I’ve been seeing my wonderful counsellor for just over a year now and I always wish I’d started sooner! Years of anxiety and feeling ‘just not right’, turned out to be the consequence of burying emotions and never processing or voicing how I really felt.

Even as a kid, I never showed when I was upset by something; I kept everything to myself and would continue like nothing was ever happening. BIG MISTAKE!

As a young adult, I experienced the relationships that perhaps didn’t go to plan, people who hurt me, people who didn’t care like I did… It all adds up!

Fast forward to the age of 29 and I met my counsellor, let’s call her ‘Petunia‘. My wonderful not-husband was due to deploy again and I was struggling with bouts of depression and crippling anxiety. I knew I had to sort something out before he left.

Time to change

I went along to my first session, nervous and apprehensive, not knowing what on earth to expect. Petunia instantly put me at ease with her kind and calm approach. We had a cupa and chatted about why I was there.

My reasons were varied but mainly I was fed up of feeling so low and I’d had enough of panic attacks, nausea and the constant worry. It was a couple of months off my birthday and I was determined to ‘be better’ in my thirties.

“Surely I should be able to cope with life by now?” (said almost every adult, ever!)

So Petunia and I spent our first session exploring my history of how I came to be in her room; we identified several boxes of shit I’d pushed into a cupboard inside my head and we knew this would be a long process!

Why am I crying?! How is this normal?!

To begin with we opted for weekly sessions as I definitely had a lot of decluttering to do! We talked about all sorts; she unearthed things I didn’t know I cared about! She’d have me in absolute tears sometimes, crying over things I thought had gone from my mind… how?!

Take my previous relationship, for instance – the one before my amazing not-husband – that had ended some 5 years ago. It was over a long time before it was over too, if you know the type of relationship I mean; I hadn’t given it a thought in years!

Well Petunia knows just the right buttons to press. I cried. Hard!

Wtf?

Why was I crying?!

I didn’t care about that stuff any more…???

Petunia had opened a wound. One I’d locked away nicely in a box, packed into a cupboard and secured with a gigantic bolt on the door! She’d opened it and it was all falling out! I’d suppressed all the emotions relating to that person, the relationship, and the way it had ended. I couldn’t even tell her his name!

Revealing hidden emotions

So there I was, balling my eyes out over something five years ago, telling Petunia I was over it, when in fact, I hadn’t dealt with any of those emotions until that point. Here they were surfacing, bringing up feelings I’d fought so hard to crush the first time around!

We went back further… Petunia poked at old wounds to see if they’d bleed and most did! I found myself experiencing emotions I never knew were inside!

This was bizarre, how could someone I barely know provoke such reactions from me?

I wasn’t the sort of person to ever cry (unless it involved an animal!) but Petunia had me crying nearly every session to begin with, AND in between them.

I wondered what had happened to me. I was always so strong and hid my emotions from everyone.

Turns out that’s a really bad idea!

There is only so much cupboard space in your mind and if you keep filling it, there’s no room for anything else. So this is where I was at!

Decluttering the past

As we began to unpack the past, I started to feel lighter, truly over the things that had hurt me before. I was no longer carrying those boxes, weighing me down.

My wonderful not-husband was thousands of miles away and I felt strong (actually strong this time). We talked when we could, which sometimes wasn’t very often – as with any deployment – but every little conversation was precious. When we got a chance to talk for a little longer, I shared with him snippets of my counselling sessions, just so he wasn’t feeling left behind in my journey.

I was feeling good!

I was feeling able to take on anything that life could throw at me. Then BANG!

Devastation!

Two months into deployment, my Dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness. My world was blown apart and my best friend was days away and hard to contact. Thank my lucky stars for Petunia!

I was able to voice how I felt, offload how crazy I was feeling, tell her my frustrations of my not-husband being away from me when I needed him the most! Petunia kept me from going under. Still very low at times and the anxiety had ramped up again, but I felt I could tread water just long enough to get through the last month of deployment.

I was physically and emotionally exhausted, visiting the hospital daily – which was an hours drive on a good day! The house standards were slipping as I just didn’t have the energy to deal with that too.

I was struggling without my amazing not-husband to take some of the strain. He was over there feeling guilty that he couldn’t support me fully, but believe me, he was supporting me way more than he knew.

Normal?

My not-husband returned (eventually – never trust a home coming date, they never go to plan!) and home life settled into some kind of normal again. The blue jobs were being done and I had someone to share the hospital trips with.

As the months went by, Petunia introduced me to the notion of anticipatory grief. Something I never knew about but is absolutely normal! You can read more about the process in my previous article, but simply put, it’s grieving the loss of a loved one before their death.

I had no idea that what I was experiencing was completely normal. No one ever talks about it, but when Petunia explained it all, I felt relatively ‘normal’. However, I was still struggling to understand what ‘normal’ was!

The New Me

Fast forward again and I felt like a new person! The shy, quiet, unconfident person I was before was owning life. At Dad’s send-off, I stood up at the front (with a microphone!) and read out 8 minutes worth of something I had written. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it! Who was this person?!

I had organised most of the send-off and hosted the ‘after-party’ for over 30 people. I was confident, balanced and being the real me! Someone I’d not been in years!

And why? Because Petunia had taught me to just be myself! Not to care about what others thought, not to worry about what I can’t change, to just do what I felt right in my heart. I’d let go of all the dusty boxes packed away in my attic and had room for all kinds of new possibilities.

I had dealt with losing my incredible Dad on a daily basis, rather than pushing it to the back of my mind and hoping it’d go away. (it doesn’t) If I felt something, I’d say it: if I needed to cry, I’d let it out without worrying I looked silly or feeling guilty for it.

I felt good!!

I decided to keep my monthly sessions going, just to make sure I was doing okay and that brings us to today’s session. Petunia and I met, we did our usual catch up of events over a brew and she explored all avenues of my mind.

We talked about the ups and downs of grief – how one day you can be happy and the next you just can’t hold back the tears. She told me how normal and natural this is and I believed her.

We discussed the minefield that are the female hormones and the effect they can have on the mind. I had explained to Petunia how one week I can hold one opinion/mindset and two weeks later I can think the complete opposite! This too, she tells me is absolutely the norm. Who knew?!

But how do I know which to believe?!

My mind fuelled by hormones is screaming one thing one week and something else the next! One week something will irritate the life out if me, but the next I might not even notice it! How can that be a normal process? How do I cope with those contrasts?!

Do I just see which thoughts scream the loudest and go with that?!

Nope, Petunia tells me these are the things to discuss with my amazing not-husband. Because if the past has taught me anything, it’s that NOT sharing problems is where the issues actually start. I could talk to anyone, but the person I spend my life with is the only person sharing the experiences with me so closely.

So here I am, waiting for my not-husband to return on Friday, because whilst video calls are great, they’re not ideal. Some conversations need to be in person.

Life is a roller-coaster!

Everyone has their own issues, whatever they may be and their own ways of coping, which may be unique to them. But the one common denominator is that we’re all normal.

We’re all struggling with something, some more than others, some more serious, some more painful, but we’re all just ‘normal’. Life has its ups and downs and we just flow with it, coping in whatever way we can!

I still have my bad days, seeing a counsellor didn’t ‘cure’ me; I have horrendous days sometimes! In fact, I hate the person I am in those times and I fight hard to dig my way back out. Peaks and troughs are a normal part of life, so don’t lose heart if you dip back down again – remember that’s all part of being ‘normal’.

But for the first time in my adult life, during that session, I felt ‘normal’! I understood that my ‘crazy brain’ isn’t actually crazy and that the doubts I have, the worries, the internal conflicts, are all

COMPLETELY

NORMAL!

Over and Out,

The Not Wife

X

JOIN ME ON INSTAGRAM – CLICK HERE

The post What exactly is NORMAL? appeared first on The Not Wife Life.

I wanted to share a little of my journey through grief with you. Why?! Because I wish I’d have understood more about the grieving process before it started. Before I experienced the loss!

Losing my amazing Dad has been the toughest, most self-defining time of my life. It made me question everything, it changed my view on life and it pushed me to confront fears I never knew I had.

The Beginning

We never saw it coming!

June 2018, Father’s Day. Little did we know, it’d be our last!

My Dad and I shared that day in a hospital observations ward. He’d had back pain for quite some time but this was something new. An odd lack of sensation had occurred. He couldn’t feel a rough towel on his legs like he normally could. After days of tests and scans, we got it. That dreaded diagnosis.

After months of pain and discomfort, we now knew why. Dad was told he had suspected Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma which had spread to his bones. His spine was full of lesions (cancerous cells), which had caused the discs to fracture, hence the pain! Then there was his age…he had only just turned 60 a month earlier!

World blown apart! And where was my darling not-husband during all of this? Well, deployed of course, these things don’t happen when they’re home! He’d already missed Dad’s surprise party in May and was not due back for another month!

Now what?!

A transfer to another hospital for immediate radiotherapy then back to the first to start chemotherapy. And so it began…

Anticipatory Grief

Something nobody talks about! Everyone assumes grief only occurs when someone has passed away…wrong!

Anticipatory grief is completely normal! Who knew?!

What is Anticipatory Grief?

Grief as we know it begins when a loved one passes away, however; anticipatory grief occurs much earlier – but can be just as powerful – whilst the person is still living. The person living with the illness can also experience this type of grief, as they lose the individual they once were.

Anticipatory grief pretty much means mourning the loss of the person that once was and the lifestyle they had.

Some people who experience this may feel more prepared for the loss, or the person with the illness may feel ready to ‘let go’. Whilst others will start the grieving process all over again once the death has actually occurred. There is no right or wrong way to grieve for a loved one.

The well known model by Kübler-Ross, suggests there are 5 stages of grief and that we can experience any or all stages, at any time during the grieving process.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

All of these stages can include various symptoms of anticipatory grief, both emotional and physical. Sadness, anxiety, fatigue, forgetfulness, fear, muscle tension, guilt, regret, headaches and loneliness, just to name a few.

For me, I was plagued with viral infections; coughs and colds that would usually disappear after a week. A combination of poor diet from meals on the go, sleepless nights and anxious nausea, made remaining healthy myself, so much harder.

Change!

When someone so close is diagnosed with a terminal illness, everything changes! Every thought you have becomes influenced. You consider things you’ve never once given a thought to before.

Depending on the type of illness your loved one has, many changes can occur in them too. Whether it be memory problems, mobility issues or losing their independence, all of these things have an impact. Sometimes it may not be the illness that causes the symptoms, but the medications themselves.

Dad was on morphine based medications for over a year and by the end was taking incredibly high doses. Opioid based pain relief have so many side effects I won’t even begin to start listing them. But that amount of drug is enough to change anyone’s personality!

Watching that person you love deteriorate in front of you is devastating! You feel sad for the times you can no longer share. You feel angry at the things they’ll miss out on but you also feel honoured to be able to care for them. Every emotion possible passes through your mind.

Back and Forth

Treatment began and hospitals became our daily routine. We were all exhausted! Restlessness sets in as you spend hour after hour staring at the same four walls. A combination of radiotherapy sessions and chemotherapy drugs was making Dad feel rotten. The sickness only caused more pain for his back and with each day that passed, he was losing more feeling from his ribs down!

This way happening quickly! Far quicker than any of us ever imagined!

We fluctuated between stages of grief. Anger, to denial, to bargaining and back again. We’d try anything to make this stop! Dad would agree to start eating healthier on one day, then ask, “what’s the point?”, the next.

By mid July, my wonderful not-husband was due back from deployment and it could not be more welcome! He’d left in April and all was well. By June he was face-timing Dad in hospital and being told off for making him laugh…because laughing with a broken back hurts!

Dad was back home when my not-husband returned. Now visiting consultants and Dr’s almost weekly and using crutches and a zimmer frame to get around the house. A big change from April when Dad was building himself a new shed from scratch!

August and September came and went. Dad lost more mobility week after week. He was now sleeping downstairs and with no hope of surgery or a cure, Dad refused any further treatment!

A devastating blow for the family but we had to respect Dad’s decision…no matter how hard that was to accept!

Had he reached the acceptance stage already, or was this the depression stage? Was he giving up on life?

Entering The Unknown

October arrived and Dad was feeling somewhat brighter without all the cancer drugs and injections. He and my brother had already postponed a road-trip across Europe, so it was now or never!

They spent a week driving through France, Germany and Austria, visiting all kinds of places along the way. Dad was really struggling with sitting in the Motorhome for so many hours at a time and was having trouble getting in and out, so they returned a day early.

November was looking bleak. Dad had been off all treatment for a month now and told he could deteriorate rapidly without the drugs. No real prognosis could be given as we didn’t know how aggressive it was. Hoping for the best was now our only option…

Like us, Mum and Dad were also ‘not-husband’ and ‘not-wife’, so after more than three decades together, this was another ‘now or never’ moment.

We applied for and were granted a waiver for the usual 30 days notice of marriage and with Dad now being fully wheelchair dependent, we had a sit down ceremony too. With just three weeks of planning, we managed to pull off the most magical day! A memory treasured by us all!

They were now husband and wife!

Is This It?! Is our loss imminent?!

Christmas wasn’t exactly a time of celebration as you can imagine. You begin thinking about the next one, where you know Dad won’t be there! The depression sets in for everyone. You wonder how life can ever be normal again?! The anger fills you with hate of how unfair this all is! The denial…because he’s my strong, powerful Dad, this can’t possibly happen to him!

Now almost completely bed-bound, Dad had pressure sores developing and infections hitting him from all directions. His immune system had been destroyed by the chemotherapy and radiation and the pain was unbearable. Admissions to hospital came for December; allowed home on Christmas Eve through compassion, returning on New Year’s Day.

January came with a different kind of admission. This time to a hospice. We thought, “this is it”. No one comes back out of a hospice…do they?! A syringe driver was put in and the reality is, that meant, ‘end of life’ drugs. Another devastating blow with reality hitting us in the face!

We thought, “He’s not going to see February”.

The anticipatory grief kicks back in. You start questioning everything! “Have we done enough?”, “Should we have sought a second opinion at the start?”, “Why didn’t we notice earlier?”, “Perhaps it’s been misdiagnosed?”, “Why Dad? He’s a good man.”, “What’s the point of all this?”

“How can this be it for a once fit, strong, healthy Dad, Grandad and Husband?”

Then the images of the future appear. You begin to see the things Dad will miss out on and you cry.

The Confusion

Now, I’m happy being a not-wife and have no plans to marry my not-husband any time soon, but February brought thoughts I never imagined would come. We attended a beautiful wedding which saw one of my closest friends tie the knot with her army man…being walked down the aisle by her father.

Oh the emotions! Whilst I was incredibly happy for our friends, it stirred emotions inside of me that I never knew I had. It was the “my Dad will never be able to do that” thought and that broke me. It hurt…but why, I’m not having a wedding…it just didn’t make sense!

I managed to hold it together right up until the reception, when I watched the bridesmaid dance with her father. It hit me all over again! The tears broke through and I had to get some air.

Life as we knew it…

After two weeks, Dad did leave the hospice and requested everything be managed at home. He signed a DNAR form which expressed his wishes not to be resuscitated and now had a hospital bed in the lounge. That form was Dad’s acceptance stage, he knew this was it and did not want to prolong the inevitable.

We were into the “any day now” mindset. Dad would spend a lot of the time ‘out of it’. With so much diamorphine, he was confused, hallucinating, vomitting, drowsy…the list is endless. He required 24 hour care and to begin with, we had no care package in place. Mum, my brothers and I were exhausted, both mentally and physically.

My own life was on hold, I wasn’t taking as good care of myself as I should have been and my housework was piling up. My sinus infection and bad chest had not cleared up, I was feeling awful every day, only for the Dr to tell me, “you just need to rest!”. HOW?!

Being self-employed, I’d given up a lot of my clients to free up more time to spend with Dad. It had become about quality rather than quantity and both were dwindling fast! Not working, coupled with daily pharmacy trips and visits to see Dad was taking its own kind of toll, financially.

By now, my not-husband was away again, but this time on exercise in the UK. He’d driven himself separately so that he could return home at a moments notice, without having to mess up anyone else’s day. Once that was complete, he was home again for a few weeks before we started ‘weekending‘. The timing sucked, but you don’t get to choose these things when you’re in the military. So we carried on the best we could.

Mum had asked if I wanted to be there when ‘it’ happened. I said yes!

The False Alarms

We started to think, “he’s definitely not going to make it to March”.

Mum had called me late one night to say, “I think this is it, you need to be here”.

So I drove over, preparing myself to say goodbye to my beautiful, kind-hearted Dad. We sat by his bedside for hours, comforting, reassuring and soothing him. He seemed to pull back from the edge and settle down.

He’s going to be okay for a little while longer…phew!

Then it happened again mid-March, the phone call of doom, I mentally prepared myself. I arrived to see Dad breathing very shallow and think, “tonight’s the night”.

Wrong again! Just a chest infection. A course of anti-biotics and Dad was back chatting, sitting in his chair and discussing engineering programmes on TV with my wonderful not-husband. How?! My Dad was so strong, he was defying the laws of medicine.

The ‘Crazy Brain’

“Well, he can’t possibly see April…can he?!” My emotions were shot to pieces, up and down like a yo-yo, constantly preparing myself to say goodbye. Preparing for that loss.

Every time I left, I’d wonder if that would be my last goodbye. “Did I remember to say, “I love you”? Did I give him a kiss? Had I hugged him tight enough?”

Every time my phone made a noise, the panic would set in, the fear would fill my mind.” Would this be the call to tell me my Dad has died?”

Nothing is the same.

I am not the same.

I don’t feel like ‘me’ any more. I’m struggling to stay afloat. Picking up medications every single day, because he’s on such high doses they can’t dispense any extra. I just want to sleep, but I can’t sleep for the worry in my mind. The uncertainty, the anticipation and angst of just not knowing! I’ve entered survival mode, I do whatever it takes just to get through the day, often running on autopilot, supporting everyone else to make sure they have what they need, whilst ignoring my own.

I wonder if this new anxious, on edge, tearful yet numb me, is the new ‘me’? Feeling the guilt of no longer being ‘me’, I question how on earth my amazing not-husband could want to be with this ‘new me’?! I ponder why he’s sticking around for all of this? Then he reminds me how much he loves me AND my family and I feel a little brighter. But that doesn’t last long, I’ve become hyper alert, I can’t switch off, I’m organising things in my head, I’m not present in the moment. The constant thoughts about what comes next…

The Final Curtain

21st April, Easter Sunday, 2019

My not-husband and I had been on a rare afternoon out together. A beautiful walk around a forest and a lake. Tranquility and calm. Just perfect!

1800hrs – On our way home, we popped in to see Dad. He’d said he was feeling pretty awful but had another chest infection, so that was to be expected. All seemed well, we chatted about our day out and caught up with my Auntie who was visiting. We said goodbye, I said, “I love you”, I hugged him and I gave him a kiss.

That was the last time.

2256hrs – “I think you need to be here”. We’d been here before more than once and as we’d only seen Dad a few hours earlier we weren’t expecting it. We sorted ourselves out, settled the dogs and got in the car. They only live 4 minutes away, so we’ve always been on hand.

2315hrs – “You’re too late, he’s at peace now”.

How can this be possible?! How could it happen so quick? Why did I not know earlier? What if I’d have left quicker? Did he wait for me to not be there?

I could torture myself with these thoughts all day long but the truth is, ‘it wasn’t meant to be’.

My beautiful, kind, caring, intelligent, amazing Dad had gone. It was all over! The sorrow hit. The tears flowed. My heart broke for my dear Mum who’d lost her soul mate. How would she be able to carry on without him? How would any of us cope with this huge loss in our life?

Published on 20th May, in loving memory of my incredible Dad, who would have been 61 today!

The Not Wife

x

Part Two – After The Loss – coming soon.

JOIN ME ON INSTAGRAM – CLICK HERE

The post Loss vs Life appeared first on The Not Wife Life.