IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY

Even in life’s bleakest hours, you are always stronger than you can imagine, says Poorna Bell

You are strong enough to make it through anything, says Poorna Bell

I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY LIKE THE SWIRLING ARMS OF A GALAXY, HOLDING ME TIGHTLY AT THE CENTRE. My parents were there when I found out I had a hole in the heart, my friends consoled me while my selfesteem was disassembling because of boy problems, and my sister has been at the end of panicked calls about my career. I assumed that whatever tough things life threw at me, the solutions would be found in the strength of others. But then life threw something unimaginable at me, and I was forced to realise that when something huge tears your sense of self asunder, the only person who can piece it back together is you.

It happened in 2015, when my husband Rob passed away while staying with family in New Zealand. It began with a phone call from my mother-in-law to tell me he had taken his own life. The moment I pressed that red button to disconnect the call, I knew that the person I had been before was vanishing. I wasn’t just saying goodbye to Rob, I was saying goodbye to my old self. There were parts of me that just didn’t survive the experience of losing him.

While I had a strong support group of loved ones, I learnt that they couldn’t be the people who would get me through this. They were the safety net; the warm, familiar voices at the other end of the phone, but they were not going to be the ones to set my alarm in the morning, will me to move or get me to work. They simply could not be present for every moment of grief, especially the most raw, tender parts of the day – just after I woke up and before I went to bed, when I realised my reality was far removed from what I had pictured for myself. In the first year, I wrongly believed that my sense of self was shattered. What I didn’t realise was that it was in a period of transformation.

It was giving me just enough strength to get from day to day and, in the background, it was becoming something far stronger. The moment of realisation was when I was in New Zealand – it was my first visit since Rob’s funeral nine months previously. I was standing on the beach, salt spray in my hair, feeling as if I was coming apart like the driftwood floating out to sea. I didn’t see how I could go on feeling heartbroken and sad all the time. But cutting through the fog of that grief was this clear voice, strong and filled with purpose. It said I was going to be okay, and that when I really needed it, it would be there for me. I realised that it was my voice; that this other part of me had been gathering strength like the swell of a tide, and that it would help me push through as it had done every single day, with every breath I had taken since Rob died.

At the time, I was terrified of acknowledging that I wasn’t the same person. I wanted to be how I was before. But now, I believe the self is at its strongest and most powerful when it has experienced change and come through the other side. That change often holds hands with loss, and that could be anything from losing a job to the end of a relationship. It might be the emotion-fraught journey of trying for kids or anything that shakes at the foundations of what you consider defines you as a person. In the darkest moments, it might seem like this loss will define you for ever. But remember, your sense of self won’t allow you to be consumed. It’s a grafter; it doesn’t mind the trudge. It will be there at 3am when you’re wondering when it will get better. It’ll pop bread in the toaster and propel you into the shower. There is great self-love to be had in that.

Understanding this doesn’t mean you don’t love your friends and family. When it comes to personal change or loss, they can be the catalyst to recovery, but you are and always have been the engine.

‘Part of me had been gathering strength’