Child Loss - A Different Dimension of Grief

“I’m trying to deal with multiple losses. Actually my child died many years ago, but every time I lose someone else, it seems like I’ve lost her all over again. I have many good days now, but have never gotten over her death. I am not the same person I used to be – maybe people think I am, but I’m not inside. Sometimes my heart will start aching for her and I can’t even figure out what triggered it. The grief still comes and goes. Not to discredit the grief I’ve experienced with other people I’ve loved and lost, but I haven’t recovered the same way from losing my daughter. It seems it is always with me.”


CHILD LOSS BRINGS A GRIEF OF A DIFFERENT DIMENSION
My sympathy is with you for your losses. I’ve also lost many relatives and friends since 1999, as well as had a streak of rather bad luck or whatever you want to call it (car accident, motorcycle accident, divorce, shingles, fall down two flights of stairs & dislocated shoulder, surgeries, loss of my business….).

Multiple losses, changes in our lives, our previous life experiences, the type of support we have available, and our level of determination to fight to get back “into the stream” of life all have an affect on our grief and our ability to cope with it. It can be complicated by our health, anxiety and depression, finances, guilt, fear, and unresolved relationships. I had never experienced child loss before, so I am only learning as I go, but I agree pretty much with every mother and father who has lost a child, it is a grief of a different dimension than other griefs.

EVERY LOSS, OR CHANGE, BRINGS GRIEF THAT TUGS ON PREVIOUS WOUNDS

Every time we lose something or something changes, there is a loss. I think of little losses as pin prinks to our hearts – sometimes they are so quick, we hardly notice them and we recover from them with little or no scarring at all. Sometimes larger or more meaningful losses occur and bigger holes are made – sometimes they take a little longer to heal and there may be some scarring, but generally the scarring will fade away.When it comes to people and pets, the gashes in our hearts are much bigger and more ragged edged. The closer the person was to us, the more meaningful the pet was to us, the deeper the gash. Because it’s not a quick prick or a clean cut, damage is done to the area around it as well. It is much more painful and the pain is much stronger and longer lasting. The more complicated the grief (multiple griefs, anger, unresolved problems, guilt, etc), the harder it is for the area to scab over and the scar tissue to begin growing.

Because there are so many “touchpoints” (reminders in our daily lives and thoughts) about our loved ones, we often break open the scabs repetitively. Thicker, less flexible, scar tissue begins to formeventually – but the area is always tender. Each time we get another wound, it pulls and tugs on the previous scar tissue, causing it to become inflamed and painful again.

THE WOUND FROM CHILD LOSS IS PERMANENTLY SENSITIVE

With a child loss, I envision the grief as a huge gaping hole right through the heart – because it is so huge and so much tissue is lost, the scabs must cover so much area inside the tunnel as well as the outside – there is so much more area that is susceptible to breaking open again. It takes much, much longer for the scar tissue to form. The damage around the hole is moresignificant and wide spread. It pulls and tugs on every single big or little scar we’ve already incurred in life. The gape never completely fills in. The nerves around the wound are permanently disturbed and reactive. Memories, stress, tiredness, changes in our lives, and future wounds, big or small losses, will undoubtedly trigger a child-loss wound to painfully ache and throb again as they either pull on the unmovable, unflexible scars of the wound itself, redamage the affected area, or stimulate the pain nerves surrounding the wound. In other words, as I see it, a child-loss wound never completely heals.

WE MAY FIND WE ARE PERMANENTLY CHANGED

We learn to live with the wound. We learn to take hikes again in our lives, but we stop and rest more frequently. We don’t run quite as fast. Perhaps we might still climb some steep hills, maybe even some mountains, but we are most observant about our footholds and we tend to try to find secure things to hold on to. We are a little more quiet. We are much more observant. Other people seem to zoom on past up, and we feel we are in slow motion most of the time. Like arthritis can bother some people daily and others seasonally, sometimes after a strenuous or stressful day, other times when the weather is cold or they are feeling ill or fatigued, our wounds tend to ache and throb without rhythm or schedule or reason sometimes.

CARE OF SELF IS MANDATORY – MENTAL AND PHYSICAL GRIEF THERAPY

Basics like eating healthily, trying to get into a good routine of sleeping/waking hours, and getting daily fresh air and exercise are vital for managing our pain. Sometimes medication might be needed (antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, sleeping aids – see a doctor for assistance in determining what might help you).

Mental therapy (counseling, support groups, journaling our thoughts, expressing our grief, etc) is usually needed.

Physical therapy is also a good idea – doing something about your depression and grief. For me, physical therapy for grief includes listing the things I need to get done as far as errands, chores, employment responsibilities, family interaction and working on them each day, a little more each day. It also involves listing the things I want to do (getting active again socially, entertaining, going out, crafting, improving my home and atmosphere, getting back into better physical condition) and working on those things a little every day or every other day, a little more each day.

GRIEF WORK HELPS BRING SOME FOCUS AND PURPOSE TO OUR LIVES

It also means, for me, finding my grief work or different types of grief work that I can do (one time projects or ongoing ones). For me, grief work is working on scrapbooks for my son’s two daughters, working on his memorial site and that of my boyfriend’s, writing stories of my son’s life as they come to mind to share with his children, donating to the diabetesassociation and, eventually, helping to fund raise to find new treatments or cures. It has also now grown to include to trying to be a support to others who are grieving. For others it might be pledging to do a good dead in the name of their loved one every day or once a week, or helping to raise funds and/or build a new playground for children. Perhaps doing a walkathon or race for pledges to a specific cause in memory of their loved one. It could be planting wild flower seeds wherever you go or planting a little garden in an area of your yard in tribute. Maybe putting a bench someplace in your yard for reflective moments. It could be building ramps for the handicapped or helping to build homes for the homeless. It could be knitting prayer shawls for others in grief or baby blankets for preemies or to give to unwed mothers. It could be helping with a food drive for the hungry.

I seriously think that finding one’s “grief work”, whether it is a one-time effort or a short term project , an annual event, or an ongoing work, or a variety of tasks and projects, is very important to our souls. It helps me to keep focused and it is helping me, slowly but surely, helping me rejoin the human race as a participant rather than someone just watching from the sidelines. I have not plunged back in … I am taking small, considered steps forward. There are days that I relapse and feel physically and mentally tired (and this is something that happens more frequently now since loss than before even when I overworked myself) that I just can’t get anything done.

YOU GOTTA KEEP TRYING, EVERY DAY, ONE STEP AT A TIME

I definitely have to fight depression. It definitely does nothing to bring my son or other loved ones back. But it isn’t something I can just dismiss –it seems to be entwined in me and hampers my efforts to move forward. But I keep on trying. A little more each day. One step at a time.