Last year, I lost two of the most important people in my life in close succession.

The first was my beloved grandpa; he had been slowly getting sicker from cancer and watching him deteriorate was deeply painful. He was in his 90s and had the most amazing life: a storybook love story with my grandma (who had died four years before – my first taste of grief), a long career in medicine, plenty of travel, no major traumas and a wicked sense of humour. 

Despite my devastation, I could use this knowledge to comfort myself. After all, death is an intrinsic part of life, and the fact I had close relationships with both my grandparents into my 20s could be viewed as a blessing.

But I couldn’t console myself in the same way when, in April, I learned that one of my closest friends, Ben, had been shot and killed while on holiday in the US. There was no way of rationalising his death in my mind – he was 27 years old. 

We had met living in the same halls at university, where we’d knock on each other’s doors to cook our terrible dinners at the same time. We stayed close when we moved to London, and our friendship group (including my now-husband Laurie) spent most weekends at his flat, playing old Drake songs and talking rubbish for hours. He was one of the most unique people I’d ever met; hilarious, mischievous and inexplicably loveable. He was always the centre of attention, but his orbit was more entertaining and welcoming than anywhere else. The shock of the loss was unbearable. 

Working as a health and wellbeing editor, I had access to plenty of advice about how important it is to sit with grief, and allow yourself to move through the sadness in whatever form it takes. So I cried and wailed, and tried to physically release my sorrows in spin and yoga classes. I talked about them to whoever was willing to listen, to keep their memories alive. I re-read the emails my grandpa had sent in response to my articles, and listened to the nonsensical voice notes Ben would record when he was hungover.

But, most of the time, I channelled my energy into places where I felt I could be useful. That meant being present for my mum, who felt orphaned and untethered, and Ben’s long-term girlfriend Liv, whose heart had shattered. I wrote readings for their funerals and memorials, and tried to check in on our other friends as regularly as possible. I was constantly on my phone, ready to respond to anyone who needed me, including another friend who tragically lost her dad a few months later. Attempting to be a life-raft gave me a sense of purpose.

Later, life began to resume a kind of normal rhythm; others needed me less, and my attention went into planning my wedding and honeymoon at the end of the year. These events, including our ‘sten’ in Ibiza, were a burst of happiness to round off a challenging year. I thought I had done all the right things to process these losses. Although I knew that the grief would come in waves, I truly believed I was over the worst of it.

But then I experienced what I now understand was a mental health crisis.

It began, roughly, in February. I had just returned from our honeymoon, so at first I put it down to a post-wedding comedown and holiday blues. I’d read that it’s common to feel down after such a milestone life event. I would be doing something normal, like cooking dinner, and suddenly I’d feel indescribably sad and deflated, like a balloon had just burst inside my mind. It felt like the dial had been turned up on my usual undercurrent of daily anxiety, and I found it difficult to concentrate at work.

Then the darkness started rippling outwards. I started reacting incredibly sensitively to small things my friends said or did; I felt constantly bruised by people, even though I couldn’t explain why. I felt left out and isolated, despite them continually trying to reach me. As a result, I isolated myself further, purposely avoiding social events because they made me feel miserable at worst and numb at best. 

I had constant heart palpitations and felt wracked with panic. I deleted Instagram, because seeing people have happy experiences felt like a personal attack. I struggled to read or even watch TV. Sleep felt preferable to being awake, but when I went to bed, self-loathing thoughts would swim through my mind, and I’d sit up crying hysterically while Laurie tried to soothe me. I couldn’t remember what ‘normal’ felt like.

By May, I was feeling so bad that I saw my GP, who determined I had severe anxiety and depression and prescribed me an SSRI antidepressant called Sertraline. It got worse before it got better; in the first week, I went for a weekend away with some girl friends and spent most of it exhausted or in tears (thankfully, they were loving and understanding). I knew the medication was working when I listened to Harry Styles on the train, and actually found I was enjoying it. It’s hard to explain the feeling, but the contrast was stark. It felt like hope.

Thanks to the medication, and eight counselling sessions, I began unravelling how I got here. It turns out, I hadn’t done such a good job of processing grief as I thought. Although I acknowledged my grandpa and Ben’s deaths all the time, I distracted myself from delving deeper by focusing my energy outward. I kept my thoughts at ‘they are gone’ to avoid swirling into ‘who am I without them?’ But falling into that spiral was inevitable.

Gradually, I connected the dots between how I was feeling and my reactions. My slow descent began in February; the birthday month I shared with Ben. We were supposed to get older together, as we had for the past decade. I felt sensitive around my friends because I was scared of losing them in the same way. I found it easier to avoid social situations because they were constant reminders of the energetic hole he had left. I felt frustrated that everyone had moved on when the best person we knew was gone. (Of course, they hadn’t, but everyone handles their grief in different ways, and I was too wrapped up in my own to see that.) 

And I began making sense of how much losing my grandparents had affected me. I realised that I hadn’t wholeheartedly grieved my fun, kind, wise grandma because I had converted that sadness into love for my newly-widowed grandpa. When he died, it felt like two losses at once. 

By reminding myself that losing grandparents is just part of life, I didn’t give myself permission to mourn the balmy days spent in their garden with my sisters while Grandma plied us with ice lollies; Jewish festivals sitting around their dining table; the hour-long phone-calls because I loved speaking to them so much. Their world was my world for the most formative years of my life, and then it was gone. With them, it felt like my childhood had officially ended. There were two fewer people in the world who loved me unconditionally, and the weight of that recognition was crushing. It’s just like how Ann Napolitano puts it in her novel, Hello Beautiful: “I didn’t know that you can lose someone, and that meant you lost so much else.”

Likewise, Ben’s death felt like the loss of my early adulthood. He was the physical embodiment of staying up late, laughing until my stomach hurt and being so entwined with friends that they feel like family. All my memories of being carefree – wearing fancy dress, private jokes and silly nicknames, trying to eat yogurt without spoons because we couldn’t be bothered to wash them up – became tainted. I could no longer rely on the naive belief that bad things didn’t happen. The world had become dangerous and cruel, as if the floor could break beneath me at any moment.

Understanding this, it’s no wonder my mental health slipped. Missing people you love is bad enough, but when you take into account the whole messy complexity of death, it’s even harder. Loss can alter your perception of yourself, and the world. It can leave you raw and exposed to the elements. I think, maybe, there’s a reluctance to address the deeper roots of grief, and the loss of identity that goes with it. We feel guilty for our emotions when other people have it worse, or selfish, somehow, for making it all about us. But when we try to push these feelings down, they can rise up to bite us in unexpected ways.

Now, I have a newfound sense of clarity. I’m still a little fragile, like a newly-sprouted plant that is easily knocked by the wind. Thinking about the past still makes me sad, and I worry all the time about people disappearing. But I’m keeping an eye on my triggers and prioritising things that make me happy. I’m learning to make peace with the crashing waves. 

I know it sounds cliched, but focusing on the good really does help. I am lucky – I have incredible friends and family who continued to love me, even when I made it hard. And I feel immeasurably grateful to have had grandparents like mine, and a friend like Ben. Knowing them was worth the pain – but it’s still OK to admit it hurts.

Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.

Images: Courtesy of Arielle Steele