In the silence..... haunted.....

Have been going to sleep without David last few days as he's been doing sort of an afternoon shift since Monday. After all that time he's had off after the discrimination thing it's a bit hard to get used to. Plus it was bloody freezing in Sydney last night (only 8 degrees C in the east) and this house doesn't go too well in that sort of cold. Ended up going to bed early as the heater in the lounge-room didn't seem to be doing a lot, so being warm in bed and watching telly sounded like a good plan.

Later though I ended up just laying there trying to go to sleep, to no avail. Daughter was asleep too for work today. All there was was the background noise of traffic (which I don't notice) and silence in the bedroom. 

In such an alone situation my head starts drifting and thoughts flow through my head. On occasion thoughts can drift into the past. Some of those memories I guess will haunt me for the rest of my life. I tried the expansion thing, to give the thoughts the space to just be  and to let them flow through to their own conclusion. This is what the book "The Happiness Trap" instructs. 

It does help, I didn't end up in a crying mess like I could have. I simply said to myself that I recognised my head was having these thoughts, like a bit of an observer of my head. An entirely practical method especially given that I'm dealing with PTSD and that there will be times when past events, thoughts and emotions of the past, will come back and I will re-experience those times from the past, no matter how much energy I use up trying to fight it. Better to just let those thoughts and feelings flow and ebb as they will. It's part of being human. To stop such things is to stop being human.

A particular memory flooded back last night as I lay in bed alone. I felt upset a bit and huge sadness, but as I said that's simply all part of being human. I was back in the nursing home where my wife died. She only had about a week or so left and we all knew she was dying. I bought our daughter in to see her, she was only 15. She'd been in denial about her dying but I'd said she needed to see her. Unfortunately the visit didn't go so well. Wife looked so bad our daughter couldn't stop crying, couldn't even come over to her mother. All she could do was sit on a chair at the end of the bed and cry.... I was right back there, could see and feel everything.