Have a blurry view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower! Thanks Charlie for a highlight of 2014 <3

Happy New Year! I hope you've all had a lovely festive period. And I hope you're all still desperately clinging onto it like I am.

Frankly, though, I am glad to see the back of 2014. This year has been quite tumultuous emotionally. Some bits have been basically awful. Some bits have been okay. Some bits have been just neutral. It's been a weird year.

My anxiety and emetephobia got really bad this year. I've never had anxiety attacks before and they gripped me this year (particularly over summer). As a consequence I've stopped drinking and stopped going out - they weren't major or essential parts of my life but I like wine and house parties and dance music. Also I can't dance in clubs without some alcohol in me, so sober nights out are a bit rubbish. I think I've decided that my emetephobia was the reason behind my sudden increase in anxiety. I've always had a bit of a weird wariness about sickness and vomiting (above the normal) but I went with my dad to see my grandad in hospital (before he died - we'll get on to that) and suddenly I began to have these anxiety attacks every single day. I had no idea they were anxiety attacks - I just felt like I was going to be sick.

My mind just focused on a particular phobia and everything became a billion times more difficult. People have literally vomited in front of me before and I've been mostly fine, but just hearing about someone being sick now makes me feel anxious.

So there's that. Good news though - I've been booked in for a CBT appointment in the next couple of weeks. I'm really hoping it's going to work, and I've heard good things so far. Fingers crossed!

Also, my grandad died this year. That was pretty awful. I did write a post about it and I don't really know what else to say about it now, so. I miss him very much and I wish he hadn't gone the way he did.

On the other hand, I finally found motivation to work this year. Something clicked in September - this counts. This matters. My essay marks didn't necessarily reflect my new work ethic, which was really annoying, but I finally know how to write a university level essay! I think! Success. Also, I've actually been revising for my exams and I'm managing to fit in a few hours of Dragon Age: Origins, which I am shamelessly playing on Easy mode.

I think I discovered that there are more hours in the day than you at first perceive. I used to write off the whole day because I had plans with a friend for lunch. You have time to see a friend and get some work done. Plus, my Future Self is currently sitting in an exam and I want her brain to be full of things to say when I catch up.

Oh, and I'm thinking about postgraduate study, and I need a first. They say you can get in with a 2:1 but I need a first. I'm thinking about Cambridge (gasp). I have some ideas, but shh. Save them for the dissertation.

Also, Paris. Which was far too hot but majorly beautiful and I got to tick it off my bucket list. And I got to spend time with a really good friend (she knows who she is). I will be back, Paris - when you cool down.

So 2014's been kind of weird and a bit disappointing and rubbish. But I got through that. To satisfy my emetephobic self - I thought I was going to vomit probably at least once every day since mid-March but I didn't. I am strong enough to deal with bereavement and my own personal demons and still have motivation and dreams and goals and a social life.

I don't really have any resolutions but I have goals. I want 2015 to be a year where I make progress with my anxiety, where I let go of things, where I write up my lecture notes every day, where I once again prove to myself that I am strong and durable.

I wish you all a happy 2015.
Lots of love,
Catherine
xx

This is a little depressing to write and also probably to read; for that I apologise.

My dear grandad passed away on Easter Saturday of this year. It's been exactly four months since I received a call from a man working in the Yorkshire Ambulance Service telling me that my grandad had been found 'deceased in the house'. I am still angry and confused about the way this man told me that my grandad had passed away. He did tell me his name at the beginning of the call but I have completely forgotten it. I don't know if I would ever make a complaint, but the fact that he couldn't find a better way to pass on the news and then told me I 'sounded young' - I wonder who he is. I wonder if he's ever had to lose a family member.

My grandad was the last of my grandparents to pass away. My grandma (his wife) died of cancer when I was eight and my mum's parents died within a year of each other when I was twelve. I was too young to really grasp loss and really know or love my grandparents. This time I am struggling.

I think what's made this worse is the shock of my grandad's death. He had so many ailments that it was hard to believe that one of them could really end his life. In fact, the mass in his stomach that burst and caused his heart to give out was a very recent problem on the end of a long, long list. He seemed invincible, though frail - he had thrombosis that cost him his lower left leg, diabetes for years, high cholesterol, digestive problems. He never drank water and he ate two big meals a day. His short term memory had begun to disintegrate after two small strokes a couple of years ago - this was our main concern as he couldn't remember if he'd taken his medication or done his insulin injection and he was constantly confused. I think we all knew that these signs didn't indicate a very long life ahead of him, but I expected him to at least see me graduate from university. Obviously this didn't happen. His death was sudden and out of the blue. I also suspect that I would have had an easier time with the news if I'd heard it from my parents rather than a cold stranger.

How do you know when you've accepted a loss? How can you tell if you're still 'processing', grieving, whatever it is? I'm still sad about my grandad's death. I still cry occasionally. But I've been suffering some derealisation as a result of my panic attacks, which makes me even more prone to expecting my grandad to wheel himself into the room every time we go up to his house. It's not real yet. I'm worried it never will be.

I suppose you take each day one at a time. Keep busy. We've started sorting out his house - all of his clothes are gone (divided between family and a local hospice) and we cleared the attic and one bedroom. It's very weird emptying a wardrobe that belongs to someone who died. I can't quite describe what it is that makes me so uncomfortable about touching a dead person's (clean, ready to be worn) clothes. Something lingers, maybe. Perhaps it's the reality that this person no longer needs them.

I was also thinking about how we often describe the dead as in another place. It is incomprehensible that someone can just stop existing. That consciousness ends. Where do we go when we die? Maybe we go to a great kingdom in the clouds with an entity that calls itself God. Maybe there is another journey we take as ourselves. Maybe we wake up as a larva or a baby bird. Or, we stay in the same place. With our loved ones.

I doubt my grandad could have read this even when he was alive, but I miss you and I love you. Always and forever.

Catherine
xx