Tis the Season

 

So it was the holiday season again. I wasn't going to be able to run away like we did in 2019; there was a global pandemic (just in case any of you had missed that fact!) Boris did not put us up North in tier 4 over Christmas so contrary to the above photo I had no real excuse to hide away either. I say that as my therapist is very much challenging all of my avoidance strategies and I have a lot of them. One of the hardest challenges is breaking the cycle of not truly feeling my pain, sitting with the horrible feelings. I avoid the bad feelings and avoid situations which I know will hurt the most. Thing is anxiety based avoidance makes us more fearful of the event / thought / emotion we are avoiding. Imagine a diving board. Every time you come to the edge to divebomb you stop yourself as the water might be too cold. By stopping yourself from jumping as you think that water might be too cold you have negatively reinforced the idea in your head that you saved yourself from the cold water. You don't in fact know that the water is cold, but  your anxiety saved you from the shock of the cold water. By not jumping your anxiety has eased but your fear increases. To truly know if the water was cold you have to jump as what's the worst that can happen? The water is cold, you get a shock, you get out and wrap yourself in a towel and warm back up, or its actually not that cold. It is, in fact, refreshing, it wakes you up, you feel more alive and ready to take on the world... imagine that eh?! 

The problem I have is I have to sit with the pain of losing my beautiful daughter. I don't think anyone would blame me for my avoidance strategies. (I would like to make clear my therapist completely understands why and we are taking my healing day by day, no uncomfortable rush.)

Christmas Eve and Day were still very different to a normal so, in a sense, very much still small steps. I still wish that Christmas time would go away. I don't want this festive time as I am not experiencing it with Evelyn. We had a lovely time with parents; we laughed, we ate, we drank, we played games. I was exhausted afterwards as, as much as it was lovely, there is always the pain. That doesn't go anywhere, it just sits in the background sometimes, waiting to envelop me again. I am slowly learning to stop and rest when I need to. I was so exhausted after very little festivities, I took to being quiet for a few days. People think, not surprisingly, that quiet me is a bad sign. It isn't entirely. Yes, I am depressed, but I am learning to sit with that rather than avoid it. In the long run I hope to be able to cope better with negative emotions.

This next part is hard to tell you. One of the difficult parts of the festive season is seeing so many of the beautiful family photos people share. I am a massive advocate of everyone's individual feelings and experiences are valid, I would like to share with you mine. I have so many mixed emotions when I see the 'Merry Christmas from the ** family', 'Happy New Year from the ** family' type messages. I love you, my friends and family dearly, and I do enjoy seeing you all happy. It does bring a smile. I am, however, just so sad for me when I see them. I am jealous of your beautiful families and it emphasises, to me, our loss. Please know that I don't tell you this to say please don't post photos, they truly do make me smile. I tell you this just so that I can be open and honest, perhaps to help you understand if I seem distant.

2021 is hopefully going to be a better year than 2020 for us all, but it is another year for me without Evelyn. The more time that passes the further away my time with her was. On the 25th January she would have been 2. We should have been learning more about her personality every day, seeing how she was developing into a little person. Instead I can only ever imagine. 

"Everyone is afraid of dying, until you lose a child... then you are afraid of living."