Posts
Thursday's Therapy
Unpackaging
the Princes' Top 10 TRUTHS
About Child-Loss Grief
#2 NOBODY ELSE "GETS IT"!
~
The Second Injury
We are walking around with no skin on. We are walking around with our hearts shattered. We are walking around with a depth of pain that defies all emotional scales to even weigh it. The pain is so large and so deep, we often excuse people for not climbing into it with us.
We are managing, barely. We have lost the selves we were before our child's death. That is how catastrophic and earth-shattering our loss has been for us.
And then a person happens upon us, a friend or a family member. One we care about. One we assume cares about us. One we assume feels for us even if he or she cannot express it.
And, BLAM!
We bypass,
"How ARE you doing?"
We bypass,
"I think about you and pray for you daily."
We bypass,
"I wish there were something I could do for you to ease your pain."
We may even bypass
inane niceties.
We bypass
ANY acknowledgment of our child at all.
When,
Blam!
--From out of the blue--
They ASSAULT us!
Not our bodies. That we might could fend off. No, they assault the most vulnerable part of our being.
They ASSAULT our hearts.
As bad as our pain already is, we immediately feel
Re-Victimized,
Re-Traumatized,
Assaulted.
And Not by an enemy.
But by a friend.
By a family member.
By a church member.
By a doctor.
By a preacher.
By a counselor.
~People in a position (we thought) were supposedly there to help us, even if only by a little, at least there to try to help us.
But No. No help. Instead there's a BLAST.
A venomous strike of poison aimed right at our hearts.
It's more like the proverbial venomous Racial Prejudice that is coming at us.
YOU are not allowed to have a VOICE.
YOU have NO RIGHTS.
YOU need to be put back in YOUR PLACE.
There is a huge stamp of
WRONG. INVALID. PAST DUE. OVER.
Your pain is not happening.
You had no great loss.
You have no right to sadness.
You have no right to love your deceased child.
Your pain does not exist~What are you moping around for?
You're choosing to fixate on what we deem has GONE.
It's UNIMPORTANT.
It DOES NOT MATTER.
Since it's OVER for us, it should be OVER for you.
{This pain that we are barely able to muddle through, this person is suggesting either directly or by a not-so-subtle innuendo,
Your pain is MADE UP, CONTRIVED, or BEING "HELD ONTO," that we are CHOOSING NOT to "MOVE ON."
Whoever said 'MOVE ON" was the great end-all of grief anyway? THIS CHILD we bore, bonded to, loved with all our heart...our goal, according to them... should be
"TO MOVE ON FROM"???!!!}
SMACK!
It's an assault on a heart that has already been blasted out of the waters. And now, it has been inexplicably hit with a sledgehammer by one whom we THOUGHT it was safe to be around.
Injured.
Hurt.
Devastated.
And now, we've got to retreat, get away as best we can --
To continue to mourn our great loss of our child,
And now mourn the blast of one we loved,
And now face the loss of the outside world that we THOUGHT would be there for us, ever ready to LOVE us, or SUPPORT us, or COMFORT us, should we express a need for their support.
It is the Second Injury.
The First Injury, the loss of our child, has bowled us over.
The Second Injury is a loss piled on our already Huge Loss.
Is it possibly the loss that becomes
"The Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back"?
Sometimes. The current grief research finds it IS often harder to grapple with than our original loss and trauma. . .
What do you say?
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