Nicola

When Nicola was 36 weeks pregnant with her daughter, she experienced a loss that changed everything. Her dad died after a long illness, leaving Nicola to navigate profound grief at the same time as preparing to become a new parent.

Nicola said: “I was having a tough time processing my grief alongside the upheaval of becoming a new parent, and my health visitor recommended I contact Cruse Scotland to get some extra support.

“Everyone at Cruse Scotland was so friendly and kind. I had telephone counselling, one session a week for six weeks.

“I was a bit sceptical at first that I needed it or that it was going to help. I felt like my situation was just challenging and that nothing could be done about it, but I am so glad I reached out to Cruse Scotland.

“Having that time set aside each week to talk through both my grief surrounding my dad’s passing and the variety of stress going on in my life at the time was so valuable.

“I felt supported and validated, and the techniques used to manage difficult patches were very helpful as well.”

More to grief

Nicola feels there is more to grief than being sad and tearful. There was a big increase in anxiety and she would try to control any aspects of life that she could, which made her feel very tired and very difficult to rest.

She added: “There are times of that, but there is also feeling numb, feeling angry and feeling a lot more anxious about all sorts of things in life.

“For me, it quite often sat underneath the surface and made a lot of previously manageable issues seem overwhelming.

“Someone once likened our capacity to deal with things in life to a bucket to me - each thing fills up the bucket a little, and then once it is dealt with, the bucket empties out a little.

“When the bucket overflows, we get totally overwhelmed and find it very difficult to deal with anything.

“For me, grief is like that bucket has been filled up close to the top and will not be empty, so any small thing tips it over the edge and feels completely unmanageable.”

How counselling helped

Cruse Scotland’s Counselling Service helped Nicola process her grief and helped her move on in her life.

Nicola said: “Talking through everything that had happened helped me feel heard and supported.

“I think the counselling helped me feel much less alone with some of the difficult emotions around my dad's death - he'd been ill for a very long time, and so along with the profound sadness there was also a sense of relief which I found very difficult to deal with.

“The counselling really reassured me that there were lots of different ways grief could show up and that they were all normal. I felt like in the process of counselling I was permitted to move on in life.”