Some days you just aren’t equipped for the news that lands on you. I’m finding it challenging and I’m old (not older than dirt mind, but I’m not 21). On Saturday evening we got some news that was shocking, surprising, and horrendous.
Yeah, that kind of news. It has layers.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world goes on oblivious. Because that’s how life is. I learnt that when I was 20. The world goes on regardless of what is happening or has happened in your part of the world. It just goes on. People carry on living their lives as though nothing happened. Because in their world, nothing happened.
It’s a strange concept to grasp when you’re young. Definitely an easier one when you have some life experience, but even then, it’s not easy. It makes no fucking sense.

This week has been tough, there were tears, hugs, disbelief, horror, shock, many reminders that this was nobodies fault. There was nothing anyone could do to prevent it. This is what drugs like ‘bath salts’ and meth do. They take everything from a person. Eventually they take their life but only after they’ve taken their humanity. (They turn the person from a kind caring human being with a future and a life filled with people who love them to a wreck, a shell, someone that will do anything for more drugs.)
And it sucks hard. And drug abuse exacerbates any mental illness issues but it also causes them.
Watching it sucks. Not being able to get through to them is painful and horrible. Listening to the lies. Knowing what they’ve become and wishing they’d wake up and stop. Trying everything you can think of to get them back on the right path. But they don’t come back for long. Having to accept that the person they were, the person you used to know, that person is gone and can’t come back.

This week I am very grateful for my family. I am grateful my grandson is alive. I am grateful he’s here with us. That I can talk to him. Hug him. Remind him how much he’s loved. He’s alive and I want him to stay that way. (Hug your people.)
When someone ends their life, when it’s because of drugs, when they’re not who they used to be, it’s hard to come to grips with. Because this is not how life is supposed to end when you’re a bubbly smart funny girl. But it did. In the space of six months she vanished into a drugged haze. Gone. There were a few attempts at coming back but it never took. And now it’s over.

My grandson has learnt the shittiest of all life lessons. Sometimes the only thing you can do is walk away and let the chips fall. You cannot control anyone and you cannot help people who don’t want help. Life sucks and gives change. It’s very hard to see through grief and know that it’s a process when you’ve never had to walk that road before and when everything suddenly feels dark.
I wish he wasn’t on this road because I know how hard it is. On the flip side of that, I’m thankful he’s here because I know how hard it is.

  The Urgent Response Service is a 24/7 mental health crisis response line: 0800 800 717.