This last wee while I have become so aware of how different people are. I was always aware that we are individuals, I have always been aware of our differences, but losing Haydon has really made me step back and look at my life and the people I have in it. I have been forced to evaluate every aspect of my life. I have been forced to acknowledge what will help me, what won't. What I can cope with and what I don't. Throughout these daily life assessments, and it is daily because each day I am faced with different scenarios and different people and different emotions, and different decisions, I am made more and more aware of who was, is, or will continue to be in my life.
My have acknowledged that my days are a struggle, and most likely will continue to be this way long-term after losing my son, so I need to take stock of my life and who is in it, to enable me to get up and live another day without others pulling me down or knocking me down further. I am working out what is good and needed for me and my healing soul. I need to work out who and what gives me strength to face another day, and who or what quite frankly, doesn't.
I have had to reprogramme my brain to adjust to these thoughts, this analysis. To accept that it's not always the people that you would expect to be there, or assume would be there to help you through dark days.
Sometimes it is entirely different people who are there to help you up, and who step forward at a time of need. This I have discovered.
These people are just there for me and Jim, and expect no thanks. On particularly hard days (and there have been, and are still quite a few) their lives take a back-burner, they ask and they listen, they don't overwhelm me with their life or their troubles, they don't expect me to do more than I can manage. They even praise me for managing things that I wouldn't have had an issue doing 6 months ago.
They just know that I am not the same, that I never will be the same, and there is no pressure for me to be a certain way, or to do certain things. They tell me to mend at my own pace.
These people don't look for me to be their pillars of support at the moment, even on those days where I have felt strong enough to help them and want to help them with their life stuff, they won't put that responsibility on me - regardless if I offer it. These are truly remarkable people.
I hope I've been viewed as one of these people when I was functioning at my best
I have learnt that these people are natural empathisers. These people just instinctively know what would help, or not, what to say, or not, and seem to know that just being there is a help. I am sure that for some of these people their empathy has been finely tuned because of hard experiences in their own lives, and they understand that our experiences mould who we are and what we believe in, how we live, and how we go on to survive.
I now call these people the 'knowers'. Because they just seem to know, they get it.
I have also learnt about those who want to empathise, but just can't. It isn't intentional, but they just don't know how. They may throw in some useful comments that aren't that useful, they may say comforting words that in actual fact have you in bits. They may make suggestions to help you to to heal, when the opposite is what you need at that time. They may hold conversations with you about other people's children, or other people's pregnancies, and they may even compare your experience to something that almost happened to them or someone they know. But they mean well. They are trying to be there. I don't take any offence at suggestions or comments made by this group of people because I know their heart is in the right place.
I now call these people 'tryers'. Because they try to help, they just don't really know how to.
There is another group of people that I have come to learn about, and these people aim to say the right things and do the right things, but they don't understand tact or when they have overstepped a line, or when the timing isn't right to hold a detailed conversation about losing my son. They seem unable to pick up on social cues and atmospheres and can't see or sense when they have said or done enough. I have a theory about some of these people, and that may be wrong of me. I feel that these people ask to provoke emotion and reaction, they want to see the raw state, they want to see the tears, they keep picking away at the scab until the wound is visible, and I do truly feel that it is because this then enables them to support you, and they can then tell others that they have supported you. Regardless of how the tears came about in the first place. They were there at that particular time of need. They can say to others that they were there.
I now call this group of people the 'scab-pickers'. Because as much as they want to offer support, they shouldn't need to pick at your wound just to then be able to help you in the end.
There's a group of people who just stop contacting you because they don't know what to say or how to say it, they don't know how to comfort you so they don't try. These people just let time do the healing, not realising that their absence is damaging in the long run. And when they decide to step into the frame, and offer support because they now feel that they can, it will be too late because I won't want to share my experiences with them, my healing will be at a different place and I won't be looking back and replaying every detail of my journey to date. The distance will become a void that can't be filled, because too much time has passed.
I call these people the 'avoiders'. They will avoid what us hard and stressful for them, because they don't know what benefit they could be to the hurting soul. Their presence would be more appreciated than their absence, even if words aren't spoken, just being there would be enough.
Another group of people are the ones who just drop in now and again. They send a text when they remember about you, they want to visit because they remembered about you. They send an email because they remembered about you. They want to talk on the phone because they remembered about you.
I call these people the 'spot-checkers'. They drop in and out when it suits them. They ask how you are when it suits them. They want to be in your life when it suits them. But nowhere in that relationship is there any real thought about what the hurting soul needs, or wants, or would benefit from. You hear empty words from this group - I'm there...where are they?.......I'm only a phone call away.....you call and they don't answer... ..I'm here for you....but they're not really. It is on their terms, when they remember about you, Their lives will continue till the next time you pop into their brain.
I am also aware of another group of people. Unfortunately there are quite a few of these people when I think back and reflect upon my life experiences. I think losing Haydon has opened my eyes to them all, and now I can't, won't, shouldn't, tolerate these people in my life.
These people don't care if they say the right things, because these aren't their issues, so it doesn't affect them. These people don't care if they rub salt in your wound, because in their eyes life goes on, even though it's only their life that has continued whilst yours has stopped. Whilst in the midst of your own grief you are assumed to, no actually you are expected to, support them with their grief and emotional issues, because our own personal issues and grief pales into comparison to theirs, and their lives.
I don't need to be told or shown repeatedly how wonderful your life is and how you have everything that you ever dreamt off ....because I know already. When you have force fed me your life I have sat back and wondered why you do this to me? Why do you feel the need to ram your entire life blessings down my throat? because all it does is causes hurt. That isn't kindness and compassion. The result of all that force-feeding means that when I compare my life to yours I don't see fairness. I am much more accepting of 'blessings' for those people who just quietly and non boastfully get on with their lives and appreciate exactly what they have...knowing that some people aren't as fortunate. Bragging and insensitivity doesn't encourage me to move closer to these people, we'd just move a little further away. Spending no time thinking about their actions and how they would impact on others just makes me want to avoid you, because I know these people will never fully get where me and Jim are, and can't even try.
My needs just aren't as important as this group of people's, and that is made plain to see when they can't even be honest enough to admit if they haven't been there to support you and have failed you, they are blinded by their own sun-lights. These people were horrified at me for saying that they weren't there, and that I felt they didn't care......they think, how dare she!...but they weren't - fact!
I call these people the 'blood-suckers' because they will suck me dry and then expect my thanks for doing it.
I have no room for blood-suckers in my life any more. Their energies are destructive for me, especially just now that I have no protection barrier or strength to argue.
I have a plan in my mind that I will only fill my life with people who care, people who really understand, people who really think about how others are doing.
I don't want to be sucked down by others if they have selfish and all absorbing lives.....why would I need that punishment everyday when I find it hard enough to see positives already?
I have been and I am sure I always will be a caring, sharing and empathic kind of person...I need similar people to fill my days now, because these people won't need explanation if I am not having a good moment, they won't need 'us' just to confirm how lucky they actually are..because they will just know it already....they have already acknowledged that life isn't fair and they won't force feed us theirs, because they will just know that these kinds of actions destroy us just a little bit more.
I am a different person to that of 6 months ago. I am a different person to that of 9 weeks ago.
I struggle with my days but I will get up and fight eventually, even if it takes me a while to declare myself.
I will not suffer fools anymore, so don't ask me to.
I will not live my life and make choices that I know are self destructing...I can't do that, even for a wage packet.
My life decisions will become clear as time passes. But I know absolutely for certain that my life will move forward without certain people being in it. It is the only way I will be able to survive.
The love I had for my son, and his commitment to his fight on this earth, has shown me that on dark days I need to find a little bit of sunshine........he was and is my sunshine on the darkest of days....he taught me that....
if he can find sunshine on dark days then so can I...somehow..
Mummy loves you bubba, she just does xxxxxxx
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