Multiple Losses

I’m just now starting to work with my therapist in dealing with my sister’s death almost 10 years ago. I feel stuck in that day. It started a chain of loss. First was my sister, then my brother, then our parents, and then Andy and his father. In the span of 2000-2006, they were all gone. And I’m left. It’s a very scary feeling. I’ve planned far too many funerals over the years.

Each loss brings with it a different set of emotions. Losing my sister was like losing a child, to some extent, because I acted as primary caregiver for her. I was still very much a child when my sister was born, but my mother’s mental status made her unable to care for us. It’s not some grand feat that I was able to do what I did. When you have no choice, you act as you must. It truly is simple logic. Because of our situation, my sister’s suicide left me with feelings of guilt and responsibility. I’m still stuck in that day, that initial loss, and the therapist is helping me work through it. I’m wondering what life will be like on the other side of this loss. Hopefully, it will be more peaceful and more productive. Maybe it will even leave me with time to process the other losses in a healthier environment.

It is, as the therapist pointed out, a very lonely feeling. It’s also frightening. I’m more terrified than I realized about losing one more person. That’s part of why I feel so on edge all the time. I didn’t realize that, either. Losing Andy is and will be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and the hardest loss to work through. Losing him is also the end of the chain of losses that left me with no biological family. Working through each death and the effects will take so much time and effort. I know therapy will be very, very difficult. It’s also very, very necessary. Wish me luck, everyone.

Sometimes Therapists Hurt

I’ve heard quite a few horror stories about hurtful things members of the clergy, mental health professionals, and others in a great position to help have said to bereaved parents. We’ve all heard sayings that were meant to help, those trite clichés that people frequently use in part to make themselves feel better about a pain they can’t understand.  Honestly speaking, I still get bitter about things like that even though I know that, for the most part, everything was said with good intentions.  During our last session, my therapist pointed out that the only time I showed any sense of happiness was when I talked about my good memories of Andy.  She said it was almost like child equals happiness.

I wanted to scream at her.  Of *course* child equals happiness.  I am a *mother,* for heaven’s sakes, and that isn’t a role I’ve given up even though my child is gone.  It’s still the very center of my identity.

The therapist has never had children, so she can’t possibly understand even a fragment of what I’m going through.  Still, her tone of voice and facial expression indicated that she thought my equating Andy with happiness was an odd thing.  Child *does* equal happiness, and I’ve said before, any sort of happiness after your child has died is muted and seen through that heavy fog of grief.  We all know that, unless they have lost a child, those trying to help can never comprehend the complete and utter wreckage we face afterward.  All I ask is that people choose their words and actions carefully.

One Simple Phrase

‘I can see how you’d be good at that.’

It was my therapist’s response today when I told her how much I had loved doing the things a mother does for her child. It meant so very much to me. My therapist never met my son, nor did she know me when he was alive. Yet just from talking with me about him, she discerned that I had been a good mother.

Sometimes I feel like such a failure. Andy was my *child*, after all. I was supposed to protect him. In one simple sentence, for just a little bit there, the therapist helped to take away that sense of blame. I *was* a good mother, but sometimes I think it’s easier to blame myself than to truly look at the randomness of the situation. Grief is so complicated.