Now, it's your turn. Where are you in your grief? Emotionally. Physically. Psychically. Title your post, "Right Where I Am:(Time since your child's death)". then come back here and link your blog post on the Mr. Linky. Click other participants and read about right where they are. Comment if you can. Just a thank you for telling me about right where you are. If you don't want to write a full post, why not just comment here and tell me the time since your loss(es) and anything else you want to share. Spread the word around the community by linking back to this post, so people can find out what grief is like on all stops on the road. Thanks to Angie for this prompt.
I hurt. As Chris noted the other day, I'm not getting better. I'm getting worse. Oh I'm functional. I'm incredibly functional. I not only get out of bed, shower, dress myself, take care of the pets and go to work/weekend stuff every day but last weekend I planned and executed a great weekend getaway for myself and my husband. And it was a lot of fun. I hoped that would get me through my 2nd 30th (what is that called, it's not a year so it can't be anniversary) and then I'd be back on more solid ground until the double whammy next month of the third 30th followed closely by Mary's due date on July 4th. It seemed to be working, but this week the pain in my heart started back up and has built until it's almost back to crazy-making levels again today.
So I'm probably going to start counseling soon. I don't expect anyone to be able to make the pain go away, but I need better tools to deal with it. I'm actually doing pretty well at work, but school is suffering. I'm almost done and I can't quit now. But my focus is shot, and I need to get back on track. I'm also kind of hoping to enlist a professional to tell Chris that it's ok that I'm not ok. He'd never accuse me out loud, but I know he thinks I'm wallowing. He likes to talk about moving on. I know that it's possible to hold Mary's memory with joy instead of pain. I even do it occasionally. I'd like it to be that way all the time, but I just don't know how. Maybe the therapist will have some helpful ideas.
Hey Christy,
ReplyDeletesorry to hear about the loss of your little girl:(
I lost my son at about 26 weeks also on January 3rd.
I see you were writing that you feel its getting worse. Well I can tell you from my experience it definitely got worse, and will before it starts getting better. It sucks.
Hopefully you find a good counselor. I have been seeing one since about 6 weeks after losing Liam and I like going. It's a whole hour I can talk about my son and my feelings about it. SO I hope it will be helpful for you.
Thinking of you, Becky
Two months and four days - so very new. I'm so sorry for the loss of your precious Mary. And I know with the due date coming up soon as well, you'll be feeling so much. I'm amazed at how well you do seem to be functioning, especially with going to work.
ReplyDeleteAll my love to you and glad you took part in Angie's project.
You're not alone.
xo
Therapy can be a hard decision, but I'm glad I chose to go. I wouldn't think you are wallowing at all especially not at 2 months out. If you need something free just show your husband a few posts on Angie's Project. It's a very hard thing to lose a wanted and loved child. So very sorry for the loss of your Mary. Thank you for sharing in the project and I hope you will find that you are certainly not alone in your grief. Love and strength~
ReplyDeleteI mean no disrespect to anyone, but I do not think it is possible to be wallowing at two months. It is so fresh and raw and new. It just is processing right now. What you are feeling and processing is normal, important work. Grief is an expression of love. I read early in my grief that the loss of a child in this way that active grief is 18-24 months. That helped me to read, hopefully it is helpful to hear for you. All that being said, I found therapy helpful, even when it wasn't helpful, it didn't hurt. I knew during my week, there was one place I could talk about Lucia, and grief. Thank you for sharing right where you are, and I am just so sorry to read about Mary. Much love to you. And here, if you need to talk.
ReplyDeleteChristy,
ReplyDeleteI am so, so sorry for the loss of your Mary. At only 2 months out, you are still so new to this grief. The shock of the early days is just starting to wear off. And now the reality of life without your daughter is setting in. As Angie said, you are not wallowing.
Around 2 months after the loss of my daughter (on 8/9/2010 at 25 weeks, 2 days), I started seeing a therapist. It actually was my husband's suggestion because he could see that I was in pain, that is was getting worse, and he realized that he didn't have the resources on his own to help me. We actually went together, once a week. It helped me tremendously. It also helped him, because the therapist was able to explain that what I was feeling was normal. We still go, every two weeks now. It's been 10 months from my loss, and I still feel that the therapy is needed and helpful.
I suggest finding a therapist that specializes in grief, and if possible, one that specializes in pregnancy and infant loss.
Thank you for sharing where you are. And for sharing about Mary.
Oh, Christy. I am so, so sorry to read about your Mary. Thank you for sharing where you are. Your words are so honest, and reading them takes me back to the first few months after my son died, when everything was raw and throbbing and I kept getting up and getting dressed and going through the motions but didn't really know how I was managing to do it.
ReplyDeleteI will repeat what others have said, that two months is very, very early in terms of grieving the loss of a child. It's a long hard road, and it sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now, and I hope you can be gentle with yourself as you keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sending love.
Christy, I read this on a friend's blog (http://masonarik.blogspot.com/) and thought of you. She lost her 9-year-old son to cancer the day before you lost Mary.
ReplyDelete---------------
One of the best things I was told was "You never will get over it" My heart felt the blow and understanding of such honesty . I really can't imagine ever getting over it. Mason is with me for eternity. Below is an article from Steven Kalas; a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. I just had to share..
You don't get over it. Getting over it is an inappropriate goal. An unreasonable hope. The loss of a child changes you. It changes your marriage. It changes the way birds sing. It changes the way the sun rises and sets. You are forever different.
You don't want to get over it. Don't act surprised. As awful a burden as grief is, you know intuitively that it matters, that it is profoundly important to be grieving. Your grief plays a crucial part in staying connected to your child's life. To give up your grief would mean losing your child yet again. If I had the power to take your grief away, you'd fight me to keep it. Your grief is awful, but it is also holy. And somewhere inside you, you know that.
The goal is not to get over it. The goal is to get on with it.
Profound grief is like being in a stage play wherein suddenly the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set. The piano paralyzes the play. It dominates the stage. No matter where you move, it impedes your sight lines, your blocking, your ability to interact with the other players. You keep banging into it, surprised each time that it's still there. It takes all your concentration to work around it, this at a time when you have little ability or desire to concentrate on anything.
The piano changes everything. The entire play must be rewritten around it.
But over time the piano is pushed to stage left. Then to upper stage left. You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano. Instead, you engage it. Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life.
You learn to play that piano. You're surprised to find that you want to play, that it's meaningful, even peaceful to play it. At first your songs are filled with pain, bitterness, even despair. But later you find your songs contain beauty, peace, a greater capacity for love and compassion. You and grief -- together -- begin to compose hope. Who'da thought?
Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen. You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month. But later, when you're 84, staring out your kitchen window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child's life mattered.
You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play.
Thank you all for the comments. I really appreciate them.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great post, Tara. I'm so sorry about her son.
I'm belatedly arriving from Angie's project. Firstly, I am so sorry that Mary died. It isn't fair that we all have to live without our beloved babies.
ReplyDeleteSecondly - I can honestly say that 2-4/5ish months were the absolute pit of my grief. The thin film of numbness and denial had worn off and casual aquaintances had stopped asking after me because well... it had been a while!? (It was Christmas too, which was a big hurdle, a bit like Mary's due date will be) I also found that the anger set in too. I was so very angry for a while, it scared me. What helped was knowing it was normal, knowing that facing those feelings could only be helpful in the long run. Unfortunately, those feelings need to be felt otherwise they fester. I don't know exactly when those feelings lifted - we saw a bereavement midwife from around 5 months - that definitely helped but I think it's just a gradual, imperceptible process and it sure isn't linear. I still have angry days, sad moments, crying jags now but they're rarer - they are no longer my only expression of grief and longing for Emma.