I have been absent for the last week as allot of things came to a head for me. Since losing Angel just over 2 years ago I have received NO professional help. I have not been offered it and I have not sourced it myself.

This was until last week when my grief and general depression got the better of me and put me in hospital getting every test imaginable for “critically high blood pressure”.

To say this has been a wake-up call for me is an understatement. It has pushed me to do something so I can move forward in my life. But it has been so difficult for me. I have suffered mental health issues my whole life. The last time I had mental health issues visible to family friends and general society was 10 years ago. I got myself into a better place by becoming my own rock. I know I did it and I guess I became a bit conceited and a bit egotistical as I thought from that point on ANYTHING that caused me to slip could be solved by the magnificent Lisa.

Until today. I went to see a psychologist. First question he asked me after I told him my story of my beautiful boy Angel was “So how did your day to day life changed after having and losing your baby and has it returned to normal”. The only answer I could give him was that it NEVER changed.

Yes I cry in my room BUT my everyday life, existence and being NEVER changed not once. Directly after losing Angel, beside the funeral, I did nothing out of the ordinary.

I continued caring for my son. I returned to work 3 months after losing Angel. I continued organising everything for everyone as it was what I had always done.

You see the old Lisa would have exploded and acted irrationally. Putting it visually I would have let the “pressure balloon” that is my emotional state and wellbeing just pop! Go off – full release. Everybody run and fucking hide!

BUT I am not the old Lisa. I worked my ass off to come from that place. And in that journey I have developed a strength that is unbelievable! It is virtually indestructible.

So you think being a strong person would be great in a situation such as losing a child. I thought it was. Nope, not at all.

I have become so strong that I now have this full pressure balloon. And it is as full as a mother can get. It is taking up so much space, time and emotion in there that I have no allowance for anything else.

I am ready to explode BUT new Lisa does not explode. I have gained that from the “oak tree” strength I have developed so well.

But I can’t live my life being so consumed by this full pressure balloon as there is just no give in it at all.

So this is the story my fantastic psychologist told me:

A man and his family are stuck in a horrific typhoon. All the villagers around the family run to the strong old oak tree and grasp it through the typhoon. The man takes his family to the garden of bamboo.

The storm hits, the old oak groans and creaks throughout the storm whilst the bamboo flexes and moves whilst staying planted in the ground.

When the storm was over the oak tree was gone, but the bamboo with the man’s family grasping it was still there.

We know the bamboo is going to flex and gain more stability in the end from that, but we know the old strong oak is eventually going to fail in the storm and fall over. We don’t know when we just know it will occur.

I am now throwing out my strong oak tag. It has served me well, but it will not help me grown anymore. I am now flexible bamboo. I move and shift with different situations and in that flexibility I still gain strength just a different kind, a flexible kind.

In this new found flexibility I understand that the pressure balloon needs some release BUT I am not old Lisa and I will not explode. There is nothing wrong with letting a little of the pressure out. It allows a bit of freedom. The balloon can get kicked around a bit, tweaked a bit and it has that bit of play.

So slow, controlled releases of the balloon is what I will be aiming for. I will approach my day with flexibility allowing me the option to change the directions of my life, emotions, grief and mental wellbeing in general.

Today I am finally looking at my life with the outlook that there is flexibility ahead and not living in fear that my only option to work past all this is explode.

And it honestly feels unbelievably cool!