Hi all . Sorry this is a bit long winded!!!
I’ve spent many an hour on this loss of a child forum. There’s a few things that strike me when you read people’s stories.
The first thing that hits you is the shear amount of parents that go through this absolutely devastating experience. Regardless of what age or the cause of death, we all find ourselves smashed by the enormous emotional sledge hammer. When you trawl through the stories there really are some heartbreaking terrible stories that us as parents endure. Regardless of how your child died. Accidents , illness, suicide, Even murder.
But we all suffer our own loss and the total destruction that follows with it.
When it happens to you, the indescribable pain, heartache and suffering is completely immeasurable. Everything in your world becomes alien . When the shock hits you it’s like learning to tread water when you don’t even know how to breathe.
None of us are programmed to deal with the trauma of loosing a child. There are no easy solutions. In my experience your mind has to learn to adapt to this new situation.
People try all-sorts of methods. Counselling, drinking, self help books. Research. Joining groups. Throwing yourself into work. But I’d say for the majority of us just actually getting out of bed and remembering to breathe is probably the 1st step on the longest journey you will ever undertake.
But before you know it weeks have past. Because as night for follows day time will march on relentless.
The 2nd thing that strikes me is , trying to make sense, trying to understand what has happened and trying to figure out how you live in this new world. Again no easy answers. It’s just baby steps all the way. The constant breaking down crying. The endless confusion you find yourself in. Most days you literally just exist, nothing more. Then comes the endless questions. The guilt that you didn’t do or say or see it coming. The scenario plays over and over in your head. You blame yourself constantly. If only, if only if only. But you can’t change anything. The guilt eats away at you till there’s nothing left inside of you. You become a shadow of your former self. But you WILL!!! carry on. There are periods of time, a day a week a month when you don’t even recollect how you even got there. Every milestone anniversary is amplified 10fold. But you will get through them.
You will find it changes you as a person. Your personality changes , your temperament changes, how you see things changes. You reach new understandings. I always say that time changes nothing, it’s your mind that changes , it adapts, and it can take 2/3/4 years before you even get to a place that you didn’t cry that day, or the guilt may have slightly subsided. I miss my boy every single day and I still ask myself all those questions, but I’m in a place where I can cope. But that’s all I do , cope!!!
Then the 3rd thing that hits you is . Trying to get other people to understand what it’s like, what you have gone through and are going through. The simple answer to that is. People don’t understand. That’s it.!!! Because unless they’ve walked in your shoes they can’t understand. There is nothing to measure what loosing a child is like. A person you brought into this world. Nurtured, taught, loved. Lived with. Experienced life with is suddenly taken away from you. How do you explain that to the great unwashed. You can’t because it’s to complex, it changes you on so many levels I can’t begin to describe how it affects you . You just have to live it. So for me talking to other bereaved parents is the only place I can gain an ounce of understanding. Only people that have travelled the same journey as me know what it’s like. Most of what we feel can’t actually be put into words it’s just an unwritten understanding that only we know.
When you meet or talk to other bereaved parents. You both have an immediate connection. You don’t have to become friends you both just know without words what the other one is feeling. People come out with all those mean well phrases like. He/ she is in a better place,. Well they are no longer suffering,. Just think of the good times. Or the best one is. Just try and move on it’s what they would have wanted. Bereaved parents don’t say any of those things. Because as well meaning as they are they mean nothing. You don’t want to " think of the good times and move on". You just want your child back. Or the one that grinds your gears the most. " Rite you’ve grieved long enough now, it’s time you got a grip of yourself". What we have experienced we have to live the rest of our lives with. Hopefully they will never have to travel this journey.
On a positive note. You will get there. There are better days ahead. You won’t think so for such a long time. You will feel you will never want to go on another day and that there is no end to your pain. But one day you will see the horizon again. It won’t ever be like it was before. But you will start living again. You will never ever forget your child . But you will learn to live along side your grief.
Ok thanks for listening
Take care
Jim
