A number of years ago I got out of a long relationship. At the time I was also between jobs and my car had just passed 300,000 miles and was hinting that it didn’t want to do too many more. It was definitely a dark period in my life.
When I left the relationship, my friend offered me her couch and her daughter’s bed on the weeks her kids were with their dad. Here’s what she told me:
“You can stay here as long as you need and for the next two weeks you can do whatever you need to do. You can stay in bed all day, eat pizza, drink wine, not shower, and never change out of your PJs. You can sob into your pillow all night and sleep all day, if that’s what you need to do.
“But you have two weeks, and after that, you have to get up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and figure out how you’re going to start putting your life back together.”
At the time I thought she was being unreasonable, expecting me to get over this in two weeks. But that wasn’t what she was saying, and as it turned out, she did me a huge favor.
I did stay in bed and feel sorry for myself for much of those two weeks. But then I got up, found myself a crappy job (Telemarketing! It was the pits) that got me out of the house, earning a bit of money, and on the road to finding a less crappy job, and a place to live, and eventually, making me desirable enough to find a new relationship.
My friend’s tough love changed my philosophy about grief and I’ve shared it with other people since. If you’re in a place now where you feel as if you’re never going to get over not being able to have children, that your life is going to be the pits from this point forward, give yourself some time. You might not be able to stay in bed for two weeks, but can you clear your calendar of non-essential obligations? Can you line up movies or books and just give yourself permission to feel sorry for yourself? Can you make some time and space to just feel bad and to grieve?
If so, do it. But put a big circle on your calendar for two weeks from now, or however long you can take, and that’s the day you have to get up and figure out how you’re going to start making peace with this.
Look around the site and find some tips and support, buy a book on loss and grief and read it, make a plan for the future that’s something you’ve always wanted to do. Take a small step, just one, and start the process.
It’s going to take a lot longer than two weeks to “get over” this, but you have to start somewhere and you have to start sometime.
If you’re looking for some solace and an understanding voice, I hope you’ve had chance to check out the Holiday Companion. It’s available from this site as both a full-color and printable PDF, and now also available as an ebook on Amazon.
I’m a big proponent of what I call the Wallow Day. After each of my failed IVFs and every time I found out my ovarian cancer was back and I was going to have yet another surgery, I allowed myself a Wallow Day. Those days are carefully planned, with the wine rack stocked and usually a dozen cupcakes from a fancy cupcake bakery. For one day I allowed myself to wallow in my misery, stuff myself with bad for me food, and drink myself silly. Then I had to get up the next day, take a shower, and get on with my life. Same idea as the two week wallow, but more compact.
However long one chooses to wallow, I totally agree with you that it’s necessary and also that you need to set a time limit on it for your own good.
It definitely helped to have time off to grieve. I also made a short list of things of specific things to do (e.g. drive car to car wash, watch movie), so I knew I could accomplish things and to pull me out of my bed. Now, the grief comes in little waves but I can stand up on my own two feet. I couldn’t have pictured that a year ago.
I agree it’s important to set a deadline for yourself or you can really get stuck in the depression phase of grief. A few months ago I started trying to focus on what I have and to embrace my life, and it has really helped — I really feeling like I am moving forward. In the spirit of the approaching holiday, I am going to create a post in the community section so that we can all express what we are grateful for. Please check it out and come to it if you need support over the holiday.