A favourite quote and a way by which to approach life.

Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday.

Thursday 7 April 2011

All mixed up

It's been a strange time since I last posted. My lungs are still on the slip, and it's getting tedious. I've had a load of study to do for my OU course with an assignment that had to be in by today, and which I somehow managed to get done and sent off yesterday despite being exhausted. The exhaustion isn't helping the POTS and I've been feeling quite ill with that, and the tinnitus has been particularly bad. This in turn has made sleeping really difficult, and for several days/nights I haven't got to sleep until at least 6.30am, but in an attempt not to get the days completely upside down I've only given myself about 4 hours sleep. I've also thought that still getting up at a fairly reasonable time might mean that I have more chance of sleeping the next night, but it doesn't seem to have worked that way. And then today happened and my brain has turned to mush.

I got a phone call this morning from my brother M. He'd had a text from our step-sister A. Yesterday our younger step-brother Nn killed himself. I'm in shock. I don't know how to feel. I alternate between crying and numbness, and between intense activity (as much as the lungs allow) as distraction and complete inertia and inability to do anything at all. I can hardly believe Nn is dead... and seeing those words together on the screen make it all so real and stark - my brother (albeit a step-brother) is dead. Dead. What a horrible word.

It's so tragic, so awful, so unexpected ... yet Nn had struggled for years so maybe it shouldn't be such a shock. But it is. It really is. He'd messed things up for himself along the way, but he'd always had huge potential, and knowing him when he was younger you'd never have predicted this as the inevitable for him. Never. He was a talented actor, a good musician (although mostly self-taught), something of a comedian. He always thought he was about to make it big, but it never quite happened for him and instead of doing the things he enjoyed and was good at, he spent the times he was well enough to work (mentally well enough) mostly being a salesman in various designer clothes stores. He hadn't been well enough to work much over the past several years. He'd done a bit, but not a lot, and I don't think the drifting helped him, because he also lost most of his enthusiasm for the music, acting, comedy. And yesterday he lost himself entirely, and we have lost him too... but it's a lost from which he can never be found again...

I have a million and one things whizzing around my head at a thousand miles an hour, yet I feel like I've lost my words. A few friends have been in touch since I've told them about Nn, and a couple of them have reminded me that they're here for me if I want to talk. I kind of do, but I have no way of saying what I'm feeling. Even writing this is a challenge, not just because of the content, but because I don't know how to express the complexities of my feelings.

...Too much. So tragic. Such a waste of a young man who could've been so much. So horribly sad. He was thirty four.

I can't comprehend it, except that I can because I know myself what it is to feel so desperate that killing yourself feels like the only possible way out, and although I'm well beyond those feelings I've been reminded of them today. The memory of them has come flooding back, and that's making the news of Nn's suicide all the more difficult, even if it does give me an understanding that perhaps most don't have...can't have.

I can't think straight. This is a ramble. I don't care that it's a ramble, but I hate it that I can't make anything make sense even to myself - not just the situation, but my own words.

Nothing is right.

My step-brother is dead.

6 comments:

Tequila Sepulveda said...

I'm so sorry to read this, Becky. And you are right; nothing can prepare you for this, nor will you ever be able to truly understand it.

Sadly, I have lost both an older brother and a nephew to suicide. I went through anger first, then guilt (how did I not see it coming?) and then grief for the people I loved and always would love no matter how much what they did hurt so many other people.

I'd hug you if I could transport across the world, but consider this a virtual one.

~Tequila

BeckyG said...

Thank you, Tequila, that's so very lovely of you. I'm so sorry that you've been through this too, and twice. How terrible.

Because of the depression and suicidality that I went through all those years ago I'm not sure that I will ever be angry with Nn. For all that I understand it, I don't think it'll ever make sense ... if that's not too much of a contradiction.

Right now it just hurts and feels so tragically awful.

Thank you so much for your virtual hug. I'm wrapping it around myself as I type.

Beth said...

Oh Becky I am so, so sorry.
Sending hugs and like everyone else.... you know where I am if you need to talk.
I keep typing things and deleting them because they don't sound right.
I'm thinking of you honey.
xxx

Dawn said...

I am so sorry to hear about your step-brother, Becky :(
Sending you much love and hugs xx

Joy said...

Just wanted to give you big ((((((hugs))))))

J x

BeckyG said...

B, Dawn, and Joy, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, but thank you to you all for your comments and your thoughts. They are very much appreciated.

Becky.