I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to write all this down, but I’m going to try. I’m 36 years old and I’ve never married. I have had two serious long term relationships that didn’t work out, but I’ve now been single for about 5 years. I am told that I am attractive. I have a good job, my own apartment etc. It has always been a sadness for me that I am single, but I have built a good life with lots of friends, activities and hobbies. Yet the thought that I may be running out of time to have a child in the traditional family love sense is always there: a pain like a knife, a level of anxiety that underpins everything, and can take the sunshine out of the brightest day and move me to tears at a moment’s notice. Yet I usually am able to carry on, smile, congratulate my friends for their life events, feel like it will get better. I keep going. But now I feel like I can’t…..

My life has taken another fracture recently when my beloved father died. His death was sudden and unexpected. He was my rock, and my friend, and I can’t even begin to describe how much pain I have about this. I miss him more than I can even describe and I Can’t understand where he’s gone, or that I won’t be able to talk to him again.

The reason I am writing this though is about my reactions to this, and the situation of being in such grief which has tipped me into a whole realm of self doubt and self analysis for some reason. I have always thought of myself as having a wonderful support network, many strong female friends and a great family. Yet at the moment I feel isolated, angry and unsupported for the first time in my life. My brother lives far away, and his own grief has spiralled into a depression (he has struggled with this all his life). He is unable to talk about our Dad or his grief, and has pushed me away because I am the opposite and I want to talk. My best friend, while wonderful in the immediacy of the loss, now changes the subject when I bring up my Dad, and I think has had almost enough of my sadness. She has also told me that I seem very angry at the moment, and have hurt her a couple of times. She understood that it wasn’t meant, but still wanted me to be aware. That hurt me a lot, I can be overly analytical about not wanting to hurt anyone and that comment caused me about a week of anxiety about being an ‘awful person’. My mother is also unable to really help with the grief as she is coping with it herself. I feel like at the time we should be supporting each other, as a family we are kind of bunkering down, alone, to cope. I am at a point now where I feel other emotions coming to the surface which I don’t normally have, like anger jealously bitterness resentment. I find myself thinking that I really have been dealt an awful life (whereas I would normally very much believe that you get form life what you put in, its your responsibility to make yourself happy, etc). I usually do a lot of yoga and have been unable to since Dad died. I’m not eating very well, I spend a lot of time lying around surfing the internet and sleeping. I am constantly tired. My work is very demanding (I am a boss) and I find myself irritable, too tired to complete my tasks, and not enjoying the challenge. I’m also quite angry at work, and resentful of it- I used to enjoy my job. I now see it as a bind. And I’m weeks behind and the cracks are starting to show there too.

And lastly….. I’ve done some things I’m not too proud of. I’ve been drinking too much (mainly socially, but also on my own sometimes in the evenings). On two occasions, I’ve purposely thought “I’m going to drink until I don’t feel this pain anymore’. I’ve ended up in bed a couple of times with someone I knew was interested in me, but I wasn’t particularly interested in him. However I felt drawn to him because he too had experienced a great loss. But he has proved to be emotionally unavailable, and shuts down when I try to steer us towards any kind of meaningful discussion about grief. Things have become so awkward. Now, when ever we meet up and are drinking I seem to try to get him to stay overnight with me – even though I don’t want anything long term with him – and he is now rejecting my advances, and behaving like he doesn’t want to be in the same room as me any more. I feel, after this last rejection, lower than low. Like even my last reserve of comfort has been taken away. I’m not wanted – even by him any more. For me, that’s become another example of people turning away from me when I need them. I feel all kinds of emotions and my inner voice is telling me I was never good enough anyway, and that I’ll always be alone because I am an emotional wreck. And I’ve spent five years doing CBT, yoga, self healing, to keep those thoughts at bay. And now they are all back, all the dark thoughts, with a passion.

I don’t know where to go from here really. I can’t face reality any more, I just want to hide away. I want to talk to my Dad so badly. I want to be held, for someone to just put their arms around me while I cry so hard…until it stops. I’m so tired of crying alone and going outside to face the world with a brave face. I don’t know if I have the energy reserves to pull my socks up and get on with this. It may be too hard. I’m so stuck, and so sad, and not liking myself at all just now.