Where did four months go?

Earlier this year a friend of me and my wife (Elizabeth) told us that one of her closest friends husband had died following a sudden and short illness, he was only 56 and left a wife and two children just about to start high school behind. I remember Elizabeth and me talking about how we couldn't imagine how they must be feeling or what we would do if it ever happened to one of us. It personally made me remember the sheer anguish I felt when our daughter was born, Elizabeth, after what had already been a fairly difficult pregnancy had to have an emergency cesarean and sitting on my own whilst they prepped the surgery room was just horrid. It was probably only five minutes but it felt like a lifetime. Then as I was sat by her head during the section her blood pressure on the monitor dropped and she seemed to be losing consciousness, in a complete panic I had to ask one of the nurses if she was going to be okay. Afterwards whilst she was being stitched up I was sat looking at our daughter and wondering how the hell we would cope without her mummy. That feeling of dread at losing her I had during the section was the single worst moment of my life.

Or it was until 7:00 pm on the 11th of June, when the lead doctor had to make the decision to stop the attempt to resuscitate Elizabeth. In the space of a few hours between receiving the phone call that she had been taken to hospital and that moment my whole life had come crashing down around me and the woman I loved, my wife, my best friend, the mother of my daughter was just gone. At first there was just a numbness, this couldn't be real, I'd been with her until I left for work at around 3:30 pm and she'd been fine, baking cakes and then planing to go out for a jog in the evening. Then came the pain, I have tried to describe that feeling multiple times but nothing I can come up with comes even a little close. I can say that even now, four months later, that pain is still there - slightly less - but nonetheless it's still there. I feel it every day and expect, to some extent, I always will

So much has happened in the last four months and living without Elizabeth is a hundred times worse than I could have ever imagined but the world doesn't stop and I've got a wonderful little girl who needs me more than ever.

Until now I have always counted myself as lucky to have never really had any issues with my mental health. I've always been fairly confident guy, never been too worried what people thought of me, hell I'm a 33 year old man with, what Elizabeth called an "obscene" collection of Pokémon cards! Since Elizabeth's death though it's been like the worlds worst roller-coaster has been erected in my brain. Some days are mostly normal, we go to group and things are almost the same as before but most days start with me waking up from another restless nights sleep with no desire to do anything or face the world. It takes more effort than I can explain to drag myself out of bed and deal with the day ahead. Depression is a hell of a mind fuck and I have an explanation as to why I'm experiencing it, I can't imagine how people who suffer with it but don't have an outlying cause feel

I don't have a real purpose for writing here but the therapist I've seen has encouraged me to try and find an outlet for my thoughts and feelings and I also plan on taking a step back from social media so this will be a way for me to keep in touch with those who would like to. I'm not going to set a schedule for posts as I'm completely rubbish when it comes to doing that so when I feel like I need to vent or have something to share it'll be on here from now on.

If you've stuck with my ramblings this long I can only ask, why?! Don't you have anything better to do you weirdo?! Seriously though thank you for reading and any feedback is welcome

JK

Love you Angel Face 😘😍

(I plan on adding a song that encapsulates my current mood in or at the end of every blog post so I'm going to start with a song that Elizabeth and I loved and was played at our wedding ceremony, enjoy)