It feels like forever since I have sat down and written a blog. I didn’t really think I would be writing another one after my last one, but here we are… Hello! I am writing this today, now a 25 year old woman who is living a completely different life to how I was a couple of years ago when I uploaded the ‘Two years and three months’ blog. It is now coming up on five years since losing my gorgeous Mum, in June. FIVE YEARS. That is still so hard for me to fathom, but anyway… the whole gist of this blog really is to help me in this current stage of my life - desperately trying to create my own story. 

​

I named this blog website ‘Smile For Her’, which was so relevant and perfect at the time of putting it together. The story behind the name is, when Mum was in hospital on her last day before becoming a beautiful angel with big white wings, she was completely unresponsive. We weren’t able to talk to her at all, as she was led there with barely any life left in her. But Danielle, my older sister, was speaking to her, and something made Mum smile. I wasn’t aware of it, I don’t think I was looking in their direction as it happened so Danielle asked her to smile again for me - something like “Rhea didn’t see that, can you smile for her?”. And she did. So this moment was very big for us both and I am so grateful to know Mum could still hear us and was still with us up until the very last moment. I use ‘smile for her’ as a metaphor, ‘her’ is everyone and anyone who is suffering themselves. Today, I am calling this specific blog ‘For me’, because it’s time I smile for myself too. I have come to the realisation recently that I am still living in my Mums story. I am still living everything that we went through with her, meaning I am barely living my own story. As great (in size) as her story was, it was very traumatic and I have been finding it hard lately to move away from the ptsd and begin my own journey, my own great story. Recently, I have gone to a lot of professionals reaching out for help. I have been asking doctors for advice, and sending emails enquiring about therapy again to bereavement companies. But I find myself being the only one trying to do anything about my life. Doctors tell me I need mental health help and therapy, and then therapists after I have enquired tell me to go to the doctors instead of booking me a 1-1 therapy meeting. So…. What is a girl to do? I have the most amazing support network in my partner and family members, and a handful of friends. But I have to keep fending for myself, and keep doing what I can to get back on track without the professional help I thought I needed.

​

I’ve recently developed migraines, which in the whole 5 years of grieving I have never had before. So obviously it is a concern of mine right now, anything to do with the heart or brain I freak out, understandably. I asked for help, was prescribed migraine tablets over a zoom call with a doctor - meaning no physical tests or a deeper investigation had taken place as to why I have them. My temples are sore and they have a lot of pressure pressing against them, my nose hurts, eyes get sore and I’m very tired a lot of the time. This now leads me to miss out on going to the gym, which has always been a major part of my life and healing process with my grief. Since I couldn’t go to the gym as much as I used to, I have gained weight as eating healthily and strictly just hasn’t even come into my mind with what I’ve been going through. I have lost muscle and lost my mind a little bit in the process too. Every now and then my heart doesn’t feel so heavy and I am able to get myself to the gym, but once I have sorted myself out I will be able to get back into my old routine. This is my second day of writing this blog, and I have already managed to go to the gym and eat healthier than I have done in ages. More focused already - this is when I know writing really does work for me and that it is my own remedy of releasing what I’ve needed to release myself from. I am my own therapist and I need to remember each time I feel down, that this is what helps me. I’ve been taking my vitamins, protein ‘diet whey’ to help with the process of losing weight and gaining muscle again, eating lots of fruit and right now carrot and coriander soup at lunchtime. Perks of my job providing the goods for us. Already I’m proud of myself for what I’ve achieved since starting this blog. I still feel a bit weird and fuzzy in my mind, and don't get me wrong I have again had another breakdown, but it’s a step in the right direction. Maybe this will solve my migraines if it is caused by stress (even though I don’t feel stressed), maybe it’ll solve any anxiety (even though I’m really not an anxious person). No idea what’s going on really but I can’t give up yet. It’s very clear my body is reacting to a lot without me really feeling it in my mind, which makes everything even more harder to deal with and it gets confusing. I could ramble on about how much I’m confused by all of this but this is enough to explain how I’m feeling for now.

​

I asked on my instagram what people would like me to write about in this blog, to expose more about my life again and one question was ‘what does a day in the life of yours look like?’. A day in my life currently just consists of getting up early, after barely sleeping the night before, head to work, whilst having all intentions of going to the gym afterwards. But instead, I now develop a migraine and then head straight home. This seems to be on repeat everyday, completely not my choice or idea of how I would want to spend my day, but I am trying to fight that temptation of heading home after work because I simply feel safe there. Perhaps it is anxiety I am dealing with, as my heart palpitates a lot and my chest feels heavy certain days. And obviously when this happens, all I can think about is cuddling up on the sofa and watching comforting childhood films like Winnie The Pooh. I don’t know about you, but it is an all time FAVE of mine. I am so grateful to finally have a home where I feel safe and comfortable, somewhere where I can be myself unapologetically, this is purely because of my caring boyfriend, (I will introduce you to him in a moment). But I do need to do my best to get myself back on track asap rocky. I was also asked on instagram ‘what does your perfect day look like?’. I thought of so many different things. To keep it simple for now, my perfect day is one of those days where you really have your sh!t together. Fresh faced, starting the morning with a healthy breakfast and having a day full of cleaning and shopping for all sorts of things at the best store ever; B&M. Then at the end of the evening, make and eat a yummy pasta dish and sit there with amazing company (Mark) in a beautiful apartment 10 stories high, with all the candles lit. I see so many tik tok videos from girls who have days like this and to me, it is so dreamy. It gives soft life. Clean girl aesthetic vibes. My current situation doesn’t allow me to do this, and my mental health isn’t quite ready to do as much as I desire. Feeling physically unwell as well as my mind, makes it a struggle to get on with life as how a 25 year old female should. But every day is a day closer to the day I go shopping at B&M like the tik tok girls and live my best self care ‘soft life’ day! I’m very aware of my situation right now so I am allowing myself to go through it all, but of course I do wish I wasn’t feeling like this. As I said, therapy clearly isn’t an option for me right now as much as I am trying to reach out and get some. So this is my therapy for now. Me, writing this very detailed and personal blog. 
 

“How do you spell love?” asked Piglet. “You don’t spell it, you feel it,” said Pooh.

​

And now for my lovely boyfriend. We’ve been together for almost a year and a half now, it’s been the most incredible experience and I am so so grateful for him. We were at the same secondary school for a couple of years until he moved and went somewhere else. Both of our best friends were siblings, so we always knew of each other but never really spoke. In 2021, on a random Tuesday evening, in a nightclub in town, we were reunited at the bar. I knew as soon as we sat down and spoke, that there was something between us and ever since then we have been inseparable. A connection so powerful and one that just made so much sense. I moved in with him last August and it was the best decision I have ever made, it has been what we’ve both needed. You know those songs that make you feel a type of way, that make your soul feel happy and you just feel complete and warm whilst listening to it? Mark is that song for me. To find someone so attentive, caring, passionate, friendly, kind, sweet, strong, stupidly funny, ambitious and romantic, is an absolute dream come true. I can definitely say Mum sent him to me. Sometimes life makes you experience the worst, in order to deserve and receive the best. This is my proof. 

​

Grieving the way I am whilst being in such a healthy relationship is like living on a rollercoaster of emotions. My heart is full of love yet broken for my Mum all at the same time. You know the white door with the pink flowers in Monsters Inc, and there’s that really sad scene where it gets put into the wood shredder. Mike Wazowski puts the door back together for Sulley, but it still looks all quite broken and vulnerable, with a missing piece in the middle. Sulley realises that he has that missing piece which he kept when the door got destroyed, and fits it back in place. The red light starts beaming again. Meaning it still works even after everything it went through. What I’m trying to say is, I am that vulnerable door which has had a missing piece since Mum passed away. Mark is Sulley with the missing piece, and he has put that missing piece back into my heart which allows me to function and live again. I still feel and look a little broken and there are still a lot of cracks beneath the surface, but with his help I have been given a second chance at experiencing a life I should be experiencing. I’m now living the life of a girl who has romantic trips away, who has someone that buys me flowers for no reason at all other than to make me smile. I am living every girl's dream of having that old school, fairytale type of love. I am living a life of laughter, and love again. The pain is still there, but because I have someone who helps me with all of the hurt and trauma, it allows me to keep fighting. And I am extremely grateful. 

​

About a month ago, I was really going through it mentally. I have honestly never felt that clinically insane in my whole life. I had a major hormone imbalance break down, and I felt so unsafe with how my head and body was reacting. I’ve been crying for a couple of months now, each month getting worse than the last. For some reason I haven’t felt like that since, but that particular moment was so awful. The day after that happened, we had to go to the hospital for a family member who had fallen ill. Because of all of my emotions already, I was really nervous and had this terrible gut feeling that I shouldn’t be going. Southmead hospital is where Mum passed away, so for obvious reasons I didn’t particularly want to go but I had to show my support. When we got there, all of the memories came flooding back as we were walking through the entrance that my sister and I had to walk through in 2018, when visiting Mum. I realised when walking towards the ward, that it was the same ward Mum was on. I can’t even explain to you how horrific and traumatising that became. I had to turn back around because I freaked out and burst into tears. Mark was with me the whole time, and helped me through it so I was so thankful, but this is obviously the reason I had that bad gut feeling. It was like I knew I was going to be in the same ward as she was, and that really wasn’t the best thing for me to do at that time. I walked past and looked at the bed that she was on the day she died, the back left bed by the window. Goosebumps rushed over my whole entire body. I felt like she was still there, looking back at me when I was standing in the corridor. Second world's worst experience is going back to the place where the first world's worst experience happened - the place where my mum took her last breath. Can easily say I won’t be doing that again in a hurry. 

 

Grief has definitely taken over my life recently, the start of 2023 hasn’t been what I’ve hoped for whatsoever. This made it really hard to get ready to celebrate my 25th. Again, I had that bad gut feeling the day that I was going into town for the evening for food and drinks. The whole time I was sitting at my birthday meal, I just had this overwhelming feeling like I was meant to go home but I kept fighting against that and tried my best to enjoy it. That awful gut feeling came back and it was so strong. Long story cut as short as possible, I ended up being attacked on the Clifton Triangle when I was heading to Brass Pig with my friends. By a 40 year old woman. Unfortunately I was another victim that she had gone after that evening, an unprovoked situation, which left me so startled and shaky. It happened twice, within the space of 10 minutes and it was also filmed by strangers (that made me even more stressed and upset because I thought that was embarrassing and degrading for me) but that later became evidence. Police got involved and it was a big hot mess. The reason for me telling this part of my life is because it is another thing to add to the list of what has broken me and what has made my social life non existent for the time being. I barely want to go out with friends anymore. I had lost interest in living in Bristol a very long time ago and going out in town, but that was the final straw. So, as you can see the start of my year hasn’t been very stable or desirable at all, not like I was imagining it would be. Life likes to ‘test me’, and make me go through all of these different things - I should be proud of myself for still standing today. It is all part of the reason I am struggling to heal and what I hope people can understand.

​

My gut and soul tell me things all the time. I am a girl that is deeply connected within myself and I am finally realising that all of this proves that I do need to listen to how I feel and what my body is telling me. It is never a matter of being lazy for me, I am not a lazy type of girl, it is a matter of my body literally just shutting down and so I choose to stay safe at home. I will continue putting myself first and continue to rest. For now, I am that girl who is keeping herself protected, and simply just waiting for the sun to arrive.

​

Another lovely positive question that was asked on instagram was ‘what makes you laugh out loud’. A couple of things actually do make me laugh out loud, and like a proper laugh (even after all of that depressing stuff I’ve just spoken about). My sister and I get ourselves into hysterical laughter quite often when we are together, and when life is a little lighter for us both. We used to do that with Mum so it is so nice when that happens, it feels like we are with her again. It could be about nothing, we just laugh at random things sometimes and find it hard to stop. Another person who genuinely makes me laugh is Mark. He’s naturally funny and comes up with all sorts of weird and STUPID things that just tickle me. A laughter I can’t contain sometimes - you know that ugly laugh we definitely all have, well he brings that out. We’re at that point where we ugly laugh, it’s great. We’re so in sync and we say the same stuff word for word, at the exact same time and it is the funniest thing for us. It’s so uncanny. And finally, the wonderful app that is tik tok. I’m currently really enjoying the voice overs of these dog vlogs ‘a day in the life’. Where their owners are speaking for them but the voice is filtered to be Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. Something so simple but it really does make me laugh, not always out loud but these are the types of videos that make me feel good. I love dogs, so anything to do with them I get mesmerised.

​

I do have a lot of goals and aspirations, places I see myself visiting and experiencing new cultures etc. I plan to see a beautiful side to life, as the life I’ve seen so far has been quite the opposite, but with smaller beautiful moments here and there. A main goal of mine is to move out of Bristol, ideally a bright and tropical foreign country with the blue sea and excotic animals, but for now literally just another city in that 10 stories high apartment I was talking about will definitely do the job. This is one goal that can be ticked off the list for myself and Mark in 2023 and I am so excited to move away, so get ready to say goodbye… Something that will truly help me heal, by leaving the pavements my Mum used to walk on. My 5 year goal is to have one or two ‘mini me’s’ running around, I am so ready to give the love my Mum gave me to my own babies.  I miss my Mum lots, and the family I used to have, so I cannot wait for the day I get to make a family of my own. My other goal is to have a job that keeps my mind stimulated, and something that truly excites me! I have a couple ideas, so I am looking forward to focusing on that in the next year or so. Things currently on my bucket list: Italy Dolomites, Africa Safari (I love Elephants and Giraffes), hot air balloon ride, be a spokesperson for those who are grieving - maybe a motivational speaker once I have figured it all out, live abroad for a year or more, be a model in a high end fashion shoot and also a runway model for something fun and a little bit wacky. My absolute dream! I could go on. All ideas and things possible to do in this life that I have been given, so we will see what I can achieve in the next couple of years!

​

I’m going to end this blog with something that means a lot to me. I believe this is a great note for me to end on. When I was younger my Granddad passed away from cancer, I absolutely adored him, the only man in my life at that time that I could look up to. I found it all confusing but I could understand to a certain extent what it meant. Some understanding of the concept of death. A couple of years after his passing, I was gifted a visit with a spiritualist. She spoke lots about my pops, and I fully believed he was there with me. She then told me at the end, that I needed to let him go. I obviously burst into tears, and found that a really hard thing to come to terms with. That I needed to let him go so he could be free. I did it, and if I’m honest I felt a lot better about losing him. But I feel like it’s getting to the point where someone is going to tell me I need to let my Mum go as well. That she needs to be set free. Maybe one day I will accept that and give it a good go, but for now I don’t feel like it is something I can do. And this is another reason why I feel like I am struggling a lot recently, as I am holding onto the idea of her still being here. My dreams are telling me that she is still here, but mostly they are nightmares. One of the biggest things that keeps me from healing, the awful nightmares I have quite often about her. Something in me just cannot believe she is gone, and if I then have to think about letting her go, I will lose myself completely. So I simply cannot just yet. Like I said before, I am very aware of my emotions which actually is a really good thing. I feel like instead of trying to rush the process of having to let my Mum go, I should start to come to terms with it all and then that will help me deal with it all a lot more easier.

​

If you have a friend who is grieving, a family member who is struggling, or a colleague - My best advice is for you to simply be there for them with all effort and energy, and they will give it back of course when they feel respected, listened to and valued. Five years later, as the friend who is grieving, I have given up with hope that a friend is going to give me what I need. And I would hate anyone else to be in my situation regarding this, but it has been a big thing for me to come to terms with. I have who I need in my day to day life, and will only allow those who genuinely want to help be involved in my journey. It’s hard to not make this topic sound so negative, but I personally find it confusing when people don’t give you any of their time if they claim to be your friend. Especially with something so serious like this. I have always longed for a friendship where you see each other all the time, text like normal friends do - more regularly, do girly things, lunches and cocktail nights where you both dress up etc. Not a needy person whatsoever (I have Mark to bother that with if needed and he wouldn’t complain), but I know a friendship like that is more desirable to me. I haven’t had any of that for a very long time. But I am more content with that now, I understand I have what I need in my life and anything else that is meant for me will come my way when I am ready.

​

Thank you so much for reading my blog, and props to you if you made it all the way to the bottom. I didn’t realise I had so much to say but it has been a very long time since the last blog! Creating a beautiful story for myself is a very large part of my focus right now, and hopefully the next blog will be something more inspiring and that my life has been a little less upsetting.

​

I am always here to talk to those experiencing anything in regards to grief, self worthy doubts, relationships. Absolutely everything!

 

Love, Rhea. x

​

Instagram: Rheasanderson Facebook: Rhea Sanderson