Numbness & Guilt

I used to get butterflies in my tummy for big events or friends' meet-ups. I used to bubble over with excitement and joyous verbal babble. I used to feel an array of positive emotions that I could outwardly express, and I used to truly appreciate everything different that I did. Seeing a live band, buying a new outfit, having a new cocktail with friends, or simply debating politics with equally tipsy friends in the pub.

Now, since you had the cancer diagnosis, I have an overwhelming sense of guilt for being healthy, fit or completely able to do anything I want to. I feel guilty that I can eat anything. I feel guilty doing fun things….but…. fun things are not really fun things any more. They’re just things. I don’t get excited. It’s a thing to do, a place to be, or an event to go to. It involved the packing, organising and chores, the butterflies and excitement no longer resided in me. I don’t know what happened in me, but if I cannot share it with you or tell you about it afterwards, it makes me really sad.

The guilt has been the worst and the hardest to overcome. The guilty pleasure of being alive, of being healthy. I’m not sure how I got to this point but when we knew your cancer was terminal, an array of emotions left me and the weight of being healthier became a burden. I know it sounds ridiculous but this is my grief and its not always logic. People would say “well you have to live on in happiness in her memory, she would want you to be happy… “. Sara was livid that she was going to die. She said to me once, “but it’s not you who’s going to die, I don’t know what to expect and I’m going alone” and here I am with my boyfriend and my home and everything is ok. How do I even begin to reconcile that?

I had an overwhelming sense of heaviness, it was like seeing the world in carbon copy blue or 1920’s black and white TV. My heart hung heavy in my chest and reluctantly beat because it is its duty to beat, so it did consistently.

I kept on doing things, just plodding along, every now and then I would attempt to find an online psychologist but anyone I picked was fully booked or not taking new people. I don’t think it will take two years like me, to get back to yourself. It took me so long because my father became ill directly after Sara passed away. I can imagine if your person was your only friend or confidant or life partner it might, it also depends on what else is going on in your life, it may overlap the grief, magnifying the feeling or even delaying the feeling.

Loss of excitement, drowned out by guilt for breathing, was by far one of the most toxic aspects of grief for me. The world happened and I was not part it, to feel the vibe, to move with the room is part of being human it is what connects us to humanity. Thinking about the loss of excitement or the feeling of happy anticipation was in itself a depression as well. To overcome this I needed to get out of my head and somehow come back to my body. Yoga was the pathway for me.