Thursday 20 July 2017

Poltergeist, Polly, Baby Fat Fat, Poll Poll, Pumpkin, Polly Pocket, Polly Pickle Pudding, Quiet Little Lawnmower, BB



*Trigger Warning: Grief, Loss*

The day it happened, I couldn't breathe. He cried so loudly in the room that I thought we would be asked to leave. I don't know how he managed to drive us home, I don't even remember getting home. I was so lost in pain that I couldn't do much more than lay on my bed and cry. He undressed me, he looked after my other cat, he held me and sobbed with me. He always had a tissue waiting, I don't even know where they all came from because I didn't remember having that many boxes of tissues. I barely ate in the next two days. If it weren't for him I wouldn't have eaten at all. I felt sick all the time. 

He knew I wouldn't be able to sleep on the first night, even though I was heavily sedated, so he talked to me until I passed out. I don't even know what he spoke about; his travels maybe...it didn't matter but it helped so much.  For two days I didn't leave my bed except to go to the bathroom, when I did I passed by her plate; left untouched in an effort to keep things as normalised for my other cat as possible, knowing that losing her sister after ten years together would be hard enough. Seeing her plate was a punch in the stomach and I would sit on the toilet and cry that aching-grief-cry that is so distressing to hear. After this he followed me to the bathroom every time I got up asking me if he'd 'ever told me the story about when?'... He talked about food, and customs, and travels, and he blocked the doorway so I couldn't see her plate. It annoyed me at first because I didn't understand what he was doing, didn't he understand that I didn't care about his stupid fucking stories? It took me a few times to realise the pattern he'd broken for me. I loved him irrevocably for that. 

By the third day I needed to get some power back from my living room. Everything reminded me of her, my whole house set up for my two girls. How do you deal with that? I knew that letting all the pain wash over me would numb me to it a little. So I managed to get out of bed and sit in the living room for a few hours. I almost threw up. If it weren't for him and Gilmore Girls then I couldn't have done it. 

Every day is hard. I still expect to see her in the unique situations I always saw her in. Missy, her sister, began to search and call for her. That was one of the most heartbreaking things I've encountered. There was no way I could explain to provide comfort. I cried so much that my waterlines went a shade of purple I'd only seen in the movies. Yesterday something made me laugh and I felt so guilty that I cried. I don't want to laugh. Not yet. 

Everything feels like I'm under water, and weird things keep happening. I don't know if it's my grief or something else. Even writing that feels silly but I don't care. I became paranoid over the health of my other cat, being litter sisters and having a heart murmur I thought she might have been susceptible to the same thing; the thing being a rare fluid build up around the heart causing heart failure. By the time the vets caught it she was in end stage heart failure and there was nothing that could be done. We took Missy to get thoroughly checked and I was an absolute wreck but she was given the all clear. I don't think I've ever experienced that kind of relief. 

We're leaning on one another; him and I. I'm much more reluctant as I've never known his kind of support before, nor do I know how to process it. Neither of us able or wanting to be alone for more than ten minutes but not wanting to be around anyone else who wouldn't understand our grief. I don't blame them, no one can really understand your personal level of grief. There are condolences, and kind advice, none of which I can even begin to process right now. I know I will never get over this loss, but I will learn to live with it a little more each day. I just need to try and actually get through each day.

You can never forget someone who saved your life.

Thursday 18 May 2017

About Last Night



The sky was beautiful tonight. For a long time now, this last year especially, I realised have been surviving. I wouldn't call it living, mostly just getting through the days as much as I can without harming myself or fixating on suicide. Every now and then I have a glimpse of a life, something that resembles true happiness but, tragically, it is fleeting. In my efforts to survive I find distraction to be a key player; TV, internet, always something to keep me occupied, never left with my own thoughts except at night when I’m trying to sleep.

Tonight, I came in to my bedroom to lay and watch the sunset. No TV. No phone. Just me, the view, and my thoughts. I began to wonder if the reason my insomnia gets so bad is because I am never truly alone with myself except at night. If the reason I am deafened by my inner voice asking a million questions, inventing a million scenarios, and replaying or dredging up things I’ve forgotten for self preservation reasons is because I hardly ever allow myself to speak to me anymore. I never allow my conscience to process or question. Never thinking too deeply because the conclusions always seems to end in pain. I’m silencing myself from the inside, oppressing my inner monologue and expecting no consequences. In my effort to survive I’m neglecting a crucial part of myself, and if this is the case then am I not in fact perpetuating the cycle of needing to survive because of this neglect? Maybe my insomnia is my mind rising up and rebelling against my intellectual oppression.

I know I’m doing this for my own protection, my mind has ways of disassociating and distancing itself so as not to feel the full pain of the situations that cause me to break. My mind protects me, and yet, if this theory is true, it also traps me in an endless cycle of which I can barely escape.

B.P.D. tells me I have two options; feel nothing and become a shell, or feel everything and potentially lose my sanity or life. Distraction and numbness vs being present and in agony. But I know there’s a third option, thanks to my last stretch of therapy. With self awareness and monitoring, maybe I can let a little in at a time. Maybe I can allow my mind to explore a little further, talk a little longer. Maybe I can just lay and watch the sunset. Maybe I can give myself a chance every now and then.