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Heather Cawte's avatar

I dealt with most of the shock and grief, at the beginning, by being angry. As time passed, and I realised I wasn't going back to my old life any time soon, I also realised that I couldn't just be Angry All The Time , and that I missed the range of emotions I used to feel just as much as the things I used to do, and places I used to go.

It's been such a long road gradually moving from one set of emotions - well, one emotion, really - to another, and a lot of that anger came back to me with the pandemic. I was told that I was one of the acceptable casualties, who could be lost without society noticing. This was a different anger, though, a motivating one instead of a stagnating one. I met (online, mostly) so many people who knew exactly how I felt, and the anger became healing and restorative.

I still grieve my old job (even after 27 years), the loss of friends who got fed up of the effort required in order to spend time with me, and I *really* miss spontaneity! Going out of the flat now requires planning with near-military precision. But I can also see now the experiences and knowledge which would never have been part of my life if I had not collapsed on Thursday, September 13, 1997. I think the fact that I still remember the date everything changed may be a hint to myself that, even though I've come a long way, I still have a way to go...

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Andi's avatar

Wow, where to begin? As usual, Emma is profound, specifically herself and at the same time touches on some universal truths about mourning the loss of self in chronic illness. She is our chronicler , our troubadour of this aspect of the human condition that is rarely discussed. If she is a new Emma, maybe we with chronic illness are almost a new sort of human. Anyhow …. Get this woman a TED talk. (I’m serious!)

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