With any kind of grief, there comes a point where those around you expect you to be over it. For many of us, that point comes just as the full impact of loss is hitting us and we are far from okay. So here’s this week’s topic:
The pressure to “get over” your loss
Have you felt that pressure from those around you?
Yes, I feel the pressure and it’s awful! My friends just ignored the fact that I have feelings. One of my friends asked me to help her in the organization of a baby shower…no compassion at all. Btw: she never organized a birthday party for me…
That’s why I am working on a new set of friends.
I’m sorry about your friends. I don’t know if this makes you feel any better, but I think most of us lose our friends and have to make new ones. I don’t know why they can’t be supportive, but they rarely are.
Thank you Stephanie!
This is so true.. One by one friends keep vanishing, really good ones! Ones who once understood our plight.. who got pregnant and are on their life path now.. we definitely have to make new ones!
Sad but true…
My boyfriend tolerates my down moods sometimes. Other times he can be insensitive.
He has 3 kids from his first marriage and does not want more. We met 3 years ago.
I’m 40 and reality of my circumstantial infertility is hitting me like a wall. I’ve always dreamed of being a mom not a step-mother… why could I not find a suitable partner earlier in life ? 🙁
Oh that question “why could I not…” it has followed me and affected so many things in my life, it made me loose my self confidence and self respect.
We’re in similar situations, I met my partner when I was 39. I’ll be 50 next week.
He was 44, had two children and did not want more.
Be gentle with yourself, be gentle, and know it isn’t you, it’s this lovely, wonderful, unfair, difficult life we’ve been given!
I think it was my in-laws and my sister-in-laws that were the worse. Rather than stepping up and saying something about how I felt and how much pain (emotionally) I was in I checked out of the family dynamic- I checked out of birthday parties for their children, Christmas and everything else. I was fortunate that my husband felt the saw way. Looking back I realized now that they were probably unaware of what was going on since neither of them (my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws) had never suffered or dealt with infertility. It was something that happened to other people not people in the family. Also I wasn’t strong enough to speak up and say what I needed. The emotions were too raw.
So true!
Grief is not something you “get over” but something you learn to live with. But when others do not know we are grieving or dismiss it, our pain is to be suffered in silence. I have had others say that you must count your blessings, you’re married and have family and friends that love you. Yes, I am blessed but it still doesn’t take away the daily pain infertility causes. It seems the only people that give me any support are those that have walked in my shoes. We do not grieve a physical real child that has passed but a dream that never dies. Birth, childhood, the dreaded teen years, graduations, birthdays, grandchildren, and when we come to our twilight years, knowing that hopefully our children will take care of us. We have to “let go” year after year, month after month, day after day, moment by moment. It can be a lonely walk to “get over”.
thank you Cathy, your words sum it up for all of us.
Very well put Cathy. “We have to ‘let go’ year after year, month after month, day after day, moment by moment.” Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for putting my own thoughts into words.
Yes – such a good post and so many comments that resonate – particularly Cathy – “day after day, year after year”, “moment to moment” – so true, it never leaves us. When you resolve one element a fresh wave of pain emerges. No wonder we don’t “get over this”, its not even like the death of a close friend or parent. When I lost my father, I had so many memories (good and the bad) and the years he was here they all helped to balance the loss. There is no balance with the loss of the children we were denied. I just don’t think anyone but “us” can comprehend the magnitude of our loss and the impact on our daily lives forever.
So true and relate-able are your words Cathy! Yes i feel blessed too, but the daily pain is really something that pulls me down too!
May God give us more strength.. Love to all.
No, I never felt any pressure, because no one has ever known about my grief, I’ve never talked about it to anyone but my current partner and he has not expressed any surprise, yet anyway, about it not ending.