Chapter 13 - Flanders

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After Sara and I separated I moved out of the family home and rented a three storey two bedroom terraced house. I could not face a cramped flat. There was no question of sharing a home with someone else, there was barely enough room in this house for my ballooning grief. I never went out and obsessively read and worked on my promise to Max. It provided a focus, a needlepoint of concentration that helped divert me from the grief.

There was a general concern regarding the way I dealt with my grief. Each person has their own unique needs at this time and my needs were helped by being alone.

The grief flooded my life. Weekends were the worst. Sunday was the worst day of the weekend because Paula stayed on Saturday and diverted my attention.

There were often Sundays which consisted only of grief. These were days where I started crying when I got up in the morning and cried almost continuously throughout the day. Sometimes I went back to bed to sleep and escape from it all. It was a temporary relief. The tears continued when I got up again.

The grief would reduce me to nothing. The intensity was brutal. This was far worse than anything encountered during Max's illness. These were not tears, it was far more physical than that. It was an all consuming and crushing feeling where your gut is twisted in a coil and your chest is crushed between a vice. The crying was accompanied by real physical pain. From all this constriction came an explosive outburst of emotion, an erupting explosion which left me physically weak after it had passed. I often ending up collapsing to the floor sobbing endlessly.

The weekends were followed by deep dark depressions which initially only lasted until the following Monday. I went to work and remained silent and totally withdrawn. Slowly this period of depression extended itself to the following Tuesday and Wednesday.

On leaving the family home and as my emotional and mental situation deteriorated I became more aware of many factors which made the situation worse. What I needed was friends who I could talk to, who could share some of the burden. My closest friends all lived far away. My family offered more than enough support but I was unable to accept their help. They were too close, too immediately connected with the Max's history. For so long I had immersed myself in my family, my work and trying to build a home for us that I suddenly found that there was no immediate support mechanisms of the type I desperately needed.

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