Pling!

Why I’m not back in Oxford yet

Filed under: Personal — Posted by Chris Northwood on May 7, 2008 at 10:37 pm

So, my plan for the weekend hasn’t exactly gone to plan. I was originally planning to come back to Oxford after visiting my parents on Tuesday, however circumstances quickly changed on Tuesday which meant that I didn’t really feel as if I could go back.

Basically, what happened was, that on Tuesday my Mum was giving evidence (just to recap – in the trial against my Uncle for the murder of my Grandma, which started about 4 weeks ago) and she wanted me to come along.

Being in Oxford gave me a certain amount of escapism – a 200 mile cushion between me and Yorkshire, which completely evaporated when I was actually in Leeds Crown Court and then home with my parents. I don’t have that any more, I’m having to deal with everything that’s going on, and I can’t do that in Oxford with my family and everything happening in Yorkshire. I have too much emotionally invested in the situation and my family to be a passive observer.

So that’s why I’ve not returned to Oxford yet. My Mum’s said that she wants me here and other members of my family think I should stay here, and I agree with them. Certainly on Tuesday it wouldn’t have been safe for me to undertake a long-distance car journey considering the state I was in.

I went to the GP’s today at my Dad’s advice and got a sicknote for stress/anxiety. Which is weird, because I’ve never actually used a sicknote to get time off work, in fact I’ve only ever had 1 day ill off work in my life, even when I was diagnosed with mild depression after my Grandma died.

Anyway, I wanted to write about the trial too, but it’s exhausting being there and it’s been difficult enough to write this, so we’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow.