According to Fitzpatrick We often think of grief as something we experience only when a loved one dies. But when you loose something that you are attached too, something really precious, your heart gets crushed and you suffer pain and symptoms that are only relatable to grief.
The loss around Infertility centres around letting go of the dream of motherhood.
But the grief of Infertility is a private grief that can go unsupported, adding to the difficulty of carrying that loss. It means having to go on with life with no one knowing what you’re dealing with.
Someone who has experienced a miscarriage, or someone whose adoption hopes were dashed still has to show up at a child’s birthday party or at the meeting with no one having a clue of their private sorrow. It’s the particular loneliness of the secret grief that hurts even more.
Where a loved one is present, but his or her mind is not. The longing for what used to be can hurt so deep as you sit next to them, wanting to hear the advice , the stories, the laughter and the joy you once shared. Unfortunately the brain doesn’t give them the privilege to remember or be wise, intelligent and articulate as they once were. All they can do is cling to the barest threads of who they used to be: Dementia brings grief that can take a lifetime to heal
Studies show that 25% of children from divorce families show psychological and academic difficulties as they progress in life. (This is not to say, families who have chosen the option of divorce especially in cases of domestic violence or child abuse are wrong). However, research by P. BOSS states that ambiguous loss is the most difficult loss people face and that “absence and presence are psychological “.
A child that has no contact with a divorced parent or children with a parent who has dissociative amnesia, depersonalisation or dissociative identity disorder also experience loss. Unlike death, an ambiguous loss remains unresolved and so never allows a person achieve closure.
Ambiguity complicates loss, like in Tanya’s case, she was not sure if she was loved or if she had lost her mums love. She was like a person left in a state of confusion ,plummeting from hope to hopelessness and back again. The effects of this are debilitating and the effect on mental health are tremendous . Going further into the future , she continues to inflict this pain of loss on herself. Each friendship that is lost, each relationship that is destroyed throws her back into that abyss of confusion. Was I ever loved?
Research again shows that, it is not the situation that induces trauma but how that situation is being experienced that leaves children with reactions associated to grief and PTSD. And unless one can see through this pain, what is visible is only the mask that gives the courage for resilience.
I love this mandate for treatment of traumatised and grieving children coined by Steele and Kuban; “If you don’t think what I think, feel what I feel, experience what I experience, and see what I see , when I look at myself, others and the world around me, how can you possibly know what is best for me?”