Losing somebody sucks.
Numbing the pain away might sound like a winner but from my own personal experience it’s not. Here’s my story with grief and how I’ve weathered the storm.
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
So, no celebrity bullshit this week. This week’s newsletter is serving a purpose.
I need to vent. Not in an angry way. I just have to get things off my chest.
You see, I lost a friend last week. He was the twin brother of one of my very close friends. He died peacefully in his sleep overnight. Gone. Immediately. Without pain, suffering or cancer. Just went.
I’m left hurting for the family members left behind. My heart breaks for them all.
There was something so shocking about this death. He was part of the family in many ways so it cut to the core.
I’m no stranger to loss. I lost one of my best friends when I was 19. I lost my dad when I was 27. They both left me shooketh.
But with this latest loss I was hit hard. I’ve cried a lot. I let it all out. I was sad. I was angry. I was exhausted. Endless heightened emotions. But unlike other losses with this one I felt like I knew how to deal with it a little easier – I leant in instead of avoiding facing it.
I talked it out, took time on my own and generally did what my gut told me to do.
This is the sort of advice I’ve given to all my close friends over the years when they’ve lost parents, friends or relatives. I wrote a letter after dad passed which I sent to close friends immediately after they lost a parent. Some said it was a really big help. I guess part of it was about trying to help my friends and family navigate the emotions of losing somebody. It’s not easy to do. Grief is a fucker – it’ll hit you when you least expect it. Even now I have my moments reflecting on dad.
One thing I did also want to do this week was discuss what can happen during grief and how I’ve learnt to navigate my way through a big loss.
You see, I made big mistakes. For years. I’ve been doing some writing behind the scenes about all sorts of aspects of my life for a while now. One thing I wrote was a ‘chapter’ about numbing the pain of grief away after loss.
Now, first thing I was going to do when I was considering publishing this chapter on my Substack was for me to consider a total rewrite; therefore, delivering a clean glossy version of what happened.
Part of what I’ve been trying to do of late is own my own narrative. Write my truth. And generally, hope that by doing so I’m able to help others in the process. Vulnerability was something I really struggled with during the years after my dad died. My barriers to emotions were sky high – I really didn’t want to let anybody in. People thought I was an open book – but I wasn’t at all. I’d give surface emotion, so people assumed I was fine and that I was serving some vulnerable vibes.
There were only a few of my very close friends who knew I was struggling.
It’s worth noting, where I am right now is a great place. I’m in great health, I’m super happy and I’m super positive about all aspects of my life.
So, the below chapter might be a little tricky for me to reflect upon but it’s important for me to realise how far I’ve come and how these days in 2024 I’m owning my own narrative. This one was called ‘Numb’.
NUMB BABY, NUMB, BABY BABY, NUMB NUMB….
The thing about losing a friend, relative or a parent when you’re young is the severity of the wall built between life and death. You’re never going to be able to climb that wall and speak, interact or cuddle that person again. They’re gone in an instant and that’s the biggest head fuck known to man.
I’m far from religious and I guess if anything I’m what you’d call a realist when it comes to death. I think once you’re gone, you’re gone – we’re made up of particles of dust and light. Poooooof, time’s up. No turning back. But back when I was 27 years old and slap bang in the middle of the formative years in my life, I never really imagined I’d lose somebody like my dad imminently. Aren’t they supposed to be around forever? Or at least until you’re in your forties or fifties yourself?
When you’re in your late twenties, you’re working out the next big moments for your life – where to live, where to settle, who you are and essentially what you plan to do next. So, to lose Dad at such a pivotal moment really rocked the boat. My boat.
What began immediately after he died pretty much lasted for the next ten or so years. Upon reflection, this decade or so is what I now look back upon as my numbing years.
I wasn’t ready to face what had happened with losing Dad. I wanted to numb the entire situation for as long as I possibly could without dealing with the situation head on. This generally involved alcohol and getting wasted beyond belief to forget the pain of losing him. The pain of our relationship issues. The pain of not being able to have another conversation. The pain.
Anything I could drink to make the situation more forgetful and foreign to my brain the better. Eventually it lead to occasional drug use and that in turn took a rather long period of time to work through.
I knew I needed to get to a place where I had properly dealt with the grief in its entirety but, to be frank, I wasn’t willing to deal with it until the time was right. So the message was clear – fuck off and let me carry on numbing.
I wanted to be numb. The number the better. Freeze me in an ice block numb where I can’t fucking think about the fact his voice and how it sounded in my head was becoming weaker and weaker by the month. His memory was disappearing before my very eyes. I was so numb I even skipped when my mother and brother scattered my dad’s ashes. I didn’t want a part of it. For that I’m pretty annoyed.
Amazingly, this feeling started almost immediately after he died. I remember the funeral was a huge affair – over 200 people turned up. Mostly my vast array of friends from across the years and from a gazillion different groups who wanted to support me and the family and turn up on the day. Don’t forget at 27 not many of my close friends had lost a parent. Maybe four in total – so it was a rarity, and the severity of the situation was felt across our local area and further beyond thanks to my pals from all across London. From the cremation to the wake (which was held at Dad’s favourite Royal Legion near our house) I knew I wanted to escape.
The minute I felt I’d been there long enough I caught a lift back to my friends house and we had a bender. I was on a mission to numb the tits off that funeral. The recovery was brutal.
Fortunately, over the coming years my numbing needs weren’t a daily or even weekly occurrence. Still to this day I rarely, if ever, drink at home. But back then I was one of those drinkers and partiers who drank to get fucked up and forget. I liked to be drunk. I liked to be high. But I knew I didn’t want to stay like that for too long. I needed sleep, always.
But even so, drink and partying was something that continued to be of numbing use for pretty much the whole decade after we lost dad.
Fortunately, I didn’t feel like I had a ‘problem’ with it and to be honest if anybody else had a problem with it they never told me. I’ve never once had anyone in my life say: “Darling, you might have a problem we need to help address.”
I guess hand on heart I’ve never felt that addiction urge. In those days, I never felt like I would go home from a bender and carry on solo. I just didn’t need it or care for it enough.
Eventually though. I started to realise a pattern. There would be breakdowns at weddings, tearful blow outs at friends’ birthday parties and generally I could see that after ten years of it I was still numbing myself because of what I’d been through, and I’d not really even begun to start to deal with it all.
Yes, watching dad die piece-by-piece in that shitty hospital room was part of it but the fact I’d never told my dad I was gay was a huge part of it.
Not telling him seemed to be a huge deal. It was like I’d not told him the most important part of myself – who I really was. I hated the fact I’d never come out to him. It made me feel like a proper fucktard. It should have been something that flew out of me. I mean, I bought My Little Pony as a kid, I danced to Kylie and made-up dance routines to Bananarama – my jig was kinda up…
But I didn’t fucking tell him. Even now writing this I can feel myself getting angry at my own self.
To start dealing with the situation and my numbing especially I started to get healthy. I started to see a therapist. The boozing immediately slowed down; the partying was a much rarer occurrence. I also left newspapers and my Sunday Mirror column and decided to enter the world of PR. One of my first clients was The Body Camp, Europe’s number one holistic fitness retreat. I met Kate Whale the owner (on a terrible hangover, lolz) and pitched to work for them. The retreat would have been my first client. She found me hilarious – I am particularly good value on a stinky hangyon day two ;-) – and I got the gig starting that spring.
When I got to the launch in Ibiza I was feeling good and spent the day with some of their top therapists at the rock stars villa they had rented for the season. One of the therapists was a shy-looking woman called Faye Reason who seemed immediately drawn to me. Upon meeting her she took my hands, looked me in my eyes like she was staring into my entire soul and said she would love to work with me.
“Who the fuck is that Faye girl?” I said to Kate.
“She’s the best reiki healer I’ve ever worked with – she’s a bit of a legendary witch in her field. She’s better than anyone I’ve ever seen. She can work you out in a second – you should be flattered she’s taken an interest.”
“Well, I don’t like her,” I hissed. “She gave me the creeps and just said she wants to work with me and that she got some mega feeling about it. I don’t want her anywhere near me.”
The truth is I wasn’t ready then to start processing or dealing with it all.
Cut to two years later and I was well on the way to sorting my shit out. I was eating better, working out again and not blowing my wages on the party schedule. I guess generally I was just in a better more chilled place. I decided to book a private session with Faye in the yoga yurt down the hill on the land.
The nerves were there as I walked down to her, but I was open to all she wanted to help me experience. Part of Reiki is about clearing blockages and dragging out the beasts of the subconscious – that’s how I see it anyway.
Interestingly, Faye was apparently continually sick or ill because of her skills. It was safe to say I’d spent close to ten years holding the portcullis doors down locked in place. I didn’t want anybody to know what was going on inside my head or my subconscious.
I also want to point out Faye knew nothing about me. Not my last name, no family history and no personal anecdotes.
We went into the yurt. I lay down and Faye placed a towel over my lower body just in case I got cold. Then she quickly and intuitively placed different crystal across my chest, belly and neck before we began a lovely meditation together which was on the borderline of breath work (which I nowadays love). It was a long 40 minutes of breathing and throughout Faye mostly had her hands places hovering above my belly where there was a rather large pink-ish quartz crystal. I felt warm on my belly throughout just where her hands were – which was a strange sensation.
When we finished I remember Faye sat me up calmly and she had this seriousness in her eyes.
“Dean, you did really well with that session,” she began. “There was a lot to process and unblock. I do tend to like to do a little bit of an evaluation with some clients if they want to know how it went.”
“OK, how did I go?” I replied.
“Well I have one question for you”
“Go ahead…”
“Why do you think your father didn’t love you?”
Jesus fucking christ. Was this bitch for real? I’d spent over ten years not wanting to deal with my dad’s passing and I didn’t really know why I wasn’t able too. Faye had literally nailed my ENTIRE situation in one sentence, and it hit me hard. I started to cry uncontrollably. To the point I could hardly breathe.
In one simple swoop this healer literally had me all figured out. But more than that, with that one sentence I knew the code to getting better and stopping the numbing. Part of my emotional breakdown was due to the fact Faye had clearly unlocked something. She’d found my shame at being gay. She’d pointed out what I wasn’t able too. I knew that was the question I had buried in my brain. But I’d never been able to figure it out or even considered saying that sort of sentence out loud.
The minute I heard that sentence it all became clear. I was living with this feeling that Dad hadn’t loved me. Hadn’t accepted me. Partly because of being gay, no doubt. But also, we’d had a pretty hardcore few years. We weren’t getting on great, I’d moved out to be me a bit more and spread my wings and generally I just didn’t go to him when the shit hit the fan. I wasn’t able to be who I was around him so in typical Dean fashion I walked and made my own way deciding it was better to not have a close bond and to get on with my life.
I often think about this moment. That one little sentence from Faye changed my entire life map.
I came back from that trip and re-started therapy. I began to work on myself. I began to truly love myself.
Nowadays, especially as so many people have started to lose their parents or even partners, I’m very aware of the numbing effect grief can cause. With the parents that are left behind who become lonely. They might turn to booze. They might become depressed. You have to keep your eyes open.
I guess part of me writing about this is making sure other people are aware of one of the big side effects that can appear from grief. Numbing is obviously needed in certain situations for a certain amount of time after you’ve lost somebody close to you. But being aware of it and making sure it doesn’t turn into a problem is a really important part of recovering from the loss.
It's a thrill to be sat here in 2024 without any need for numbing. I was a lucky person being able to get through it with therapy, great friends and some good will power.
If I drink or party these days it’s usually purely to get fucked up and have fun. And I have parameters. I heard the best piece of partying advice back last summer from a friend in Ibiza. They said: “Drink or party to enhance your night. Not to prolong your night. Then you’ll never have a problem.”
Joyous words of wisdom…
P.S. This isn’t a newsletter for sympathy. I guess I just needed to get things off my chest when it comes to grief. I’m fine. It’s been shit losing our friend. But I’m equipped to deal with it these days. Some people really aren’t. Maybe this piece will help you or a friend of yours navigate their way through their own grief. And if that were to happen I’d be rather pleased.
Love you Deanie x
Just found your writing after Sharon Sinclair-Williams of Best Before End Date mentioned you in her newsletter today (your Greek holiday with your mum, which I've also read just now).
So sorry to hear your friend has died. Thanks for writing about how you've dealt with grief differently over the years. Really interesting and moving.