The two raging fires that seem to underlie all bereaved parents grief are profound sense of incompleteness and a deep sadness over lost opportunities. When a relationship with our child ended, our first reaction is panic and disbelief. The pain of our hearts breaking is so excruciating that our minds have no way to contain the chaotic onrush of thoughts and emotions. We scream, we rage, we cry, we pace back and forth. Our minds feel like their very substance is unraveling. Our skin crawls. Our body feels like a prison. Our stomach hurts. Our chest tightens. We are tortured, terrified. Our thoughts begin to race in frantic, irrational, spiraling patterns. We bounce back and forth between desperate disbelief and terrifying certainty. We seek some way to blame ourselves. What could we have done differently? What could our child have done differently? What could the medical community have done differently? Why didn’t the therapist see this coming? Why wasn’t I there? Why didn’t they give him better care? Why weren’t they more attentive? Then the onrush of “what-ifs?” If only he hadn’t bought that fast car. If only I had been there. If only her diet had been different. If only he had gotten more exercise. If only he had never met that awful woman who…....If only she had never touched that first glass of scotch, that first narcotic. If only he hadn’t gone there……if only I had been there. If only the doctor had acted sooner. If only I had recognized the signs sooner. The heart finds no refuge in the mind; the mind finds no comfort in the shattered heart. Why did this have to happen now? How will I go on? Why should I go on? I can’t take this pain. I don’t want to live. I can’t live without him. I don’t want to live without my child. My life will never be happy again. We never got to take that trip. Couldn’t we have had one last dinner together…? Why didn’t I ever tell her that I…....? Why couldn’t he ever take responsibility for….…? We lie awake at night tormented by our thoughts of injustice and our sense of self hatred,replaying the events over and over again, trying to reprogram a different, more satisfying ending. The sunrise brings only a small respite from the dark despair. We are exhausted. But the mind won’t stop racing. It’s never been stronger nor more willful. It insists on searching for a way out, a happy ending. And it insists on placing blame somewhere, on something, on someone – mainly on ourselves. Ultimately we become depleted. And our panic turns to numbness. From within the numbness we look out on our lives with dispassion and disinterest. We have found a way not to care. We stumble around in a daze, only partially alive, but temporarily free of the agonizing pain of resisting change and loss. The most popular responses to grief in our society are methods designed to distract our attention away from the pain. We busy ourselves with other, less emotionally charged matters. I have come to understand that fighting against what happened to us in life only exacerbates our suffering.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 00:55:27 +0000
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