Earth Life Writer

Panic to Peace and Everything in Between – Lessons from Three Months of Grief

In my previous piece, Loss and the Lotus Flower – A Grief Story from Vietnam, I shared about how I lost my mother. It has now been three months since she passed.

What has changed? Well…

Life has moved forward as it always does. A few weeks ago, some old friends of mine got married. The wedding was their dream night and a reunion for a large group of former colleagues. I hadn’t seen many of them for around three years. Many of them had changed significantly and for the better, and even those who looked outwardly very similar had taken on new challenges and had new experiences. This was both pleasing and thought-provoking. I was delighted that everybody seemed to be doing so well, but seeing them was a stark reminder that things are constantly changing and nothing is permanent.

Just a week later, some more close friends of mine got married, and I had the great honour of being one of the groomsmen. Again, it was a brilliant day. Yet another dream wedding day for the bride and groom. What made this wedding unique was the union of Welsh and Vietnamese Culture. We toasted in the Welsh groom’s native language, ‘Lechyd Da’, and ‘Dzo’ in Vietnamese for the bride. It was an experience you’d struggle to replicate anywhere else. The ever-changing nature of life was equally as evident at this wedding as the previous one.

I had a blast at these weddings. I was overrun with the joy and wholesomeness of seeing dear friends edify their love for one another in matrimony. Still, I did remember that I wouldn’t be able to tell Mum about them and share the joy with her. I didn’t get swept away with melancholy. After all, these occasions were much more significant than my feelings; too many people were having a fantastic time for me to dwell on it and detract from the positivity of the occasions. I also felt dutifully obliged to the newlyweds to spread the joy of the occasion, but I knew they would all understand if I spared a thought for Mum.

Aside from friends taking their vows, I’ve continued along my path as I change careers. One thing that has undoubtedly changed is that the financial pressures are far more acute. Stepping away from the comfort of a monthly salary as a teacher to become a professional writer was a bold and risky step. Even though the financial pressures get to me sometimes, I’ve never questioned my decision to move on from teaching.

I’m grateful for the past six years of my life spent in education, learning, and development. Still, it was time for me to move on and pursue other passions long before I took this leap of faith. Life is too short to spend in fear of things not working out as you imagined. Maybe a way in which I’ve changed over these past three months is I’ve become bolder. I’m certainly desensitised to rejection and disappointment. Not all my efforts bear fruit, but I can keep progressing despite the failures.

However, I recently experienced something rather unpleasant: burnout.

When I lost Mum, I resolved to keep pushing on so I could make her proud and also make my life better for my own sake. I had my fair share of off days, as anyone would, but I wasn’t kind enough to myself. I kept telling myself, “F*** your feelings! You’ve got people waiting on you to be successful, and you need to make your mother proud.”. While being this harsh with yourself may have its place at times, I’ve learnt the hard way that this isn’t a sustainable strategy in the long term. In fact, this is a surefire way to burn out.

It’s like I wasn’t giving myself permission to be human, an objective fact that I couldn’t avoid. Another compounding factor was my ADHD. Even at 30, this still means that my mind is a torrent of ideas I have immense trouble prioritising and executing.

The result was that I completely crashed and felt perpetually exhausted, regardless of how much I rested. This tiredness sent me into a state of productivity paralysis; I couldn’t focus or get down to anything despite having pressing matters to attend to. I felt like Emperor Nero, playing the fiddle as he watched Rome burn down. I wouldn’t consider myself as evil as Nero, but I felt as useless as he was. I took no joy in the inability to act, but I was utterly inert.

There was nothing blissful about this inertia, either. I felt an abiding sense of shame and chastised myself in my own head for being such a lazy layabout. But more significantly, I fell into an intense state of paranoia and anxiety. I felt incapable of trusting even close friends and family and felt like they were conspiring against me.

I was aware enough to temper my actions. Somewhere deep down, I knew that these paranoid delusions were utter bullsh*t. Still, in the presence of family and friends, I constantly felt ill at ease. The Song Gas Panic! by Oasis sums up how I felt perfectly.

"What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?
Sailing on a sea of sweat on a stormy night
I think he don't got a name but I can't be certain
And in me he starts to confide
That my family don't seem so familiar
And my enemies all know my name
And if you hear me tap on your window
You better get on your knees and pray
Panic is on the way"

You can listen to the song here:

I do not own any of the rights to this video/music.

Fortunately, I managed to drag myself out of this slump after a week or so, but it was scary. I’ve already spoken extensively about the need to be kinder to myself. Yet, even through our strife, life doesn’t stop and start at our convenience.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past few months is how to balance self-compassion and bravado to keep myself going, and believe me, this is still a work in progress.

I’m learning to set boundaries more effectively with other people. Mum put a lot of emphasis on politeness throughout my upbringing, so the idea of being rude or uppity when people take the p*ss goes against everything I learnt as a child, but being politely assertive is a craft I’m honing, so I can make us both proud. Again, it’s about balance.

Another clear area for development that I have identified is the balance between accepting your circumstances even when you dislike them and strategically challenging them. I am already better equipped to accept and respect the fact that I will sometimes find myself in an emotional rut because of grief and various other obstacles. I now understand the fact that bullying myself when I’m in these situations only makes them worse. I recognise the need to cultivate calmness in these moments and bide my time until the time is right to get going again. Basically, I know that I need to gently nudge myself to get back on my feet instead of giving myself a kick up the arse, only to fall right back on my face again.

The changes over the last three months have been subtle, stark, internal, and external. The world continues to change around me, and I continue to change. To use one of my favourite metaphors, Lotus Flowers are continuing to bloom from murky waters. Fortunately, life is on an upward trajectory for many close friends, not least my newlywed chums. Life is also getting better for me, too. There are many issues I’m yet to rectify, and stability still eludes me for now. Despite this, I’m marching on, albeit with a few necessary recovery periods.

What underpins the lessons I’ve already discussed is what we all already know anyway: life is too short to spend it worrying and not be enjoyed. I’ve resolved to enjoy life for Mum, for my loved ones, and for me; I hope you can enjoy life for your loved ones and for you.