“We don’t stop loving.
We don’t forget. We don’t stop hurting. We don’t get over it. We journey
forward. Living the best that we can. We hold them in our hearts. Until we’re
together again”
Grieftolife.com
The loss of
my bunny; Pixie (you can read more about her death here) has really
shown me a lot more about grief and that has included recognising the
importance of having help and support…
A
huge motivation in me maintaining I’m NOT Disordered and my safety, is my hope
that my experiences are helping others in some way. The notion that I didn’t go
through all that I have for no reason has been massively reassuring and a
positive step in my mental health recovery. It has given me hope. Hope that all
those hard lessons I’ve had to learn, were worthwhile. Like they were thrown at
me for a reason.
So,
similarly to my mental health, I want to use my experiences around grief, loss,
and bereavement to help others safely navigate (in my opinion) one of the most
difficult emotions you can go through. Having lost Pixie almost two weeks ago,
I’ve turned to numerous things to help and support me to cope with my grief in
a healthy way, and I thought I’d share what I have found the most beneficial
for my mental health:
So
firstly, practical items – chosen from Etsy…
SELF-SOOTHE:
Learning the Dialectical
Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill of self-soothe in the
section of the Therapy labelled ‘Distress
Tolerance,’ I was initially kind of reluctant to tell people how helpful I
found it because I was so worried it would give others selfish, materialistic
connotations about me. As though hearing that washing my hair could help my
mental health meant two things:
1.
I can’t have been that unwell if something so simple could make a
difference
2.
I must be really shallow and self-obsessed if I felt I had to do
something for me to help me
Gradually, though, I began to warm to the idea of telling others what I found helpful because I found that sometimes, when I was in a mental health crisis, I needed to be reminded by others of the coping skills and mechanisms that were helpful. As though my head was so focused on being unsafe that there was no room to entertain healthy thoughts like those around what I could be doing to keep myself safe. So, telling the hospital staff, and then the professionals who would continue my care in the community after being discharged, was pretty necessary and in recognizing that, I had to just swallow my pride and ignore any concerns as to what others would think of me.
Aside from that worry, I also had to battle thoughts and beliefs
that I actually didn’t deserve to self-soothe because I didn’t deserve to feel
any better than how I felt in my hardest moments. And overcoming this was so
difficult, but the mindset which got me through was recognizing that whilst my
life was in shreds and my emotional and physical (through self-harm) pain was
high, my abuser was absolutely fine! He was still married, still have two
children, still had his job where he was in a position to repeat his
behaviours, and more than likely, wasn’t hurting himself or even feeling guilty
for what he had done to me… This became motivation to take better care of
myself because if anyone deserved to be unhappy; it’s him. Not me.
In losing my bunny, this method of self-soothing has been helpful because it’s given me the conviction that Pixie wouldn’t want me to be unhappy and that if having a lovely shower or doing my hair is helpful; she’d want me to go to town with it!
MOOD Shea
Body Butter: £20.00
Lunar Dust
Bath Brew: £9.94
Lavender
Epsom Bath Salts: £6.50
Contemporary
Collection: £2.95
Botanical
Bath Bombs: £8.00
In my years of utilizing the DBT self-soothe skill, I’ve also come
to learn that there’s another side to it: you can also self-soothe through your
environment.
Having spent two and a half years as an inpatient of a psychiatric
hospital, and numerous years in and out of medical hospitals, having a lovely,
happy, environment means a lot to me. Sometimes, I look around my home and
think ‘how did I basically live in one bedroom for two and a half
years?!’ I mean, I’m definitely a fan of spending time by myself and yet I lived
in a hospital where everywhere outside of my en suite bedroom was shared,
communal space.
So, having an entire home for myself was initially – and still occasionally
is – a shock to the system and a huge reason why I’ve been so skeptical and
reluctant to have anyone e.g., a boyfriend, move in with me. Since moving into
my home in December 2014, I’ve been very determined that I be happy with it; in
terms of the decoration and furniture etc. I’ve had to save money on a few occasions
to buy furniture that I’ve really wanted but couldn’t afford, and there’s two
big things I’d still like to change (my settee and my bed) but having recently
had all the interior doors replaced and a few painting projects in the kitchen
and bedroom, it really feels like my home. Which, on my first viewing of the
home, I didn’t think would be possible because the décor was so dated and there
were so many adaptions for the physical disabilities the previous tenants have
had.
Having self-harmed and been sectioned in my Mum’s home, I started
to lose sight of it being my ‘safe place,’ and I think that’s a really
important quality for your home to have – a sense of being happy and safe when
you’re inside it. Obviously, I’ve self-harmed in my home too but adding my pets
to the home and then as my mental health has improved, I’ve started to view it
as my little haven and somewhere that I look forward to being in. If I’ve been
to an event or a meeting or an appointment, I find myself excited to go home.
Feeling that way about little one-bedroom bungalow has meant that
all the little bits and pieces matter to me and make a difference to my mental health…
In losing Pixie, I feel that the atmosphere in my home has been fairly erratic in terms of it being helpful sometimes and then, also, my least favourite place at other times! I think a big contribution to this has been the erratic grief that I and my cat (who was Pixie’s best-friend!) have been experiencing. Emmy (my cat) was initially very distressed and frantically trying to access the room Pixie’s things used to be, so on the advice of the Vets, I bought the Feliway plug-in and used an electrical socket next to the room she was upset around and within a day or two Emmy became much calmer, more relaxed, and less unsettled. Seeing that improvement in her, has obviously also had an impact on myself and how I view our home because in losing Pixie, it felt as though a piece was missing and it just wasn’t a happy household to be a part of. It’s meant that using products like the ones below, have been really beneficial…
Lavender Soy
Candle - £10.99
Birth Flower Personalized Candle - £16.00
Aromatherapy
Candles: £6.00
Grey Large
Blanket: £34.99
Natural Sheep
Wool Boots: £24.99
AN OUTLET:
Finding a healthy outlet for my thoughts and feelings has been
really monumental and essential in my mental health recovery because before
discovering it, I turned to really unsafe and dangerous behaviours.
From a very young age, I’ve been creative and have always enjoyed
writing in particular, so I don’t think it was a huge surprise to find that
blogging has helped my mental health so much. I mean, the surprise component of
it was probably that my blog is in the position it is today in terms of
popularity and the opportunities it has afforded me. But those opportunities
and that success and sense of achievement, have definitely added to my passion
in using writing/blogging as an outlet.
I think I’ve found it particularly helpful in my difficulty around
putting my thoughts and feelings into actual words that I could say out loud.
Part of this was the notion of shame and embarrassment around mental health in
general. Then, after talking about the hallucinations I’d be hospitalized so it
became more about being worried that talking about my experiences, thoughts,
and feelings would lead to that response from professionals.
After being in a psychiatric hospital for almost one year, I think
I just sort of had the stark realization that I wouldn’t be discharged any time
soon if I didn’t start opening up and talking to the staff. It was almost as though
I had nothing to lose because I was already an inpatient, and then I found that
writing and blogging was a sort of gentle introduction back into talking honestly
and openly about my mental health.
In grieving for Pixie, writing/blogging has obviously been something I’ve turned to as an outlet and a means to try and make sense of the loss and to process it in a way that wasn’t overwhelming or hugely unproductive. I think that my mindset that talking about your own experiences can support others going through these things to feel less alone and to have hope, has helped in motivating me to write and blog in a more deep and meaningful way.
Personalized Notebook: £13.95
Recycled A5
Notebooks: £9.00
Starry Lined
Notebook: £15.00
Eco Friendly
Paper Pens: £6.99
Zebra Z-Grip
Smooth Pastel - £2.99
Of course, there are so many other ways to be creative…
Paintbrush
Holder: £9.99
Paint Your Own
Bunny:
£13.50
Holographic
Glitter Paint Stick: £3.99
Candle Making
Kit:
£22.99
Beginners Cheese Making Kit: £7.99
DISTRACTION ACTIVITIES:
In keeping with the creative activities, I learnt through my
blogging that distracting myself was a helpful coping strategy for my thoughts and
feelings of grief.
Whilst keeping busy or doing something enjoyable can sometimes take
your focus from something upsetting, it has taken me a few years to really find
the balance between distracting from things and just out-right avoiding them! One
of the ‘five stages
of grief’ is about acceptance and I guess that really comes into play here
because being aware that I struggle with this has meant I’ve been very cautious
when choosing activities and, in particular, when choosing how long to do them
for (I’ve found that saying “I’ll watch one film on Netflix and then I’ll…” is more helpful
than putting Netflix on and just getting lost in your Watchlist for hours!).
Accepting the loss (no matter what it may be because all grief is
valid) is hugely important stage or process which may often feel like it’s ‘over’
before the challenging thoughts and feelings seem to return again! So I think
experiencing something so difficult over and over again will very naturally and
understandably leave you reluctant to continue to put any level of
concentration into it.
I think another aspect of using distraction activities which I’ve struggled with since losing Pixie was the notion that I shouldn’t be doing something to purposely not think about her. I shouldn’t ever have a ‘break’ from thinking about her because in doing so, it’d be like saying that she wasn’t that important. I’ve learnt to tackle this difficulty by reminding myself that the distraction isn’t to forget about Pixie; it’s to allow me the best possible chance of not becoming overwhelmed, and not turning to unhealthy coping skills.
PRODUCTIVE/ORGANISED:
Being organized has always been something I’ve kind of excelled at!
When I was younger it was about having different notebooks for different short
stories and even more practical things like the fact that my bedroom was never
a mess!
However, when my mental health deteriorated it felt as though my
life just dissolved into chaos because my thoughts and feelings were so erratic
and inconsistent that I couldn’t seem to bring any sense of order into things. I
went through that for three years until the Community Mental Health Team took
on the recommendation of a Psychiatrist, that I be admitted to a long-term, specialist,
psychiatric hospital. I had one assessment for a nearby ward but they refused
to accept my flight risk, so the Ward Manager and Charge Nurse from a hospital
over 100 miles away came to see me…
They asked me questions and then – unlike the previous assessment –
told me about the ward and the hospital and what I could expect from being an
inpatient there. They told me of the locked doors, the timetabled days of
therapeutic groups, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy 1:1 and group sessions, morning
meetings and reflections with the entire ward, bedtimes, and the consequences if
you manage to self-harm whilst an inpatient. The thought of having such a
routine in my life was a little bit intimidating and scary after having gotten
accustomed to my usual days of uncertainty and unpredictable experiences.
Of course, in the end, it was so beneficial for my mental health recovery.
It began to feel refreshing and comforting to know what I would be doing every
minute of the day. It seemed to really settle my emotions and leave me feeling
literally incapable of self-harming because I just didn’t have the time to do
it!
I think that being in that very regulated hospital for two and a
half years, really put me in a better position for the organization it would
take after moving into my own home in 2014.
In my grief for the loss of Pixie, I’ve found being organized and productive really helpful because similarly to when my mental health deteriorated, the grief has come in waves and having a level of structure to aspects of my life has been really stabilizing and reassuring.
Affirmation
Desk Calendar: £10.00
Daily Agenda: £7.00
Weekly
Planner Pad: £12.50
Weekly Meal
Planner: £10.00
Dream Planner: £9.95
RECORDING MEMORIES:
In looking through notebooks and planners, I found the thought
that in addition to using them for general organization, you could also utilize them in recording any memories around the loss – obviously this is particularly
relevant where the loss stems from a death.
I think that doing something like putting focus and attention on
memories of a loved one is a bit of a debatable activity. For some people, consciously
not thinking about happy times is a coping method and the thought of any
memories surfacing feels overwhelming and upsetting. For others (including me!)
talking and thinking about memories with that loved one is something that can actually
make them smile.
I have so many lovely memories of Pixie running around the garden, being sat on by my cat; Emmy(!), following me down the long corridor in my house, and jumping on the bed to paw at my leg until I stroked her. Yes, thinking about these things can make me cry, but I’m also so grateful to have those memories and to be able to hold onto them to replace all of the ones when she was poorly.
INSPIRATION:
One hugely beneficial resource in my mental health recovery and in
my grief, has been having inspiration…
I think it’s fairly common for people to find it helpful,
comforting, and reassuring to hear of someone else going through the same things
as you, but who has made it out the other side. I know that whenever I’ve
talked about the fact that two of my suicide attempts left me on life support,
I’ve had a lot of messages from people saying it’s a relief to know – from
seeing me – that you can come back from that. That you can feel better.
One challenge, I’ve found in looking for this sort of inspiration has
been that it’s sometimes really upsetting to hear – or just to know – that someone
else has gone through something you may deem to be the worst moments of your
life. That there’s another person in the world who has experienced a pain
similar to your own.
Another difficulty in looking for inspiration in others, is the
danger of it becoming about comparison and that you start to use the experiences
of others to determine just how important yours are. As though hearing someone
who has experienced more ‘losses’ than yours suddenly means yours isn’t valid.
As though you shouldn’t be so upset because there are people out there going
through ‘worse.’ It’s such a common challenge in mental health because –
especially as an inpatient – you’re likely to hear of some horrific experiences
of others and perhaps it’s natural to use them as some sort of comparison, but
it isn’t always healthy.
So, it’s really important that you find a balance in these things.
That you use someone else’s story as to inspire hope rather a sadness that they’ve
felt similar to you. That you use any comparison in a way that encourages you
to put your experiences into some form of perspective rather than a reason to invalidate
them.
Bereavement
Poem Print: £9.99
Grief Support
Gift:
£4.50
With Sympathy
Gift Box: £25.00
Loss Bracelet: £7.99
Grief and
Loss Flower Essence: £12.00
SUPPORT
FROM OTHERS:
The
simple act of acknowledging that you need help or support from others can be
challenging in itself; never mind having to try to find a person or an organization both willing and able to help you in the way you feel that you
require.
Similarly,
to accessing services to help and support your mental health in general, there
are too few, too under-funded, and too over-subscribed services for help through
loss and grief.
In
losing Pixie, I was reluctant to talk to my GP or even a pet bereavement
support service because of the fear that losing a bunny wouldn’t be deemed as
significant enough to make me worthy of their help and support.
After
speaking with my local Crisis
Team, and my GP, I finally made the call to Talking Matters Northumberland
and was very pleasantly relieved to find that the girl who answered the phone
and took my details, actually had two house rabbits so she was really better
placed in relating with what I was saying and how I was feeling. And it was
honestly so overwhelming (in the best possible way!) to finally feel really
understood by someone outside of my circle of family and friends.
That
feeling, has really inspired me in creating the image below which contains so
many useful contact details of UK helplines for someone grieving; I really hope
it helps at least one person reading this…
