Nearly one year since you left....
For those who had read my other posts - it's often easier for me
to get things down on paper to say how I’m feeling – right now, I am the most
numb I have ever been about the losing Ben and I feel like I don’t care about
anything – the house sale I am currently going through, that is due to complete
on 1st Feb, could honestly
drop out today and I think I would just say 'okay'.
I feel like I have gone into full
protection mode and I don’t feel anything, about anything - nothing. My body is
also reacting in the same way – I am having physical symptoms of grief which I
try and ignore but I know it’s happening for a reason, because the numbness
isn’t good for me and I have to feel. I just can’t – there is no magic switch -
and actually - if there was, I don't think I'd press it because stopping the
numbness, means I then have to feel - and from what I've felt so far, that
would be far worse.
The thoughts that I am struggling to deal with right now is reliving last January.
Thinking that this time last year Ben was feeling bad. That in his
mind he had made the decision that he was going to go. That he was putting
plans into place.
That Isabelle, this time last year was
google searching how to ‘run away’ because she was having a hard time;
That this time last year my dad was in
such a bad way in hospital and I was getting calls from the nurses with him
screaming in the background thinking I’d died in a fire and we didn’t think
that he would ever get better or remember who we were and who he was;
– and that with all this going on I was
distracted from how Ben was feeling – yet I wasn’t – I know I wasn’t - but
maybe I could have given a little bit more. And that breaks my heart even more
than it is broken already (if that is possible).
I do still know I couldn’t have done
anymore for him and this was his time – going out on a high the way he wanted
to - but of course there is that feeling of ‘what if’…. What if my dad
hadn’t been in hospital, what if I had been coping better with it all this time
last year...
These intrusive thoughts now,
are almost harder than any other time in the past year. Climbing this ladder to
the 28th Jan, knowing that at the top there is nothing but hurt
and pain there. But I have to keep climbing it anyway – scared and on my own
because nobody else understands how I am feeling because it's such a personal
pain that nobody can understand unless they have been through it themselves,
and even then, it's different.
I am tearful, when I’ve not really
cried on the scale you would expect with grief. It stressed me out sometimes that I wasn't crying more. But today, now, even as I'm
writing this, my bottom lip is quivering – ready to burst out crying – my eyes
stinging and heavy with the tears just teetering on the rim – but I don’t let
them flip over – because it’s me – and I’m trying so hard to beat this – my
natural competitiveness trying to control the situation - but I can’t – it
beats me....
Every.
Single.
Time.
It takes me down. And it hurts. And it
makes me feel pain I never knew existed.
BUT I know it’s a wave, I’ve
experienced these waves all year and in between them I can function and this is
what people see – it’s just right now ‘this’ feels like a tsunami that you can
see in the distance.... it's rising up and up and up and the fear is building
because you can see it on the horizon and you want to run but you can't.... and
you know will come crashing down with power and destruction that crushes you
and even worse, you know that it will probably hit on a specific date, adding
to the dread.... 28th January – the day, this time last year,
my life changed forever.
No matter what has happened this past year
- what decisions I've made, what I have done, how I have dealt with this... I
have never stopped loving Ben - I still love him like he is here. And I won't
ever stop. The bond won't break either. He is still with me in so many ways and
he shows himself regularly. And I know he would be proud of me.
I also know that he knew I would handle
this the way I have. He saw and believed in the strength I had in me, which I
didn't even know I had.
However, I wouldn’t have got through this last year without the amazing people who have carried me – and also the people that have judged me, which there have been - I know people like to think that they would react or do things in a certain way if this happened to them (as I was probably guilty of myself before it happened to me) but you don’t know. Everything you think you know gets thrown up in the air and blown away by a big gust of wind. And I hope, with everything I have, that they never have to find that out in real life. But even those people that judged me helped me. But not as much as my family, my amazing friends, my work colleagues, people from my past, people who have never met me and just know me from social media, people who have met me once… and more... all these people have carried me this year more than they realise and more so, have done this during a time that people have their own struggles due to living through a global pandemic.
And of course, I absolutely would not have got through this without my two little humans
that keep me going, every single day.
I'm not naive to believe that on 29th January
after the 'year of firsts' that I will skip off into the second year - but I
hope that I can get to the stage my super strong daughter is at. She told me
the other night that she can now think about Ben and the memories we made, and
she doesn't feel as sad - she feels happy that she had the time with him and
made those memories. She said that wrapped in his hoodie, smelling of his
aftershave with a big smile on her face.... my beautiful daughter, inspiring me
and giving me hope that 'this too shall pass'... I sometimes doubt that, but I do know that its true.
Stay safe out there and remember, there is another way... and whatever you are going through, 'this too shall pass' - the words that I have kept hold of in 2020 and into 2021 that haven't let me down so far...
Big love <3
A reminder of what mental health issues look like... #BeKind #AreyouOK
The strength and the love you gave me will carry me through this...
11.11.81 - 28.01.20 💓
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