Six years ago, shortly after Ruby died, I told a friend that I felt shattered. I had come apart from inside, whole sections of me had disconnected from each other and the constituent parts that used to be me were disparate. I was frightened I would never be whole again. My friend's empathy and passion for philosophy provoked an answer for me, of sorts- "you need rebuilding, in time, so who will you be?". Thereafter the question I asked myself, again and again, wasn't "how will I survive?" but "who will I become?"
In the first numb-yet-intense months I knew I was in shock and that I couldn't engage in any meaningful way with helping myself and I knew I shouldn't hope for any progress (although looking back I now know that "surviving" is progressive behaviour and should be applauded as the extremely courageous act it is). I needed to put something in place- a model, a framework, scaffolding- upon which I could build myself (this is a curiously odd but not rare human behaviour- the extreme calm that sometimes goes hand in hand with extreme emotion. I have experienced many occasions of total clarity of thought unencumbered by heightened emotions at times of emergency or drama, for example a patient overdosing or experiencing a cardiac arrest. Paramedics have told me they know this feeling and most people trained in emergency first aid, who use it, also feel this. It is not the same as being "in shock", which makes you feel disassociated, but is instead a sense of insightful reflection on the matter come in hand. You feel more, not less, focused. More "fight" than "flight").
I looked at various "self-help" books, books about therapy, about grief, about depression, but none connected with me. After a warm and valuable email exchange with Dr A. C. Grayling (Professor of Philosophy at University of London, humanist and all-round lovely gentleman) I received three books about humanism he kindly sent me and immediately devoured them. Here was the answer I needed. Humanism was the cultural ethos I need as a skeleton to help me rebuild myself, alongside an emerging and flourishing love of art. These two things- the love and warmth in humanism and the essential beauty of being human in the art I searched for- arrived just in time. Within months grief consumed me. And as the shock of Ruby's death quickly subsided and I realised it was all real, I started navigating my new path.
I have written about humanism before (link here) and, as with all new truths, I am regularly surprised by its depth of use and wide-reaching effects. Humanism has taught me what is valuable about being human and it has suggested to me how to live well- with love, self-direction and silliness, to empower others, to be creative and active, to use reason and cynicism well, consideration and balance, to simplify and reinforce what's left.
But art helped me reconnect. I spent hours staring at paintings and sculptures online, unable to attend real galleries, and immersed myself in their form. Aesthetic experiences, of all kinds, helped me reconnect to my emotions. When I looked at the Brancusi or Hepworth sculptures I felt something. When I read Andrew Motion's war poetry ("But today nothing that happens next happens according to plan") I felt something. When I tied to memorise all 36 Hokusai "Fuji" paintings I felt something. It didn't really matter what appropriate emotions I would feel seeing these things when I wasn't grieving, the point was that I felt something akin to being human at that moment. And feeling kind-of human helped me reconnect with being whole. It helped me realise what I was to become and encouraged me to reconsider my foundations. I could be human again.
I recently finished attending cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help come to terms with the traumatic grief of losing Ruby and coming to terms with other complicating factors hindering my progress. It helped enormously. It helped in a way that anti-depressant medication helps someone who is depressed- they are not "happy pills" that make you elated but instead target the symptoms of depression such as broken sleep, low appetite, high anxiety or dangerously self-destructive thoughts so that your mood has the psychic space to improve naturally. CBT, similarly, doesn't make the depressed person "happy", it provides the mental space to recover as well as your brain is able. CBT achieved two major goals for me- it opened a bottleneck in my mind that helped it become free to reprocess a foggy mess of trauma and, secondly, it aided a reduction of social anxiety.
A number of events happened recently that have clarified my new path of progress. These events are also a positive influence for Tom, letting him know we can be safely away from each other, that mum and dad can have happiness and that, when I am away, I come back. They are objectively small incidences that, in truth, have a deeply personal and profound resonance for me:
-I drove six hours into rural County Clare on the other side of Ireland to stay overnight with my oldest and closest friend Andy (we met on the first day training as nurses 24 years ago and have been friends since, we sometimes go for months without contact, we needn't speak regularly and we will be friends until we die). It is always hard for me to be away from home, whether alone or with Claire and Tom. Other than at Mum's funeral two years ago I haven't been away from Claire and Tom more than one night and, even then, only one hour drive away in the caravan. To stay with Andy and his lovely family was a momentous move- a long way to drive, a great distance to be separated from my family, meeting his 11 year old son for the first time, to see his house for the first time in a decade, to hug his wife for the first time since Ruby died (who has her own connection to Ruby and also to her own experiences of complex grief). To visit him was a deeply emotional and emotive experience juxtaposed, as is often the way, with a lot of fun and silliness too.
-I attended three social events in two days. On a recent Friday I met a work colleague for catch up and a coffee. Pretty innocuous for most people but, for me, impossibly difficult in the past, less so now. The next morning I met a good friend, John, at his new house for lunch and a walk in the beautiful surrounding woods in the Sperrin Mountains here in the north of Ireland. In the evening Claire and I met with her oldest and dearest friends (and partners) for a long evening of catching up and laughs. I drank a lot of tea, the only sober one there, and I enjoyed the conversation with everyone. 18 years ago Ruby was the first child in our group of friends and was surrounded by their love for her entire 11 years. We all miss her.
-I continue to plan my professional move away from nursing.
-I remain alcohol-free from May.
-A disadvantage of being a nurse is that, rarely, you get threatened. This has happened to me recently, more than once, but I have been surprised at my resilience and my new ability to be able to recover from this type of adversity, quicker. Being this buoyant is a new quality of mine.
-I have chosen to not ruminate.
-I have chosen to be happy, some days.
