Author: Naomi

Regaining Okay

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

Today, everyone I started uni with three years ago will hand in their final essays (and then probably go off and celebrate with a suitable amount of alcohol followed by a few days/weeks of sleep).

Taking leave from uni in October was the right thing to do. I have no doubt about that. Not going back in January was undoubtedly also the right decision at the time (albeit one which I had slightly less control over).

It doesn’t stop it being odd, though. Last week my Facebook was filled with dissertation hand-ins and this week it’s full of final hand-ins and celebrations. It feels like more than seven months since I was one of them (a living, breathing, highly caffeinated student). It feels like a lifetime ago. A lot has happened and changed in the past seven months, but it’s not just that. I really underestimated how much I was in the uni bubble, and I really underestimated how quickly I would fall out of it and feel so out of it.

Life is bringing more changes for me at the moment. I’m moving out of the place I’ve been living for five months this weekend. I’m starting a new job in the next few weeks. I’ve just finished the course I’m doing at Mind. Lots of things are changing. It’s all positive change but change nonetheless. I’ve come a long way in the past few months, but there is a long, long way still to go. I’m not working on trying to get the ‘old me’ back any more. Too much has happened and changed, and I’ve changed with it, but I’m still working on getting to a place where I have more good days than bad days, a few less ‘grief attacks’, and hopefully a lot less anxiety (something which continues to rudely interrupt my life no matter how much I tell it I’d really quite like it to disappear).

My friendships have changed, too. A lot of people who I expected to stick around haven’t, but that’s okay. It’s life. Some things some people have said or done I’ve not agreed with, but I’ve also learned to stand up to that, and I’ve learned it’s okay to leave people at a point in your life. Not everybody has to make it to your future. I’m learning to trust some of my closer friends more, and to go to them when I need them, something which is really hard to do when one of the people you always thought would be around and be there for you dies.

I don’t regret taking time out from uni. It was the right decision. It has given me space, allowed me some time to breathe, and enabled me to meet some wonderful people who I can now call my friends. I’ve really settled into a new volunteering role (which I’m hoping to keep up alongside my new job), and I would never have found it had I not arrived on their doorstep five months ago and basically spilled my life story to them and asked them if they could help me.

Even with knowing it was the right decision, it is weird seeing everyone finish and I imagine it will be weird come graduation, too. There is also a nagging voice in my head telling me I should have stuck it out and ‘just done it’ (fun little words pop up like ‘failure’ and ‘weak’). I’m trying to ignore it, though. I know that’s not the case. I’ve continued to live, continued to get up every day and do things even when they scare me, I’ve continued to work on regaining ‘okay’.

Learning toAccept ‘Okay’

~ Naomi ~ 1 Comment

We live in a society of extremes. Our media constantly reports the best of humanity and, more often, the worst of humanity (they sort of have to, I don’t imagine anyone would read ‘man went to work and nothing happened’). The adverts that surround us tell his how to be ‘skinnier’, ‘more toned’, ‘more muscular’, ‘smarter’, basically ‘better’.

Well before we’re able to make decisions for ourselves, life is insidiously turned into a sort of Hunger Games, pitting young people against each other for the benefit of the wider world – and it works in stages. As toddlers, we are pitted against our peers to see who can walk first, talk first, count first. If you pass that stage well enough, then school becomes your new battleground, where we are told to be the ‘best’, to achieve the ‘best grades’, to win every sports match, basically to be at the top in everything we do. Do well enough there, and leaving school and moving into a job becomes the next battleground – targets and challenges are thrown at you from every angle, with competition manifesting itself in salary, houses, cars, anything tangible that people can use to compare themselves to one another.

We push ourselves, try to squeeze more than we can fit into each hour of every day, we run on empty and burn ourselves out. We lose ourselves, our very dreams, in the quest to ‘be the best’. And ultimately, what for? Someone will always be better, faster, smarter, stronger (unless you really are at the top, but so few people ever get there that most people will have to settle somewhere along the line). If we do achieve or succeed, the pressure only mounts. We have to look up and down at the same time, beating anyone who tries to take our place whilst simultaneously trying to reach higher and overtake the person in front. It’s exhausting, and it’s not healthy.

There’s something incredibly freeing about learning to accept ‘okay’. Following Mum’s death there have been lots of ups and downs. It can often feel like everything is crap and nothing is ever going to get better. There have been weeks when I have felt incredibly low, and at times like that, I don’t want to feel ‘good’ or ‘great’, I literally just want to feel ‘okay’. It’s not normal for anyone to feel ‘great’ all the time or even ‘good’ all the time (whatever adverts might tell us!). Sometimes feeling okay, and being at peace with that, can be such a relief.

When it comes to other aspects of life, as much as it is admirable to constantly strive to be better, sometimes it’s necessary to accept ‘okay’. You didn’t get all of your jobs for the day done, but it’s okay because there’s tomorrow. Your room is a little messier than you’d like, but it’s okay because you’ve had a busy week and you’re tired. You don’t feel like cooking tonight, but it’s okay because ready meals, takeaways and toast exist, and you’ve had a busy day. These are really basic examples, but it’s the start of a new ‘okay’ mindset.

Of course, in some aspects of your life you will want to strive for better than okay, and that’s okay too! If you have a big exam coming up, of course you will try to get the best grade you possibly can. When going for a promotion, of course you will want to put your all into it. When it’s your child’s birthday party, of course you will want to make it as memorable as possible (in a good way!). But equally, when you do put your all into everything and you don’t achieve what you’d hoped, it’s not the end of the world; it really isn’t.

Adding ‘okay’ to your vocabulary is so vital in today’s society when there is pressure from every angle. When you’re expected to do unpaid overtime, have a ‘perfect’ house, a ‘perfect’ body and a ‘perfect’ social life all at the same time (which, by the way, is entirely unrealistic). You are okay. You really are okay. And most of the time, so am I.

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A Broken Jigsaw

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I don’t have words to describe the depth of feeling that comes with grief. As each day goes by it hits me time after time how much life is never going to be the same again. I am never going to return to the person I was pre-2012. I’ve got to create this new person/life/something, but it feels like triyng to do a jigsaw where there are pieces missing, extra pieces from another jigsaw, and no picture to guide you.

Homesick

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I want to go home and to pull into the drive and see my mum busy in the kitchen cooking tea. I want the kitchen to smell of baking and cooking. I want her to welcome me with a hug. I want to help her finish tea while chatting about what I’m up to and what she’s doing at work. I want to sit down with my family and eat with them. Then after I want to go and sit in the lounge with all of them, with mum, and watch tv or a film or something (but spend so much time talking over it that we hardly know what’s going on). And I want my Mum to offer me chocolate and offer me 1000 reasons why chocolate is 100% necessary for human survival. And I want to be able to put my head in her lap or sit on her knee when things get hard. And to take selfies with her. I want to hear her laugh. I want to be able to go into her bed at night again when things get too unbearable and I’m not sure I can make it as far as morning. I want her to ask but not expect an answer and just be there. I just want somewhere to feel like home.

6 Months

~ Naomi ~ 7 Comments

It’s 6 months today since Mum died. There aren’t really any words to put to it. It’s just a fact.

A lot has changed in the past 6 months. I live somewhere new, I’ve made new friends, I’ve lost a few friends, I stopped going to uni and started volunteering at a few places and doing a course at Mind, I started a new job, and I’m slowly trying to develop some sort of a social life.

There have been some great things and some not-so-great things.

I thought maybe I’d start to miss Mum a little less, but at the moment I seem to be missing her more and more. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s the weather, who knows. 6 months-post death and people stop asking. Not a criticism on anyone, life moves on, people move on, and there’s not a lot you can update when it comes to grief (as opposed to illness where something happens all the time). Sometimes I just want a Mum hug though, they’re different to other hugs. It can feel like all I need is one hug and I’ll be on my way. I didn’t live with Mum in her final years so it’s not like I saw her every day, but we did text often and I knew where she was if I needed her – I suppose I always took that for granted. She wasn’t meant to die.

So 6 months have passed. Soon there will be another 6 months, and then another. I just hope that with each passing 6 months, things get a little easier.

Illness vs Death

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

People don’t realise that has horrible as Mum dying was, it’s her illness which is having such a huge effect on me at the moment.

It was seeing her slurring and seeing things on the walls, unable to eat or walk, and then getting lost in Leeds in the dark on a Friday night because I was so upset I didn’t look where I was going and before I knew it I was stuck somewhere not-so-safe. Before that I was so confident at being out and about but now if I’m out in the dark I am so anxious and it’s only made worse by noise.

It was seeing the woman I’ve always seen as so strong, capable and ‘big’ unable to even reach up to her face to scratch her cheek… having to feed her water through a sponge and wipe her face for her. Then seeing other women, who I’ve always seen as role models, crying. Leaving the room and crying. Turning away and crying. Breaking down unable to speak. Having to remain strong for them, because they needed it.

The last stages of her illness were hard, really hard… but it was the sudden deterioration 8 months prior to that which really changed everything. It was so sudden and so unexpected.

I miss my Mum a huge amount, and there is a lot to come to terms with, but it’s the illness I’m struggling to get past. I get images in my head and I can see them in front of me when I’m watching TV or walking in the street or whatever and they won’t go away. Sometimes it feels like I’m back there. I haven’t slept in my bedroom at Dad’s house since that week.

I don’t know how to deal with it or where to go with it. There are no answers or solutions. I don’t even remember it all properly (yet?) but it’s just always there.

10271626_747664941922103_6494238436515259520_nIt was seeing the woman I’ve always seen as so strong, capable and ‘big’ unable to even reach up to her face to scratch her cheek…

Spotting the Gap

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

Today I went to the Central Leeds Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Event. It’s a very long name but was essentially a day in a room with a bunch of lovely people from around Yorkshire discussing children and young people’s mental health and the barrier to them accessing care. It was interesting and there were some (hopefully!) useful discussions. There were a lot of commissioners there too who seemed to want to listen to what young people were saying, so that’s always positive.

Halfway through the day we were left to our own devices to network. I met some lovely ladies from the charity ‘Just B‘. Just B are based in Harrogate and part of St Michael’s Hospice. They work with children and young people both before and after bereavement, and with adults post-bereavement (whether the bereavement itself was linked to the hospice or not). I had heard of them before but didn’t know a lot about them and certainly didn’t know they were linked to the hospice.

After we’d been speaking a little while, I brought up Mum (she often comes up in conversation, it usually goes something along the lines of ‘oh you live in York, are you at uni?’ ‘no, I was though’, ‘oh right did you graduate? what did you study?’ at which point I promptly forget that cancer/death/mum might make people feel uncomfortable and proceed to either have a great conversation, or a mini counselling session, or a mini counselling-someone-else session, or a very awkward end to a conversation and we all move on). Today it resulted in a great conversation.

I spoke to them about the gap in bereavement and terminal illness support for ‘young adults’. When you’re under 18 and there is a terminal illness in the family, the school, or a local charity often steps in and offers support. When you’re a ‘proper adult’, there is normally a friend who has been through something similar and can offer a shoulder. You’re also more likely to be settled somewhere and possibly have a job. When you’re over 18 but not really an adult, your friends are stumped, if you’re at uni they feel a bit stuck because it’s not something they often have to deal with, services often feel ‘too old’ and don’t seem to understand the complexity of being in your twenties (where you still really need your parents and more often than not are not settled in a stable living place and/or stable job). Young Adult Carers are available in some areas and they are absolutely brilliant, but there’s definitely a difference between having a chronically ill relative and a terminally ill relative.

At some point during this conversation, a commissioner came over and shared her story about her Mum dying at a young age.

The two ladies I spoke to were lovely and commented that until I mentioned it, they’d never thought of/seen that gap. They did say that they could completely see it, though, and that they had services available for that age (as they deal with both children and adults), but it just wasn’t something that they’d ever really seen as being a gap.

I shared my details with them (they might even be reading this post, I don’t know!), but it just hit home to me again that this gap is there and that there isn’t an easy solution for plugging it. Services aren’t often there, and even when they are there they aren’t necessarily ‘marketed’ to 18-30s. Grief is a personal thing at any age, but it’s definitely different to grieve for a parent at 21 compared to at 51.

It’s something I really want to look at. I want to create a space for people in a similar situation to myself (and Jenny, and Laura if you haven’t checked out their blogs you should!) to share their stories. To rant, to moan, to smile, to laugh, to get angry, to breathe and to ask advice. I want to find other young people in this situation and let them know that they are not alone and that life without their parent (or other close relative) can still be a life, even if it looks a bit different to how they imagined it would be. I want to share hope. There are lots of days when I feel hopeless, useless, angry, scared, lonely, happy, pretty much every emotion under the sun (frequently all of these in the space of 30 seconds), and I need people to know that it’s okay for that to happen.

It can be so lonely having a parent who’s ill and it can be so lonely having a parent who’s died. It’s hard to know if you’re making the right decisions (something I’ve often written about in this blog), when no decision seems like the ‘right’ one. It’s so hard to build your life back up when the world as you know it has changed forever. I’m lucky that I have some really good friends, but the mean age of my friends has probably gone up about ten or twenty years since Mum was diagnosed, and I’ve lost a fair number of friends along the way – and it’s not their fault or my fault, it just is.

I’m rambling now (and my brother isn’t editing this blog so apologies in advance!), but I can just see this gap glaring at me, and I don’t know how to fill it. I don’t even know how to make people realise it exists. But I want to, and I suppose the first step of anything is wanting to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Grief Identity Crisis

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

I’m having a bit of an identity crisis. I’ve always defined myself by what I do, or how I relate to others, but it all seems to be a bit mixed up right now.

I’m not at uni, so I’m not a student. I am working, so I am employed, but only one day a week, so that always leads to questions about what I do with the other six days… I am a daughter, though one without a Mum. I am a niece, sister, cousin and granddaughter, but none of these are really talking points.

People keep telling me I’m like Mum. That they can see Mum in me; in my looks, my personality, my values. But I am not Mum. I am not and never will be Mum. I do not have the same ambitions as Mum had. I do not have the same desire to be surrounded by people that Mum had. I do not have the same level of intelligence that Mum had.

Mum was incredible at her job. She achieved a huge amount in her career including developing a department in the hospital, working with Marie Curie, contributing to several publications, doing some bits and bobs down in London to advise panels about her job from a national standpoint, and being a trustee at the local children’s hospice. She was a well-known figure in palliative medicine and well-liked by colleagues. Every time I ‘Google’ her career, something else comes up. When she wasn’t working, she was active in the community and the church.

I doubt I will ever have a career as successful as Mum’s. I doubt I will ever make as much of a difference in people’s lives as she did. I don’t have the single-minded ambition that she held and don’t have the same love of academia that she did. I like to be doing things, practical things, on my feet and out and about.

Mum’s illness caused me to lose bits of my identity. Her illness resulted in my time being split between uni work and heading back to visit my family. The more ill she got, the more any ‘free’ time disappeared, and with that any ‘me’ time, any time to follow non-academic pursuits and any time to pick up hobbies. Life became uni-Mum-sleep-uni-Mum-sleep very quickly and in all that I lost myself a bit.

Building my life back up is hard… really hard. I’m having to rebuild myself, almost – or make a new self – but I don’t really know who it is I want to make, so I’m sort of blindly following things that come up and cobbling together some sort of life, whilst also attempting to deal with grief for Mum and my old life. Mum always said she just wanted me to be happy, but it’s hard to be happy when every day is another day she’s not there to talk to. I don’t know who I’m making, I don’t know who I am or who I will be next week.

I don’t want to live my life as “Fiona’s daughter”. There are a few people I know at the moment who think of me this way, and it feels like such a burden. It also doesn’t do justice either to me or to Mum. Mum wasn’t just a mother: she was so much more than that. And I may be her daughter, but I am so much more than that, too. The values that both Mum and Dad instilled in all three of us lay the groundwork for us to build our lives on. I only hope that, in time, I can start to use these things – the wisdom, advice, baking skills, work ethic, and countless other things about them that inspire me – to build myself into someone very different to Mum, but hopefully someone they’re proud of.

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Who am I writing for?

~ Naomi ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been struggling for inspiration these past few weeks.

I used to just sit down and write. While Mum was ill lots of things were happening so there was always something to write about. Then she died, there was a funeral, there was Christmas… always something to write about. But grief is boring, not a lot happens, it gets quite tedious.

Sometimes I have had inspiration but I’ve felt unable to write about it because it didn’t ‘fit’ with this blog. That inspiration then passes and once again I’m left mute.

I think I all too often forget why I’m writing and who I’m writing for. Initially I would just sit and write – a sort of catharsis – but as time went on and the blog grew, I began to feel more pressure to write ‘well’. Initially this lead to writing each post in word and copying them across (spelling and grammar have never been my strong point), then months ago, I started getting my brother to proof read things for me, and some blogs have more input from him than others.

More recently, though, I feel like I’ve lost my voice. I feel disconnected from my blog. I feel as though it’s run away from me and I’m left behind in the dust and I’m not quite sure how that’s happened. I think I need to stop worrying about what’s ‘right’ or what people want to read, and start just writing again.

Some of My Past Died With Mum

~ Naomi ~ 2 Comments

Grief is a strange (and on the whole, very boring) thing. We’re now entering month five of life without Mum and I was beginning to think maybe the surprises were running out. Apparently that’s not the case, though.

After getting in a conversation with someone yesterday and coming home and pondering, I was struck with the realisation that I can’t remember parts of my past. Not only can I not remember things, but I can’t think of anyone who would be able to remember them…

I’m not talking about major life-changing events like ‘which primary school did I go to’ or ‘what GCSEs did I choose’. Thankfully there are records for that. Also, I still have my Dad, and although his memory may not be as good as Mum’s was (which was scarily good), much of my past is still held in his memory.

However, this isn’t a foolproof set-up. When we were younger, my Dad worked away during the week. Mum worked long hours, too – but she saw us each night. There are a lot of the things that happened over that period that I can’t remember, but will have existed in Mum’s memory – and they will have died with Mum. Basic things like ‘what was my favourite badge to work on at Brownies?’ and ‘at what point did I realise English was anything but my favourite subject?’ I will probably never know.

There are other things that Dad will have known at the time but will not remember now. Things like the people I played with at school, my favourite subjects in Year 2, and my favourite item of clothing as a nine-year-old (although if I hunted round the photo archives for long enough, I could probably work that last one out).

These things are only skimming the surface of what I’ve been thinking over, but they are examples of items in my lost past. It’s really hard to explain how it feels to sit there and try and conjure up memories and have nobody there to fill in the blanks. In the past, if I wanted to know something I would just text Mum, but now I can see the memories but can’t reach them to make sense of them, and there is nobody there to help me do that. It’s incredibly frustrating and depending what it is, can be quite distressing.

As well as memories in their purest form, there are many things that I’m sure I remember ‘wrongly’, or remember correctly but with the eyes of a seven-year-old. Sometimes you just want someone else to offer some perspective on your memories, but when only two of you were involved in that memory and one of those people is dead, where does that leave you?

Even ‘taking a trip down memory lane’ is hard. At 18 I visited London with Mum for an awards evening, there are things we did on that trip and if I want to remember them I no longer have anyone to bounce those memories off. I can only remember it on my own. It’s so lonely.

It is really weird knowing that if I lose a memory, and only Mum would have remembered it, it is now a nothing. It’s a gap. I don’t know where it went or what it turned into but it’s not there anymore. It’s been replaced by space and silence. For the rest of my life, that gap will always be a gap; there will never again be a piece of memory that perfectly fits.

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