Too much to title this entry.

 I've only updated this blog once this year.

There comes a point where I think what more is there to say? I feel the same as I did when I started writing. I was encouraged to write a blog in the hope that putting everything down in words and sharing it would ease the huge weight that is grief and it could possibly help other people.
Has it eased the weight? Not really although I do hope it has helped other grieving mums, and anyone else, who are finding it hard to put into words their feelings.
What it does help with is keeping my darling Dominics memory alive. I will do anything I can to keep him alive in one way or another and talking about him makes me feel closer to him.

I thought after losing Dominic that the hardest thing I would have to cope with thereafter would be the immense grief and getting through each day.
I never realised that this grief affects everything I do. I feel like I'm going mad... Most days I feel like I'm living in some parallel existence where everything is off like some weird dream.
I smile, I laugh occasionally and I love my other kids and family totally but that's where it ends. Without him this isn't a life.

Emily and Ben are doing well in the circumstances. Living with the loss of a sibling so young is hard for them too. Vanessa is another story and this is where I am going to open a whole new chapter partially in awareness of mental health.

My darling daughter is in a mental health facility for the 4th time in the four years since losing her brother. She has been there for two months this time so far and this time she doesn't want to come home and be let down by the community and end up back in there so she will be going into supported living.
She needs ongoing support not two weeks with crisis after release and then pretty much nothing.I have been in and out of hospitals with her where she's self harmed or tried to take her own life. I refused to go to Watford as that's too painful.
Vanessa has ADHD, autism and possibly a social disorder. She was bullied badly at secondary school and has struggled to fit in her whole life.... Just wanting to be like everyone else.
Her self harming has upped hugely this time and she can't see what we see... That she is a lovely young lady with a big heart. She hates herself and feels it should have been her that died and not her brother. I tell her that it shouldn't have been her brother but it shouldn't be her either. I listen to her crying and saying these things and my heart breaks all over again. She has incidents regularly despite trying to distract herself. She is only just going outside the facility for 10-20 minutes at a time as she is scared and anxious.😢

Please send positive, healing thoughts to Vanessa and Emily and Ben too.🙏🏻

As a family I think we deserve a break...some peace. I think that life owes us that much to be honest.🤞🏻😥💔

     

My babies at Centerparcs, Elveden July 2016