon when I go. Very rarely many people there.
JK