This week, I cried a lot. Maybe not the cheeriest way to open a post, but it’s true. Sometimes, I try to power through everything on my own – even if I’m carrying an impossibly heavy load with too little strength to manage it. Not the best combination for sure. This week, that looked like holding a huge cup of water with my weakest grip until inevitably, I dropped it all over the floor. And then I cried as if I hadn’t seen it coming. Every time someone asked me what happened, I brushed it off, held back tears until they weren’t looking. By the end of the day, though, it was too much, and I broke down…over a cup of spilled water.

This wasn’t just a one-off meltdown, either. I kept finding myself going off to the toilet throughout the week to cry. I’m at work, no one needs to see me cry again and again. I needed to get over it and get on with it, but I couldn’t. At work, at home – anywhere I could find those moments to cry, I did and I couldn’t control it. It was exhausting and, to be honest, I was embarrassed to feel so broken down over things that were seemingly so simple. I was so emotionally drained, I just wasn’t really coping.

I couldn’t understand where this was coming from. Losing my grip or struggling is nothing new by now. Being stubborn and trying to do things myself is also nothing new. People simply asking me how I was had me in a mess, but why? What was underneath it? The more I’ve tried to work through these battles, the more I’ve started to understand that I might be going through grief – a different kind of grief, one I wasn’t prepared for.

Grieving a loss is a process. It doesn’t just come from grieving the loss of a loved one or even the ending of a relationship in your life. It’s so important to understand that it’s a process we all need to allow ourselves to go through to deal with the pain of a loss.

So have I lost a loved one? No. Have I lost a relationship or friendship? Also, no. So what could I possibly need to grieve? It’s taken me a long time to realise that I have never accepted my own loss. I’ve lost myself. The “self” I used to be. I hadn’t acknowledged it until recently, but I’ve been carrying around this kind of grief for a while.

It’s been nearly two years – 20 months to be exact – since I first started telling myself and those around me, “I’ll be better by then.” I kept setting new goals and deadlines, promising myself that soon I’d be back to who I was. The truth is, I probably won’t ever be the person I was before, not really. Even if I somehow get through all of this and start to live a “normal life” (whatever that’s supposed to be) I’ll never really be the same. I’ve had to go through too much and battle so hard to try and be who I once was. That realisation is a hard one to face.

I guess deep down I know that it’s okay in its own way. I’ve grown in so many other ways, learned so much and made incredible memories with amazing people since. I think the hardest reality I’m yet to even begin to face; that it’s entirely possible and somewhat probable that I won’t ever actually get better. That part I honestly can’t say is something I’ve accepted, because no part of me wants to or is ready to believe that this is my forever.

Before all of this, I was training for a 10km run. I loved hikes and long walks in fresh air. That’s how I’d handle stress; it was my reset button. I’ve lost that. I can’t do any of that anymore. Fighting through pain, dealing with relentless exhaustion – it’s not just physically draining; it takes everything out of me emotionally, too. And the hardest part? I lost all the things that helped me feel like “me”.

In my own way, I’ve lost myself and the person I once was. The carefree things I once did, the plans I’d jump into without a second thought aren’t so simple anymore. I took for granted those “small” things in life and now, I can’t even brush my own hair or wash myself without support some days. That’s my new reality – I say new, but I’m not sure I can consider it to be “new” anymore. Accepting it is still a hard pill to swallow though.

I’m beginning to realise that to move forward, I need to let myself grieve that old version of me. Crying really is okay. I know it won’t make the pain suddenly go away, or the challenges magically easier to cope with. I’m still going to get sad and find those battles hard. Those bad days, weeks and even months will still be waiting for me. I just hope that, by letting myself start the grieving process, maybe I’ll start to learn the person I am now and the person I can become. And maybe, just maybe, that person has a lot to look forward to.