Friday's Faith - A Survival Key

Friday's Faith

A Survival Key

As we go through Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, we discover there are many opinions coming our way from people who really have no clue what our new world is like. Much less then could they intelligently advise us as to how to grapple with a world they could not comprehend, much less have a handle on. 

(Thursday's Therapy - Only a Few Really Know..), my last post, was about a knowledgable group of people coming up with illogical answers for our needs even though they are often considered to be "experts" in the (psychiatric / psychological) people-helping field. Such a professional faux pas serves as a drastic example that we, the survivors, or "invisible heroes" to our Child-Loss Grief and Trauma "war" simply must attune to our own hearts and souls for how then we must live. 

How many of us have had to correct our doctors or our therapists as to the true nature of what we are up against when they toss out superficial bandaids to our deep soul wounds?

Experts in the helping fields must remember two cardinal rules we (I am in that same helping field) must live by, and those are, First, "Do No Harm!" and Second, "Know What You Do Not Know!"

Walt Whitman Graphic, thanks to Dr. Joanne Cacciatore
"Invisible Heroes" - thanks to, Bellaruth Naparstek

Tuesday's Trust - Don't Mess with a Grieving Mother!

Tuesday's Trust

Don't Mess with a Grieving Mother!

Since your assumptive world has been torpedoed,

Who can you trust?

And what can you trust?

Compassionate Friends has been very good to repeatedly tell us vulnerable Child-Loss grievers,

"Don't let ANYONE 'should' all over you. YOU decide what's best for you at all times."

Coming off the holidays, then the death of my mother, I had been getting all kinds of pressure about what I "should" be doing. And now, we have had another family event, upon which there was going to be a family get-together over that event (with a different part of family than the previous-mentioned events), and bless glory, here come the manipulative guilt-trips again... And this, from a person I generally like pretty much, is a likable person, and is usually a fairly sensitive person, but not this time...

WHAT?! I honestly don't think I could be this clueless with a grieving mother even before I became one.

WHO do these people think they are, and why are my feelings being treated like so much mincemeat for them to just step over before they kick me in the heart?

Why does no one hear my "NO"!? Is it because "It just isn't the answer we wanted to hear, so let's ignore it?"

It seems there's a grandiose judgmentalism out there that others think they know how to run my life better than I do. And over what? A party?! You've got to be kidding me. NOTHING about that is sacred. These people are majoring on the minors, and we can't even get the majors figured out thank you. Leave us alone so we can please try to get the majors figured out. YOU handle your minors if you think they are ALL important.

I have a new scale in my life, and none of the hoopla matters. What matters is what is real.

What gets put through the meat grinder when you lose a child is

"The world is predictable, and I'm in control."

And the rebound effect of that is -

"Things are chaotic, and I am helpless."

My emotions are FULL, thank you. If I have room left over for other family issues, I'll let you know. But don't you DARE presume that things surely are hunky dory by now when I still can't even function, much less have room to fulfill your social obligations you have set up for me.

And that's all they are folks. Social obligations. They are not litmus tests for how much I love, I assure you.

How do we get it through people's heads, our lives have been turned upside down and inside out?

When this same person taunted me that she started to come to my house to sing Christmas carols over the holidays (when we weren't up for coming over to their house for a get-together!) just to get us to come out of the house, wisely my son told them that wouldn't be a good idea...

I assured her he was right, then told her when someone comes over to my house without calling first, I not only go to the door with a loaded gun, I go to the door with that gun loaded AND cocked. Don't mess with my PTSD that can signal DANGER at any turn...

BEST not to MESS with a GRIEVING MOTHER, period!

******

Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand. For the Lord is able to make him stand.

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God, and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord....

You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or, why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat... So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way... If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died...

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

~Romans 14:4-19 NIV

Picture thanks to FotoSearch.com