Word of the Week - Acceptance.

There are a couple of things niggling me at the back of my mind that I'm worrying about at the moment. Things I have no control over, but if they happen then life as I know it will change in a big way. It will be devastating and the impact will be huge with a massive ripple effect. It's not health related, it's to do with people.

I've no control over it. But what I do have control over is how I deal with it. I have to accept that people will behave in bizarre ways and whilst their intentions aren't to hurt others, sometimes hurt is inevitable. 

Acceptance is hard. My father's death in 2017 was hard. I accepted he had died. I just never dealt with the trauma of his death.

I've accepted our daughter died, but again, it was another traumatic death, that I witnessed, that I didn't walk away from. 

I could've left the room on both occasions, but I didn't, I chose to stay put, chose to stay with my father and my daughter as they took their last breaths. I didn't need to for me. I probably didn't need to for them, but something made me stay. I said after watching my father die that I was never going to do it again, but I did and I have to accept that. I chose to stay, however traumatic.

I'm still struggling with both these events. I've been diagnosed with PTSD, I've received targeted therapy, I'm on medication, I've had a mental health plan in place. I've reached the end of the support that is available to me. The help and support I want is not available. The help and support I wanted was in the first few days and weeks. 

There was help and support from some amazing people and I will be forever grateful, but it has taken 6 months for me to accept that the people I thought would help just weren't there, they didn't call, they didn't didn't come round, they didn't put aside their differences, they didn't make us their priority.

It's taken 6 months for me to accept this, to move on from questioning why? What did I do wrong for them not to care about us when we needed them the most? For them not to drop everything for us in our hour of greatest need? 

With acceptance comes peace. For too long I've been focusing on regret. I realise now people come in and out of your life, some for a long time and some for a short while. But it's the quality of the time spent, not the quantity.

I accept it's hard to know what to say to when someone dies. I've been in that situation so many times.

I accept that it's hard to know whether to call in or worry that'll you'll be intruding.

I accept that while you'll thinking about the above, time passes, then you start to feel awkward about the gap left.

I accept that maybe some people will feel triggered and can't cope.

But no matter how hard you are finding the situation, for us, it was harder than you could ever imagine and that knock at the door, that message, that late night phone call, that invite for coffee, that hug and and even those awkward silences meant the world to us and always will.

We accept our circle of friends and people we can turn to has grown smaller but it has also grown stronger.