Closed Off

Life is so unpredictable. Good times are plenty, but you’re also going to have those moments where you just want to scream. The sad reality is that things get tough. We’re going to hurt ourselves, be involved in crazy experiences, lose someone… It’s life. And the thing is everyone deals with these situations in their own way.

Some prefer to close themselves off completely by locking the door and throwing away the key. Others dive head first into addictions because it numbs the pain and helps them forget, for a little while at least. Who cares about the consequences, sometimes, right?

But let’s take a scenario. Your father passes away. He was your rock, your guide and a man full of wisdom. One day, you wake up and he leaves you. Just like that. No warning, no sign, absolutely nothing. And you have a partner who’s by your side, attempting to comfort you but you don’t need that right now. You need your space.

There’s no such thing as ‘getting over’ something as traumatic as losing a close family member but you feel time is short so you yearn for a lot of it. But then you realise that you crave more.

It piles up, hour after hour, day after day. Your phone is riddled with condolence messages, but you don’t want to read them. Not really. Because it’s only going to act as a reminder that this is your reality and life doesn’t make sense. You haven’t seen your partner in a long time – you just don’t want them near you any more, because for some strange reason, them being there is making things worse.

Suddenly you ask yourself if you deserve love, since it’s going to be ripped away from you anyway. What is the point? Why do they even love you? What is it about you that stole their hearts away? It must be a lie. Right? Because living in general just seems like an absolutely terrifying thing to do. These thoughts invade your mind in large doses. It happens so frequently that you decide to shelter yourself from the world.

Social media accounts no longer have any meaning, because strangers don’t care. They never did. And the moment you post something, the world is going to ask you a million questions which you just can’t seem to answer.

Back to love, though, you feel the need to break things off, but you don’t have the heart to do it just yet so you drive your partner off somehow. It comes in hints: Late replies or no replies at all, acting like they do not exist, ignoring their phone calls… Suddenly a month has gone by and life seems quiet. It has nothing to do with death, but something doesn’t feel right. The happiness that once used to surround you is gone. The feeling in your chest which was responsible for brightening up your day is empty now. ‘What has gone wrong?’ you ask yourself until you realise that it has been love all along.

It happens. Relationship dynamics change because of trauma as life is seen through a different lens. People call it seasons – the time when you fully envelop loss and learn to get out of it. But in that process, you could either lose your partner or be closer to them than ever before. It’s not your fault your feelings aren’t the same, it’s just the way it is. Just don’t let grief consume you and lose the one thing that could possibly make you stable.

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