I feel like I am down a well and can't get out. Not quite in the pit but not far away. I am so tired, in fact I am more than tired I am absolutely exhausted. It is so difficult wearing a mask and I am finding it so hard to keep the mask on. I used to work pretty much on my own, over the last month I have been training a team and I just can't block the conversations out!
The chatter about poor little April Jones. One of the team said "I don't know what I would do if it was Will, I would die." he didn't just finish there though he proceeded to go on and on about how upset he would be and how Will was his life and how he wouldn't be able to live without him and I just wanted to scream "FUCK OFF!!!!!" YOU WOULD LIVE WITHOUT HIM BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO FUCKING CHOICE!!" HAVE YOU FORGOT MY PRECIOUS DAUGHTER DIED ONLY FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS AGO??????"
The things are less obvious "Did you watch that kid on American X factor doing LMFAO?" (That was the last album Hannah bought). High five my mortgage has gone through! (Hannah used to high five me and it drove me mad!!) British Bake Off (Hannah loved this and baking).
I just really, really, really, really miss my girl. I want her back for Halloween and Bonfire Night, I want her to be 15 on 2nd December. I want her with me at Christmas and round at my Brother in Laws with me on New Years Eve. I feel sick with dread at the start of each new day. I try and be positive, I really do, I don't want to stay in this deep dark well but I just can't seem to pull myself out of it at the moment.
Aww Danielle, big, big hug to you. I think this is a bad time. At this point, I'd recovered a lot of function, but my life was utterly joyless. You need stamina to carry you through pain that goes on this long. It will get easier, but in all honesty, the whole of the first year is pretty shit. It is also the point when people start to "forget" your bereavement.
ReplyDeleteThe missing is painful. It comes in slowly - the realisation that Hannah will be missing from so much. But you are surviving - you have got through the worse 5 1/2 months you'll ever live through.
The most practical advice I can give, well that worked for me at any rate, is to view the first year as a sentence to be endured. You are getting through the days, and your achievement is to survive each one. It doesnt' matter if you lay in bed all day sobbing - you still got through it. If you manage anything else - to laugh at a sitcom or go for a run or a swim or whatver, well I think that is a bonus.
Be gentle with yourself, and lower your expectations. It is still early days for you xx
oh - and your work colleagues... April Jones.. tskkk.. FUCKERS - all of them xx
ReplyDeleteOh love. I completely agree with Susan, I am seeing the 1st year as something to be endured, and hope that I can build up after that. I don't see any point or joy in anything either. Someone said to me recently that I have too high expectations of myself, that I should just accept that I am not going to do anything, and then anything that I do manage is a bonus, much as Susan said. I am trying to think more like that.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the fact that you say that you are in the well but not completely at the bottom is massive, that is a hugh achievement I reckon.
Today I went to a funeral of someone not much younger than myself, and the pain that her poor parents and siblings were in was awful. However it made me see how far I have come since those weeks around the funeral, I can't even remember them. You have come really far too, like you said.
I HATE it when people say that they couldn't live without their child, do they think that we wanted to? To me it makes me think that they think that they must love their children more than I love mine, because I am trying to cope without him. What else can we do?
We just need to keep going, I am right next to you. xxxxxx
There's nothing I can add except to agree with Susan and Joanne. I see the irst year as something to be endured and to survive, nothing more. Take it easy Danielle and know that you are doing so well. I'd like to have a wee word with your colleagues, ignorant bastards have no idea.
ReplyDeleteYou know your actually doing something for bereaved parents by just being honest, by just saying you know what this is shit. You don't have to pretend here. I actually find it weirdly comforting that I read your blog and think someone else is missing their child, because far to quickley the outside world expects you to forget. She will never be forgotten here. Big hugs to you
ReplyDeleteI forgot to say, for a while after B died I took some anti depressants, I couldn't stop crying I couldn't get out of bed somedays and sometimes I would be out shopping or something and the whole experiance would be so overwhelming I would just have to get out, once abandoning my entire trolley at the checkout because I couldn't face speaking to the cashier. I actually think they helped me in the sence that they have me a moment to rest, instead of feeling a grief that tore me apart I felt nothing and feeling like nothing gave me the chance to get my head around the every day, work that all put and then start to deal with the grief a little more. I only took the anti DS for 12 weeks then started seeing someone just to talk to someone who wasn't emotionally attached to me to rant to say how shit the whole thing was which is still ongoing but I still find helpful. Bi don't know how you feel about all this but if you haven't you could speak to your GP about this see if there's any way they can help and support you.
ReplyDeleteThe 4-5 month mark was the worst for me. Ever. It slowly got better after the 6 month mark only to come crashing down on holidays and special events and again at 1 year. I have been slowly going uphill since the 1 year mark has passed.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I hate it too when people say they couldn't live without their child. They have no CLUE. Because your body somehow keeps going when you want it to stop. As if they would will themselves to die. I've tried. I'm still here.
I am appalled that your tragedy has, conversationally, become all about that guy and his son. Too, it would be exhausting to interact all day with others...another layer of stress.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter also died this May. Reading your blog, and others, has been helpful....momentarily lifting the cloud of isolation.
If it weren't for all the bereaved parent bloggers, I would feel completely alone (I do anyway, I suppose). My son died in May, 21 weeks ago, and every minute that passes is another minute that he missed in this world.
ReplyDeleteIt does me no good to hear that "he's always with me". He should have been out in the world living his own life, and just checking back in with me sometimes. The ultimate goal isn't for our kids to always be with us, it's for them to grow up and live their own interesting lives. So, I just want to tell people - he never wanted to stay with his mother, he wanted to have his career, meet his soul mate, have adventures, make discoveries.
Only those who have experienced this can possibly understand. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings. Friends and colleagues not only can't understand, many have absolutely no interest in understanding. They just expect us to be "normal" again.
That's why I've been collecting blogs by bereaved parents - so we all have other parents to whom we can relate:
http://www.scoop.it/t/grief-and-loss