Shame Pain

Have you ever looked at old pictures, remembering how good it was and pining for the past?

It's as if somewhere in time you forgot all of the things that you once were. Things change, people grow, captured moments in time sear your heart and the pangs ripple on somewhere deep in the conscious of your soul.

I can't even look at old photos anymore. 

They all just bring me regret. A big wave of shame washes over me as I remember the moments captured and what they could have been. But instead of being present in them, the memories of pain and of constantly trying to remove myself from the reality that I fought for years is prominent in my heart.

I made the decision to destroy my life because something deep inside of me knew that it would never be the same. I thought I had it perfect. I thought I was going with the flow so well. It didn't seem fair that in an instant my life would never be what I wanted it to be.

All of every dream and hope I ever had was washed away in less than an instant.

The photos of the last nine years are memories that every time I smiled into the camera, that every pixel that if I were anyone else would look as if my life was good and that I was happy, hide the fact that I spent the majority of those years self-destructing.  And not only that, I took the people closest to me with me.

As if my destruction needed to be shared.

My family stands now. But we are not unscathed. We are not untouched by my stubborn determination to cling to and have the life that I should have gotten, the life I wanted. And I am the only one to blame.

It's not that I feel entitled to any specific life. I don't. I wasn't expecting to be such a young mother. I wasn't expecting to be such a young wife. But I rolled with it. I allowed it. I had a good attitude. You'd think that would account for something...

But all of the photos of my boys growing, all of the photos of when they were babies, don't show me the joy and the fun of raising newborns and toddlers like the erroneous images would imply.

All I see when I look at those photos is the shame. The self destruction. The unwillingness to accept that my life was forever changed and that I fought it. I fought reality with destruction. And the stabbing knife of the hands of the clock finally caught up with me.

Now all I have for the past is the shame. Now all I see in the photos is the way I rebelled against the universe, only smiting myself the entire time. Only wasting my precious time that my daughter got so little of.  

Now I don't have the good, "normal"  memories of my family and my boys growing up.

I'm left with the bittersweet taste of shame and self hatred. I thought of all the things...I thought I could get through...Everyone thought that I was so strong. When really, I was just bringing everyone down with me. 

I don't know if I deserve to live. Maybe it should have been her instead of me. I lost not only her, but myself, I lost not only myself but memories that could have been good.

No wonder I've been thinking about death a lot lately.  No wonder I believe I deserve to die.

Grief Pains

Acceptance is so hard. 

Someone asked me what grief was like right after I lost Sunflower. That is an excellent question for many reasons. One reason is that grief is complex.

Directly after all of the initial trauma and loss, I kept waiting for my life to get back to "normal".  I don't know what exactly I thought "normal" would be, or look like, or feel like. The loss was sudden and unexpected and had taken me by surprise.

It wasn't that life was better before I lost Sunflower. It wasn't that life was worse after I lost her. I felt unprepared to deal with such a devastating blow to my soul. The loss stopped me in my tracks. It seemed to have stopped my world from spinning even though everyone else's world kept going. Everyone kept functioning, nothing shut down for me or my daughter while I dangled mid- movement, waiting.

It was as if I was transcended in time, dangling there, while I watched the traffic of the world zoom by. I remained this way for years. It was like I was living my life in slow motion. My head and my heart weren't connected to my decisions. I watched myself live out a life that I thought was expected of me, while I felt like a zombie, dead and gone. 

I passively had two more children. I did what I needed to get through the day. I functioned all the while not really being present. I lived this way for years until very recently I opened my eyes. I realized that I was headed down the path of destruction.

I had been careful all of those years succeeding losing her to not blame her for my life. My life was a mess. The kind of mess that nobody wants to find themselves in and the black hole of destruction kept widening.

The numbing became habitual. It felt normal. But my actions proved that I was still descending that dark path of destruction. No one said anything. No one tried to stop me. I had to save myself.

It took me almost nine years to begin removing myself from the dark spiral threatening to consume me that would eventually take my life. I flung my eyelids open to the harsh reality of what the pain, despair, and numbing had allowed me to miss.

The memories of the past nine years weren't happy. I felt guilty that I had bailed on mothering my boys. I went through the motions like a puppet on a string for them, yes. But was I present at their birth? Do I have the fond memories of my babies' first years of life firmly in place in my mind? I don't. 

I tried not to allow the guilt of the last nine years to consume me. I opened my eyes and the pain flooded through me, filling me. The pain has been an undeniable presence in my life for the past seven months straight now. It is a constant and continuous reality. It probably will be for some time.

I began realizing the intensity, the magnitude this loss had had on me. Maybe I did the best I could. Maybe I did all that I could do. Maybe it was enough.

But I'm awake now and I'm ready to live. Even if living means with a continuous, constant pain and a never closing hole in my heart.

Healing Alone

I've been doing some trauma therapy work. It's fascinating to me how our brains, bodies, and beings are so capable of the information that we store.

In trauma, the memories are stored in the body. The memories are kind of like repressed memories. But they are stored physically and literally inside of the body.

In trauma therapy a client will do what is called reprocessing. This means exactly what it sounds like. Memories of the event or experience will be talked about or brought up to the level of consciousness and all of the emotions surrounding the trauma will become fresh and new as if it had just happened.

This reprocessing must be done in order to cope with the trauma effectively. If the work isn't done after a traumatic event, the body will employ coping mechanisms that may cover the issue up or avoid it, but not fully deal with it. This is how many times trauma can lead to drug or alcohol use and abuse.

Spiritual and emotional healing cannot happen without learning how to think about the trauma in new healthy ways.

I've been dealing with some raw emotions and experiences dealing with my reprocessing which means that the reprocessing is working and that I am doing the work to achieve healing.

But the work has been lonely and the nature of grief is to be and feel alone. I've found in my healing, I need to share with others. I've met others who tell me they do their best healing alone. But for me, I need to share to heal.

I've tried to reach out to attend a support group for parents who have specifically lost a baby. But there aren't very many options which is probably good. Maybe that means there aren't enough people who need a support group like this.

I hadn't reached out to find a group like this since directly after I lost Sunflower. About a month ago I spent a good amount of time on the phone trying to find a group. It is exactly what I went through directly after her loss.

I finally was able to reach someone who facilitated a support group for newborn and infant loss. She called me back. I felt worse after talking with her. To me, a support group would be an opportunity for us as humans to include others. To acknowledge our human rawness in that we all go through very similar emotions, traumas, and griefs.

But the woman on the phone was not out to include or to make me (or probably others) feel a part of something. She had an agenda and it was apparent by the questions she asked me. Maybe this is something I notice because of my sensitivities and maybe it doesn't bother the rest of the population. I don't know. But it didn't feel very good.

Sometimes I feel like I'm doing the best that I know how to under the circumstances. I would go out on a limb and say that that is probably how the majority of us feel the majority of the time. But it's when people who are supposed to be helpers come across as manipulative or like they have an agenda that it ruins what could have been something to save the world when they turn it into the same old hate and discrimination that we can all find anywhere and everywhere.

It's disappointing to me that it's more important for some people to live out their days being destructive with exclusion and judgments and to use something like an infant loss support group to basically in their own words tell people: No, your loss isn't as good as these other people's so you don't need help. Go do it on your own.

I'm sure the facilitator is not aware of herself enough to understand that what she is doing is destructive and harmful but needless to say I will be going through this alone. Again.

I just hope that this time I can work through the loneliness to come out healthier on the other side as it's apparent to me that the rest of the world still has no interest in allowing me into their inner circles. No matter what the "similarity" factors may be. 

Redefining Acceptance

Acceptance has always been hard for me. I think it's natural, as a human being for acceptance to be difficult. I see this in many different situations and scenarios and many different people. Most people have heard of the five stages of grief or the five stages of acceptance.

I'm finding out that accepting the loss of Sunflower means much more than simply accepting that she is no longer with me and that she never will be in this lifetime. Accepting losing her means that I have to learn how to accept myself with the part of her that I am missing.

She was very much a part of me. She is very much a part of me. She was a part of me in the way that all children are part of their parents. Both biologically and spiritually. She was a part of me in that she lived - she was alive - inside of me for nine whole months. That's not something neither my mind or body can deny.

Sunflower still is very much a part of me. She lives in my heart. The memories I have of her kicking my stomach or fluttering around inside of me are part me. The way that I got to know her as a person as she grew and my belly swelled is part of me.

Sunflower is and always will be a part of me. 

In accepting that she is physically gone and that she is not here sharing life with me I have the realization that accepting my loss means accepting myself the way that the loss changed me. Yes, I am still the very same person in many ways that I was before I even knew her and then lost her. I am an individual. I am Summer. I am still Summer.

But losing her meant losing part of myself. A part that I will never get back in this lifetime. Losing her meant that I lost some innocence. I learned that sometimes bad things happen to people for no logical reason. Losing her meant that even though I am not sad all of the time anymore, that I can become sad at sudden memories. Losing her means that even though I am the same me, I have changed and my philosophy of what it means to be alive has changed.

This is the part of me that I am finding difficult to accept. This is the part of acceptance that has been difficult for me to grasp all of these years. Accepting that losing my daughter has changed me and that the changes that occurred within me do not mean that I don't love her or miss her or feel any differently than I ever did, is the part of acceptance that I've struggled with.

I will always be myself. I will always be the same person since I was created. But the experience of losing Sunflower has also changed me in ways that I can never go back to before I lost her.

Accepting the loss of my daughter means accepting myself now in this moment. Accepting myself now, as a changed human from my experiences does not mean that I deny the experience. Accepting myself means accepting that life experiences change me and that it's a very common phenomenon in all living things.

We are made the same, we change, we adapt. That is life and even though the grief tricks me into thinking otherwise, I am not alone.

~s.h.