Hi friends,
I hope you are doing well. Since one of the groups of people I help are bereaved parents (yuck-who chose that title?), I thought I would write a normalizing post. Where we, well, normalize all the thoughts I've heard many clients utter after their child has died.
"I wish I could move on already." The weight of grief can be overwhelming, and some parents may find themselves longing for relief, which can feel like a betrayal to the memory of their child.
"I should have done more / I could have saved them." This self-blaming thought can arise, even in situations beyond a parent’s control, as parents feel responsible for their child's safety.
"I feel jealous of other parents." Watching others continue with their lives, especially those with children, can bring up envy, guilt, and frustration. For example, seeing the pictures of everyone else's children growing up on social media, while your image of your child remains static, and perhaps, even frozen at the place where you saw them die.
"It’s easier not to think about them." Avoidance can sometimes feel like the only way to cope, though it may also lead to feelings of guilt for not honoring the child’s memory more.
"I feel angry at my child for leaving me." Though it may sound harsh, some parents feel anger toward their child for "leaving" them, especially if the child’s death involved choices or situations the parent might have warned against.
"My family or partner doesn’t understand my grief." Everyone grieves differently, and feeling disconnected from those who are also mourning can lead to frustration, loneliness, and shame.
"I wonder if I even want to keep going." or "I don't want to be here anymore." The despair of losing a child can lead parents to question their own will to live, which can be a frightening and isolating experience.
"Life has no purpose anymore." Losing a child can feel like the world has lost its meaning, making it difficult to care about daily routines, responsibilities, or future plans.
"I don’t want to talk about them with anyone." Some parents may want to shut down conversations about their child or feel numb or exhausted by discussions, which can lead to guilt about not honoring their child.
"I regret not spending more time with them." Parents may look back and fixate on moments they believe they could have spent better or differently, even if they were doing their best at the time.
"Maybe it’s better this way / Maybe it’s for the best." In complex situations, parents may have fleeting thoughts that question the child’s or family’s struggles in life, which can lead to shame for even considering these possibilities.
"I’m afraid to be happy again." The thought of finding joy after such a loss can feel like a betrayal to the child’s memory, causing parents to feel stuck in their grief. Joy is also a really vulnerable emotion in itself, because in order to feel joy, you have to risk the possibility of pain again. Like Brene Brown says, "We can't selectively numb emotions. When we numb anger, we also numb empathy. When we numb sadness, we also numb joy."
"I’m disappointed by the lack of support from friends and family." Experiencing this grief can also reveal unexpected disappointments with others' reactions or lack of understanding, leading to feelings of bitterness or isolation. And if you're a people-pleaser, you can feel kinda shitty for not liking the way people in your life did or did not show up for you.
"I don’t know who I am without being their parent." Parents often define themselves by their roles in their children’s lives, and losing a child can lead to an identity crisis that feels shameful or disorienting.
"I resent the people who are trying to comfort me." Well-meaning gestures from friends and family can sometimes feel hollow, intrusive, or unhelpful, leading to resentment and guilt for feeling this way toward supportive people.
"I feel relief that the struggle is over." If the child was ill or the family endured significant hardship, a parent might feel some relief that the suffering has ended, which can be a deeply guilt-inducing thought.
"I feel disconnected from my other children (or family)." The depth of grief for one child can sometimes overshadow relationships with other family members, leading to shame about not being as present or attentive.
"I wish I didn’t have to talk about this with people." Grief can be so heavy, that even sympathetic questions or check-ins feel like a burden, creating a conflict between needing support and wanting solitude. Plus sometimes, you just want to go to the grocery store, or church, or to work and not feel the tears well up when someone asks you "How are you doing?" with that sympathetic smile on their face.
"I wonder what life would have been like without them." It’s normal to reflect on different life paths, even imagining alternate realities, but this can feel shameful, as if it's a dismissal of the child’s impact and presence.
"I’m angry at the world for not stopping." The world continues on, despite the profound loss, which can feel incredibly invalidating and frustrating, as if people don’t care or the loss isn’t acknowledged by society.
Guess what... You aren't crazy. You are not losing your mind, or your empathy, or your heart. You're not a bad parent, or bad person. You aren't going to lose it and kill yourself. You don't deserve this pain. You're grieving the death of a person you loved so intensely that it causes a physical ache in your bones when you think of them being gone. You weren't meant to lose a child. You were meant to outlive your baby, the one person you love more than the moon and the stars, and you didn't. They were supposed to bury you in the ground, and instead, you had to pick out a casket for them. You had to plan a funeral. You had to tie up the loose ends of a life that wasn't even fully lived. And you would give anything, ANYTHING, to have them back. And now, your thoughts are racing, trying to reason away the despair. Because your brain's job is to keep you safe. And it thinks that your emotional pain is unsafe. In fact, your mind cannot distinguish between physical and emotional pain, as both activate the same parts of the brain. So your mind thinks that the grief you are carrying is the same as a broken leg or a terrible third degree burn, and it's trying to anesthetize you so you can keep going.
I'm here to tell you, you will keep going, and your brain's attempts at reasoning or production of any of the thoughts above don't make you a jerk or insensitive or bring dishonor to your child's memory. These thoughts are symptoms of a deep love lost, of a relationship and bond that transcends time and space, but may feel intensely one-sided right now. It won't always feel this hard, and someday, I promise you, you will wake up and your first thought won't be to cry or to numb or to avoid your grief. You will think, "What am I going to do with today?" and you will smile again. Not today, but one day in the future, you will feel like you want to be here and there with your child (and you won't feel any guilt for either thought).
And if you need a therapist in the meantime who gets it, like really truly gets it, I'm right here, just a click away.
Take Exquisite Care of Yourselves,
Megan
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