From Silence to Expression: The Path after Grief

I disappeared.

Didn’t mean to, it just happened. Sometimes the grief and the pain gets too much and all you can do is protect yourself and withdraw from the world. That is what I did. Vanished to heal, if you can, from grief. I prefer to think about it as time I was learning to live within grief rather than being grief ridden. The two are very different.

When you first loose someone your your whole purpose is about the fact you are suddenly alone, you have lost your best friend, your lover and your future. It hits hard and fast and even if you feel like you can function a month or so later you can’t. The first thing you do is slip a mask on your face so you appear to be okay. It becomes pretty obvious that your upset and grief is upsetting for others. So you stop crying and breaking down where others can see you. You withdraw.

For me that meant I stopped drawing and writing, although I did still write the column for Nation Cymru, but that was it. No personal writing or short stories or books. I stopped.

I didn’t start again until this January but it is intermittent. The energy I need to create anything can sometimes seem insurmountable. You see I also lost my carer… It seems weird that I have to write that I need a carer but I do.

I’m living with a collection of chronic and painful diseases. From the 26th December 2023 I have lived alone for the first time in my life. No support from a live-in member for the family and no R. It has been a huge learning curve. I have to ration my energy so that I can get to the end of the day and sometimes there is no way I can create as well. So, rather than push it I simply don’t.

I am surviving and currently in the process of moving to a house that will be easier for me to look after and cope with. I am going to get back to writing – don’t worry. I don’t think I could live without writing, but I will need time to get sorted. Until then I will try to blog a post a week or every other week. I don’t want to vanish again.