Writing through Grief

Fear

It creeps inside my head, taking hold to all my dreams.

It creeps under my skin and scratches down my spine.

It creeps around my neck and makes it hard to breath.

It shadows all my thoughts with negativity. 

My stomach turns and my throat tightens as I think of the future. Fear has grabbed onto me so strong. I am asked how I am doing,  which I reply I am doing fine. This is only half the truth if you looked inside my mind. I have never felt such fear in my life. I have seen the worst any mother could, the stuff nightmares are made of but even that did not cause the feeling I feel right now. That only made me fight harder, stand stronger, made my adrenaline rush to give the support we needed to survive. Now I try to understand what these feeling I feel now are, and all I can feel is fear. 

Fear to think of Aiden most days, to imagine his smile and feel the loss. Fear to tell stories and memories of him. I just want to push all these emotions away. I want to pretend that whole part of my life never existed. I don’t want to just forget, I want to deny that anything ever happened at all. I have had a really hard time looking at photos of Aiden. I have not been able to go through my phone. I am scared that all these emotion will just explode someday but I am not ready to process everything or anything yet. I have been told more then once, “How can you always be smiling?” Or “ You must have really good coping strategies”, my reply “I live in the world of denial” and never has it ever been so obvious to myself. 

I am fearful of the future

I am fearful of who I am now

I am fearful of what I am going to do next

I am fearful to write

I am fearful to be happy

I am fearful I will never be the same

I am fearful for my children

I am fearful to sleep some nights

I am fearful to be around new people

I am fearful that everyone is looking at me

I am fearful that this fear will never subside

But even as I write all that I am fearful of I also think that if I can work through these fears and push myself outside my comforts which maybe as simple as calling my therapist or even writing and posting this right here, then I will feel the freedom that comes with not being afraid. I will find that these fears I have created in my mind are only given power if I let them and these chains of fear are meant to be broken.

2 months, 7 days… My concept of time blows around with the wind as I try to navigate these new feelings, my grief balanced with my love of life and this new voyage I have been forced into. I have had a very difficult time writing, although I know it has always been my saving grace for my mental health I have just not had the confidence or mental ability to. I wonder what I have to write about now that Aiden is gone. Who wants to hear the heart of a grieving mother? Who wants to hear of a battle lost? All these messages of self-doubt circle in my head. Today I woke up and decided to push myself. I love writing, I need to lose my fear and quiet the monsters in my mind. A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a Writing Through Grief workshop through Sick Kids Hospital but it took me until today to actually sit down and write, something I truly love. It took me even more to post this but here we go. I hope it finds at least one person and gives comfort in knowing they are not alone in their emotions no matter what the situation is child loss, depression, divorce, oncology parent or just a really emotional day. I am trying to find my grounding again. The purpose of my blog has always been to let people know they are not alone in the turmoils life throws at us and give hope that although life is hard sometimes it is also so full of happiness if we choose to let ourselves feel it.

Prompt #1:

Choose one of the words that best describes how you are feeling right now. Then describe the emotion in detail, as if you are explaining it to someone who has never experienced it before.