Guess We Just Begin Again – You might have realised after all these years this phrase is somewhat important to me, it is, after all what I called this at-times, very personal blog. I get asked “why do you publish a personal blog?”, “why do you put the effort in if nobody reads it?”. The answer to both is personal. I write because it brings to me some essence of relief and release. Sometimes at its most basic form, writing enables me to release thoughts or feelings out into the world so that I can clear my head of them and move on to other things. So having anyone read these blogs is beside the point. If people do, perhaps they can offer some sort of incite into what I am thinking when I publish a post, what’s eating at me, or how it’s making me feel. – If that’s what people get from it, great. But that’s not the reason why I write, nor is it the reason why I keep doing it.
Guess We Just Begin Again – First and for most is a lyric from a Shins song called ‘So now what’. That song has actually spawned two website titles for me, GWJBA and I Had This Crazy Idea.
Guess We Just Begin Again – and we do. For the most part. Except we don’t really now do we. We have.. one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment. Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?
We don’t just begin again. We can’t just begin again. I can’t just begin again. For a few months prior to losing my Mum, I had been suffering with Depression. It was general depression. There was a lot of stuff going on under the surface. There was stress about my Mum and her health at the time. I had just started to recover from spending the previous Christmas in hospital with Pneumonia. There was a lot of stress and pressure on my shoulders. I was still not in work, but receiving pressure from work, not claiming benefits, having no income, having financial worries, being unable to work, losing friends. There was a lot of stuff bubbling away under the surface and so I found myself in need of some help. February 2019 was went I went to the Doctors and sought some help for Depression.
My 1 year Depressaversary was the 14th February. The long and short of it all was that was the date in 2019 that I sought help for the way I was feeling. Over the course of the next few months on from then, I was trying different antidepressants, trying to work towards finding the right combination, to find something that worked for me. I was apparently getting a little brighter every day. One of my biggest regrets and disappointments in myself was allowing my Mother to see me in such a low, depressive state. I tried so hard to avoid that for as long as possible, I really did. But the thought that I put any extra strain or pressure on her sholders, is a regret that I will carry to my grave.
Then the unthinkable happened and my Mum passed away. It should be fairly obvious to most that this set my progress and fight against depression backwards. This was (is) a different kind of pain however. Those thoughts of sadness of the underlying depression are still there, but they are covered, masked almost by this heartbreaking sadness that tries to swallow me up minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. It’s consuming. It’s powerful and most worryingly, its not at all controllable. I could, and hopefully will one day be able to go into detail about how I feel on a daily basis. But for now let’s sum up with using labels that I hate so much. The so-called ‘stages’ of grief.
I have been in denial – and it’s wonderful. It’s not at all real in the sense of applying logic. But logic doesn’t exist in denial. I have been angry, I have bargained, I feel low, sad & depressed.
I am still finding myself someday’s in total and utter disbelief as to the events of May & June 2019. I still find myself going back in my head and thinking about how surreal the entire situation was. How I handled it, how I (the one whose been most knowledgeable, most researched, most on-top-of-the-game of everything for the past four years), completely missed the warning signs and flags and found myself so utterly blindsided by it all. I still go back in my head now and think of how surreal everything is. But I don’t think this is denial. It doesn’t feel like denial. Denial feels like.. Or to me feels like it… It’s not that I don’t know it’s happened. But I still don’t fully believe it happened how it did. Going through it all at the time.. My mind is blown.
I have, thankfully, a support network of fantastic, trustworthy friends who are like brothers to me. I don’t need to name names, you know who you are, and I hope you all know I would be lost without you and your invaluable support during these sad times. Sometimes we don’t always get to talk often, but knowing you are all there means more to me than things which should mean more but don’t. I know what I am trying to say, but to shorten things – Thank you. I am, not done. I am not.. fixed. I have an extremely long road to walk down. It’s full of holes, many are hidden, but I know with the friendship you offer, I don’t need to worry too much about falling in, as I know I am lucky enough to have a supportive network.
Normality & finding a new one – I am sorry, I don’t believe normal exists anymore. My life has changed in so many ways since losing Mum. Not just the fact that I no longer have my Mum around, I no longer feel the closeness I shared with my Mum, with anyone else. There was simply another step to those feelings, which in my mind are simply irreplaceable. Simply put, nothing feels the same as it did anymore. I am finding it quite pointless and simply a waste of time to look for things to be the way they were. – Things are different now. To use a cliche, things are colder now. I’ve felt in my lifetime the debilitating effects of loneliness, but this is a step beyond. It’s a step towards emptiness, towards nothingness. Towards desolation.
And if there’s a reason I’m still alive
When everyone who loves me has died
I’m willing to wait for it.
I’m willing to wait for it.
Wait for it – Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton)
What also came into my life after my Mum passed away was something called Anxiety. I’ve never experienced it before. I’ve had Depression for years, but Anxiety has always been something I had avoided. Till now. Losing someone you are close to is often called a life-changing experience. Being sad at the loss of someone close is often considered normal. Sadness can lead into Depression. Depression can allow the mind to work against you. But Anxiety… Anxiety does what the fuck it wants whenever it wants to. Anxiety doesn’t care if your having a good day, or a shit day. In fact, Anxiety doesn’t care if you are having a day at all. It’s a selfish prick that comes in, joins the party, eats all the food, drinks all the beer and never actually leaves.
Anyone who feels Depression & Anxiety are the same thing, really hasn’t experienced Anxiety. – I was the same, till June 2019, I was the same. I thought nothing of Anxiety. ‘It’s just a part of Depression’ I thought. – Shit was I wrong. Depression can effect your mood, how you feel, how much you want to do, where you go, how you feel about things. Anxiety literally puts a physical stop to anything you want to do. It doesn’t give a flying fudgecake.
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I’ve spoken out about Anxiety before, and I likely will here again. This is all so so surreal. Still feelings of disbelief over mum. The fact that she got sick, went through all she did and then died. The fact that she’s no longer here with me. It’s sometimes overwhelming feeling of despair. All of a sudden. Where did all this come from? – From a need to write. But for anyone reading this, these are random thoughts that have sat as a draft on this blog for a while. Don’t try and fit them in or attach any context to them. Some of them are months old now. But all are somewhat still relevant to where I find myself now, how I find myself feeling and how hard it is that I find getting up out of bed for every single day.
There is so much I still cannot get to, can’t think about for long enough to write about. So many pressures still present, still unchanged, still undone. There’s no neat, tidy way to finish this. There is no normal anymore. Guess We Just Begin Again… No, we really, really dont.
So now what.
