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Today I didn’t even get into work to say hello – I was planning to visit yet another one of the schools in which I work but just sat at home and cried and cried. A friend happened to call around that time and, whilst I tried to disguise the pain in my voice, she picked it up and we spent a couple of hours together just talking which was good.
Anne Marie made me stop and think when she wrote about me being busy and maybe not allowing myself to grieve (she didn’t use those exact words) and she is right. But I do not know how to grieve. I keep trying to ‘get over it’ and get on with things but I don’t know how to do anything – it’s as if I have forgotten how to be.
Also Andrea brought up an interesting point about when she felt she had ‘analysis paralysis’ and was always trying to analyse things, and I think this is me. I seem to be trying to work things out, to be a certain way, to think certain things and to be busy doing and getting over my grief.
What should I do? Shut myself away, cry, sleep or at least stay in bed or should I try and get back to work? I don’t know how to do ‘nothing’. I don’t mean nothing as in lazing about, but just nothing. I really don’t know how to act any more. Is it years of being in the business of ‘reflective practice’ or years of training to analyse everything. And of course, as with many of us who work within the ‘profession,’ the training I undertook meant many years of personal therapy!
What a laugh that is – years of personal therapy and I don’t even know how to be me anymore. Who am I anyway? Am I Sue, Michael’s mother, who misses her son so very much or am I the together professional who knows the ‘stages of grief’ etc etc?
Of course I don’t know the stages of grief. I don’t know how to act, and this has been a fantastic learning curve for me. And I know in the future it will enhance my work (here I go again, work hat on). I wish I could just shut up and be me but I no longer know who I am.
I feel lost and so very confused. I wonder if I should go for some grief therapy as suggested in one of the comments, but again my work hat goes on and thinks, “But I do that in my job.”
Just shut up Sue and be Sue. Sad, lonely and desperate Sue who no longer knows how to be herself.
Somehow sitting here typing I feel so detached. I want to speak to Michael and ask him what he would do as he used to have so many insightful thoughts.
What do I do?
I can’t ‘just be’
Anyway what exactly does that mean?
And as for choice what is all that about? Am I choosing to sit here and be some kind of confused mad woman who doesn’t even know herself any more? Or should I leap up and down and scream or calmly start writing a plan of action?
I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to behave and how do I choose when I don’t even know what to choose or how to act? Who are these people with all these answers? Who are these professionals who are meant to know and support/help? Every day I see them in my job and I want to shout, “Shut the f… up!”
What was that remark on Monday? “Well, Michael’s in a better place now”. What the hell does that mean? He’s dead for Gods sake!
Sometimes I feel like knocking some sense into myself. Literally banging my head with my fists so that I can sort of get some sense into my head. Or screaming and leaping so that I can get some of the energy that is locked inside. But no I calmly go about my business with the odd outbreak of sobbing.
Michael come home and give your mum a hug – just a little hug would be nice. I can’t believe I will never see him again and yet I just sit here and type. Why – what is the purpose behind all this?
Still I am analysing and trying to work it out. How do I stop? Even sleeping brings little peace and certainly no rest at the moment.
Maybe I am depressed and maybe some little pills might help (prozac – the happy pill). But you know what I do not want some false sense of feeling, of being detached. And then who am I? No better that someone who chooses (oh that word again!) to take drugs or drink – ah but someone might say prozac is on prescription.
Don’t make me laugh – the whole bloody thing is a farce. Actually life is a farce and I do not know how to live my life and be Sue anymore.
How do I just get up or move or speak and be myself – how do I do it?
Sue x
Hi Sue,
As someone who is on medication for anxiety I think that you have to separate out the idea that anti-depressants etc. necessarily numb you or make you feel detached.
I must stress that I do not have a medical background (and you need to get advice from someone who does) but for me they enable me (along with previous CBT) to control feelings and emotions that got in the way of me being able to ‘be’ and to ‘be me’.
I still feel, laugh, shout, cry, have good days and bad days and I certainly don’t walk around with a beatific smile on all the time. But what is absent is the overwhelming fear that actually meant that I could not experience any ‘normal’ emotions. One emotion coloured everything.
It’s a bit like a radio. When my anxiety was full blown the radio was turned up to maximum volume, so much it was distorted and it drowned out everything else.
Now – although the radio is not turned off – it is the background music that everyone has in their lives.
I am not advocating this path for you in any shape or form – I can only speak for myself. I used drink in particular to self medicate as I didn’t want to accept I had an ongoing problem. I think I was scared that if I admitted my life was hell, and faced up to it, and then nothing worked, I would know true despair.
Not sure if that makes sense – what I am trying to say is that if I didn’t admit I was ill then I didn’t have to worry about not getting better. Suppose it is the same thing as people putting off going to the doctor as they are scared of the reality.
So I drank and buggered my life up. Then stopped drinking, faced up, and got sorted.
I suppose what I am saying is that there are many types of bravery, but sometimes there is bravery in admitting defeat.
Have you tried a simple meditation? If not, set an alarm for ten or fifteen minutes, sit or lie in a curtained room and count your breaths, in and out, one… and two… and one… and two…, try not to think about or visualize the numbers. Try to empty your mind of everything. You don’t even need to shut your eyes, just ignore your field of vision! When the alarm goes you will resume normal life, but you may find your thinking is altered.
I find this technique useful, though it doesn’t work for all.
Well said Michaela…from someone who is on medication for depression (as many of us are).
Sue, I thought I knew about bipolar until my daughter got it. Her dad’s wife who’s a consultant psysciatrist was totally shocked and overwhelmed by the day to day living with it (we stayed with them for six weeks until my daughter was well enough to travel). Working it and living it are very different things. It dosen’t make you worse at doing your job and, in the short term your knowledge dosen’t make living the hell any easier…in the long term I think it does.
We all need help and support at times and if that includes taking medication then thats okay, but only you and your doctor can decide that.
Aching for you. xxx
