struggling

Aug19

Today I am struggling with my emotions, if I’m honest I’ve been feeling like this quite a bit lately. I feel that I’m losing control.

Since losing Órla I feel I have no purpose anymore.  I spent all of her 9+ years fighting for her. Fighting to get a diagnosis of her autism, fighting to get her statemented for school so she would get extra help.  This then turned to fighting to get a diagnosis of why she kept getting ill all the time and why the anti biotics never seemed to work.  After receiving a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis it was fighting to keep her healthy and when things started to go downhill it was fighting to keep her quality of life as happy as I could.  Now all the fighting is over and my babies gone, I don’t want to fight anymore I just want to give up.

At first during the first few weeks and months I couldn’t bare to leave the front room where I bought the bed in which Órla spent her last days.  I didn’t want to open the curtains or socialise with anyone including my other grown-up daughter and my mother who had been living with me since my dad passed two mere months before Órla joined him.  I continued going to see my councillor who I had been seeing since the year before.  I cried and cried till there was no more tears left.  Slowly I got rid of the bed stained by Órla’s death and moved upstairs to her bedroom.  Week by week I got through all the firsts, her 10th birthday less than 3 months after she died spent away from home in a spa hotel with mum and my remaining daughter, the first Halloween (her favourite holiday) again spent away from home in some hotel with mum.  The first Christmas spent far away in Canada with my sister, the first Easter spent at home with no one to do an Easter egg hunt for and finally the first anniversary of my child’s passing a day spent trying to forget what had happened the year before with the help of alcohol.

Now here I am approaching what would have been Órla’s 11th birthday but is now her 2nd birthday spent in heaven and I feel more lost today than I did all those months ago when she first left me. 

Everything has changed so much, my dads gone, my daughters gone, my other daughter has a beautiful son, I now live half my time in Newry with them and the other half in Dublin with my mum.  I’m torn between two worlds one where my dad & Órla live and the other divided between houses.  My relationship with my husband had been bad for a long time due to violence and cheating and I only stayed with him for Órla’s sake, with her gone I was free to break lose and I haven’t spoken to him in over a year.  So much in my life has changed.

The reality of my life is hitting me hard.  Alcohol and depression are closely becoming my best friends.  I’m forcing myself to get out and about to mix with old and new friends and some days I can feel ok and go to bed and sleep well but then suddenly the next moment I’m right back down to where I was in those first dark days.  Today is one of those days.

Miss you Órla, miss you daddy life will never be the same.

   
 

6 thoughts on “struggling”

  1. I wish I had some words of comfort for you. When I lost my daughter I found the second year to be more difficult than the first -I think mainly because we set up expectations for ourselves, or at least I did. That the first year was as bad as it could possibly get, how could the second year be any worse? Then when things aren’t ‘better’ we start to feel out of control and as if there is no hope. It sucks -it really does, and there isn’t anything that I can say that will make it suck less. Hold onto those days where you feel ok to give you hope to get through those rough dark days. Those days are hard, but it does ease. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow -but it does. Hang in there.

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  2. Hi Sharon, I know how you feel. Mothers do so much for their children on a daily basis when our child has been taken from us, what do we do? We are lost and it is impossible to fill that emptiness. I have a candle for Luke which I light everytime I feel I need to do something for him. It was lighting continuously when he went first now not so much. I suppose I have found other things to do for him. I look at photos of when Luke was alive and the feeling that I will never be that happy again takes over.

    Have you tried the Anam Cara meetings. Some people get a lot out of them and others don’t. I would say they should be starting up again in September. I am not a fan of the meetings but I go to all the remembrance events that I can go to. They help a lot. I live down south. I am so sorry you are going through this without the support of your husband – really every bit of support is needed now. The only thing I can say to you is be kind to yourself. Fill your days doing things you like to do – and if there is nothing right now that is OK sometimes just breathing in and out is all we can do. Ask Orla Rose to help you through it and I have no doubt she will send you a sign that she is watching over you. And these little signs help soooo much. I hope tomorrow is a better day for you.

    Jo (Lukes Mum)

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    • Hi Jo (Luke’s mum)
      Thanks for your words, I do find anam cara meetings helpful and now I’m mostly in the south I’m going to try the Dublin meetings so some new faces when they start up again. I miss not talking to someone who really understands what we are going through. Thanks again for your kind words xx

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  4. I am so sorry for your pain! It is so hard to lose someone you love, especially your own daughter! I know when my sister died, it helped to remember how much life she had and how much joy she brought. She wanted us to celebrate her life and not mourn her death. So through the pain, I found ways to celebrate, to live again. Easier to say than do! I do also find strength from God in my times of troubles. But also I would ask, have you ever truly grieved appropriately? Very hard to do in our society! Letting the wound stay open and bleed and not cover it up and hide it! Something I am just recently learning. Again I am so sorry!

    https://blessingsundertherock.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/can-i-relate-to-job/

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