Tag Archives: Mental Health

Force-Fed Red Bull on a Waltzer

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Every day survival by

This morning I looked in the mirror and Jackie Stallone leered back at me.  It tends to happen following A Bad Day, which is what yesterday was.untitled (8)

I’d spent much of it peering in at myself from above, wondering how the hell my life had come to this.

It was perhaps not helped by going to watch The Wolf of Wall Street, which was akin to spending three hours being force-fed Red Bull on a Waltzer. At two hours in, I was so wrung out I actually thought I was going to be sick.

My friend and I went for noodles afterwards and I cried into my Szechuan Pork. Then I suddenly felt anxious: to see my child; to get home; at the sight of rain falling outside. I drove home as the light faded ahead of me, not quite believing that the sun was setting on yet another day He had missed.

It’s days like these when only my Husband will do. I want it to be His voice telling me everything will be OK, pet, and not to worry. I want it to be Him waiting for me when I get home, not a sideboard full of His picture.

I have Mother, of course, and my sister who take on much of the rage on my behalf, but sometimes I feel so broken that even the sisterhood cannot minister to the pain.

Yesterday, The Grief and The Disbelief got me, and like one of DiCaprio’s hookers I had no choice but to lie back and take it.

This morning, though, I patched up Jackie as best I could and told her that she must carry on. I dropped my girl off at school, walked over the fields with my dog and looked on at another day.

Come and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough.

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Uncategorized by
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That’s me, that is.

Perhaps it’s my hormones that are making me irascible as a cat, but that’s me there, a squatting sumo just waiting for a fight.

I’ll take anyone on, especially if they have an opinion on my grief and how I choose to deal with it. But no-one is immune. That Matt Baker gets it regularly, and don’t get me started on Steve Wright.

Of course, I’m a wuss and would run off in the opposite direction like Duncan ‘Chase Me!’ Norvelle if it came to a real bout of fisty-cuffs.

But fury is fermenting in my guts. I can hear it, gurgling away. It has one means of escape, and that is by knotting itself around my nerves, sinew and digestive tract. And by the occasional outburst of unspeakable profanity and violence directed towards my pillow.

Am I entering the ‘angry’ stage? Have I now ticked off ‘despair’ and ‘hopelessness’ (phew, thank god THAT’S over!). How far have I got to go now for fuck’s sake, according to the manual?

This ‘journey’ is wearisome. It’s becoming predictable in its unpredictability.

When do I arrive at that rose-filled garden of acceptance that everyone keeps talking about? How long before I can come off the pills, drink in moderation and have a laugh about the good times? At what point will I be able to tolerate other people and their concerns again, and afford them the earnest head-nodding of pre-Mark’s death?

I’m off to consult the manual. And then throw it off the wall.

This is life after death

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I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be one of those days.

A wobbly-lipped, can’t-think-about-my-dead-husband-without-wanting-to-claw-my-own-eyeballs-out type of day.

Daft posing. I cry because I miss Him so...

Daft posing. I cry because I miss Him so…

They come and go, days like these. Most of the time, it’s like living in a kind of remission. But then one unremarkable Monday you wake up to find yourself being assailed by a hairy-arsed, sabre-toothed grief demon intent on juicing you to make emotional soup.

Why today? Well I dreamt about Mark pretty much all of last night. Images of Him spooled through my brain like a film reel. And even though I kept waking, the movie didn’t stop. It resumed as soon as my head hit the pillow again.

And I sobbed in these dreams, because I somehow knew that in the morning He would still be gone.

My daughter woke up, naked and small, and I cradled her in the crook of my arm and kissed her face and told her I loved her more than anything in the world. She lay there awhile, being kissed, then asked for Shreddies.

This is life after death. This is the fabled ‘New Normal’. (There’s an expression for the Grief Bullshit Bingo sheet! Cross it off, quick!).

Today I just need to leave my assailant get on with his attack.

Tomorrow the remorseless fucker will no doubt be juicing someone else.

An Acceptance Speech

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support by
Bingo

Bingo (Photo credit: Gerry Dincher)

Ten years ago I undertook a job within local government.

Along with the endless supply of cakes and people named Kevin came a whole new vocabulary.

‘Thought-shower’. ‘Blue-sky thinking’. ‘Silo-working’. It was Bullshit Bingo on a County-wide scale. It took some getting used to, but in the end I acquiesced and heard myself one day in a meeting uttering the words; “We must strive for a multi-agency approach in order to push the envelope further…’. That may have been the day I handed in my notice.

Like any new arena, grief throws forth a whole new vocabulary too. ‘Time’ is a popular grief-speak word. ‘Process’ is another. And everyone’s favourite (altogether now!): ‘Moving On!’

The most puzzling though, for me at least, is the word ‘Acceptance’.

The other expressions I can sort of get with, but ‘Acceptance’ sticks in my craw. In this context, what the fuck does it mean?

Dictionary.com gives four possible definitions of the word:

1. the act of taking or receiving something offered.

2. favourable reception; approval; favour.

3. the act of assenting or believing: acceptance of a theory

4. the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable
Of all of these, number three seems the most likely to apply in the case of grief. But even then, it’s tenuous. How can one assent to, or allow oneself to believe, that one’s loved one has left the planet definitively, never to return? The person to whom one spoke, every single day, about everything and nothing? The one to whom one was attached literally, emotionally, perennially, and who was loved above all others?

This throws up another of the impossibilities of grief. Seemingly everyone wants you to strive for The Big ‘A’. This is the goal, the holy grail, the point at which everything will be OK. But, if Dictionary.com has it right, how do you ever reach that point?

To me, it’s another example of Bullshit Bingo. I’ve a feeling I’ll be waiting a long time for Full House.

The Gift

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support by
An icon illustrating a parent and child

An icon illustrating a parent and child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Child: good thing to be left with after death of spouse, or just another gut-wrenching reminder of what is lost?

Well, actually, both. But I hadn’t paused to consider it much until yesterday when I went walking with a widowed friend of mine and the question came up.

She lost her husband 25 years ago in a car accident. They’d been married less than a year and had no children.

“I wished we’d had a child, so I had something left of him,” she told me. “If your husband has to be taken from you, a child is the greatest gift they can leave.”

Which of course is true, right? An admission of anything else would be akin to child abuse and would cause any sane (or possibly non-bereaved person) to balk into their cornflakes.

But here’s the thing; I have been feeling a bit miffed with Mark of late. For leaving me with all this pain, and to cope as a single parent to boot. As a child of divorcees, unilateral parenting was not what I wanted for my daughter. Mark and I had created a happy household for god’s sake! Why did He have to go and break it up?

Totally irrational, I know, but there it is. Grief’s such a bitch, it makes you start resenting someone who had no choice in the matter of their death.

And whilst I love my daughter more than anything in the world, she does pose a problem. She looks like Him. She asks questions about Him. She reminds me every day that I am a lone parent and that He has gone.

She is indeed a gift. But one I wish we could have shared.

Shits n’ giggles

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Public Toilet

Public Toilet (Photo credit: ilovebutter)

This blog used to be all about shits n’ giggles.

You know; drinking beyond excess. Frolicking with the Plumber like a reckless youth. Buying loads of ‘things’. The comedic potential of dog ownership. A right old barrel o’ laughs.

I’ve noticed, and also had it pointed out, that it’s become increasingly maudlin as time has gone on. I assure you, it ain’t intentional. It seems to be the way grief is leading me. The first few months were like, whoah! What the fuck is going on here? Suddenly, from being in a relationship with the love of my life for ten years, (married for five), I am, for all intents and purposes, single.

What does this mean?

He’s not here, that’s what it means. And I can do whatever, or whomever I want! I don’t have to ‘check’ if I can go out with the girls for a night. I don’t have to ‘run it by Him’ if I want to go away for the weekend. I can sleep with whomever I choose, without explanation. I can spend money on whatever I want, (He never would have agreed to half the shit I’ve bought since He died). I can now make decisions about my daughter’s future singularly, without having to seek a second opinion.

In short, it’s back to ME, ME, ME. Freedom, George Michael-style. (With the exception of that unfortunate public toilet debacle.)

But actually. Erm. I don’t like it. The ‘fun’ is over.

You can come back now, love…Love? Love?

Life goes on, and assorted other cliches

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Every day survival by
"Curse of an Aching Heart", 1913 she...

“Curse of an Aching Heart”, 1913 sheet music cover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

It’s a warm and fuzzy theory and everything, but the deeper I sink into the hell of losing my husband, best friend and soul mate, the more I think it may just be another of those placatory statements which means absolutely fuck all.

A steely, love-free heart would be preferable to the broken, aching organ which currently occupies a cavity in my chest. At least then there would be no pain – it would simply be deflected.

If I’d never met Him, how much easier the act of living would be. He would have died and I would never have known. I would have always looked for Him, I’m sure, as I spent 26 years looking for Him, but this sensation of being somehow bereft of a limb would be muted. Selfish thing to say, but try a mile in these shoes.

We were cut from the same cloth, you see. Fitted together like the last two pieces of a jigsaw. Distinct personalities, yet fundamentally linked. How do I proceed now He’s gone, so suddenly, so definitively?

I’m on the pills, doing the counselling, distracting myself with child, dog, wine, writing! Child, dog, wine, inappropriate men! Child, dog, wine, new sideboard! I’m playing my role in this act of living to great effect.

But something’s shifted in the grief process. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I feel different. The weight on my shoulders feels heavier. Even the thought of His name is too much.

Listen, don’t worry though. Tomorrow’s another day. Life goes on. Onwards and upwards.

And assorted other clichés.

Him and her

Posted in Bereavement, Every day survival, Uncategorized, Whatever gets you through the night, Young widow by
DSC02684

This is Him, and her.

Hello. I’m having a glass of Rioja at the end of one of those ‘Oh sweet Satan’s ball-sack, I’m a TERRIBLE mother’ days. Will you join me?

I have had the emotional resilience of Wensleydale cheese today (crumbly, for all you non-Northern-English people). And I’ve been unable to toughen myself up.

And my child has both a) witnessed it and b) had to stay at my Mother’s whilst I spent time collapsing on the bed at home. It sounds melodramatic, but I swear, today, I’ve not even been able to THINK about, you know, Him, without going all Wensleydale.

I don’t know why it hits you like this. Anyone? Anyone?

If I’d even tried to compose a post earlier I wouldn’t have had the energy to press the buttons on the keyboard. Fortunately, Rioja has the same effect on me as spinach has on Popeye – it makes me strong to the finich.

It’s the school holidays and I’m up to my ears with the sound of kids shouting for their daddies. I’m sick of people rambling on about going on holiday together. I’m weary of people complaining about the forthcoming fortnight they’re going to have to endure with their husband and kids. I’d sell a kidney for the chance of a holiday with just Him and her.

“Are you cryin’?” My daughter asked me, as tears powered down my cheeks.

“Uhuh.”

“‘Cos you miss Daddy?”

“U”- snort- “Huh”

She doesn’t say anymore than that these days. She just goes and gets a length of toilet paper from the bathroom and clumsily tries to stop the flow.

And I thought to myself today – with no level of profundity whatsoever – I thought, nothing really matters. Nothing.

All I want is you, Buble. Can you hear me?

A Head Full of Funk

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The Inconsolable Widow

The Inconsolable Widow (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are certain things that only widows know. And like any exclusive group, we like to keep our knowledge to ourselves.

This is mainly because people outside the group don’t have a clue what we’re going through and rather than get irate about their reactions (last post notwithstanding), we don’t bother them with the detail. But really, there’s an underground revolution going on. Widows are communicating via closed fora and private coffee meets all across the world. It’s like the Resistance, with cappuccinos and Kleenex.

At the risk of being cast-out, I’m going to share one pearl of received widow-wisdom. It is known as…’The Six Month Low’.

It is the point in widowhood when friends have stopped their cross-country pilgrimages to see you, their daily pep-texts have dwindled to once a week. This isn’t a criticism. Lives must go on and just because M was a central part of my life, I can’t expect the loss to be felt with the same sense of perpetuity by anyone else.

Six months is the point at which you feel at your lowest ebb. You have to reach into the pit of your resources for the last remnant of strength to pull you through.

Except, here’s the thing – for me, it didn’t happen. Six months was no worse than four months or nine months. In fact, I’m about to propose a new timescale theory: how about eighteen months? Because actually, today, as I approach eighteen months without M, I’m feeling a mixture of rage and heartbreak, and wondering if I can carry on.

I’m so fragile you could break me with a breath, and so angry I could kill someone. I’m feeling the loss in that space between my shoulder blades and in the joints of my fingers. My bottom lip won’t stop wobbling. I’m scrabbling about in the pit of my resources and emerging with nothing.

I am aware this is liable to change. After all, two days ago I was all for living it up. I guess what I’m trying to say is that timescales don’t work. It’s not an illness from which one recovers. This will go on and on.

Today I’ve got a head full of funk. Tomorrow it may be the musical type instead.

This is not a suicide note

Posted in Every day survival, Family, Uncategorized, Whatever gets you through the night by

In a tragi-comic twist, my Granny died five days before M.

Me, writing a message down for Granny on the whiteboard, as she couldn't hear.

Me writing a message down for Granny on the whiteboard, as she couldn’t hear.

She was old, tired, she’d had enough. She was also much beloved.

M and I cried together when we heard the news. Little did we know that by the end of that same week, He’d be gone too.

The day after Granny died, Dad told me: “It’s sad, but life is for the living.”

I took it as one of those perfunctory statements that people make in such situations. Didn’t give it much thought, got on with the task of living. For the next four days, at least, until my world would shockingly and without warning become utterly un-liveable.

Dad’s statement has been on my mind lately though. I understand what he was saying, but does living really exclude the dead?

In a purely physical way, yes it does. But M is still so much part of the fabric of my life and that of my daughter, I can’t condemn Him to that other land. His presence is felt in everything, from the food we eat, to the TV we watch, to the choices we make about the future.

I still grapple with a need to conceptualise the two worlds (living and dead) and their relationship with each other, which is why I cannot yet inter His ashes. I need a physical remnant of Him to remain here – a box of dust to act as a bridge between the two lands.

In the early days after M died, I wanted to die myself. Not to ‘be with Him’, because I don’t believe that’s how it all ends up. (If it does, however, knowing my luck I’d be stuck with Whitney Houston, who died on the same day. Christ, imagine that warbling in your ear for the ever-after.)

I wanted to die because the pain of losing Him was so intense, I just wanted it to stop. Many widows I know felt the same.

I never actually attempted to end my life though – mainly for fear that I’d end up in a series of botched attempts like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. But also because I have a responsibility to myself and those still living who love me. Plus it isn’t the answer to all this. I’m not sure what is.

But given that we’re all heading that way in the end, and seemingly there is no logic or forewarning from the Reaper, my revenge is to live.

And to live well. Cheers!