On not biting off more than you can chew.

A re write of Dog’s Breakfast

I think we all hope that after trauma we have the hope of returning to a place in ourselves that is familiar, known and comfortable, but I am the memory, both bodily and cognitively of my experience. I live through it and with it.

A few months ago Twiglet ate a jumper of mine, cashmere, bought in Norfolk and I wear it nearly everyday in winter. It’s familiar and it’s comfortable and it’s an important part of my wardrobe. I was livid; he’d eaten a large chunk from the back (and I mean literally), and made multiple large holes in it. I wasn’t speechless — I had plenty to say about it to him and felt despair — it was irretrievable and fit only for the bin. However after a few days of feeling sad, angry and hopeless I took another look and with a calmer mind saw the possibility of mending it. It took several long evenings, some really creative patching and darning. I made some rules for myself: nothing could be redone if I didn’t like my mend, I had to make it work, I had to make it fit with the overall mend and I was allowed to extend the mend and create an overall aesthetic for my jumper — oh I haven’t told you this, but he only ate the back of the jumper — the front was unscathed, it was Fine.

I settled into the task and as I mended I thought about this as a metaphor about how I coped, and cope with bereavement. Experiencing in the early days despair, hopelessness and the chaos of a life that seemed irretrievable and so broken. Slowly I darned the more manageable holes and then attempted the bigger and more difficult gaps and losses. The parallels of life and stitch emerged.

When I was recently bereaved I presented a stoic front and answered most kind enquiries about my well being with one word ‘fine’. I felt I had to show everyone that losing a husband to cancer wasn’t easy, but I could manage, I could cope. I wanted to protect everyone from the fear and sadness I experienced and so they didn’t have to feel overwhelmed too. This outward stoic behaviour helped at times to keep me afloat — just. The ‘Fine’ was the thin skin that contained the messiness inside and prevented others seeing my vulnerability until I was ready. I had no idea where to start trying to unravel the mess of my insides. I looked resilient from the outside.

In therapy we talk a lot about resilience and it’s meaning has a different inference to the dictionary version. In therapy I think that this resilience infers a show of strength to rise again and adapt. As humans we adapt all the time, it’s what we’re pretty good at mostly. Emotional resilience and I speak only for myself, is very much a day to day shape. Sometimes I feel great and so capable and strong and then other days the grief cloud creeps across the brightness of the resilience and the gladness and I find the shadow diminishes me and my capabilities to cope. I feel tired with the continuous need for resilience and it can take me to a place that is pretty wearing, lonely, very alone and difficult. I feel under that shadow and I quietly try to reshape my thinking to retrieve that strength and recover my ‘resilience’. A few days later I can again feel the warmth of optimism, gladness and hope. The strength of my self belief creeps back. So I really do take the compliment when people say I’m resilient, but it can shut down a conversation about the not so good days and make me feel a little bit less and a certain amount of shame and exhaustion that I still have on cloudy days. So I guess I’d like the conversation around resilience generally to reflect something a little more fluid and forgiving for those moments when the light seems a little dull and the way ahead is hard to see. For me emotional resilience is the continual push /pull of loss and hope, and the ever present awareness of the Ian shape loss and the contradiction of trying to honour his memory and move forward. It’s looking back and looking forward all in the same action and at times it leaves me feeling frozen and unable to see anything clearly.

I wrote a different ending to this blog — it was brighter and breezier, but you know I’m just not feeling it at the moment. It’s hard to be vulnerable, but I think it’s important to admit this, because all of us will feel or have felt this way. Sharing this blog reaches into the crowd of humanity to feel less alone.

I think that if we were to say to people in difficult situations how are you adapting/how are you going? This might be better than ‘you are doing so well’ or ‘you are so resilient’, because resilience is all about adaption. Positivity is not always infectious and it can induce a sense of shame that we are not disclosing or doing as well as we should be. These positivity prompts are conversation closers, but asking how someone is adapting is a conversation opener. It’s a conversation that requires time, a genuine interest, sensitive listening and resisting the temptation to cheer up and cheer on. It requires the patience and sensitivity to keep asking, because things can be ok and then not ok or the time isn’t right for that person to answer.

And as I write the brightness of a post storm sun is shining through the doors across my computer and I can feel its warmth on my face. You see, even saying these things aloud to you can lift my soul and start that bridge that is emotional connection and makes an important conversation.