Into the Void

Hi folks,

The title is the best way I can describe how it feels now, on the anniversary of the sixth week since mum passed away.  Up until Sunday, I was fully-engaged - on some form of emotional autopilot - with the process of clearing mum's bungalow and settling all matters.  On Sunday, her tenancy finally expired - so, on Monday, the bungalow was no longer her home.  It was also no longer the emotional centre of my life, as it has been for over 23 years.  I shall never go near it again.  I cannot imagine, nor do I want to, anyone else living there.  Like losing mum, a huge part of my life has been taken away.

Yesterday, I had a session with a counsellor (fortunately, experienced with autistic people) from the funeral firm who managed mum's funeral.  She sat with me for an hour-and-a-half, asked lots of questions, listened carefully, challenged me with my thinking where I needed it.  She told me I was doing all the right things.  I'd stopped drinking (which I was doing, certainly above moderate levels, but not to the point of not being able to function) during the preceding weeks.  I was managing myself as well as I could - eating, getting sleep (too much, really, but sleeping anyway).  She said I'd done the right thing in holding out a life-line to my brother and telling him I'd always talk to him and no one else - which he will have, I think, understood to mean that I didn't want any communication with his wife or her daughter.  She said that that was the next thing I had to do: eradicate them from my life.  They are toxic people and have done too much damage, to me and other members of my family, over the years.  My brother is, unfortunately, stuck in the middle and is riddled with conflicting loyalties.  But at least he knows I'm there to talk to.  How I'll manage to get him to understand that I can no longer have anything to do with his side of the family (i.e. her family) is a challenge I have to face, but I'm sure I'll find a way.

I've signed up with six weeks' of bereavement support groups with a local hospice.  I've been to see my doctor today and informed her of the situation, and that I cannot face work at the moment.  In my job, I can't afford to take on a shift and then realise I can't manage it, because I can't simply leave the person I'm assigned to unattended.  That is in hand.  My doctor said she would supply me with a certificate when my Carer's Allowance runs out, and I will go onto ESA for as long as I need to.

Over the years, I've said to counsellors and therapists - as I said to the counsellor yesterday - that when anything happened to mum, I would feel like a character Annie Proulx once described in one of her stories when he'd been through a similar situation: 'loosened into my life.'  My life would be mine to go forward and do things that I've deliberately and willingly held myself back from in order to stay close to mum.

But instead - I suppose understandably, given that it's still early days - I feel like the axis upon which my life revolved has gone - and I'm simply free-falling into the void of space.

I know, from past experience of these things, that I'm in a severe depressive state right now.  I can't focus on anything: reading, writing, watching films.  I don't want to exercise, even, which is something I've always done.  I go out for long, aimless walks - to get exercise and air - and then come back to emptiness.  I do meditation exercises, which seem to lift the anxiety somewhat, but only briefly.  I'm not preoccupying myself with thoughts of mum or anything.  But I simply feel empty and lost.  Nothing uplifts me.  Most of the time, I simply feel sick to my stomach. Nothing distracts me.  My main responsibility - apart from to myself, of course - is to Daisy, my cat.  I'm glad I've got her, in many ways.  She gives me some focus, at least - and a lot of love and attention!

These are most likely quite natural feelings in grief.  Maybe I just need to go with them.  I don't feel suicidal because there are things I want to achieve - especially this book I want to write, as soon as I can find the focus for it.

The counsellor yesterday suggested I keep a journal.  I'll try.

Meantime... it's just this emptiness.  I know if I have a drink, that'll lift things.  But that's not the answer.  It's simply numbing what I should be feeling, anyway - and it's simply putting it off.  It's a downward spiral that way.

But feeling nothing at all.  That's horrible.  Nothing has any real meaning right now.

It's the worst I've ever felt, and I don't know any way out of it. 

Just time, I guess.

Thanks for listening.

Tom