Time Stood Still
Why So Much Time?
In October, it will be nine years since my mum, Janet, died. This year, I finally submitted a Section 13 application to the Attorney General, challenging the way her inquest was carried out. I know some people will read that and think: nine years — why so long? I've had a few pointed comments over the years suggesting I should have "moved on" by now. So I wanted to be honest about why it's taken this long, because the answer isn't simple, and it isn't about not caring.
When I found her, the shock and grief were the kind that flatten you. I'm not going to pretend it looked graceful — there were long stretches of not sleeping, of drinking too much just to get through the nights, of lying on the floor because I couldn't do anything else. That's the truth of early grief for me, and I'd rather say it plainly than pretend it was tidier than it was. I can admit that, from my late twenties, I was a harmful drinker. That's not something I'll dress up. It's part of the honest picture of where I was.
I did reach out for help early on. But getting from "I need help" to actually receiving the right kind of help took years, not weeks. I was seen, assessed, and discharged after just two appointments with a diagnosis of a bereavement reaction, and referred to a bereavement charity. They were kind, but they told me themselves they weren't equipped to deal with trauma of this scale. So I was back at square one — needing NHS trauma therapy, with no one to help me navigate how to get it.
I tried to manage alone for a while. I stopped drinking for nine months and tried to get back to normal life, but the trauma hadn't actually been processed — it had just been paused. Then COVID happened, and that turned out to be the point things shifted properly — I stopped drinking altogether for almost three years. These days I'm mostly just a very committed coffee drinker. I wouldn't call myself completely abstinent, but getting drunk isn't something I have any interest in anymore; it's simply not applicable to how I live now. That part of it genuinely isn't a struggle for me these days.
Restarting the process of trying to get proper psychiatric help took roughly two years just to get back in front of a psychiatrist, and even then, the trauma-informed care I needed didn't materialise. It's only now, nine years on, that I'm finally on a waiting list for specialist complex PTSD therapy — and even having been on that list since last year, I'm not expecting to be seen until next year. I'll be honest that the way I've coped with that wait is largely by intellectualising it — dealing with the facts and the process rather than letting myself feel it fully. It's not the healthiest way through, but it's kept me functional and focused enough to actually do this work.
Alongside all of that, there's an open loop that's never let me rest: the strong sense that my mum wasn't given the help she needed while she was alive, and that some of the records relevant to that appear to be missing. I'm not able to say more than that while it's being looked into through the proper channels, but it means the accountability I've been looking for still hasn't come, and that keeps this from ever really feeling finished.
Getting to the point of submitting the Section 13 application has been a process in itself — working out what to ask for, chasing paperwork nearly a decade old, discovering discrepancies in what I was sent versus what I remember receiving at the time. I've done a lot of this with no legal advice, because that kind of support is very hard to access without means. I'll be honest that AI tools have helped me enormously in getting documents constructed and organised — not to write my case for me, but to help me hold a huge, chronological, complex process together when I had no one else to do that with.
I know the odds aren't in my favour — only a small percentage of these applications result in a fresh inquest being ordered. But I've done what I could with what I had, and I wanted to explain, honestly, why it took as long as it did. It was never about not caring. It was about a system that took years just to offer the basic care I needed to be able to function, let alone fight for anything else.
If you're carrying something similar — a loss that still feels unresolved, or grief that the people around you have quietly stopped asking about — please know you're not alone in that. If you're struggling, try to find one person you trust to talk to honestly, rather than carrying it entirely on your own.
If you need someone to talk to:
Samaritans: 116 123 (free, 24/7)
Cruse Bereavement Support: 0808 808 1677
Mind: 0300 123 3393
