Miss Narcissist? - As Courtney Love would say

This week, on Friday was my first experience of bereavement counselling. It was an hour all about me (or not, but my voice as the one I heard most of. ) Being a writer it didn't feel cathartic, as I cry, talk and feel my grief every day but just a strange interaction, where I cried at a stranger who pretty much said things I already knew, but made it feel like being in touch with those thoughts was a ' normal' thing, in a society that doesn't deem prolonged grief as normal.

This is me just after grief counselling. My face blotchy and red from crying, from talking, from feeling the words I think but don't say out loud to anyone very often ... any more. I took this picture, seeing the endless reflections of someone I am now, looking back at me, she's wiser than the old me.

I manage my grief, I write, I use it as a tool. I write most days on instagram, everyday in my journal and now weekly, I try to write here.

Something I've felt since Dexter died was that Jack and I had been through something transformative, something so dark and unnatural, we travelled beyond the borders of human reality that we expect and know it to be.Our minds had reached corners and stretch of thought, that few people ever travel or embark on, thankfully, as child loss is not a journey anyone asks for or dreams of. Mine and Jacks minds have been scathed and traumatised by death, the brutal cruel and functional components of it, haunting us like I've previously said, anything but a peaceful journey. Just heartbreak in witnessing the unimaginable. It's made the people we love feel unrelatable, everything in our life feels so different from everyone else we know. We can't vocalise and share those days with any true justice, that could give insight or depths into its true impact. The struggle or the hold it leaves on the people who look death in the eye. And I spoke of this within this hour with this lady, she didn't recoil in horror or say, your wrong, she listened as I tried to grapple if it was the cruelty of the cancer, the slow debilitating torture of knowing death was coming for him that broke us, or if a freak accident would have been any better?

There was no answer, all I know, is that the imagery that haunts my mind, isn't how I like to think of Dexter but it clouds every memory. This is why trawling through videos and photos is so bittersweet, they almost feel like movies from someone else life, too far out of grasp to feel that they were ever real.

I guess all of the above has changed how I feel, view and interact with everyone to some extent- I don't think all of it is conscious. But I know, people are aware that I'm a changed person, that I'm not carefree and bubbly at all times anymore and I know that my mere presence can remind people that Dexters died and its uncomfortable. It makes them think I probably lack empathy for their worries and stresses, but it's really not like that in my head. (I don't stress about little things, in my own life now) but I love my friends and family, their worries, losses and traumas are a break from thinking about my own; in those moments.

I like to care for people and I don't want to turn that off, I may not be able to always say the right thing, or give the right thing, look or act perfectly but one things for sure, is that the people I love, the people who I cherish and matter to me, I care about everything that's going on with them, even on the days I can't function or say it properly.

I believe I'm high functioning, I'm not sleeping the days away, with matted hair and drinking the evenings away to cope with my grief, fuck it, would you blame me if I was? I wouldn't.

Some days dragging myself down stairs to be a mum to six other children, to be a wife, daughter, sister or a friend, somedays it's all hard work. Like my mind is an aching muscle that can't perform to its normal standard. I can do two, sometimes three days, where I can perform to a high standard and then I have a day where I can't and I cry. I'll go into the Achroma shop and cry at my friends and colleagues, Dan and Chris must hate it and I never intend too, but I can't function, Dexter is on the edges of every thought and eventually he comes up, his name slides out of my mouth and tears roll out of my eyes and I can't hold that in. I do the same to my mum, Jacks parents some days it is how it is, or if the weights too heavy I stay at home and try to distance my self from being a human nail bomb and hitting others with shards of sadness and sorrow.

This new woman in my life got a lot in an hour, I conveyed my beliefs on how we're conditioned in our western society to accept and prepare for our elders departure but were not ever prepared for an exit of life as young as Dexter's, we are to believe in the order of things.

What did the therapist say to that.... she said 'you are connecting with the LONELINESS of your grief, within relationships with everyone, because when Dexter died, you all died, none of you are as you were, you cannot be the same person or normal... you have all been reborn, even pieces that remain are different and you have accepted the new you, but who knows if the people who loved the old you can accept this new version of you that's come out of all this.'

Well I hope they can, is what I instantly thought. How shit would that be, you lose your child and suddenly, your not really liked by your family and friends so they slowly distance themselves from you also. I mean I think that's an extreme response to the worst thing to be handed to a parent, and I really don't think my friends and family are those kinda A holes.

However, the idea of a struggling with the new versions of myself and Jack, well this wasn't news to me.

I know everyone who's loved me wants me to be happy and they are struggling that I can't always be that, the energy to keep it up isn't there anymore, my reserves are depleted by the two and half year battle. But I can be that sometimes, I'm not burdening everyone daily with the grief that's living inside every bone of my body, I still joke, laugh, sing, dance and wrestle on occasions, when I've been drinking. I can still feel flickers of the old me, because the new me isn't miserable, ungrateful and disloyal, I'm just heartbroken that Dexter has been robbed of the life he deserved and I had taken it for granted I would be involved in his life, till death came to take me. Never had it crossed my mind before he fell ill, that death would come for him.

The therapist bringing up loneliness, took me back to my childhood, I always felt lonely as a child, on the outside. I was always soft, shy and sensitive. I was the subject of ridicule growing up with fuzzy hair, a birthmark on my mouth and living a sheltered life in an army camp in the south of Dorset. I was happiest at home, within my family because I was really loved there, but at school, I was picked on and I always felt a little isolated and lonely. I think that's why building a big family was something that appealed to me, I wanted to love everyone, care for them and be loved in return.

When I finally got friends as a teenager, I told myself if I was a really good loyal friend, people would like me but the truth is, someone always hates you, always makes you feel less than and on the outside, trying really hard to be liked, why do human beings do that to each other? My life since school has been so full and loneliness faded. So when the internal loneliness lurked back into my life, brought on by Dexters death, it wasnt uncomfortable or unsettling for me it feels reminiscent of a time when my own company, my thoughts were what comforted me when no one else could.

The pain that I channel into hating that Dexters missing out, is normal apparently, how could I not feel for him? My wonderful boy who gave us and the people around him so much joy, It's important I think about it.

When Dexter was diagnosed he quickly learnt that we all wanted to make sure his days were filled with happiness, that continued over the whole of 2021 when we hoped he was recovering and then again into 2022 when the cause intensified and we knew his life was on borrowed time, so the school, my parents and his aunts, all showered Dexter with weekly gifts, Jacks parent's had Dexters Den built for him, friends and kind strangers spoilt him. The lovely Mortons allowed Dexter to monopolise Herbie, his best friend's time and he felt so loved everyday from being five to just shy of eight.

Every day he ate what he wanted, when he was well enough he'd play with Herbie and we'd have days out and my dad, my parents would come and visit Dexter daily, rain or shine. We opened our doors and our lives, with such transparency, Dexter and all our children were awash with support and love, we had 8 weeks of continuous fun before the summer holidays arrived, and all of those things built up routines, and connections, that felt severed when Dexter died and at first that was cripplingly painful, I would say its no different now but I've tried to stop associating those connections and routines, even the people with Dex as it makes life harder.

Last year was like that, August, September, October last year, seeing Dexters school friends all turn eight, was excruciating and I would internalise my sorrow, because those simple joys for those growing young individuals turning eight was natural, joyous occasion. Those days weren't about Dexter never reaching those milestones, they were happy days for those lovely friends.

For so long, wherever Dexter was Herbie was and seeing him alone at first would break me, I would feel so sad for him. I would worry, then seeing him with little friends was so difficult, not because I wish him any loneliness but because I would have so loved for Dexter to have been playing with them, how I feel it should of been. But even in that irrational moment I knew things couldn't be changed and I wish nothing but happiness for all of Dexters favourite people. Now since around December my minds adapted because christmas was so bloody awful, with the family loss other connections faded in my mind. I stopped associating Herbie and Dexter as two halves of a duo like I did.

It's six month later and life is moving on. It would be a lie that I didn't wish Dexter could be here living it all, but the thought of him missing out on everything is always in the back of my mind because me and his dad miss him every second of every day, but that will be with us forever. Whereas the knee jerk severing of his life and its affect within ours has settled, even thought we all hate it in our own ways, we have come to understand its forever.

Six months is such a short time, but it's felt like the longest six months, not seeing or hearing from Dexter, the grief pains me more and more as the days go on and I don't feel there's much room or acceptance of it. People say things about, moving on or focusing on what we have and yet all the good doesn't change the loss or the pain of such an amazing little boy not getting to live a life he loved and deserved. I feel bitter that theirs such awful people in this world and yet he my lovely little Dexter had to live and go through such barbaric treatment, all for nothing,to still to be without us, his family, the people who adored and loved him with everything.

The therapist said our society leaves little time for Grieving. This is something I had concluded on my own. We wash our hands of the dead with haste in the UK, its get it done, fast and move on, don't talk about it, we don't want to make others feel uncomfortable. Theres an unwritten amount of time, I think 6 months might be the early marker, its half a year, don't dwell and ruin the life, go back to normal, forget about all the pain and loss and live a life without fucking up others days by projecting glum sorrow on them.

I have terrible days of grief, I do not sit and sob at anyone for the length or amount of time it would take to feel relief, I talk and have a little voice crack emotional thing, few tears maybe but I try to be upbeat for everyone, try to be the old Tatty, try to smile and laugh, dish out my dark humour and be fun. Put on a front to help my nearest and dearest everyday, to make life easier on them, to make sure they don't get sick of me. Being a little quiet may send out the wrong messages, drinking and being leery may portray fragility of the mind, the world is psychoanalysing everything these days, so I'm not gonna win, when other people know what's happened to our family. Everything is up for scrutiny, because your gonna say the wrong things, find yourself misreading or misjudging things yourself, but one thing I do know, that old part of me that cared too much, cares now, so if I'm in the wrong, I'll always say sorry and try to fix it, because the broken me still has core values.

Maybe invites are bit guarded nowadays. Is it because we drag down the mood, I don't think so? But maybe my face is saying something different to my mind? I love a good meal or party, I love being with people some days. I think people themselves think we'll be a certain way and all the assumptions paint us into little grief boxes, or maybe we are just hard to be around? People hate that Dexter died as much as we do, those that know us less and are uncomfortable with it, unknowing of what to say. Either way its changed our lives. I used to be fun and I don't think that's gone, somedays I still think I've got it in me to wear a teapot on my head and hang out with some of my besties.

If im honest I've never felt therapy was for me and I never had a big enough reason to be lured in or tempted by it before. I'm the daughter of an ex Sergeant Major and my parents are so practical in their thinking and very loving, so my brain feels like it was cushioned and supported and I still feel that now, they were a tremendous support while Dexter was ill and dying. Rooting for him day and night.

Now I talk and express myself about loss, cancer and Dexter, to make sure other parents like me don't feel alone; like I did when Dexter was diagnosed. I've made connections with Sara & David @Alices arc.org - who makes me feel like I have friends who truly understand the brutal pain. Pain so deep rooted that it could make my heart stop, if I were to let myself feel it long enough. They have been amazing in facilitating our families desire to have a non animal testing arc in Dexters name under their daughters legacy. Its meant a lot for us to help raise money for their fantastic cause for change in treatments and developments in Rhabdomyosarcomas, a truly neglected area in research and funding.

I write a journal that I'm honest in, a blog to you all that I'm honest in and I don't feel like there's anything I wouldn't say here on this blog or on the von Tatchenstine's instagram, that I would only say to a therapist, but I will continue with it and see where the journey leads.

All my honesty doesn't bring Dex back, doesn't give us our old lives back, doesn't complete our family but it makes me feel like I'm doing something and that's the best I can do right now, because all the words and the writing doesn't change that Dexters life has gone, petered out way before it was due. The life left his body and the breath left his lungs and with him a part of me and Jack, that we can't have back, maybe it's with Dex? If he were to be in the spiritual world, or maybe like him its just gone, all of the pieces lost with him?

There are two theories about grief, one is, it never lessens, changes or hurts any less but we grow out lives around it and the second theory people believe it transfers into something else, a source of focus to build something new? Or a new way of life or a company or direction that's come about as a result of the grief.

I know that no matter how many days go by, how quiet my mention of him gets around others, he will mean as much, be as loved and be as missed as he is now, to my dying day. I don't need a theory, a therapist or society to accept that, I know that I have to accept that he was mine for eight beautiful years, I wanted longer and he wanted longer, but that was it and I have to learn to live with it.

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