72 days. The Happy Has Gone.

I want to rip down the stupid ‘HOME IS OUR HAPPY PLACE’ sign from above the door because it is untrue. I feel like it taunts me every day. We had a serving tray with ‘It’s the little things that make life beautiful’ written on it. I smashed that up in the week afterwards in between uncontrollable crying and banging my head into the wall. My daughter saw it in pieces and I was reminded, yet again, just how shit I am. I am not doing a great job, maybe I never did. There is certainly not an awful lot of happy going on around here and I feel so bad for my children. I feel as though I have failed at the one mission in life that I was determined to get right and had such a passion for; raising good, happy kids. My kids were the one thing I thought I had got right in life.

The weather hasn’t helped (as weird as that sounds). There are so many people out enjoying the weather and enjoying each other and I resent everyone for having so much fun. How dare they? I closed all the windows in the house but I can still hear children laughing, not my own obviously, although I did try to go out in the garden earlier with my daughter, it was short lived. I think my negative energy must be draining, even for an 8 year old. I’m not sure whether to try harder or just give up. I’d probably place my bet on the latter but I’ll decide another day. It’s difficult knowing what to say to an 8 year old who constantly asks, ‘Are you going to cry mummy?’ or ‘Sorry you’re sad, will you smile’ or ‘Are you thinking of Liam?’. I know I need to be there for them but it’s so incredibly hard to muster the energy. And also, yes, Liam is all I think about.

All day and all Night.

The way he looked and acted at his sisters age. All the things he liked to do. All the things he liked to eat. The way she is so different from him. The way he was always impressed with how smart she is. I always imagined them getting on well as adults. She has a similar sense of humour to Liam’s but he certainly mastered sarcasm at a younger age. She is way more sensitive, much like her other brother. I think of Liam when I see his brother. I think of Liam when I see either of them actually. When I see anyone else at all. I think of how unlike Liam they are and how I will never have the privilege of his amazing and unique personality ever again. And how now, I am unable to appreciate the equally individual qualities of his siblings. I have zero appreciation for anything or anyone. Long gone are the days when I would find joy in the simple pleasures life offered.

The joy, the contentment, the excitement, the hope, the happy, but to name a few, disappeared from my life on that day and I don’t think they will ever come back. Because surely I was able to feel all of these things because my heart and my life were filled with so much love? Surely that’s where the happy came from? Surely it’s not possible to feel happiness ever again after this? And surely it’s not possible to live a life void of happiness? And what would be the point?

Home was our happy place but it most definitely isn’t anymore.

I think I’m going crazy

I find that I often write ‘to’ Liam, rather than about him. And that the focus is largely about me and how I feel. But actually, that’s all there is in me at the minute. Just me and my thoughts. I find I have little space for anything or anyone else. The thoughts are just so consuming. How are the kids holding up? Yeah, I don’t know. Okay, I guess. I’m probably the wrong person to ask. About anything. Ever. Especially my kids.

From the moment you died, I knew, deep down in my gut that I could not go on. It was like I was just hanging onto this life by a tattered thread until I worked out my own exit plan. I needed to make sure your brother and sister were okay, We’d talked about this and you’d agreed that you would be responsible for them if anything were to happen to me. I didn’t have a will, or life insurance. I would have to look in to all of this. And I did. I also looked into ‘quick and painless ways to die’, collected paracetamols from various shops and stashed them in the car ready. There was no other way that I could see.

I wrote suicide notes in what used to be my gratitude journal. All that time I spent thanking the universe for my blessings, what a joke. I remember our conversations about the law of attraction and quantum physics. The first entry in my gratitude journal was how grateful I was for my kids. 10 pages in I wrote how sorry I was for all of this in my suicide notes. I just had no choice.

Anyway, despite my best efforts, 5 days after your funeral, I was interrupted 2 hours into my quest to join you and I was taken to hospital. I couldn’t even do that right. I remember the paramedics words to me on the night you died, ‘you are going to be okay. This is the worst day of your life but no other day will be as bad as this one, there will be better days.’ He was so very wrong. They are all worse days; worse and worse still, some days maybe not quite the absolute worst. Those days in hospital after the overdose were definitely worse still.

I felt sick and ashamed and I felt so guilty. Guilt that this had happened to you and I couldn’t stop it. Guilt that I had put your brother and sister through this after all they were already going through. What the hell happened to us? I also felt so god damn annoyed that it hadn’t worked and I was still here, dragging around an empty shell of who I once was in this body that I no longer recognised. I did not want to carry on without you. I could not survive this pain and the weight of these intense feelings.

I felt annoyed at the staff in the hospital who didn’t care. Annoyed at the support from mental health services. But lets face it, what could anyone do? There was no ‘fix it’ button on this shit show.

And that’s the thing here, no one can do anything to fix this. There is nothing that anyone can say that can make this situation and better. And I think, for me, this is what dampened out the flickering light of any hope I had left in me. People say it will get easier with time, that people can and do go on to live their lives and feel joy again, to stop feeling guilty as it’s unhelpful, to get up and get motivated and eat. Like I don’t know what I need to be doing. I know full well what I should be doing and what isn’t helpful and if there was a helping of motivational boosting elixir that could also eradicate unwanted and intrusive thoughts then I’d be first in the queue for it.

I don’t want to relive every single moment of that night, every vision, every smell, very sound, every second of my waking day. I don’t want to see that last image of you over and over, viewing the horrific scene like a bystander in some out of body experience. I don’t want to taste that night in my food and in my drinks, hear the sirens ringing in my ears or experience thoughts that seem so real and loud that they physically and painfully manipulate and distort my brain, but it happens regardless. All the time.

Maybe this is just how grief manifests itself when someone is bereaved by suicide. I am just trying to process what the hell happened to my child, to my life, to our family’s life. I’ve lost our lives and our futures and all hope has been kicked right out of me. I can not navigate this intense grief storm.

I’m pretty sure no thought or behaviour could be considered unusual when you are dealing with this kind of trauma. After 10 weeks of fighting to stop the crazy, I think maybe I need to just let it come. To acknowledge that I what I am experiencing can never be anything but crazy. Of course this indescribable loss could have the ability to lead to feelings of completely insanity. I think you’d actually be crazy to think it wouldn’t.

The psychiatrist said I am depressed because I ‘still feel this way’. I’m no expert in mental illness or psychiatric disorders but I’d disagree. I wonder if he’s the crazy one. The whole world’s crazy. Maybe this isn’t even real.

This is not okay. None of this.

I always found writing enjoyable and helpful but that has gone now. You would hate that I am being so open about you. But does that matter now? Nothing matters now. I don’t care. I want the whole world to feel some of this.

I don’t know how my heart hasn’t just stopped beating. I can’t focus on any of the happy moments because there is no happy left. I can’t be grateful for all the times we had because they have stopped and there will be no more times to be grateful for.

I completely agree with all you ever said about death meaning absolute death. I believe in nothing now too. You were always right.

I read the beautiful things people say about you and how they describe your relationship with them, and I hurt even more, if that’s even possible. Because you could not see how amazing you were. And you were amazing, beyond amazing. I would have absorbed your negative thoughts and feelings and carried them around with me for the rest of my life to take them from you. Isn’t that what I am doing now anyway? All there is now is before and after. And the after is a living torture. It is not a life.

There is only an empty void, filled with despair and an aching that feels as though it might kill me. People who say they know, they don’t know. They didn’t hold you inside their womb, they didn’t spend every waking hour with you. You didn’t bring them a purpose to life when they brought you into this world. They didn’t teach you to talk and walk and to swim and ride your bike. They didn’t teach you to read and write and tuck you in at bed time. They didn’t burst with pride watching you grow.

You had so many dreams and ambitions. It was not ‘meant to be this way’. This was not ‘part of Gods plan’. Everything does not happen for a reason. This was not your story Liam. All I ever said about gratitude and giving thanks to the amazing universe? Bollocks. You were right.

I am struggling to even comprehend the events of this past 3 weeks. Should I be writing this here rather than in my own private journal? I don’t know. Do I care? I don’t. I want the whole world to know. I want the whole world to feel my pain. A pain that I just wish would take me. My soul is destroyed.

I can remember every second from that day onwards and it plays on a loop, constantly. I am plagued with what ifs and whys and should’ves and could’ves and I have no time for anyone who tries to tell me otherwise. They don’t know. I should have known though. It was my job to know. It was my purpose in life to ensure I did everything I could for you. What a job to fail at.

I can still see your face and hear my screams now. I thought you were breathing and there was so much hope in me. But it was my breath. I have never hoped for anything so much in my life. I have never prayed to anything and everything so much in my life. But all that was left was your smell. My favourite smell.

This is not okay. None of this.

69 days. I am angry.

I feel so angry with the world, and everyone in it for that matter. I am mostly angry with myself. The guilt feels unbearable. I could never imagine a feeling so heavy as this, as all of this, all of these feelings. I am angry that this is my life. I am angry that I have been left in a world that I no longer want to be a part of. I am angry that I didn’t encourage you to talk to me. I am angry that you didn’t talk to me, but not at you. I am angry at me. I am angry at me that you couldn’t ask for help. I am angry at myself that I didn’t help you.

You don’t feel like you can ask for help?

You don’t feel like you can talk?

First I spoke to you when I found you, ‘breathe, breathe!’ I screamed at you, ‘fucking breathe!’.

Then I rocked on the floor and prayed to anything and everything while I listened to the emergency services trying to resuscitate you.

Then I screamed and howled at the entire world when they told me there was nothing more they could do.

I spoke to a paramedic who said this would be the worst day of my life, no day will ever be as bad as this, the days after will not be as hard. He lied.

I spoke to the police officer for 2 hours, vomiting in between, who took every last detail of what happened for a statement.

I spoke to your brother and sister to tell them what had happened and listened to them while the world crumbled.

I spoke to family and friends and school and work to give them the gut wrenching news.

I spoke to the funeral director to make arrangements for what would be a day as equally horrific as the day you died.

I spoke about your coffin, the clothes you would wear, music, cars, cremating my own child. Imagine that if you will.

I dropped off your favourite shoes. I remembered when you first got them and you had gone out and dirtied them and tried to sponge them clean. I walked around in them in a little side room, trying to feel close to you, while you were in a coffin in the next room.

I saw the end of your willow tree coffin as the door opened to the chapel of rest and felt my legs give way beneath me. I dropped to the floor and thought I would die in that moment. I remained on the floor until I was encouraged some time later, to crawl out.

I spoke to the minister who would deliver your funeral service.

And then I spoke at your funeral. My own child’s funeral. Standing alongside the selected coffin with you inside, wearing the clothes I had chosen for you that were stained with my tears.

Then I spoke with the never ending amount of companies and organisations who have to be informed of this god awful tragedy.

I spoke with the doctor who came out to give me something to help me sleep.

I spoke to the mental health team about how I couldn’t go on.

I spoke to helplines for all of us for someone to please help us. No one can help us because no one can bring you back.

I spoke to the investigator who explained what will happen at the inquest.

I had to sit, yet again, in the funeral directors, listening to how your ashes were currently in a cardboard urn, inside a plastic bag that was fastened shut with staples.

I spoke to the coroners office about your toxicology report.

I spoke to them again a few days later about your post-mortem findings. There is no gentle way to deliver these graphic, detailed findings.

I spoke to a trauma therapist about the flashbacks, the nightmares, and the indescribable torment that runs through my mind, 24 hours a day.

I am broken.

I don’t know how I spoke to all these people, but I did, for you.

Because you matter.

I would trade places with you in an instant.

There is not a person on this earth who deserves this.

There is not a living soul on this planet that would want to have these conversations, rather than conversations about what they can do to help you.

Suicide does not end the pain, it passes it on to someone else. Apparently you should never say this to someone who feels suicidal. I’m not sure I completely agree. Maybe we we should remind people that they matter so much that this is what happens to those they leave behind.

If I Had The Chance



If I had the chance, I would tell you that the day you die, so will I.
I would hear you, really hear you, not listen and offer solutions.
I would encourage you to see what an amazing person you are and what an exciting future lay ahead.
I would tell you that what you are feeling now, isn’t the way you are always going to feel.
I would remind you that I love you unconditionally and I will take care of you.
I would let you rest your eyes, but I would be there waiting for you when you woke.
I would deal with all those things that felt overwhelming so you didn’t have to.
I would talk with you about anything you wanted to talk about, for however long.
I would hold your hands and smell your skin and your hair.
I would stay with you until however long it took for you to feel strong enough, forever if I needed to.
I would tell you that my hopes and dreams are only possible because of you.
I would tell you that without you, there would be nothing.
I would tell you that the struggle would kill me.
If I had the chance, I would tell you over and over that you are my world, all the world.
If I had the chance, I would remind you that I will always have you, no matter what, because I think, for a short time, you forgot.

The Mother You Left Behind

The Mother You Left Behind

No one knows what you felt in that moment, or what torment devoured your mind.
But the one who will ask herself always is me, the Mother you left behind.
I will search high and low for the answers, all the what ifs, should’ves and whys.
I will scour the depths of all that I am, in the midst of my anguishing cries.
If only I’d listened more carefully, hugged you tighter and longer each day.
If only I’d done this job better, then maybe you’d be here today.
Could something I’d said or done saved you?
Could I have been more attentive and kind?
The unbearable pain is consuming, for the Mother you left behind.
I would give up my life to hold you, just to have you and make this okay.
To wipe away all the despair that you felt, and erase memories ingrained from that day.
All hope disappeared in that moment, leaving nothing but sorrow inside.
The aching and the longing relentless, for the Mother you left behind.

48 days.

I don’t understand how any human body can take this unsurmountable grief that annihilates all we are and not die. Maybe it’s the way the brain tricks us into not believing this is real and that you’re going to walk through the door any moment. Or the way it tricks us into thinking that this is a god awful nightmare and we just need to wake up. Maybe it’s the way the brain tricks us into thinking things that aren’t true. We know how powerful the brain can be and how susceptible it is to believing the lies it conjures up. I don’t think the word ‘live’ is an accurate description. The body functions in those times that the mind tells us this is not true.

43 days.

Every morning I miss this. I miss the weird things we would talk about in the early hours. I miss the way you challenged and taxed my brain at all hours. I miss the way you got my humour and I got yours, anyone else would’ve been shocked or offended but we could just let go, crack those jokes and make those remarks. I wish I’d have told you how much I enjoyed this and how this was the part of my day that I always enjoyed. I miss the way I could ask you anything and you’d just know. I wish I’d have said so many things. I wish I’d have done so many things differently.

It’s hard to grasp how you can be so close to someone and talk about so much, day in day out, and think you know them, really know them, but not know this. It’s hard to get your head around having this person who you feel so close to and want to protect for always, feel they can’t tell you something, when you think that they know that you’d go to any lengths to help and support them. I would like to think you know, you always told me to stop mithering and that I worried too much.

In this past 43 days, I’ve discovered this awful world of families filled with anguish and despair after they’ve lost someone to suicide. Someone they saw every day, someone they lived with for years and who they thought was ‘fine’, had children with, had a ‘happy’ life with, who was doing well at school, or had a good job, great friends, lots of plans…What is this? Why? What happened? What did I do? What did I not do? What didn’t I say? What did I say? What did I miss? How did I miss this? Why? This is what is left behind. Just absolute devastation with no answers.

Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the country. I didn’t really take notice before but this is massive, so much bigger than people realise. We really need to talk about this more.

42 days. National Bereaved Mothers Day.

As if today is ‘national bereaved mothers’ day, where people should be able to share their stories without feeling judged, in a society that doesn’t want to hear it. There’s so much wrong in how we treat parents who have lost children, like it’s something they will ever get over. What utter bollocks. For most parents, they spend the majority of their day thinking about their children, how they would like something they see, how they might find this funny, everything is about your child. Do people think this thought process comes to an abrupt end when your child dies? That you no longer see food in the supermarket they might like or do something they would find funny? That they don’t think of a million things they want to share with them or show them? Because this is all they still think about. Their child, all the time. Except instead of picking up something they might like or telling them something funny, they can’t anymore. So instead they become consumed with the devastating anguish over and over throughout their painful existence. It doesn’t stop, not ever. What kind of person would think that would ever get any easier? People stop getting in touch with parents because they don’t want to know how they feel anymore and that’s what’s not right, expecting it to become more manageable, it’s societies response that isn’t normal. Not the parent who is overcome with a whole host of damaging emotions and who is drowning in a tsunami of crippling thoughts. For eternity.

We don’t accept anything that makes us feel uncomfortable. Just send a ‘thinking of if you’ message for our own self gratification and go hug our kids. And wonder when this grieving parent will be over the worst. It’s all the fucking worst from that point on. No one should need a special day to talk about their child. That ridiculously special human being that you made, that you grew inside of you, that you had so many dreams and hopes for, that brightened up your world and gave you a reason to love and live. That person who had so much left to do on this earth and who’s leaving was like bomb being dropped into every area of your lives, tearing everything to shreds and ruining what once was. And society thinks we should have a day to talk about this?

Jesus.

42 days today.

The devastation is unimaginable and irreparable. Parents don’t want to even live after this. They are torn between the people who are living and desperately wanting this torture to end. Yet society seems to think there is an acceptable way to behave after something like this, they avoid it, don’t know what to say so don’t say anything, pretending it isn’t there. Like the words ‘suicide’ and ‘mental health’, it’s like they’re dirty words. Even the professionals haven’t got a clue. I hate that I have been catapulted into this hell but it’s like a different world. Like a hidden, underground world that you can’t even imagine.

Why something that happens every minute of the day isn’t more widely talked about makes no sense. Nothing really makes sense anymore. But society and their response to anything like this makes no sense at all. You’d think that any other parent on the planet could empathise, I think I could. Obviously you don’t know until you know but the ignorance of some people is unforgivable.

Happy National bereaved Mother’s Day apparently. Fuck you.

38 days.

38 days. The worst 38 days of my entire existence. Sometimes I want to share my most disturbing and difficult thoughts so that everyone can have a glimpse of how hard this is, but it wouldn’t help, even if I was super articulate, I could never do these feelings justice by trying to use something as feeble as words to describe them. And I’ve realised it also makes people feel uncomfortable. I’m not in a place where I’m concerned of that though. Sometimes I don’t want to share, with anyone, sometimes I want the world to know. Sometimes I feel like the world is forgetting you and I can’t comprehend that. I will be brutally open and honest and some people will listen and some people won’t, I don’t think that matters to me. Nothing much matters to me. Today I walked your sister to the school bus. She complained about forgetting her new reading book, Jesus, I thought, it’s a book made out of paper, does it matter. But it mattered to her. ‘It’s only a book, you can bring it tomorrow’. I thought about all the times I had played down issues that you might have raised. Things that mattered to you. Did I handle them sensitivity enough? I think about you at this age while I am with her and I find that difficult. I think about all the ways in which I might’ve been able to alter your path if I’d have brought you up differently. I thought about how many times we’ve walked down this road. I thought about what you could be doing on this day. Then a woman in her garden shouted to us ‘ooh somebody doesn’t look happy’. Fuck off, I thought. A few houses down someone was screaming and swearing at their kids. I hated that these people weren’t the ones going through this. I would never dream of speaking to my kids like this. Arseholes. A woman at the bus stop told me she’d been to look up the road for us because we were late, she told me who else was late, that she’d been playing with her grandkids this morning on the iPad. Fuck off and so what. I didn’t say anything back but she kept on talking. I waved the bus off and thought about how I’ll never wave to you again. Or hug you. I thought about that time you hugged me so hard that I went to the doctors and had bruised ribs and had to sleep sitting up for a week. I thought about how you always said I had no walking etiquette and I would just meander all over the place. I thought about the times we had been out walking places and wished I had suggested this more. I thought about how you would never go for a walk again and I thought about all the things you would never see. I remembered all kinds of things and thoughts. Mostly I thought about how you aren’t here and never will be. That thought runs alongside all the others, all the time. I thought about why you’re not here and how you left. I thought about some old ‘why’s’ and ‘what ifs’ and some new ones came too. I think about how much you look like me and that I won’t see your face again or see how you grow into a man. I don’t think I’ll be able to look in a mirror again. This was 15 minutes. Minutes feel much longer than they did before. The loudness of my thoughts is something else. That makes me think of you and your thoughts and what they must’ve been…here we go for the next 23 hours and 45 minutes. This was a very tame 15 minutes, it changes a lot, but all normal apparently, I hate the word normal.