Crikey.
I used to put such effort into making sure this place was not boring. That there were photos and fun and laughter.
This blog, it was my happy place.
Now, it's my dumping ground.
All I do here is write, purge, vomit all the stuff that's in my head. For the whole world to see.
I do wonder if it's a form of self flagellation. Am I putting myself out here, to be cut down?
But I haven't been. You lot have been nothing but supportive, and I'll never regret my choice, of putting it out there, of speaking the truth.
Because, if nothing else, this is what I do here.
I speak my truth.
And at the moment, my truth is freaking horrible place to be.
This blog will change, again, eventually. Who knows, it may even return to thinking it's funny. Certainly, there is enough black humour rolling around in my head at the moment for that to happen.
(I wonder, in my less lucid moments, which particular fucking chain email I ignored for this to happen. And I wonder if I should track it down and forward the bleeping thing on. Just so my house doesn't burn down or my dog run away or something.)
So, I guess, for now, this blog remains a horrid, confused place, with an About Me page that belongs to a ghost. A place where I spray and spew the horrible things that are in my head.
I hope we're all OK with that. I am. I have to be.
They tell me, the professionals, the literature, that between four to six weeks after your loved one has passed is the worst for grief. For the pure, unadulterated pain of missing someone. Especially after a suicide. After the shock and anger and disbelief wears off, thaws, that numbness goes away...
You're left with nothing but raw, bleeding, defrosted pain.
And that's hard.
Because, by now, people are expecting me to Get On With Life. Start a New Routine.
They don't seem to understand. I am getting on with life. I am starting a new routine.
I answered about 20 emails yesterday and set up a credit card and a PayPal account. That's the most I've done in a month. Pats on the back all round, I say. You go, girl, bring it on.
No one else seems to feel that way. I have this constant feeling that people think I'm slumping, depressed, deliberately doing nothing and falling further and further.
I just wish they could see that this takes time. That I'm not slumping, I'm growing, and I am doing better and better.
It's juts that the tiny triumphs, the little changes, are too imperceptible for anyone to see but me.
Boo fucking hoo, Lori. But no one gets how hard this is.
It's not the grief, even, how many times do I have to say that? It's the trauma. The trauma is kicking my arse. I now officially have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and truly, I never understood what a totallynasty, unexpected, creeping-up-on-you bitch of a thing that PTSD is.
Tony had it. He was shot, years ago, at close range, in a road rage incident, and had untreated PTSD. I wondered why he jumped every time a fire cracker went off, or a car backfired.
Now I know. Because I am jumpy, on edge. All the time. But it's worse at night.
PTSD makes you disconnected, you know that? From everything. You have to be. If you connect all day, with everything, it will fry your brain and leave you a sobbing heap.
I'm like a newborn. I become over stimulated easily. Twitter, even, is too much except in small doses. It moves too quickly, there is too much being said. It makes me panic.
I need quiet.
So... if Twitter overstimulates me, can you imagine what the constant company of a one year old and a three year old does? I'm mothering, the best I can. But sometimes I have to leave, to go somewhere quiet. Before my nerves become too jangled. Lest I yell at my babies for things that are not their fault.
This sux. She's still there, the mother in me. But only able to function in small doses. I have to remind myself to eat, to drink, to shower. If I have to remind myself to do that, how can I possibly remember it for two small people as well?
The mother in me, she's coming back. But it's a long, slow process. She's still there, and still thinks about here children 24 hours a day... but she needs time out, more than before.
I am not the perfect mother. None of us are. And me, especially, not after this.
But Lord knows I am trying.
I have a calendar, in my hallway. And at the end of every day I use a satisfyingly thick black marker to cross off the day as it passes. Another, gone. Another day closer to some kind of healing, some kind of normal, some kind of peace.
It's difficult, at the moment, being so needy. I don't like being needy, I prefer to ask for nothing. But the bitch of it, at this point- the dreaded four to six week mark- I need. I need people. My 'closest' friends have all gotten back on with their lives. And I get that, it needs to happen. For everyone.
But I'm not asking for them to stop their lives. I've never asked that of anyone, aside from my mum. And my best mate, who I remember begging to take a day of work a few weeks ago.
All I'm asking for is for phone calls to be returned. For the help that was offered to be given, without me having to chase or beg for it.
I ask my friends to enter my life for a few hours, so I can talk some of the craziness away before I go to sleep at night, and that's too difficult.
People don't know what to say, what to do. I just need them to be here. Enter my world, take some of my burden, for an hour or two. I know, believe me, I know, it's fucking uncomfortable. I know it's a horrible place to be. Believe, I know. I live it 24 hours a day. And it's fucked.
Share some with me, please, close friends, people I trust. Come, hold me while I cry. Watch me while I pace. Listen while I talk and scream and purge what i need to get out.
Why do I have to beg for that, from those closest to me?
Without that extended network, all the emotional burden of me is falling on my mum, and my best mate. Both of them are exhausted, and they need a break.
And so, it hurts, when my closest friends, when those people who were closest to Tony- when I call them, and the don't respond, when I ask for help and no one can give it to me- that hurts.
But so does everything.
If there was ever a dark night of the soul, my soul, I had it last night. It's so easy to pretend to want to die. The awful thing about it, the hardest part about it is, I want to live.
Suicide is most definitely not my style.
And after that particular storm had passed- or maybe in the eye of it, I'm never sure these days- I went to my friends house, my best friends house, my Auntie Mickey's. She has been by my side since this happened. I rang her, to meet me at the hospital, and she was my angel, my rock, for a solid two weeks.
And, exhausted as she is of me, she took me in last night anyway. And listened to me, while I raved, while I cried.
She is an exceptionally wonderful person, and I am eternally grateful to have her.
And I swam in her pool. And we talked about shooting stars, and how I, at the age of 29, have never seen one.
I push under the water. It's the most bizarre sensation, with a light on the bottom of the pool, and the blackness above, Your mind tricks you into thinking up is down, that the bottom of the pool is daylight.
Fight the inertia, the disorientation. Watch my breath pop huge, slow bubbles at the surface of the water, bubbles that break up into the night.
And as I rise from the water, I see a star, a tiny one, fall from the sky and disappear into blackness.
A shooting star, just for me.
To let me know.
That everything, all of it- it's all going to be OK.
For no other reason than it has to be.