By midmorning I had replayed yesterdays proceedings in my head a few times over. I could feel the anger rise inside me every minute and by afternoon it was an absolute torrent. The assimilation into my system of the facts revealed at the inquest resulted in feelings of absolute pointlessness and hopelessness. Nothing is ever going to change. One of his treating doctors said it in so many words, “Suicide is unpredictable and unpreventable”. I felt furious at the people who had allowed my son to suffer for weeks and weeks before he gave up on everything. He wanted to live. He followed every instruction given to him. He wanted to get better. He communicated how he felt the best he could. No one got it!

Luckily I had an appointment to see my homeopath this afternoon. It was a lifesaver. She was willing to listen to me and give me the space I desperately needed to express that terrible rage. She understood. She was there for me in body, mind and heart. After spending an hour with her, I felt relatively unburdened.

Allopathy doesn’t allow for that kind of therapy. It is defensive and supposedly “evidence based”, dry and prescriptive. It undermines other forms of treatment that offer the compassion that it is incapable of. I am sure there is no ‘scientific’ explanation why my arthritis is flaring up. Just as there is no ‘scientific’ explanation why my son died.

Whatever the inquest finds, I still have to work my way to being ok with settling for lighting a candle in front of my beautiful son’s picture every evening for the rest of my life.