This is an epilogue to the Diary of a Grieving Husband. After the death of his partner in June 2016, Conal started to grieve. This episode details some of what Conal was experiencing.
(November 2016)
IT’S a matter of perspective, my GP, Dr K, told me.
Is it loneliness? Or freedom? She asked me.
Dr K is a young, friendly, female GP who has seen me three times since Anna’s funeral in July (2016).
I think Dr K likes me – as a patient. I make her laugh. I tell her stories.
I say nice things about her shoes.
I follow her orders. I am a good person going through bad times.
I am responding to her treatment.
In August, she gave me a standard Mental Health Test. It was a multiple choice questionnaire.
She wanted to know how sad, depressed, anxious I was.
If I felt hopeless? Was I agitated?
By that stage I was into my sixth week of grief.
I failed the Mental Health test spectacularly. The good doctor half-heartedly suggested anti-depressants, I declined.
Instead, I was given 12 (almost-free) appointments with a psychologist, My Male Psychologist, Dr S.
Starting in September.
I’d been back at work fultime for three weeks, but I was working from home.
I figured nobody wanted to see a grown man break down and cry in the middle of the office.
In the safety of my home study, I cried for a minute, got it out of my system, dried my eyes and went back to work. Over in five minutes.
By August, most of my brain was functioning. The tears were now only coming twice a week.
***
In late June/early July, it was a different matter. Anna was dead. We had Anna’s funeral. The grieving began.
Heavy, energy-draining crying episodes would come seven or eight times a day. The ability to speak, to communicate, left me as the tears took control.
My Male Psychologist told me later that half of my brain had almost shut down, it had been overloaded with the raw emotions surging around my body.
The cognitive side of my brain had been flooded by barbarian hordes of marauding Feelings – loss, despair, pain, anxiety, fear, dread – with their top officer, General Grief, leading the charge across the narrow gap that linked the left and right hemisphere of my brain.
My cognitive brain (the one that made all the decisions) pulled up the drawbridge, dropped the portcullis, shut the gates to the castle, and decided to wait until the barbarian hordes of emotions had left the field of battle.
The few remaining pockets of decision-making cells stranded on the other side of my brain got the job of keeping my body working. “Sorry lads, you are on your own” somebody would have shouted from the battlements of my now besieged half brain.
In truth, I was reduced to an almost-zombie existence. (Luckily I had My Daughter and An Irish Friend to stop me – and my mind – for wandering away.)
I would help them with the daily chores, go for walks, take photos, enjoy dinner out …. But I was existing in a fog. Complex decisions were beyond me.
***
The task of making a bowl of instant porridge would have taken me 120 seconds to make – before Anna died.
I would use the wait time of two minutes to prepare Anna’s daily medications and make her a fresh cup of tea.
And ask: “What else could I do, while I am waiting for that damn-slow porridge to cook?”
Then (with Anna dead), with my body working with half a brain, the same task was taking almost 120 minutes. Two hours.
First I would have to realise it was time for breakfast and that I needed to have food.
The conversation in my brain would begin like this:
My Body (happy): Hey it is breakfast time!
What is left of my Brain: Fuck off.
My Body (happy): You know it is time to break your fast. You’ve done this for years. You know the drill.
What is left of my Brain: Didn’t I tell you to fuck off! (Heavy sigh).
My Body (hurt silence): . . . .
What is left of my Brain (now sorry, contrite): Okay, do I really need food?
My Body (now happy): Yes, you do. You love it – The breakfast of champions.
What is left of my Brain: What do I want? What do I need?
My Body (excited): I don’t know. You are the one who makes the decisions, I just want something tasty. How about beer? Wine? Chocolate?
What is left of my Brain: Are you for fucking real? Beer for breakfast?
My Body (snarky): Well, it wouldn’t the first time!
What is left of my Brain: Are you ever going to let me forget that? That was once. It was the Lisdoonvarna festival in 1981. Yes it was beer and cornflakes. It was that kind of weekend … for Christ sake. I was young and foolish. But not today. I need to think clearly today.
My Body (feeling remorse): How about an egg? You love an egg: scrambled, poached ….
What is left of my Brain (angry): You bastard – you know we ran out of eggs last week.
My Body (subdued): Okay, sorry. (Excited) How about toast?
What is left of my Brain (uninterested): Had some at 3am.
My Body (excited): I know, a bowl of porridge!
What is left of my Brain (thinking): Well that would get me through the morning.
My Body (excited): And you could have it with sugar! Or honey! And a nice fresh cup of sugary tea.
What is left of my Brain: You are just obsessed with sugar.
My Body (hurt): Okay, a bowl of boring 90 second porridge.
What is left of my Brain: So, we are agreed – Porridge it is.
My Body (confused): Does anybody remember how to make porridge?
What is left of my Brain (determined): I’ll go look. I thought I saw some decision-making cells hiding behind the frontal lobe … somewhere …. yesterday. They’ll remember about porridge.
***
And this conversation was playing out in my head as I stood in sitting room, my eyes glazed over, looking at a point on the horizon about six kilometres away.
You can imagine the conversation when I moved to the kitchen with the five geek cells trying to run my body while being interrupted by my Id, my Ego, and my Super Ego and all my neuroses. All of whom were demanding attention.
Geek Cells (Doing it by the book) shouting out instructions: Make him walk to the kitchen. Make him open the fridge. Yes, It’s the big white thing in the corner. Good. Open the door. He’s forgotten how? Pull the lip at the top. NO! THE LIP ON THE DOOR… not YOUR face! (Jeez, has the Other Brain come back online yet? Do we have an ETA?) Okay people, let’s focus on the fridge. We are opening the door …. And reaching for the milk.
I started to grieve. I proceeded to fall off a high cliff and ended up in the Pit of Grief.
It was dark down there. I trudged. One step at a time. Pushing myself to go forward, even if it was just a half-step.I am one song away from crying. I was one memory away from tears. I had to really concentrate – otherwise I drift away into a dream world of emptiness. (I have to doubly aware when I am driving the car.)
The world seemed opaque. Washed out. The house felt empty. I never realised how much of it was filled by Anna.
I would catch myself staring into space … for minutes. I could only work at something for 10 minutes, then I would lose interest in that job, would walk away and look for something else to do, look for another job … and leave the first job unfinished. I was restless, I couldn’t sit for long.
I felt almost-empty. The inner strength I’d needed over the last nine months in particular is no longer required. The giant balloon that has been filling and filling with care for Anna didn’t burst … and is now deflating back to Normal size where I only have to care for the kids and myself. I was now back in the real world where I have to concern myself with bills, mortgages and the kids.
***
And on it would go, the arguing self talk.
As already said, it would take 120 minutes for me to make a bowl of instant porridge.
And this was just breakfast. These conversations were repeated across the day. Every day across July.
In those early dreadful days, following Anna’s death and her funeral, my brain and body struggled to cope. Already overloaded, my body shut down the non-essential parts of my psyche. I could walk, talk, cry, eat, drink, sleep and shit. At night I would take half a Valium to help me sleep.
In the daytime, I was the functioning zombie.
Usually I keep a daily journal. I have a stack of A4 Visual Art Diaries for the six months from January to June. They are full of doctor interview notes, photos, Quotes of the Day, insights, tears, fears, happiness and the many dramas that filled Anna’s final months.
The journal for July 2016 is fairly Spartan. It was weeks before I could put pen to paper.
There was little to write about. Little to report. Very little to write home about. (I was taking photos, but the images that had been taken of Anna and the funeral were too painful to look at.)
One morning in late July I was determined to start writing in my journal, to chart this insane world I was existing in.
My journal was there on the table. So was my pen. Just need to have a cup of tea before I started. Oh the washing machine has stopped, must hang out the washing. I wonder if yesterday’s clothes are dry. Got to fold and put them away ….
And the journal would be there on the kitchen. Waiting.
(In my imagination I could almost hearing it baiting me, hear the shouts of Emotion Hordes – they looked like rejects from the TV series, Vikings.)
I knew I was procrastinating, wanting to do anything … rather than write. I could feel my heart racing, my chest started to feel heavy.
I knew there was an anxiety attack building inside me.
Part of me wanted to write. Another part didn’t.
And they were fighting it out – looking for control.
In the end, I knocked their heads together.
I put the journal away and told myself: “This can hold until tomorrow. No rush. Take your time.”
And I walked away to get a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit, happy – and relieved – that I hit a solution.
That was the day the cognitive side of my brain lifted the portcullis, lowered the drawbridge with the other side of my brain, sent the knights in shining armor to rout the barbarian hordes from the field of battle.
Later their leaders started “deep and meaningful discussions” about rejoining the rest of my body.
We had all survived the first battles with General Grief and His Hordes, but this was going to be a long war against a common enemy.
My brain recovered.
Well, I thought I had.
