The New Normal

Feeling like I'm almost a normal person again is so strange.

I've spent the past five months floundering between disconnecting from the world and struggling desperately to reintegrate, bouts of apathy towards fitting back in and concern for my lack of interest, and anything and everything in between. In the beginning, how I felt about my relationship with the world changed from minute to minute. But as time passed, these waves of emotions started to even out. First to an hourly basis and finally to a more optimistic day/difficult day pattern.

Feeling like I'm almost a normal person again comes from the smoothing out of these extreme fluctuations. Getting to this point is strange because I'm not sure if I like it.

Part of me knows that although I may almost be a "normal" person now, I will never be the same person. This is the part of me that's fighting back. This part doesn't like that things are starting to go back to how they were, because it's scared this means that I'll forget what I've been through.

It would be too easy to embrace this budding sense of normalcy with open arms. For so long, functioning normally seemed like a far off goal only seen from a distance. Now that it's actually within my reach, I want to grab it and wrap myself in it. I want to drench myself in normalcy so that I won't have to remember what it felt like to deny it's possibility.

But I've seen too much that I can't un-see. I've felt too much that I can't un-feel. I know too much that I can't unlearn. If being a normal person again means suppressing all of these things, then I want nothing to do with normal.

Words can't explain how grateful I am to finally feel like I can become a functioning part of the world again. But in my heart I know that reaching that point won't feel genuine if I achieve it by leaving what I've been through behind me. I need to somehow find a way to take all of what I've seen, felt, and learned with me back to the real world. Figure out how to be who I've always been, but a more understanding, compassionate, and spiritual version of myself. And maybe by doing this I can start to create a new normal, for myself and for those around me.

Why I'm Starting Therapy

Whenever the subject of Blake's death is awkwardly broached, nine times out of ten people tell me they were originally afraid to bring it up. One reason is that they see me doing well and don't want to shove me back into a dark place. They think it will remind me of the tragedy when it looks like I am finally pushing past it. Another very significant fear of discussing my grief has nothing to do with me. Although to me this pain is all too familiar, it can be uncomfortable and unnerving for other people to hear about. Instead of being fearful of sending me down a dark path by bringing it up, they themselves don't want to be dragged along. Letting me go into detail about how I feel can be detrimental to them.

As time passes, it feels decreasingly acceptable to avoid work, cancel plans, shut myself in my room, cry uncontrollably, reminisce longingly, or desperately pray for ways to feel connected to Blake. That doesn't mean I don't do all of those things, because I absolutely still do. But rather, as time goes on I have gotten better at keeping them from other people. After four months, I feel that my friends' and family's patience with my all-consuming grief must be diminishing. Instead of testing their limits, I choose to share selectively or not at all.

Although it may seem like I'm letting it all out in conversations with close friends and family, there is not a single person who knows even the half of how I'm feeling. One part of that has to do with protecting myself from judgment and the other has to do with shielding everyone else from how scary my mind can be. Writing has given me a little more freedom from this, but lacks the element of human connection. The process of writing out how I feel is cathartic in itself, but sometimes leaves me lonely, wondering if anyone is reading it or even cares.

This is why I'm starting therapy. I finally found a therapist who specializes in traumatic deaths and am in the process of making an appointment for this week. I am confident that until now I wasn't at a place where this method of coping was best for me, so I am not ashamed that it took this long to take this step. I believe that I needed to struggle, lean on friends, and explore support group settings in order to get to a place where I know what I need and what I don't. In this time I've done the background work of really figuring out what I want to get from therapy. Now, I can go into it with both self-awareness and purpose.

Although I will continue to confide in my friends and family and process through writing, therapy can be the extra piece that ties everything together. Therapy can be an outlet to get all of my feelings out so I'm not walking around carrying their weight, the space to talk about my scariest thoughts that I would never want to burden friends with, and the tool to help me work on myself in a way that I've been unable to do on my own.

With strength from Blake and a whole lot of my own, I'm ready.