How Do You Mourn or Grieve? WARNING

[fin]

WARNING

This maybe be triggering, please do not read if this is a problem, I do not wish anyone to be harmed by reading here, please know this.

stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion, prem baby death, SIDS.




I am struggling to work on something, and I am wondering how other people go about it. I have agonised about posting this thread, I am very sorry if it upsets anyone, I need others help but please only if you can, please don't if it is too hard I do really understand.

I need to mourne the loss of someone I never knew, how do I do this?
At the time of the loss I was not allowed to mourn or grieve or anything. And I was totally alone and had to get through that time somehow and so I just got on.

The thing is I am all over the place, everything is very raw. I am very raw but I know I have to work through this, but I am lost pretty much and I really dont know where to start.
I do not observe big date stuff-too many trauma anniversaries, so I don't look at dates-one long lifetime blurr of it. But I know I need to work through this now. I have no minister to talk with, I am not a Catholic lapsed or otherwise, I do have faith, but I am not a regular church attendee, and this is not an option.

I know I need help. Am in a bad way also at the moment-so I am sorry for that. And for starting another thread...I did search. I did not think this was part of my pTSD trauma history until a part inside of me decided to let me know it is, it is not the only one I have to face. And I dont know how I feel about that, this is a struggle.

Just right now I know I have to be able to mourn this loss, I am mourning the loss of a my baby a long time ago. This is the first time I have been able to acknowledge


So I am sorry about putting this out there, and I hope this is not triggering to people. It is to me...and i have a lot of stuff round it and more still to come. But I do know right now I have to really look at this from inside me and work it through and I dont know where to start. PLease.



I just know what it has taken to write this and i know it will wipe me out to read also. But please dont stop if you can help.... I am strong, so please. I just dont know how to honour this life, this lost one, with the dignity and honour I know and believe it is deserving. This is not to make me feel better, I know I have to work on that at some point also. This to me is more important that I do what is needed for the baby I could not save.

thankyou
please know I have not posted lightly
~fin

 

[empowered]

Hi Fin,

My Son died from SIDs Feb 1980...along time ago,yet deep grief remains;and I only recognised recently the huge trauma it was finding him as I have lived most of my life in dissociation from my feelings.Repressed feelings never go away.

How to Mourn or Grieve? I don't know....Talking to my psychologist helps I think, being able to recognise the depth of trauma.Feeling the feelings & not being afraid to feel.

Take care :Hug_emoticon:Sindy

 

[fin]

Thankyou Sindy, I feel your pain. Thankyou for sharing it with me. I hope that you find peace and have no fear also.

It is sometimes an overwhelming grief that threatens to engulf, I am in it now. There is nothing I can do but to just feel it and let it rain over me, so sad.

Sindy I thank you

:Hug_emoticon:

 

[Deleted member 541]

Fin,

I'm really not sure either, but I too am in a similar situation. My grandmother died 45 yrs ago. I was traumatized by her death, and certain things that happened at the time, and therefore I never had the chance to mourn her death.

This past Thursday I actually went to the cemetery, hoping that I could start the process,

With the loss of a child, I know it is different. I'm sorry that you had to go through this. This must be incredibly difficult.

 

[fin]

You are so strong She Cat, I thank you for that. Grief is very hard, no matter who we loose; that mourning needs to come. Please know I am thinking of you.

She Cat, I will be strengthened and encouraged by the kindness and compassion you have shown to me here.

I am hoping that you will be able to work through your pain also, it is just So very difficult. I am sorry that you know, but I take heart from what you have shared with me.

Thankyou

~fin

 

[DrDanger1979]

Fin,

Glad you posted this. It's good to see the understanding of others. Peace to you my friend.

Robert

 

[enlightenme]

fin,

I am so sorry for your loss. I have a similar story in my history. I don't think it's something you will ever be completely free of. I'm on here looking for support as a carer and I'm just starting my exploration of this so maybe you and I deal differently.

The very best thing you can do is be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to think about whatever you need to or feel comfortable thinking about. Recognize that your feelings are your feelings at *this moment* only and that they will (as always) come to be and pass away and be replaced with another feeling. (That always helps me with some of the more overwhelming feelings).

I know it hurts. I know that it hurts that you can't have your baby back and that it probably runs through your mind quite often. One thing I always do is talk to my baby and send all that love that I have for him out into the universe knowing that he's going to get it!

Take care.

Namaste,

nlitenme

 

[Mina]

Fin, I am so sorry for your loss.

You said you need to mourn the loss of someone you never knew. What jumps out at me is that statement doesn't seem quite right. You DID know this person! He or she was your child, growing inside you, a part of your life, and you were planning for them to be a part of your future. You may or may not have met them face to face, but you still felt that maternal connection nonetheless. Just because they couldn't talk back or speak sentences doesn't mean you didn't interact with them. He or she was a real person to you. It saddens me to read that you were not allowed to mourn the loss of that real person. It happened, it was real, it was heartbreaking, not something to be ignored...I'm so sorry you were treated that way, and were alone.

In my opinion, I think it's totally appropriate to grieve this loss as any parent would grieve the loss of their child. Whether that's joining a grief support group, celebrating the birthday and the fact that your child did exist, grieving missed opportunities, telling people about him/her...whatever you would do if you had lost that child when they were 2, 12, or 22.

My friend Jessica lost a baby 30 minutes after birth. She still commemorates his birthday, and considers him one of her children, even though he isn't there...she tells people how many children she has living, plus "one in heaven." She works with a volunteer group called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, which provides photography services for families expecting to lose a child either before or after birth. There's a link to a really touching clip she did with the Today Show in the US - it may be triggering, but it might really help validate your feelings to see that you are not alone in grieving this type of loss: http://www.firstdayphoto.com then click Information and Today Show Clip.

Big, healing hugs to you, my friend.
:Hug_emoticon:

 

[missys_girl]

I don't think anyone can understand the loss of a child unless you go through it. I was pregnant at 5 months when I lost my son Clayton, I now have his name tattooed on my stomach. I don't think you ever get over losing a child no matter HOW you lose that child. It cut me to the core. I ended up in hospital in the phsych ward because I was going to commit suicide and I was cutting myself. If I could actually willingly let people touch me, I would have deliberately have gotten pregnant again, but no man can touch me, at least, not with my consent. It's been 3 years now since my attack. I built a garden dedicated just to him he will be 3 this year. I went though a stage where I wanted to buy baby boy things, and I desperately wanted to get pregnant, but well, not being able to be touched (plus I wouldn't fall pregnant to just anyone) was a major problem there.

There are so many stages is grief and doesn't mean you have to go through them all. Dedicate something to your baby, make a garden, or have a plant, buy a few baby items if it fulfills your needs, do what ever you need for the moment, and cry. I cried so much at first, for a while, I fought the tears because I was afraid if I started I would never stop crying, that just led to more and more things like cutting, so never hold back.

There is no 'have to's' when it comes to grief, everyone is an individual.

 

[cragger65]

Fin, I've been avoiding this thread until tonight, but I needed to. I am so very sorry for you losses. I couldn't agree more with Missy, dedicating a space to honour them is a wonderful idea, a garden would be ideal. From death arises new life.

 

[fin]

Hi I finally think in some I am begining to understand I can work through this sadness, this grief. I know it looks like a lot also, but if you can please try to read to the end. It does not work so well in in fragmented pieces ~ like me!

I am sorry that this has taken me slow long to reply to and this is just a short reply I have read evryones response and thankyou all so very much, I have been working them over in my head, and will reply more later, I hope that's cool, because this was so very difficult for me to put out here, and so very difficult for me to begin to go through. So intensely painful and I thought the pain would never ebb from me. I don't know how long that will take but I know the process has finally started and it is through this thread that I am able to see that I can begin to follow somehow on from this point.

I have struggled with the garden point. I have been going at this one point for days and it has almost been painful for me to read it here. I do understand the thought though, because I have had pets that I have burried in my gardens; and so I understand that place of peace that we can re-connect with those we love. My problem has been to try to see it differently, and knowing how to see it differently, because each time I have read this and it is in a few other places also...well each time it has like "pierced" me (sorry I do not know of any other way to phrase it at the moment please don't be offended by that word it is just a word and not the people that have pierced me- please know that :Hug_emoticon:).

The problem for me also is that I rent, I am not a home owner and so I feel that this is not something I can do that is honouring in the way that I am able to hope for. But from this I know kindly offered suggestion..I have been able to begin to find and think of another way, another type of garden...maybe one that is everpresent in the world around me, or somewhere inside of me that whenever I am there and find that place I am able to reconnect with that child, my poor baby.

I think this is good because I am now able to see better that this is and was my baby and am now able to bring this thinking forward, however painfull it is and however alien it has felt to me to try to connect to this, it does no longer. It is inside of me now in a better way than it was, the feelings and thought of that day have been so very hard to move on from.

This poor soul was my baby, my child. And this is now inside of me and I am able to think past what happened and how I felt at that moment in time. Never having been able to get past the moment that it happened I think has been what has stopped me ever moving forward until now.

Because we do need to take that next step forward, and again this forum has held my hand while I did...I know it is tentative, I know there will be more for me on this and much more that I will need to work on in this bit for now, but it has begun. My grieving has begun and this is ...well at the moment that is all I am able to say...just this is...

~fin

I am sorry I have had to stop writing any more about this because I am not able to connect with what it is or the emotion again. Shut down again right in mid sentence, but this is good so far...I managed I hope to explain about how I am begining to think some better way through this...because it is hard trying to get the thoughts out through me...and I dont mean so much through me in my writing on the forum..(although that is hard)..I am talking about getting them out thinking my head through myself on this...and finding new ways to be able to resolve this loss because I was never allowed to before...but I am now...so.
To resolve a very great loss and I have so for so long shut down to it, over and over shutting down that part of my feeling. And I can see that it has helped me cope, to survive; other deaths and times. But it is no longer a coping strategy it is denying my pain and this pain however raw it is now needs to felt and broken through. It is the next step in grieving and mourning and I am not entirely sure how I have been able to get through and find it, but I have and I do know that others kindness here has held me though this.


I am sorry that part of this is italicised (and I dont even know if that is a word..but I hope you know what I mean). I wanted to try to express where my thoughts have come from in using more than my words. Because this is letter to me that I wanted to try to really express myself to you through, it is to all of you that have helped me...and I wanted to try to make it as personal as possible, because it is through your love and friendship that I have been able to reach a better place on one of the saddest things to me, and acknowledge that it is ok fo rme to be sad about this, that I am not over thinking or over feeling. I did nothing but stay in the moment that the miscarriage happened, and that is no place to be able lovingly look at either myself or my child.

So Thankyou all here, thankyou to everyone on this forum, your friendship and kindness is guiding me through this. I could ask for no better friends than I have found here. I am a very lucky person to know you. Thankyou

To anyone else also that is reading this that has been here, I hope this is able in some way to help you through if you are stuck in a point in time. I hope you know that you are not alone and will be able to see from what I have written that somehow we can begin to find a way through. And that somehow you can begin to feel connected in some way again, it comes through connection to that time and pains emotions, but also it brings us closer to ourselves and who we are, it is a reconciliation of parts and it is uncomfortable and so very painful but know you can do it, and know you don't have to be alone in it. Whether it is through someone that has written here or someone that stands alongside you or did stand alongside you in the past, cherish them in that ~ please try to cherish...~

And if someone offers you their hand and you can know you trust it take it, they know why they do it, you may not need to. All you may have to do is be steadied by it. And you may also find that the hand is someone that has come through some other way to be able to help you. Like so many others here now I have also found people I have never known except through what they used to write, but they have written it for all of us, as I do now for myself but also for you. Be at peace in knowing that the lonelieness is maybe a state of mind. Because while I am alone physically in this world I am trying to see that it is only distance that seperates me from others, and I am not alone emotionally nor am I alone in thought. You are all so very dear to me and you may never know how much this has meant to me, but please know that my words are true here and I bare myself to you in honest friendship.

I thank that I know you


Always,
~fin

 

[fin]

I can also see that I was totally trapped in that moment of time, with everything I saw and felt at that moment, and that every time I have been reminded and every time I have tried to connect to that one horrific moment among so many others, well I know what it is that I felt then horror, and the shame at feeling horror, fear, pain guilt at not being able to see past what had happened to myself, although I do see past and mourn over and over this poor child it has been seperate to me. I have closed off some and allowed numbing, because that was exactly what happened and it allowed me to cope, and that was how I survived it at that point in time. Because it was horrific what happened to me but I could not allow myself to dwell any longer on anything I felt, because i would have been dead.

I was facing some life or death struggles and knew that at that moment it was over for one part of me, and that coping thing kicked in to keep the rest of me alive. So I am not wantting to be ungratefull for the part of me that shut down then, it just does not have to remain shut down in that moment any longer. I am begining to follow facing some things through that at certain points I was never allowed or able to because i just couldn't and sometimes we can't and we have to be understanding of ourselves in this. We are not all powerful and are not always able to cope better than we do. it isn't necessarily our fault, it is that we have not ever known how to, we have not always been emotionally equipped to be able to deal with what happens to us.

And this is not a weakness now, it is because we have been so strong we have had to shut somethings down to be able to survive, but it is also not a weakness to be able to accept our emotions on these things now. We are strong and we can work through these things, these times, this pain. And while we may not be able to resolve eveything that has happened to us, we can begin...and maybe we don't always know what it is we need to begin with...and then maybe suddenly we just find what it is. It might just come out at us and we may find we have no choice but to work on something wheher we want to or even think we should at that moment. It might not always be possible to know what it is we need to work on. It might not always be clear and it might not always be what others think we should work through either. And the only way we may know is when we begin to understand ourselves better and begin to really work through us.

But it is this raw honest pulling about in ourselves that can drag it out of us and maybe help us to find our way.

I know I will have to pull more out of myself through this, I know I will have to adress other feelings...all of them...but I can see that this is a good start. And I hope I wont be afraid to come back to it and keep going back to it; because there is so much more surrounding this for me at that time and since.