Life is brutal!.... sometimes.

This is something I started writing way back in 2020 and not shared or finished, so thought why not share it with my billions of follower. So sit down relax and cast your mind back to 2020…….…. that wonderful year. Cue a blurry transition.

Its really ok to be having a crap time.

This is not some sales pitch for eating healthy, yoga or mindfulness. Equally its not a story to shout "look" how bad I’ve got it. Just an honest account of my experiences this year, and how we are all defenseless at some points.

To cut straight to it, my father died the day after boxing day this year, 30 minutes after I got him to hospital he was put into an induced coma, and 10 hours later he sadly died. I know right.

Two days after that I had to take my mother to the same hospital for the same symptoms, she spent seven days in hospital, and thankfully is now fully recovered. I remember the doctor telling me I had to take my mother to hospital, I just broke down. To expand on “broke down” I cried for about 10 minutes, in the waiting room before I could bring myself to leave. All I could think was the last person I had taken I never got to see again. I know right.

Those seven days will go down as the worst days of my life, organising the funeral, telling my gran mother her son had died and keeping the wheels on the world around. I felt alone, scared and angry at the universe.

I started getting into unhealthy habits, stopping picking up phones calls, disconnecting from social groups, sleeping badly, eating and drinking badly. I was probably starting to spiral a little bit. Ok not probably I was nose-diving.

But I felt like I deserved it in some way. Deserved to wallow.

I started using a helpline to talk to someone about what I was going through. I know this is probably going to sound silly, but the single biggest thing that helped me where the words coming out of someone else mouth “its normal” to not be ok. You hear it all the time, “its ok not to be ok” but when your not ok and in the thick of it you feel, like a failure. It's how I saw myself at the time.

I felt a massive relief, from that point on I was able to build myself back to the person I am.

I will never be the person I was before all this, life changes you.

Like a stone is shaped by time and weather, we are shaped by time and experiences.

Am I fixed? No I think we all know that, what I’ve learner there is no fix, mental health is on-going, and there are some days now when I could happy not speaking to anyone.

Ill end with a passage from my father's eulogy I wrote.

“There is no easy way of putting it, life is brutal, but it doesn’t always have to be is what my father taught me. What I learned from him was kindness to others and how you conduct yourself is what sets you apart.

So my parting message to you all is pass on my fathers kindness to your neighbours, friends, family or strangers in need as he would.”

Be kind.

Thanks past Oliver that was great.

p.s. I’m not crying my eyes are washing themselves.