‘SUPPORT GROUPS SAVED ME WHEN I WAS ADRIFT’

A tragedy or illness can set you apart from family and friends, as Xenia Taliotis discovered, but she also found that strangers with similar experiences provided a lifeline

One woman shares how she got through a crisis

It was one of those beautiful early August mornings that holds autumn in its gentle breeze and the fading of its leaves. I’d arrived at work happy, having spent the night at my friends’ house after an evening out. I’d switched on my computer to check emails. Halfway down was one from my partner Paul’s brother. It said Paul had collapsed the night before with a brain bleed and had been rushed to hospital for surgery, and that I should get there as soon as I could.

Paul died 10 weeks later, in October 2005, after suffering another catastrophic haemorrhage. He was 41 and I had just turned 40. We had been together for five-and-a-half years, living together for the last three of those, and both felt that this relationship would take us through into old age. His death changed the course of my life for ever, jettisoning me from a rosy path and setting me adrift in an ocean of despair that was so vast and merciless that I doubted I’d ever see, let alone touch, dry land again.

Despite the monumental efforts friends made to bring me back to shore, I was unreachable. Eventually, they retreated back to their day-to-day – their jobs, their relationships, their concerns. I remained stuck. Paul had died, and so, too, had the future I’d dreamed of and the children we had hoped to have. No one knew what do with me or my grief. Sometimes, people found it easier to ignore both me and it.

It took me several years to crawl out of that cold, cruel sea. Wrung out and eroded, and never to be who I had once been, I nonetheless eventually found a grain of hope in my heart, and the beginnings of a future after finding a support group for people who had been widowed young. On New Year’s Day 2012, I texted my cousin to say that

I was raising a glass to surprises.

Six weeks later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Once again, my new situation marooned and isolated me from friends. So, once again, I sought help, not from friends, none of whom had cancer, thank goodness, but from people who’d walked a similar path. This time, the group was for young women with cancer.

Grief, illness, addiction, abuse, infertility, involuntary childlessness, bankruptcy, long Covid – it turns out they all have support groups. In fact, you will find an organisation for whatever issue has ejected you from your norm and left you floundering on the sidelines of your

former life. The people you meet there will have already blistered their feet walking down the road that stretches ahead of you. They can tell you of the emotional pitfalls you’re likely to encounter. You probably won’t be able to dodge them, but you’ll be better prepared and, more than that, will at least know you’re not alone.

Support groups were the safety nets that caught me when bereavement and illness catapulted me into the unknown. They offered me friendship, sympathy and a sense of belonging. As Hannah Smith, counselling psychologist for cancer charity Maggie’s, explains: ‘Humans are social animals, with a hardwired need to belong. Sometimes, situations arise that separate us from our groups, or weaken our ties to them. A bereavement or illness can certainly do this. In such instances, people can feel incredibly lonely and isolated. Support groups provide the opportunity to form new connections with others who are dealing with something similar.’

LIFE RAFT

This was true of my experience. Before I joined WAY, the charity for the widowed and young, I’d felt alone. The only widows I knew were much older. The loss I felt was immeasurable, inarticulable and alienating; how could my friends comprehend what I was going through?

WAY was a life raft. For a few hours a month, on long walks or drinks in quiet pubs, I felt fractionally less lonely. Those events gave me a sense of belonging and normality; I wasn’t the only person in my world whose partner had died young. We all had different stories, but we shared the same concerns. Meeting others who were struggling to come to terms with their grief helped me realise that my emotions were not unique. My life had become deranged, but my responses and feelings had not: they were universal.

What was also enormously beneficial was being able to let my guard down. I could laugh, cry or say inappropriate things without being judged. I wasn’t an oddity, or someone to be pitied or someone to be avoided. I could share my feelings, however ugly and painful they were, without reservation.

‘Providing a safe, nonjudgmental space is a key function of a support group,’ says Hannah. ‘At our groups, people can be honest and express how they feel about the way treatment has altered their bodies, or their relationship with themselves or others. They can say things they dare not say to loved ones for fear of upsetting them.

‘Often, there is an expectation that people can go back to their pre-illness selves once treatment has finished, but this is not usually the case. The end of treatment can be extremely stressful and this is when support groups can be most useful. Regular check-ups stop and, although people may still feel wretched, they feel unable to say so because everyone tells them how well they are looking. There’s also terrible terminology that surrounds not only illness but break-ups and bereavement (being told to move on, for example), when the reality for most is that they live alongside whatever has happened to them.’

Again, I recognise all of this. Within my support groups, no one tried to rush me to ‘betterness’. In those safe environments, I could expose the raw, unremitting pain of Paul’s death and the fear that cancer would kill me before I’d had a chance to recover sufficiently from my grief to live again – something I couldn’t share with those who love me.

The advice I received from those further down the line was also invaluable. Little was off limits. In my young women with breast cancer group, for instance, we could speak about everything from finding confidence for intimacy, to side-effects of medication; we could share moments of the darkest, blackest rib-busting humour, which no one but us would have found funny, and we could find people who could act as advocates when we didn’t feel able to face our consultants or line managers alone.

In time, I became one of those who was able to help others. Reciprocity is a key element of support groups, particularly when they’re run by members for members, as WAY is, rather than by counsellors. Giving back was crucial to my healing for many reasons – first because I’m naturally reciprocal and was glad when that aspect of my nature returned, then because it helped me realise how much progress I’d made. There came a time when I felt able to re-engage with life. I’d drawn strength from my peers and I’d given back. It was time to face the world again as a single, healthy woman.

Support groups work for me, but they’re not for everyone. Sometimes, Hannah says, people can find being with others who are also sad or unwell overwhelming, or they can find that meetings pull them back to a place they don’t want to be reminded of; it’s important to reach out to a group at a moment that feels right for the individual. Setting you back on your feet so you can walk away is the goal of support groups. You may leave with lifelong friends, as I did when I left WAY, or you may not. The chances are, though, that for a while you’ll connect with people who are adrift in the same sea. Some may be nearing the shore, others further out, while many are still being battered by the raging storms of whatever troubles them. Wherever they are in that ocean, what might well be keeping them afloat is that net of support that those who have made dry land are able to cast out for them.

Now in my 50s, I again feel the need for support that my friends are unable to provide. My mother has dementia, and I’m finding my role as her principal carer enormously challenging. Somewhere close by, I know there’s a community of people looking after relatives like my mother. Before long, I’ll contact them. And when I do, they will be there to pick me up should I fall.

Find WAY at widowedandyoung.org.uk and Maggie’s at maggies.org or 0300 123 1801

They offered me friendship, sympathy and a sense of belonging