It's 7 months today since I lost my best friend in the world, my lovely wee mum. Many of you have followed my journey as I began to take small steps back into the world after the biggest loss of my life. After 5 months away from work I returned on a phased return and felt quite positive that I was getting there. So why is it today that I feel so devastated? I am absolutely distraught and feel as if I have gone backwards.
I'm struggling at work and in a meeting with my Head yesterday she told me that everyone says I seem angry, that I'm not wanting to engage and am just going through the motions of being there. I know she's right. I have felt myself getting lower and lower since I went back after Easter and rather than dissolve in tears publicly I have put up a brick wall, a hard exterior, to get me through each day. I don't mean to do it I just don't seem to be able to help it. I just put my head down and avoid eye contact and I now realise I am still very depressed and think that, perhaps, I've gone back to work too soon. I'm terrified of losing my job but don't feel I can take on the 6th form course that I agreed to give a go about 5 months before mum passed away.
Colette can't offer me an alternative and is pushing for me to do this but I don't want to let her and, more to the point, the kids down. The trouble is I would have to keep a couple of steps ahead of the kids in terms of getting to grips with the content of the course, something I would usually have no problem with and have done a number of times in my career. The thing is, at the moment, I have the concentration of a gnat! I can't even watch a full TV programme or read a book. I've tried to sit down and get a grip of the course a number of times since I went back and it's like reading a foreign language.
I am feeling very scared and panicky. My self esteem has gone through the floor and I just feel that I haven't got the energy, or the will, to pick myself up and give it a go. Colette keeps saying I have to decide whether I really can't do it, or whether it's just because of how I am feeling at the moment. The trouble is I don't know. Everyone says it's just because my confidence has been knocked and I don't have any self belief at the moment. I keep being advised not to make any rash decisions that I'll regret. Colette says she knows I can do it and it's just my emotional state at the moment but what if it isn't? Sorry, that's my rant over. I'm just so uncertain of everything just now. I should have been out with my adopted family tonight celebrating Gillians 50th with a lovely meal at our favourite Indian Restaurant and instead I have sat here with a bouncing headache and cried my eyes out most of the night. What a mess!
