mostly david ephgrave

I'm struggling to process the loss of both parents; one to cancer and the other to end a cycle of emotional abuse. My nerves feel utterly shot. The past year saw my relationship with my mum unravel through being built on unsteady ground. Whenever her expectations tested my boundaries, I still did my best to meet them. Some of my earliest memories are the lies she made me tell - to hide four affairs from my dad when I was a child, right up to her secretly getting married seven months before he died, yet refusing to tell him, and insisting I lie about that too. And though it wasn't fair to repeatedly put me in this position, I met her terms, because I loved her.  I was a witness at the wedding to show forgiveness to the two people who'd made my childhood so traumatic, yet within months, I was accused of homophobia by a solicitor my mum refused to correct. And she walked off from my dad's burial, seconds after I'd lowered his ashes into the grave, disappearing a...

Today, I received word that my dad's gravestone has been laid, along with a photograph to prove it (not that I was in any doubt). It's these things you can be a little unsure how you'll react to; it was like seeing his coffin at the funeral or carrying his ashes casket at the burial. There's a sense of finality and actuality that can be a little unsettling if don't prepare yourself for it. But any time I worry, I remind myself that it's just my dad and I love him, and I needn't be afraid, because there'll never be a reason to be frightened when he's nearby, ever. When the paramedic asked if I wanted to see him when I arrived minutes after he'd died, I faltered for a moment. But I quickly mentally corrected myself, because I knew I had a responsibility to him as my dad, and because I knew he'd need me. He told me more than once towards the end that I made him less afraid when I was there, so I was glad there was a way I could acti...

I'm currently suffering a real disillusionment with life, particularly from a career perspective, that's making it near-impossible to focus on what to do next. As I've already intimated, personal problems connected to the loss of my dad play a large part in this sense of frozen momentum. One thing my standard response to depression illustrates is my tendency to approach difficulty with energy and action, mostly creatively - even this blog started life as an exercise to assist my mental health - but even that's been overwhelmed by current circumstances; I think cancelling Edinburgh was the final straw as it struck from the diary my focus at a cost far more expensive than my turnover for the past two years combined. (And that's without factoring in the damage to my confidence and morale.) As it stands, I don't know how to pick myself up again. I've borne-witness to the assassination of things that mattered most to me by someone I thought knew bett...