Goodnight, and Good Luck

I saw my GP.  She's lovely.  She gave me a 2-week certificate, though I won't actually need it until next week.  I'm planning to go back next week, anyway.  I don't want to be off for longer than I need, and I think this extra bit of time will help.  I rang my manager and explained, and she was fine - said she looked forward to seeing me next week, but to just let her know Sunday if I'm not ready.  She also said if I need any further adjustments, to let her know.  I told her I know what it is.  It's the backwash from mum's passing.  After she died, I knuckled down and just dealt with all the affairs, then took a couple of months to myself before going back to work.  During those months, though, I was writing my book about those final months we spent together.  It helped me - but I wasn't really grieving.  I think that's what's happening now.  Grief affects us all so differently, and it's finally caught up.  I've been able to look at photographs without any problems up to now - but now I'm finding it hard.  I looked at a photo yesterday of the first day I got Daisy.  She was so nervous, she spent a while hiding behind the settee.  Finally, she peeped out.  Then, over the next half-hour, she sniffed around.  She sniffed me and realised I wasn't going to hurt her.  In no time, she was up on the settee cleaning herself.  She came with me to mum's and gave her a lot of comfort.  And now, she's my sole companion.  I think if anything happened to her, it really would kill me.  Cats have incredible intuition.  She knows I'm low, and she cuddles up to me close each night when I go to bed.

I had the most terrible nightmare last night which underlined it all for me (and I'm sleeping huge amounts - dead sleep, without any alcohol involved).  I dreamed I'd come back to my flat one night, but the lights wouldn't work.  I managed to put my lamp on - but then it got switched off again.  I sensed some malevolent presence there in the darkness.  I checked the fuse boxes and just gave them a tap, and the lights all came on.  The place was in a state.  Wallpaper had been ripped down, furniture had been overturned - and there were tiny pellets of grey clay stuck over everything.  Finally, in panic, I ran downstairs to my neighbour to tell him.  He seemed to know.  He said he'd seen a face at my window some days when I'd been out.  He came up with me... and the place was in an even worse state.  Completely wrecked.  Then I went into the kitchen and saw this figure.  It was like a child, but made entirely of this grey clay, like a Morph figure.  It was trying to climb out of the window.  I screamed to my neighbour that I could see it, and I threw things at it.  I woke up then, screaming 'There it is!'  Throughout this nightmare, the one thought in my head was 'At least I can go to mum's.   She'll look after me.'

That was it.  Those two things.  Loss of the one person I could always go to - and fear of losing what I have left. 

The subconscious is a remarkable reservoir of truth.  It tells you what you need to know.

Like I said, I'm sleeping lots.  Apart from that one big nightmare, too, my other dreams are extremely vivid.

Tom i just want to say i cant imagine what you have been going through it must be awful to lose someone as close to you as a parent. Grief affects us all differently. I have had a very difficult year with bereavement of my grandma. I can relate to when you talk about "knuckling down" . I carried on as normal and processed the events of my grandmas death and my own sadness but not the grief. started having funny turns where i thought i was losing my mind and didnt feel on my own body. This led onto a bout of exisitential anxiety. Made worse by i didnt know what was causing it all. I now know it was grief. How could i not have seen it at the time? 

Yes cats do have intuition!

It sounds like it is still relatively early days for you. Please do not underestimate how difficult this period of your life is. But it wont last forever. Keep talking and posting if it helps. Im glad you are getting help from your GP and allowances at work. It sounds like this is the right direction.

Tom i just want to say i cant imagine what you have been going through it must be awful to lose someone as close to you as a parent. Grief affects us all differently. I have had a very difficult year with bereavement of my grandma. I can relate to when you talk about "knuckling down" . I carried on as normal and processed the events of my grandmas death and my own sadness but not the grief. started having funny turns where i thought i was losing my mind and didnt feel on my own body. This led onto a bout of exisitential anxiety. Made worse by i didnt know what was causing it all. I now know it was grief. How could i not have seen it at the time? 

Yes cats do have intuition!

It sounds like it is still relatively early days for you. Please do not underestimate how difficult this period of your life is. But it wont last forever. Keep talking and posting if it helps. Im glad you are getting help from your GP and allowances at work. It sounds like this is the right direction.

out_of_step said:

started having funny turns where i thought i was losing my mind and didnt feel on my own body. This led onto a bout of exisitential anxiety. Made worse by i didnt know what was causing it all. I now know it was grief. How could i not have seen it at the time? 

That's exactly it.  Like I'm losing my mind - everything.  It's the strangest experience.  At the moment of writing this, I can't pin down my feelings.  Anxiety is there, of course.  But you know that feeling you get when you're moving to a strange place miles away, or when someone close to you is moving away and they're going to leave a gap.  That's how it feels.  An emptiness, a sense of not just actual loss but impending loss, too.  Maybe even... and this is something I don't usually feel.... not exactly loneliness, but aloneness.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments.  I'll get back to you all when I feel more like it.