It’s not been the easiest of weeks.

For some reason, me blogging about The Big Em and M Challenge and updating Facebook and Twitter with my progress has really got to some people.

They’ve accused me of being obsessed with suicide, of not being able to move on with my life and for constantly rubbing it in their faces that they haven’t donated.

This being a family newspaper, I can’t repeat what my response was. Suffice to say, it was the verbal equivalent of sticking two fingers up.

Because here’s the thing: these aren’t strangers who have decided to use me as their metaphorical punching bag. I can cope with them.

No. These are people that I once considered friends and who have proved, for the umpteenth time, that they’re undeserving of the accolade.

I appreciate that in the friendship stakes, I’ve not pulled my weight in the last three years. I’ve forgotten birthdays, turned down invitations at the last minute and probably not been much fun to be around. That I’ve been a flaky friend is, it has to be said, probably something of an understatement, for which I, wholeheartedly, apologise.

Although I hate trotting out excuses, I do like to think I do have a good reason for doing what I did. All my energy was going into getting up, teaching and getting through the rest of the day. There was no room to think about anything other than my family. No one else mattered. They weren’t a priority.

The people who have been there day in, day out since Matt’s suicide have never expected anything of me. Whether I’d joined them for dinner or for a day at the beach, I never felt forced to join in the conversation. Even if they’d driven hours to see me, there was no pressure to talk or to be on bouncing form. I was allowed to just be.

Something else which hasn’t gone unnoticed is that they’ve also celebrated the tiniest achievements, awarding them the same heroic status as if I’d singlehandedly circumnavigated the globe.

It was months before I started wearing make up again and when I did, a friend produced the Urban Decay eyeshadow palette I’d been lusting after for ages.

Another friend gave me a set of five polished stones, each one etched with one of the following: courage, energy, hope, peace and friends forever. Whenever I pick them up, I can feel the love and care that went into choosing the words to have engraved. Apart from the kayak Father Christmas brought down the chimney for me one year, they’re probably one of my all-time favourite presents.

But the people – I’m loathe to call them friends after their outpouring of venom this week – who accuse me of being in love with myself and living in the past are the ones who detached themselves from my life. They also came up with the most ridiculous reasons for not being in touch, such as having to feed the baby, being busy at work and – I swear I’m not making this up - dealing with a dead goldfish.

In contrast, one friend kept up the texts while having an ovarian cyst removed during her pregnancy and another got on the train to see me a week after having surgery to remove a tumour the size of a golf ball from her brain.

They’re the ones who have been privy to the trauma which affected me both emotionally and physically (including three invasive biopsies for lumps which luckily turned out benign, my hair falling out and an immune system that’s shot to bits) and can testify I am moving on because I now speak in whole paragraphs again rather than short, staccato sentences.

My hair has also grown back, to the point I no longer have an OAP comb-over to disguise the two bald patches on my scalp.

And, contrary to what some people think, I am – dare I say it? – happy again.

Okay, so I’m not deliriously drunk-on-life happy as I was before Matt died and the grief, although ever-so-slightly-diminished, will never go away. There’s still not an hour that goes by in which I don’t think about him and the life he could have lived, just as I long to hug my nieces and nephew who I haven’t had contact with since November 2010.

However, I no longer torture myself with ‘why?’ because I know I’ll never get a satisfactory answer. I no longer give myself guilt trips that I wasn’t there for him. And I’m no longer angry that he did what he did.

In the days following my brother’s suicide, I vowed it wouldn’t tear me apart and that I’d find one thing to make me smile every day. It hasn’t and I did. A baby blackbird learning to fly. A pink bud bursting into bloom. And a stranger who paid my bus ticket when I was having a meltdown scrabbling for change. They were small reminders that the world was continuing to flourish when I was dead inside.

There are so many reasons I’m happy right now and walking 60km across the South Downs to raise £2,000 for Winston’s Wish is one of them.

Knowing that thirty-six people have collectively donated £865 because they’ve wanted to support me – and not because they’ve felt guilty or pressured into doing so – is spurring me on.

And when I do cross the finish line in May 2013, it will be not only for bereaved children in the UK, but also for them.

Please help me hit my halfway mark of £1,000. Click here to sponsor me.