Author: Callum Woodward
For nearly a decade, I have been living my life carrying the weight of my brother’s death with me. I’ve had good days, hundreds, and hundreds of them. But I’ve had bad days. Days where you feel as if the sunrise is just too far away. You’ve heard that “it’s always darkest before the dawn”, and for a long time it seemed to me that the dark was all that there was - and the dawn was somewhere far away.
The longer I’ve lived after we lost him, the more ways that I’ve found to cope with the loss.
But recently, I stumbled.
It was just before Christmas, and I was on a work’s night out. It was towards the end of the evening, and I was talking with two of my friends. We spoke about family, people that we’d lost and those we miss. Then I brought up my brother, and suddenly there was no stopping it. Those feelings that I thought I was so good at coping with came flooding back, it turns out I was just ignoring them.
That brought me down to a deep level of sadness that I haven’t been to for a long time. It felt like it was 2014 again and I was trying to wrap my head around what was going on. I haven’t felt that low in years, and I haven’t cried like that since I watched the 2015 film, The Good Dinosaur.
But there was help available.
I was with people who cared about me.
People I could talk to about what I was feeling!
How much I still missed him and how much it still hurts!
How vulnerable the pain made me feel!
How weak the vulnerability made me feel!
How weak the pain had left me!
I said all of this and, even though it hurt, a weight was lifted.
It reminded me that there are people to talk to. There are options for help, and there is nothing too severe for these options to not help. Or at least a way to lead you in the right direction. I am getting the help I need in the way that I know will be good for me.
You can do the same. Help is always there.
Help can be found from a local therapist near you, from the therapists at the Lighthouse Psychotherapy Practice and bereavement charities such as Cruse, the Good Grief Project, and the Compassionate Friends.
Also, several NHS GP surgeries now offer an e-consult service. You can email them confidentially and someone will get back to you within 48 hours via text or email. The link is: https://econsult.net/nhs-patients.
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