The reason for this blog: Losing a parent before the age of eighteen

Before we start I think it would be a good idea to tell you a little bit about myself  and the reason for writing this blog.

Your parent dies Mum or Dad, your life has changed you know it, you have questions but no one to answer them, you may feel like three people, the person before the person during and the person after who hardly remembers the first, all very confusingly but more than normal.

You look for answers but where do you get them, I was 16/17 and at college at the time, they sent me to the college counsellor who burst into tears when I asked the simple question "what do you do when the person you love and most want to be with is in heaven"

You are basically left to get on with it, how can someone who has never experienced your pain advise, very simple logic, it is not their fault. The only person that really knows you is you.

So after many years of dealing with myself and trying to understand myself, emotions thought processes, so I thought it is easy to moan harder to make a difference, set up a blog for anyone that has or is going through the loss of a parent, see if we can help each other.

My name is Ashley Yardley born 1974, one brother at the time Elliot my idol as a kid, and Austin, my little partner,  named after the famous Antique shop in Peckham South London. We led an idilic life as kids the old man was this cool man always smart classic cars, you just knew he knew what he was doing, mum always immaculate, held herself like a lady, with a temper you didn't want to see but knew was there.

Private nursery schools, a seemingly good family life. a lesson in life, no matter who you are, what you have, we are all the same at the end.

Elliot had a problem with his speech, a lot of speech therapy in his early years,  there is a documentary around 1978 1979 channel 4 private nursery schools,  with Elliot having trouble pronouncing his O's, Elliot had a brain tumour removed from the back of his head at the age of 23 which is in the place that effects your speech no one knew at the time, and me clever bollocks who could semingly do anything, looking back my first lesson in humility.

So we were sent to private schools as a result, a strain on my old man as I later realised.

At the age of eight I remember my Dad trying to explain to me that my mum was ill, I had been called out of school and told my mum was in hospital and not in a good way, no explanation but I remember him describing a bunch of grapes under your arm and some being bad and mum needed them taking out, breast cancer in reality but his way of explaining, I now imagine how hard it must have been for him to tell me, I adored my Mum she just knew me.

I visited her in The Royal Marsden but she was very proud and didn't want us to see her, in her mind I now know she saw her own illness as being weak in some way. I hardly saw my mum in the last year of her life, she didn't want us to see her like that.

At the time the rule of thumb was you had five years if the cancer didn't come back within that time you were scot free.....

In those five years everyone had carried on Mum had set up her own habedashery stall. our Grandad was a habidasher among other things and it was her passion, what made her smile, she had to have chemo lost her hair but wore a wig she shaped and changed like her old hair.

At the age of thirteen Fourteen I was sat down and told my Mum was going to die 100% I had always believed she would never die adamant.

My mum died Feb 18th 1991

After many years of self destructing in every way possible and rebuilding myself on many occasions books, astrologers, spiritualists it is time to share my conclusions in the hope it helps someone else who has had the same emotions and questions.

Hopefully with this blog I can point you in the right direction Doctors, Psychiatrists and the like will point you to medication, but in reality the only person that knows you is you, it is not easy and I have to work at it everyday.

There has been a study by the medical journal that should help answer a lot of questions for those  that have been living with this for a long time.

Something that happened recently, that is another reason for this blog, we have the internet now information can be shared in a positive way.

I recently met a now friend name believe it Ashley, came on the boat sat down introduced himself as a new neighbour but warned me he had mental issues, I laughed, I can generally work someone out in the matter of seconds, he didn't have mental issues I would never laugh if i thought he did, , I laughed and said so what ones have you got, He then may have told me my own history start middle and finish, he ended by saying he felt like three people and that he was seeing this person and that person his girlfriend thinks he is troubled.

I don't think there is enough information out there for people that are going through or who have lost a parent young or information for girlfriends, partners, wives, I can't remember the amount of times I have been called an emotional retard since my Mum's death, there is a medical  study in the next post that asks the question. 

Within twenty minutes I had answered more questions than he had asked himself in twenty years, when something negative is happening in your life over a number of years, wether you were positive before, your default thought process will become negative over a period of time, I now know that is natural, once the person has passed away you are left with a default negative thought process, the brain needs to be retrained to think positively again.

At the time after losing my mum  I was with a girl very much into her art, at Art college I was more clubs records and djing, standing in an art shop lent up against a book stand, always slouching as my mum use to say, picked a book out, You can feel good again, divine intervention or pure luck, a book about this exact blog.

I read it and it was simple but it resonated, started to help, answered alot about how I was feeling, then me being me, I gave it away to someone else I thought needed it more, another subject we will come to later people pleasing because you are scared they will leave you as well.

Two other books that have helped and have elements that I use on a daily basis:

You can heal your life

To retrain a negative mind

Unlimited power