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Dear friends and just anyone reading this really,

Lately I am growing tired of being told to stop being negative or be more positive. I know you mean well and you only want the best for me, but these comments can sometimes get to me a little. While I know for a fact that I have not completely radiated positive vibes for a few years now, I believe the fact that I even continue to function and don’t break down is my way of being positive. You may not understand this as positive, I wouldn’t either if I didn’t understand the way I feel. You don’t know how much heartache I carry inside me every day – I know this isn’t your fault, I don’t openly share this with many people. You don’t realise that I cry myself to sleep at least 4 nights a week. You don’t know that I constantly relive the moment where I was told my little brother was never coming home again, or when I kissed his cold forehead for the last time and had to watch his coffin close and be taken away from me to be buried into the cold hard ground. You don’t know how empty and lifeless I feel at times. You don’t realise that I struggle to focus or feel any real burning passion at times. You don’t know how disconnected I feel from myself and others, I constantly feel like an outsider of my own body and struggle with genuine connections and intimacy. You don’t realise the pain I feel around my family, trying to hold my family together while watching them become different people over the years and watching their heartbreak. You don’t realise the sense of sadness I feel going home to the house my brother and I have endless memories in, and being reminded that his bedroom hasn’t been touched in over 3 years. You don’t realise how much of myself was lost when Ira died. I am slowly learning to be myself with this chunk missing, but you should know that I will never fully be myself again. I am sorry that sometimes I am not the most fun or positive person to be around, I am sorry that I am not always super upbeat or the life of the room. I know there are people who have been through horrendous tragedies and are still the most amazingly positive people, and that is so incredibly inspiring – but that’s them, not me. You may think it’s been 3 years, surely you’re starting to learn to live with your grief by now? Sure, it has been 3 years, and I have grown immensely in this time – I hate to say it but living with the loss of my only sibling has become ingrained as part of who I am today and it has almost become normal. But then I have moments where I remember how it isn’t normal, I get reminded of everything and just simply hearing you talk to your own sibling is enough to break me down again. Grief is a massive journey that never ends, things change over time, you become more resilient and become insanely emotionally aware of yourself, but it never changes your loss and I can tell you right now that it still feels as raw and crushing as it did the very first day. You may not realise for a very long time what it feels like to lose a sibling or a significant other, and I hope like hell that you don’t as it’s a pain I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. I am not writing this to say look at me, give me attention, I am just saying that I still need time. It is going to take me a long time and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully be who I used to be again as I don’t know if that is actually possible. Think of it as cutting yourself quite badly and having a massive scar left over, it becomes ingrained in your body and your body never quite looks the same as it did.I know I don’t tell you how I feel a lot of the time, I think I struggle to say how I feel verbally and I also hate to be a burden. I know you don’t think I am a burden and I know you only want to be there for me, and I thank you for that.