Grief’s Grip

I haven’t posted for a while, simply because I haven’t known what to write about. I haven’t known anything. Days pass by in a blur. Weeks go. Most days I’m unsure what day it is. This has been my life for the past 18 months. But surely it’s got a little easier I know some may think. No. No it hasn’t. In fact the opposite. Each day since Ned died brings more pain and more suffering. That’s grief’s grip on you. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t play nicely. It isn’t gentle. It’s your worst nightmare.

I’ve always written honestly about my experience with grief and mental illness. Why lie? Who would benefit? Not me and certainly not any reader. If the writing is too raw for you, then you don’t have to read it.

I wake up every single morning and think, ‘Please, not another day. I don’t want to face this life. I just don’t want to be any more.’ That doesn’t necessarily equate to suicidal thoughts. I have had incidents of these, but mostly it’s just a sense of not wanting to exist; not wanting to have to think any more; not wanting to have to pretend and act just to get through the day; not wanting to feel the desperate guilt that I’m a terrible Mum; not wanting to be terrified that I’ll let my other two sons down the way I let Ned down. All this, jumbled up in my head all day, every day.

I am so tired. Physically, emotionally and mentally empty. Most nights are filled with horrific nightmares. I wake up crying and sweating, disorientated until reality becomes clear and sits vice-tight on my chest.

Yes I have counselling. Yes I’m having psychology sessions, which include EMDR therapy which I’ve written about. I’m functioning. I’m breathing. But I’m not living. How can I? I let my little boy die, I don’t deserve to live. My boys deserve their Mam, of course they do, but I’m only a shadow. I try, I really do. But deep in my core I feel nothing but emptiness. A black hole waiting to swallow me whole.

‘Other people have lost children. They get through it. It just takes time.’

‘You will get through this. You will live again.’

‘You have to live. You have no choice. You have a husband and two sons.’

Grief affects each of its sufferers differently. The generalised comments that I get mean nothing. Grief’s grip makes me physically sick; it leaves me in a panicked heap unable to breathe; it makes me cry an ocean; it makes my limbs heavy; it makes my heart hurt. Of course it does because grief is the price you pay for loving someone. I loved my little boy more than I could ever put into words. I miss him so much I can’t even let myself think that I’ll never see him again. And so I must suffer. I must live in grief’s grip. There’s no escape. There’s no cure. Maybe one day it will loosen its hold slightly. Maybe.