It's hard for me to sum up everything I want to tell you in one post, so I'll be splitting this sort-of year's review into two parts. The first one is 100% the scariest post I've ever written, and will ever write, probably because it's so personal to my experiences and feelings. So please, bear with it. It's not an easy read even for me. But the second part will be much more positive. I promise. So you can reward yourself with that when I've written it, which will be sometime over the next few days.
Anyway... Here's part one of my review of 2016.
We'd had a very difficult Christmas and New Year at the end of 2015. Everyone in the family knew that Dee, our Christmas Fairy, was deteriorating fast, and there was a lot of pressure to make this the best Christmas ever, as it was likely to be her last. By this point, Dee was in quite a state. Her confusion had made her intensely anxious and increasingly incapable of handling every day life, which manifested itself in a number of ways - manic movements about the house, belligerent repeating of questions, an inability to wash properly...
In early January, I woke up in the middle of the night at my parents' house to the sound of running water, and found that Dee had managed to flood the three floors of the house by leaving a tap on upstairs. This turned out to be the catalyst to change for us. We were unable to cope with her care any longer. and desperately needed help. After discussions with our social worker and various meetings and chats with healthcare officials, myself and Father made the heart breaking trip to a local care home, unpacked her things, and tried to ease her in to her new surroundings.
Since then, life for all of us has been a heady mix of extreme emotions, challenges and change. Shortly after Dee's transition to care, I made my own transition to Bristol to start a new chapter in my life that didn't involve commuting, extortionate rent and walking really fast. For the most part, I've found this to be such a positive move for me. I've met some amazing people, and fallen head over heels for this town. But I'd be lying if I said the year has been full of laughter and joy.
The story you tell through Facebook, or Instagram, or whatever, is probably heavily filtered (in more ways than one) to show the best parts of your day to day life - the holidays, the amazing dinner you've cooked, that day at work when you all dressed as Aussies and were drinking Fosters at 10am... (yes that happened).
So here's the unfiltered version of how my 2016 really went down.
First. I got drunk. REALLY drunk. I took some time off after leaving London and slept, ate and then drank. Lots and often. And it was great fun! I was exploring a new city and making new friends and there was a new found freedom that came from not having to look after Dee at home. But of course, that kinda lifestyle isn't one you can maintain for long, particularly when you're crying daily from what one can only assume is a blend of heart-aching guilt and grief, whilst getting your head around the fact the person you're grieving for isn't even dead yet.
Then I got a job. Routine was restored to my life, and I began to settle into the West Country pretty quickly. But it was three or four months into the move that things became tough.
During the final year of Dee being at home, I had (and still have) the most amazing support network of friends and family helping me and Father and Brother get through it all. And it felt justified and necessary to be supported because it was all happening now, right now. But then, once that chapter was over, and a little time had passed, I felt like my trauma was 'old news', undeserving of attention, despite it being part of my psyche every day. I considered the topic unworthy of anyone's time and stopped talking about it. When you pair this with the fact I was surrounded by new people who had no idea about my situation, I'd mentally isolated myself so much that I felt really, totally alone.
Then I suppose I fell into a stint of depression. I became scared of sleep, even though I needed it so bad, tortured by dreams that revolved around the break up of my family and being the baddie who sent my mother off kicking and screaming with everyone else calling me a bitch. I would burst into tears without provocation, I couldn't concentrate at work, I would often have to leave social situations to be alone... And I was angry and scared. I couldn't understand how such a terrible disease could exist, nor why I was incapable of getting myself out of the mental mess I'd slipped into. I'd felt like I had no idea who I was anymore, with no idea how to get that back.
I stayed in this weird limbo for what felt like quite a long time, plodding along, relieved to have got through another day. Then, slowly, I started to cry less, and talk more, I began exercising, and doing yoga, and eating better, all driven by the ridiculous notion that I was climbing a sodding mountain at the end of the year. It was these little changes that made me feel more in control of my feelings and my life.
Summer and Autumn came and went in a blur and before I knew it, Christmas was upon us once more. But this time, it was different. The Christmas Fairy was absent this year, both physically and mentally. For the first time ever in my life, on Christmas Day, our family was incomplete.
I've visited Dee a few times this year and every time, for some reason, I forget how hard it is to say goodbye. Maybe that's a sub-conscious effort at self-preservation. But saying goodbye on Christmas morning... Oh my. Nothing can really prepare you for the wave of intense pain when you're walking away. By this point, Dee's communication had deteriorated into slurred mumbles, incapable of sentences, unable to understand when it was explained to her that these presents were wrapped, and she had to open them to get to the actual gift.
Then, before I knew it, Christmas Day was over in a haze of tears, fizz and food, and I was heading off with what I would soon learn were a group of wonderful, full-of-life individuals with their own compelling stories to tell, to climb Africa's highest mountain for Alzheimer's Society.
I stayed in this weird limbo for what felt like quite a long time, plodding along, relieved to have got through another day. Then, slowly, I started to cry less, and talk more, I began exercising, and doing yoga, and eating better, all driven by the ridiculous notion that I was climbing a sodding mountain at the end of the year. It was these little changes that made me feel more in control of my feelings and my life.
Summer and Autumn came and went in a blur and before I knew it, Christmas was upon us once more. But this time, it was different. The Christmas Fairy was absent this year, both physically and mentally. For the first time ever in my life, on Christmas Day, our family was incomplete.
I've visited Dee a few times this year and every time, for some reason, I forget how hard it is to say goodbye. Maybe that's a sub-conscious effort at self-preservation. But saying goodbye on Christmas morning... Oh my. Nothing can really prepare you for the wave of intense pain when you're walking away. By this point, Dee's communication had deteriorated into slurred mumbles, incapable of sentences, unable to understand when it was explained to her that these presents were wrapped, and she had to open them to get to the actual gift.
Then, before I knew it, Christmas Day was over in a haze of tears, fizz and food, and I was heading off with what I would soon learn were a group of wonderful, full-of-life individuals with their own compelling stories to tell, to climb Africa's highest mountain for Alzheimer's Society.
I still miss her every day. And I still cry. And I still long for just one more five minute conversation with my favourite woman of all time. But instead of these things being all consuming, they've become part of my mental routine, and I now accept them as a sign of how much she taught me in life. Each wave is different and I'm still learning how to cope... I'll probably never stop learning.
