What was the absolute "low point" of your life and how did you get out of it (if you don't mind talking about it) ?

[Applecore]

The guilt is for wanting help. I'm supposed to help other people. Not being able to help myself and making demands on others' feels like an unforgivable transgression. I'm only allowed to relinquish control and allow myself to be helped if the injury happens in the service of someone else.- Those are the rules. I'm breaking them by being here.

I've always felt like that, for as long as I can remember.

The divorce happened because I fell in love with my partner at my last job. We never actually did anything, but our feelings for each other were apparently obvious to everyone.

So when you write, "I'm sorry. Please don't hate me for this." ...who are you asking not to hate you for wanting help?

 

[Captain Barnacles]

So when you write, "I'm sorry. Please don't hate me for this." ...who are you asking not to hate you for wanting help?

You guys. Everyone else already hates me.

 

[JustMeAndMyMind]

When my daughter died during labour, abd the poor medical care throughout That was the worst I'd ensured at that point. Then our last possible chance of a sibling ending in an early miscarriage straight after finding out I was pregnant. I thought that was my last hope of happiness. It felt, still does, feel like I'm being punished.
My dad has just died and all I can feel is that same death and fear all around me again. I've never planned the end, I fear hurting those I love too much, but very much wish I wasn't me. Many times I've wished I didn't have hope anymore so that I wouldn't be consistently robbed of that hope becoming reality.
Therapy helped a ton, but life has a way of dragging me back to the bottom at times, and I'm tired of the constant fight.
My hope, or wish, or whatever you want to call it is to have somewhat of a normal life

 

[Applecore]

When my daughter died during labour, abd the poor medical care throughout That was the worst I'd ensured at that point. Then our last possible chance of a sibling ending in an early miscarriage straight after finding out I was pregnant. I thought that was my last hope of happiness. It felt, still does, feel like I'm being punished.
My dad has just died and all I can feel is that same death and fear all around me again. I've never planned the end, I fear hurting those I love too much, but very much wish I wasn't me. Many times I've wished I didn't have hope anymore so that I wouldn't be consistently robbed of that hope becoming reality.
Therapy helped a ton, but life has a way of dragging me back to the bottom at times, and I'm tired of the constant fight.
My hope, or wish, or whatever you want to call it is to have somewhat of a normal life

I totally understand what you write here. I firmly believe that miscarriage is a totally under-prioritized and under-estimated issue in people's lives. I would welcome greater public awareness of it.

Paradoxically enough, I say this as a man who is 'child-free by choice'. But I am also an ally of women who have repeatedly gone through this loss and I have seen the suffering up close.

My lovely young cousin lost her first pregnancy earlier this year and remains devastated, I have invited her and her man on vacation coming soon as an attempt at a very small contribution to improving their morale and restoring hope for the future.

My former partner, a great woman who patiently, tolerantly and selflessly helped me through depression that at times was utterly selfish of me, went on to have a relationship in which she lost three pregnancies - but at least she has one lovely, wonderful daughter and she has built 'somewhat of a normal life' to use your phrase describing what you yearn for.

My own mother keeps changing her story about how many lost pregnancies, abortions and rapes she has been through, a world of trauma that creates communication barriers between us, which I sometimes fail to approach in the right way, much to my heartache.

My currently 'it's complicated' relationship is with a woman who never felt loved by her own mother because, she says, previously her mother lost a pregnancy and was never the same again. Her mother was so living in grief for the loss in the past that she was unable to love what she had in the present. That, too, has lead to a world of trauma. That, in turn, appears to have ruined my woman's life, from her perspective.

I am a stranger to you but I would like to be a passing friendly voice and to give you my heartfelt sympathy. I would also like to urge you to think about what you do have in your life today: you wrote, "Then our last possible chance of a sibling... "

If this means you do have a child, please think about how legitimate grief can displace the opportunity for love.

I don't know why miscarriage isn't given more attention; I often wonder whether it might it be because so much attention is given to the abortion debate in our public discourse: as if for some people choosing to end a pregnancy is simply down to choice, so might it be a contradiction that the involuntary loss of a pregnancy somehow doesn't merit bereavement?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know the loss and the grief is extremely real. High time for more love and understanding about it, and then in turn those going through it may be able to love again.

 

[Applecore]

You guys. Everyone else already hates me.

Everyone here wants help in some form or another, even those who say they are here to help. If we were hated, we wouldn't be sticking around too long. And most of us are so focused on ourselves that we don't have more energy left to hate others. Universal point of view.

Looks like you have found your road map for change right away. Getting over your own discomfort at needing help is a perfect first step.

 

[Ecdysis]

It felt, still does, feel like I'm being punished.
My dad has just died and all I can feel is that same death and fear all around me

I'm so sorry for your losses @JustMeAndMyMind

A lot of my losses over recent years have been death-related too... As I'm getting older, it seems it's a "natural" thing for those you know and care about to start dying at relatively regular intervals... So the next death happens, before you're anywhere near started coping with the last one...

I too have felt like it's some awful punishment from the universe/ from some higher power/ from fate/ from whatever... for I don't even know what... for me not being a better person, for me not having done "enough" to prevent it... My brain can find a billion little things, that - if I'd done them differently - might have changed the course of fate, somehow...

I've started volunteering at a local hospice, because I felt I had to start facing "this death thing" head on. I've found in my upbringing and the society in which I live, death has become so marginalised... It's like it's been written out of the story... Life's aim has become to live "as long as possible" and to "delay and prevent death at all costs".

But... Life is 100% deadly... Like, that's one of the few guarantees... That we all will die and everyone and everything we love will die... It's part of the very fabric and nature of life.

But I feel like we're taught to totally repress that... And then when it happens, it feels like it's coming out of the blue, like some awful disaster is striking, like something must have "gone wrong" or it wouldn't have happened...

I'm struggling so deeply and fundamentally with the feelings of guilt and being punished... But I'm starting to realise that it doesn't even make any sense... If everyone and everything dies because that's how life is, then that can't actually be a punishment, even tho it feels so much like it is...

Of the million tiny things I can find that I "could have done differently"... What about the other million tiny things that my brain doesn't hyperfocus on... Good things that I may have done along the way which *did* prevent death or illness or other bad things, that I literally don't know about because they didn't happen...

Like, my 13 year old dog, whom I adore, is palliative now... And my brain obsesses about "what I may have done wrong" and "how I could've prevented this". When actually, 13 years is basically the expected life span for a dog of his size and breed. And how many times did I potentially avert illness and death by taking him to the vet, getting him vaccinated, feeding high quality food, keeping him safe, etc. etc. ...? My brain doesn't see any of that... Just searches for the ways "in which I could've prevented this"...

I think it's a compulsive attempt to figure out "how I can prevent death and illness and suffering"... I think that's what my brain is trying to do... Like if I just search hard enough, then I will find the miracle power that means I can prevent death and other bad things from happening...

I can see why my brain is desperately trying to find this solution... Cos that would be so comforting, wouldn't it...? And to face up to the vulnerability that none of us can do that... None of us can actually prevent harmful things happening... That feels so raw and so helpless and so painful and so vulnerable...

So my brain would rather have it be all my fault cos then I can figure out how to do it differently and then I can beat death and prevent all bad things...

 

[Lost in the Woods]

I totally get the guilt thing. For well over half a century I have guilt over my mother’s suicide. She was a very sick woman and in a rational sense there was nothing a kid could have done even excluding all her violence. But that doesn’t faze my guilt one bit.

 

[Applecore]

I'm so sorry for your losses @JustMeAndMyMind

A lot of my losses over recent years have been death-related too... As I'm getting older, it seems it's a "natural" thing for those you know and care about to start dying at relatively regular intervals... So the next death happens, before you're anywhere near started coping with the last one...

I too have felt like it's some awful punishment from the universe/ from some higher power/ from fate/ from whatever... for I don't even know what... for me not being a better person, for me not having done "enough" to prevent it... My brain can find a billion little things, that - if I'd done them differently - might have changed the course of fate, somehow...

I've started volunteering at a local hospice, because I felt I had to start facing "this death thing" head on. I've found in my upbringing and the society in which I live, death has become so marginalised... It's like it's been written out of the story... Life's aim has become to live "as long as possible" and to "delay and prevent death at all costs".

But... Life is 100% deadly... Like, that's one of the few guarantees... That we all will die and everyone and everything we love will die... It's part of the very fabric and nature of life.

But I feel like we're taught to totally repress that... And then when it happens, it feels like it's coming out of the blue, like some awful disaster is striking, like something must have "gone wrong" or it wouldn't have happened...

I'm struggling so deeply and fundamentally with the feelings of guilt and being punished... But I'm starting to realise that it doesn't even make any sense... If everyone and everything dies because that's how life is, then that can't actually be a punishment, even tho it feels so much like it is...

Of the million tiny things I can find that I "could have done differently"... What about the other million tiny things that my brain doesn't hyperfocus on... Good things that I may have done along the way which *did* prevent death or illness or other bad things, that I literally don't know about because they didn't happen...

Like, my 13 year old dog, whom I adore, is palliative now... And my brain obsesses about "what I may have done wrong" and "how I could've prevented this". When actually, 13 years is basically the expected life span for a dog of his size and breed. And how many times did I potentially avert illness and death by taking him to the vet, getting him vaccinated, feeding high quality food, keeping him safe, etc. etc. ...? My brain doesn't see any of that... Just searches for the ways "in which I could've prevented this"...

I think it's a compulsive attempt to figure out "how I can prevent death and illness and suffering"... I think that's what my brain is trying to do... Like if I just search hard enough, then I will find the miracle power that means I can prevent death and other bad things from happening...

I can see why my brain is desperately trying to find this solution... Cos that would be so comforting, wouldn't it...? And to face up to the vulnerability that none of us can do that... None of us can actually prevent harmful things happening... That feels so raw and so helpless and so painful and so vulnerable...

So my brain would rather have it be all my fault cos then I can figure out how to do it differently and then I can beat death and prevent all bad things...

@Ecdysis​

Another very wise and perceptive post, thank you. Apart from understanding and awareness, what measures do you take to counteract these compulsive thoughts and feelings, that you have realized are not the only way they have to be?

I ask in order to compare and cross-reference. I can already see that joining the hospice is one part of it, and that confirms my believe that being generous and involving ourselves in something bigger is very helpful.