Finding Peace with the Past

I had lost my mom, but we weren’t on speaking terms. I was in conflict with my siblings as well. I had a lot of past trauma, with domestic violence between with parents and the recent bereavements of friends and family members, including my Mom.  My mom had mental health problems and struggled with alcoholism. Trauma, and other incidents that occurred were swept under the carpet. It wasn’t talked about or mentioned. My Mom’s death’s was overwhelming as my siblings have withheld my inheritance and have her ashes. So it’s brought up feelings of anger and resentment. I was feeling highly anxious and felt extreme resentment towards them, with multiple things going on. I was very emotional. I was all over the place.

I felt isolated with my thoughts at the time. I needed some support to discuss my feelings and I needed someone to talk through them with me. Dealing with bereavement, loss and the trigger of historical sexual abuse due to more recent events was also too much. I wanted to be able to have a voice and speak about the feelings I had with all that was going on. My friend who I would normally go to for support; who I would normally offload to, had also suffered a horrendous bereavement. So my main outlet within my social life had just clammed up. I just felt so overwhelmed with all everything going on; shutdown. I just needed to talk through this. There was so much death around me it was horrible.

I wanted support to speak about my feelings, bereavement and mental health issues and the ongoing past trauma that resurfaced but also battles with my family about my mom’s ashes and not having closure at my mom’s funeral, because she had a pure cremation. Since I’ve started therapy I’ve stopped attacking my siblings, I was in such a revengeful state. My counsellor stated it wasn’t healthy to give them that space. I was allowing them to be in my head. I began using the techniques from therapy to ground myself. I never actually thought about how do my distract myself when I was having negative thoughts. I’ve now learnt to take a break or/and do something I like doing.

I’ve learnt that my wellbeing comes first, and I use work as a distraction, because if I had not gone back to work, I would have gone downhill. I went back to work, a week after my mom died. I felt like I could hear her being supportive to me. She was so pleased when I got this job, so I felt I could hear her encouraging voice of comfort to get me through. It’s not that she’s here physically, but more like she’s here with me spiritually. I feel much better, I’ve come to a place of acceptance and that the loss in my life is going to be a forever thing. I’m trying to keep the positive memories of my mom and remembering all the good times, more so as an adult than when I was a child.

Your support made me realise there is support out there. I was feeling lost with it. I understand services are stretched but things were getting worse, and being able to reach out to you, has made a massive difference in my life. Like, being able to put things into perspective and not be so hard on myself. My plans for now are to focus on my work. It’s busy but it gives me a life and pays my bills. I’ve had to get to a place of doing more things for myself though. As I’m feeling like I’m in the rat race at the moment. But I’m lucky enough to work from home. A promotion would make me feel rejuvenated. Working has got me back into life, during this time of bereavement.

I would like to say Thank you to my counsellor. You’ve made a tremendous difference to my wellbeing, you’ve given me the tools and the confidence. You’ve excelled in your sessions with me and I am thoroughly grateful not only to you but also for the service, it’s been a lifeline to me but also a lifeline to the people of Sandwell. I’ve never had counselling as intensive as this before, its only previously been 6 sessions, so you are not even breaking ground when you get to the end. Your also not able to build a rapport with your counsellor, which I think impacts the support. I think you get or become closed off at 6 sessions, leaving you with things that are unresolved. Not everything has to be fully resolved but those extra 6 sessions has made a tremendous difference. Having 12 sessions has really helped, especially the last 6, as they gave me the skills and tools. So, I feel like the first 6 allowed me to be listened to and the last 6 supported me in implementing the tools I’d been given. Having the sessions virtually was really good too, seeing my therapist on video call, felt like she was in the room. It gave me the flexibility I needed. Especially if I’d have been unable to travel to a venue due to my high level of anxiety. I would have definitely missed sessions, if they’d all been face to face. I think I engaged more because they were online. As I didn’t have to hype myself up to get to session, being at home, made me feel more relaxed rather than being in person.