Compassion, Winter 2021

Winter 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 10 With March came lockdown. In an extremely fragile state, my days focused entirely on a frantic fight for emotional and psychological survival. I drew upon principles of behavioural activation and mindfulness, keeping busy and physically active to avoid periods of pointless questioning, self-blame and rumination, and occasionally even succeeding. I repeated the mantra “One foot in front of the other” incessantly. Unable to see my other son, grandson or friends and family due to Covid, and incapable of working because of my own mental frailty, I cleaned kitchen cupboards, grew vegetables, repainted the living room. I spent time in the countryside or by the sea, listening to birdsong, the wind in the trees, the waves on the beach. I learned the names of wildflowers, tuned into the feel of my feet in my boots, the ground beneath them. I did yoga every morning and walked every afternoon, whatever the weather. I filled gaps with jigsaws, Scrabble and Sudoku, read books and watched films. Anything to avoid the pain of now. In addition to grief, I was struggling with trauma, shock, horror. I experienced panic attacks for the first time in my life, generated by internal and external triggers: a memory, an image, a half-formed thought, a glimpse of someone who looked vaguely like Anton. To try to manage the PTSD symptoms I kept a journal. I talked about him and about my feelings with anyone who would listen. I wrote poetry. I exchanged hundreds of messages with friends and family, trying to find words to express the inexpressible, process the impossible, and find some sense of meaning that would enable me to live without my son. In desperation I called helplines and The Samaritans, just to be able to speak the words I needed to say and be heard. I joined groups for bereaved parents and suicide survivors. I read several blogs, numerous websites, and many, many books. Books by those who, like me had lost a child; books by people surviving suicide; books by therapists of all modalities experienced in working with suicide survivors and bereaved parents.