When you’ve been on a waiting list for therapy for a year, you eventually resign yourself to the fact that it might never happen. That’s how I deal with metaphorically sitting in a waiting room for an undetermined length of time, anyway. But then, eventually, my name gets called— and by that point, I’ve accepted the waiting so much that I’m actually surprised to hear it at all.

That’s exactly what happened on Monday. I got a phone call saying my grief therapy would start the next day. I was relieved too, of course, the metaphorical waiting room is so boring. The radio plays the worst songs you’ve ever heard in your life – it’s probably Heart FM – and you start wondering things like “Maybe they forgot about me,” “Should I chase them up?” and “Does anyone even know I’m still here?”

So when my name finally was called, I had no idea how to process it. My brain couldn’t even get there. I’ve been juggling so many other stressful things that grief therapy right now feels like using duct tape to fix a giant hole in a dam.

I wasn’t expecting much. But somehow, it ended up being significant — more than I could have anticipated. As part of my grief therapy, I wanted to share it on my blog, it’s one of the things my therapist encouraged me to do.

Talking About WeeGee While Hugging A Penguin

The great thing about Cruse grief therapy is that it’s over the phone, and maybe later on Zoom if I feel more comfortable. It meant I could stay home, surrounded by the penguin plushies I bought to remind me of WeeGee. I hugged Pesto, my big, soft, fluffy Percy Penguin, throughout the whole call. Fluffy Pesto hugs were very much needed for talking about WeeGee so much.

To understand my situation, my therapist asked me a lot of questions about WeeGee. The questions she asked were really lovely, and it felt like she cared to know all about her. She asked me what I loved most about her, my favourite memory of her, what I admired most about her. Surprisingly, I found so much comfort in answering them.

The comfort and warmth I felt made me realise that I have missed talking about her SO MUCH and definitely have not talked about who she is as a person enough. I didn’t even realise until the therapy session that talking about her doesn’t cause me to cry anymore, and a lot of that is because I often get shut down whenever I mention her.

Hardly anyone asks me about her. Hardly anyone even lets me talk about her. When I bring her up, I often get blank stares, or get offered platitudes as a way to change the subject, or worse, I get told how I should, “Just move on already”. Only a handful of people have ever been interested to truly listen to my stories about her.

It made me realise that, without even noticing, I had lost her all over again — this time, in silence. I have lost the feeling of warmth and comfort I got from talking about her all the time – something I did so often when she was alive.

“That reminds me of WeeGee.”
“WeeGee would love this.”
“My friend WeeGee is a brilliant writer.”
“OMG, PENGUINS! That reminds me of WeeGee — I have to get it for her. She LOVES penguins so much.”

But as soon as she died, people didn’t even want me to talk about her like that anymore. When she was alive, I could express my love for her openly, freely and often, and as soon as she died I suddenly wasn’t allowed to express my love for her.

But my love for her didn’t die with her. It’s still here. It will be with me for as long as I am alive.

As part of my grief therapy, I think I’m going to write more letters to her here on my blog. WordPress, after all, is where we met. I’m also going to talk a lot more about her. The world deserves to know who she is, and I want to feel connected to her through the warmth and comfort I feel now, whenever I talk about her.

Being More Honest About My Mental Health

Later in the call, I told my therapist all about my blog, and the fact I met WeeGee on my old one. I told her how it was hard to come back to WordPress after she died, because being here reminded me of her absence. But since October, I’ve worked hard to be here. To get part of myself back.

The therapist was really proud of me and validated that it was a great idea for grief therapy. She then asked all about my blog content, and after explaining the posts I’ve written so far, I suddenly realised something — grief isn’t the only thing I’ve felt pressured to keep hidden.

I am 41, and I have various mental illnesses. I am currently underweight due to my eating disorder, and I also have other lifelong mental illness diagnoses. Anorexia is technically more recoverable than my other mental illnesses, but that doesn’t mean recovery is as simple as weight restoration. Even in the 12 years I was weight-restored, I still had an eating disorder. I just wasn’t underweight anymore.

Throughout my life, I have suffered a lot of mental health stigma, especially as a single mother. I don’t think I realised quite how much it affected me until, because of the therapist’s questions, I went back and read my blog from 13 years ago. The me from 13 years ago was so DIFFERENT.

2012 me did not care at all about people’s opinions. She wrote freely, honestly, bluntly — and because of that, she was a lot funnier, too. People often called her courageous and brave for being so open, because her honesty about how terrible dealing with recovery is, helped others recover.

This blog belongs to the person WeeGee became best friends with.
And I realised — I am not her anymore.

Somewhere along the years of suffering stigma — constantly being told I’m not trying hard enough, being accused of wanting to suffer, being dismissed as “negative” just for acknowledging my reality — I learned that the only way to avoid judgement was to be silent.

So that’s what I did.

Dealing with a mental illness while also being stigmatised for that illness is too much to handle — especially when you’re also grieving, and again, people don’t want to hear about that either.

Grief too — WeeGee was the one person who did see me underneath it all. She had been through mental illness herself, and when she was gone, I was left in a world where no one else truly saw me except my son.

I get stigmatised a lot still but you know what? I’m 41. Isn’t this supposed to be my “I don’t give a crap” era? I’m Welsh too, surely I’m supposed to be in my Nessa from Gavin and Stacey era by now?

I don’t want to waste energy proving to people that I’m actually a positive person, thank you very much. Maybe the ones constantly stigmatising others who are suffering are actually the negative ones.

Those people have systematically torn me down and tried to silence me — whether outright or through constant judgement. And at some point, the person who once shared everything, who helped herself and others — became this quiet, silenced version of herself.

But I’m DONE with that. I want the 2012 me back.

And going forward, as part of my grief therapy, this blog is where I take her back.

I’m going to be more open about my mental health, about my grief, and just let my blog speak for itself.

I mean, I can write 2,000 words about Animal Crossing, about how much I love my son, about how much I love Jellycats and the wood pigeons I’m friends with — all while simultaneously suffering with anorexia, depression and a mountain of stressful events. If that’s not positive, I don’t know what is.

It’s going to be really hard – I’ve written this post three times now – and very scary, but if I want to enter my Nessa era, I have to try.

That First Session Was EVENTFUL Wasn’t it!

I guess I got a lot more out of my first session than I expected. Imagine being called from your metaphorical waiting room, sitting there in disbelief — only to have massive realisations an hour later.

In my long, enduring career of therapy, that’s usually a sign that it’s actually going to help. And trust me, I’d know if it wasn’t. I can spot terrible therapy a mile off. If this had been another “maybe your problem is that you’re not resilient enough?” situation, I’d already be rolling my eyes.

But this session has already helped me — because it made me see how much I had lost myself in grief and silence without even realising it. Sometimes, it takes something like a blog you wrote 13 years ago, or a lovely Cruse therapist, to remind you of who you really are.

The person I was back then — the open, unapologetic, blunt but funny version of me — that’s why WeeGee and I bonded so instantly. She was a kindred spirit, someone who never sugarcoated things but still found joy, softness, laughter and meaning in the little moments.

And if nothing else, I know this:

I want to be what WeeGee loved most about me.

I always end my blog posts with a song, this one felt apt for this post. One of my favourites.

“My whole life I’ve felt like a burden,
I think too much and i hate it,
I’m so used to being in the wrong,
I’m tired of caring”