Meltdown

I am physically and emotionally shattered. I couldn't get to sleep last night due to the flashbacks - a repeating reel of just a few seconds horrifyingly replaying over and over again in my mind every time I closed my eyes. I eventually took myself off to Izzy's empty bed and read a bit before finally dozing off.

So this morning I was exhausted. As we all know by now, that is not a good thing. For some reason this morning I ended up watching a video on my computer of Olivier feeding William. It was amazing to see him alive! And being so funny and pulling all his little faces. I remember I was trying to catch Olivier opening his mouth as he fed a spoonful of food into William's little mouth - I used to think it was hysterical. After I'd watched the video I felt such an enormous sense of loss - it was definitely not a good thing to do at that particular moment.

I had my second EMDR appointment at the psychologist at 10am and arrived in absolute heaving floods. Today she spent two hours with me. As well as helping me deal with William's death, we are working through a lot of personal things; I just hope now is the right time to be doing this.

After my session I picked Izzy up from her dad's and she was obstreporous from the start. I tried to be patient with her and, although it took gargantuan effort, especially in my feeble condition, I was firm and didn't shout and felt proud of myself. 

At 2pm I took her across the road to a neighbour's house (her 'in-love boy' - 'boyfriend' - Nathan who is a year older - both of them sporting a double toothless gap across the top of their mouths!). We'd dropped a post card off from Izzy to Nathan in their letterbox after our very short holiday and that precipitated a rather brave call from Nathan's mum to us, inviting Izzy over. And it IS brave because a significant amount of people locally do not know what to say to us, so they have stayed away. I thanked her profusely for her courage and kindness. 

Nathan's house being full of visiting family, Izzy had an attack of shyness (paradoxical child that she is) and would not get off my leg for half an hour. My mum had been waiting at our house for this half an hour, my telephone's microphone is broken so when I tried calling all I got was 'hello, hello' so by the time I'd shaken Izzy off, left her to play and got home I was like a pressure cooker waiting to go off.

And I can't even remember what triggered it, but I had a row with my mum, and off I did go. Complete and utter meltdown, outside on the floor screaming over and over again 'My son is DEAD!!! My son is DEAD!!!', pulling my hair out and hitting myself.  Please don't be shocked at this. Apparently it's quite normal. But it freaked my mum out enough for her to leave. I would be surprised if we ever spoke again. But that's a whole story of its own.

I am only documenting this because I want this to be a true journey and I want you to understand that even though I managed to do 'normal' things this week, life is, and never will be, 'normal' again. So as I write this I am feeling really drained and fuzzy (had to take a WHOLE hayfever tablet to calm down, but at least I'm not on tranqs) and like life really isn't worth living. But again, don't worry, I'm not the doing something stupid type.

The grieving book I am reading is proving enlightening and helping to validate my grieving process, with so many parallels, that I am reading it with a highlighter pen, a bit like I'm doing A level Grieving. The parents quoted in the book met through the group The Compassionate Friends, who are hosting the bereavement weekend I am booked on in September in the UK.  They are an international group and I tried looking for them in France. Are you kidding me? France is in the Dark Ages on two fronts here - the internet and self-help/support groups (sorry my French friends). I'd love to go to something with Olivier, but there's no hope. There is something in or near Paris - but we're not driving 16 hours return for a monthly evening meeting...If anyone can prove me wrong and find a support group for bereaved parents near to us, then I'd be happy to eat my words.

And I know I, for one, have a deep need to meet other bereaved parents. It's a bit like when you become a mum and you're suddenly in the 'Mum Club' and only other mums understand what being a mum is all about, but a sicker version. You can't possibly know what it's like to lose a child unless you've lost a child. I want to meet others like us and talk to them, hear their stories at whatever stage they are in the grieving process.

I've just got to this bit in the book (meeting people through the TCF groups) and the parents are saying it helped because in those meetings, you felt 'normal' because everyone had this dreadful cross to bear in common. Out in the 'civilian' world people that knew them were capable of either ignoring them completely, or saying inappropriate things or in the case of meeting new people at social gatherings, asking innocent but chill-you-to-the-bone questions such as 'and do you have children?'.

I now have to get used to saying 'Izzy' again instead of 'the kids'. And I freaking hate it.