My best year turned into my worst year

It’s at this time of year that I love to encourage clients to reflect on the highs and learnings of the past 12 months. It can be really rewarding acknowledging the good bits, the challenges and how you have grown from them. This year has been a rollercoaster – bigger than Hyperia at Thorpe Park. I have had the best year of my life without doubt and the worst year. I thought writing about it might help me try and make sense of it.

2025 started with me bathed in love. Two years previously I’d left my marriage as it had become toxic. I had become an unhappy, smaller version of myself. And then I found Frankie. The connection was instant instantaneous and we very quickly discovered that we were each other’s soulmates. He was kind loving, kind, gentle, my biggest supporter and the right amount of mad. I felt secure and safe in his presence. I only really felt alive in his presence. He told me he loved me 100 times a day and his actions always backed that up. And the weird thing was that I felt exactly the same.

2025 was a string of constant adventures. We lived every day in love. We went to the opera in Prague, we went to festivals, we swam in lakes and the sea, slept outside on summer’s evenings, we walked a pilgrimage together … we did new things, we lived, we laughed and had fun every single day.

Then in October he started to feel ill and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Our bliss bubble was well and truly burst and we stared to navigate a living hell. In November, just 2 days before his 55th birthday, he had a craniotomy. The neurosurgeon took away as much of the cancer as possible. The next days and weeks were focused on recovery from surgery and getting him ready for chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The cancer, the terminal diagnosis, the surgery, the plethora of daily medications, chemo and radiotherapy dominated. Frankie didn’t have the patience or the energy for anything else. His primary focus was exiting from one medical appointment or procedure to the next and trying to manage the increasing symptoms in between.

My soulmate had warped into something that I didn’t recognise. He pushed me away, at first to try and protect me from what was ahead and then out of frustration. He would lose his temper. I started walking on eggshells trying not to ignite an explosion. I would have to be careful about what I said or did. Being in his presence used to soothe and calm my nervous system, then it set it on edge. My hives came back. I developed IBS, I couldn’t sleep, even though I was dog tired, I couldn’t eat even though my body needed fuel, I became withdrawn and couldn’t really speak to anyone as I would just end up in tears.

The past three months we knew he was going to die but I didn’t realise the end of our relationship would happen whilst he was still alive. I felt like such a bad person withdrawing whilst he was dying but I knew if I didn’t it would kill me too. It is impossible to keep supporting a person when they are attacking you. The pain and suffering is too much to bear.

So now I have to find a way to be strong and go forward when I feel at my most weak and just want to curl into a ball.

 I read a quote recently that helped

“There is an immaculate eternal and constant space within you hidden under different appearances. In that space there is only peace, love and wisdom. Let go and free yourself from the layers that cover that space and you will uncover the secret of a life of fullness.”

 The picture was taken at Saville Gardens (one of my most favourite places)  this morning just before I wrote these words. If I wasn’t wearing sunglasses you would see my tear stained checks and blotchy, swollen eyes.

Life can be really shit but it is all about how you respond to the shit that makes the difference.

I know experiencing such love, pain and grief makes me a better, more compassionate therapist. I would never have asked to live this life experience but I will endeavour to find a way to use it positively.