When everything just feels wrong – by Simone

by Recover the gift

Everything feels wrong, uncomfortable, out of place. The only thing that doesn’t feel wrong at the moment is sleeping. It’s the only time I can escape from everything that is going on in my head, the only time that I can “forget”.

 

– I wake up in the morning and it feels wrong because I am so so tired and all I want to do is sleep

– I get up, shower, get dressed and put make-up on to try and make myself look a bit presentable, but it feels wrong because I don’t want to look “okay”. I feel so awful on the inside that somehow I feel that should mirror how I look on the outside

– When people comment that I am “looking good” (it’s all relative!) it just feels so wrong. I know its people trying to be kind and make me feel better but it makes me feel worse. Because how can I possibly look good with everything that has happened? I want to look as bad as I feel. How much I appreciated my brother walking into our home and telling me I looked like shit

– I normally relish any opportunity to go out and do something – go for coffee/breakfast/lunch, go for a walk, take Murray out on an adventure, anything really. Now everywhere except for home is filled with huge anxiety because inevitably I almost always bump into someone I know. How will I cope? Do they know? How will I/they react? Will they acknowledge or not? On and on. It all just feels wrong and the effort required more than what I have to give.

– My every waking thought is about Thomas and Bella, the fact that they are no longer here. I am obsessing about every detail of them and our loss of them. I remember it being like this for quite a long time after Bella died, this all consuming nature of what happened and how I couldn’t think of anything else. And it’s like that again…but worse. Because now there are 2 things to obsess about. So to talk about anything else other than them feels wrong

– Bella’s bedroom which was going to become Thomas’ bedroom. I had just got my head around turning her bedroom into his bedroom – a sad but happy thing as we were going to be welcoming new life into this space. In fact our interior decorator was supposed to meet me at the house the day after I landed up going into hospital to help me turn my ideas for Thomas’ room into a reality. And now everything just seems wrong! I have tried to go into the room over the last week or so. Tried to order things a little. To keep her clothes in the draws seems so hard, but to pack them away, even harder. Her nappy bag is still hanging behind the door, just as it was when she died. 2 nappies, a half packet of wet wipes, a change of clothes, a puke cloth, other odds and ends. It being there seems wrong but packing it away seems even more so. Keeping the room as a nursery seems wrong, a cruel reminder of what we no longer have, what we have lost not once but twice. But packing it up seems wrong too. What is the lesser of two evils? It’s an impossibly hard decision to make, it all just seems wrong.

– I have some toys that I had bought for Bella that I never got to give to her. I was keeping them for Thomas because I had hoped he would get to enjoy them. Now to keep them feels wrong, deluded. But to give them away feels wrong too.

 

So basically functioning on any level just seems so so wrong. So at odds with how I am feeling inside. Because I don’t feel like I am functioning at all inside, I don’t feel like I am coping or managing. And yet I have to carry on. If for nobody else than for Murray. He deserves to have a mom who can smile, who doesn’t cry all the time. A mom that can make life joyful, fun and exciting. A mom that can interact with others and can take him to parties and play dates. A mom who can love him, discipline him, be patient and make him feel secure and happy.

 

And so every day I get up, get dressed, try and make myself look semi-decent and I prepare to face the day. I wage a war in my head every moment. I know…or hope…that this feeling will pass. But for now every moment of every day just feels wrong.