Bereavement

I never expected to lose my Dad, neither was I prepared. The phone rang at 6.58am, my brother, who never calls, delivered the news that Dad passed away suddenly during the night. I dropped the phone and everything went into slow motion, a blur. I can’t really remember what happened next, just that my partner was holding me tightly as I sobbed.

This piece isn’t about what happened then, it’s about how I dealt with it, wrongly or rightly, I don’t know, as I don’t think there is a right or wrong way. 

I’m an Event Producer by day, so planning the funeral was easy, I went into full ‘Event’ mode and started to treat my mum as the ‘client’, what’s the budget? What coffin would you like? These flowers won’t work, have these, and so on.

 This was my way of not thinking about Dad passing. It was my job. I’m good at this.

I sorted out all the admin, banking, insurances etc, I was calm and almost robotic when I spoke about it, thank you for your sincere condolences bank, right let’s talk about the credit card.

 The funeral came and went, it was something that I never wanted to be a part of, but an event I had to be a part of. I drank heavily at the wake.

 I think this continued for the next few weeks, I knew I was drinking a lot, but it was my only way to numb the situation – don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t waking up hitting the bottle or anything, just drinking in the late afternoons/evenings every day. My partner was amazing through this whole situation, he did everything he could, even though I was sometimes horrible to him, but his parents are with us still so how could he know what I was going through, no! you don’t understand. Why am I even talking to you about this?

 I found comfort in speaking to friends who had been through a similar situation. However, you can only talk to friends for so long before they get tired of you going on about it, they have said sorry, they have stroked my back as I cried, they are done.

 On the encouragement of my partner, more the insistence, I called the doctor who referred me to our borough’s counselling scheme (which was free by the way). I had an initial call with a counsellor who said I qualified for the scheme after the 45 minute consultation. It was strange being asked the questions they asked, because you don’t really think about the content until you’re confronted with it, suicidal thoughts, harming, drugs. Thankfully these weren’t applicable in my case.

 8 weeks later I had my place confirmed with a bereavement centre. I had a lovely counsellor called Mary who with no willing or prompting, just let me talk. She didn’t say much, but when she did, it was a revelation. The first 3 to 4 sessions, I was getting frustrated. Why am I not cured yet? Why am I crying still? Mary are you not doing your job properly? She said, i’m not your cure for this, there will never be a cure I’m just here to listen. 

 During this time, we started to watch the US TV show; This is Us – if you haven’t watched it, do. It’s brilliant! Anyway, in the show (and this is not a spoiler) the Dad passes away leaving his wife and three children. It follows their journey through this process whilst jumping back to the past, present and future giving you a 360 degree storyline. There was one episode when the oldest son was seeking help, I can’t remember the full details however he said something like, “this is something you never get over, the hurt stays with you forever, you just learn to live with it”. This really rang true with me, I was trying to make the hurt go away. This stayed with me and in my next session I spoke to Mary about it, thankfully she had already watched the series so she knew what I was talking about. 

 At this point I started to learn to live with it, my mindset changed. Not trying to make it go away but just be at peace with it. This was also a turning point in the counselling, it became more about how I deal with situations, from my childhood to now, that I never thought about until Mary pointed out the patterns. Am I text book? Apparently! We spoke about events that occurred in my life, the horrific bullying at school, me dealing with being gay and telling people, pushing people away, building a wall, always trying to make a situation better by making sure others were OK rather than myself. I’ve never really put myself first, always put others, if I made them happy then they wouldn’t be mean or hate me.

 It was sad but also a relief when the 12 sessions were over. After I felt motivated, inspired to be better, I became an elevated version of myself. This is what I am still trying to maintain today. 

 Mental health, before this was never in vocabulary, now it’s the forefront. I joined the gym, which has paid off dividends. Not only has it improved my fitness, I look and feel better too. My confidence is back and I’m proud of what I have achieved. My work became enjoyable again and I increased my social circle. I began putting myself out there again, feeling happier inside. If you’re happy inside, you’re happy outside.

 So my message here is: bereavement is hard. It’s always going to be hard.

 Don’t try to make it go away because it never will. The cliché is that every day it gets better; yes that’s true, but I still have bad days where I think and cry – it’s OK, I allow myself to do that now rather than swallowing the lump in my throat.

 Seek help. Counselling really helped me realised more about myself than I knew. With this understanding, it has impacted every aspect of my life for the better. It’s really good to talk.

 Please do contact me should you need any help with finding bereavement centres in your area, or if you would just like to speak with someone who knows what you are going through.

 Let’s talk.