So I’m seeing a counsellor. I was a bit reluctant at first. Didn’t think I needed it (still don’t, really) as I didn’t really think there was anything wrong with me. I’m just grief-stricken, and as we’ve all come to learn, there aint no magic cure for that.
“But maybe she can give you some tools to help you through it,” people keep saying.
I dunno, maybe I’m seeing the wrong counsellor, but she’s not really giving me any tools, per se.
That said, she’s a nice woman, I get along with her, I like talking to her and she comes to my house which means I don’t have to put a bra on and go out anywhere. Oh, and Mum is paying for her. She insists.
She loves a metaphor though. And this one, has just stuck with me. Now I’ve just taken it all a bit further. In the spirit of having fun with metaphors.
She said when I was pregnant, I was on the highway, with the final destination, a happy healthy baby. But somewhere, towards the end of the highway, Simon and I took a wrong turn. A very wrong turn. And we got lost, real lost. Now we are driving around in the bush somewhere. Night has fallen and our headlights don’t work. We’re almost out of petrol and there’s no mobile phone reception. We’re desperately trying to find our way back to the highway, to get back on track to HappyTown.
Search parties have almost given up on us, but we haven’t given up yet.
Soon we’ll find our way back on to the highway, and we'll be heading for HappyTown.
Things will look and seem different once we arrive in HappyTown, but at least we’ll be there.
#MicroblogMondays: Olympic hangover
7 hours ago
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I don't know if Happy Town really exists after your baby dies. Maybe Sort-of-Happy Town. Maybe Mostly-Happy-Town. Maybe I-Have-Another-Baby-But-He/She-Does-Not-Fill-The-Void-In-My-Heart-Left-When-My-Baby-Died Town.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good thing you're seeing someone, as long as you want to...and as long as she (or he) understands that this kind of loss - the loss of losing a baby - is a different to other losses people might experience. I think this is key, actually.
I can say with my whole heart that I am the happiest I have ever been. River didn't fill the gap left in my heart though, and it will never be filled even if I had a hundred babies!
ReplyDeleteMy life has been incredibly rich in so many different aspects, I feel alive with all the emotion I feel. Christian taught me how to love..... and really live.
You will always be different Sally, you won't go back to old you but I think the new you is so beautiful and the future you is going to feel happiness again, true happiness.
Love you
Carly
That metaphor actually made me chuckle. Only because I think it oversimplifies what you are going through. I agree with C. Maybe you will get close, but I don't know about back. Maybe that takes more than a year though.
ReplyDeleteAnyway glad you are seeing someone as long as you want to. I kind of have the same feeling about my counselor but every now and then I find it useful. So I essentially keep her on retainer!
i think i agree with c and clc. i thought i was in happy town throughout my pregnancy and then as you we were hijacked onto the wrong road...to hell town. now i question whether happy town exists. i guess all the other women with their perfect healthy babies are there, but after this experience i don't think i'll ever be there like them or like i would have been without this loss. it is a life changing experience. and that said...i've heard from some that through the grief, the sadness, the anger we will come to know a different kind of happiness, perhaps more real, perhaps more tainted, but this is the path our life has taken and we are just along for the ride.
ReplyDeleteit's good to have the goal of being happy again. you will get there somehow in your own time.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not about getting back on the highway we were on - you know, the one that's most likely been blown to bits by now - but finding the new highway that is going to take us somewhere we never dreamed existed. And that new destination isn't always an easy fun place, but it is a place where we learn, grow, and get stretched way beyond the limits we always thought we had around us. (Hopefully along the way, we might also get a new car.)
ReplyDeleteas the cheif of the search party, i have the job the help bring you back to 'happy town' or whatever town you want to go to. my co-cheif and i (mum) have not and will not ever give up on you or simon or hope. we are here to guide back to the path - the path to Hope...... the road is long, but we have supplies. if you ever feel like you cant make it, turn around and see the torch light beaming through the darkness. thats me and mum.
ReplyDeletewe are here and we will never give up on hope.
love fiona.
xoxox
Oh, I just wanted to say that Fiona you are the best!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I went to a greif counselor.
ReplyDelete1. We wanted to make sure we were handling things in a healthy way.
2. We went together. We share our feelings and htoughts, but some things still came out that hadn't been discussed before.
3. I finally figured out that these talk therapy types will just listen if you are talking. But then, THEN, I asked her how I could stop my thoughts from going into darkness, and she told me several techniques to try. The clue is, you might have to ask her. But maybe you don't know what you need to ask her yet.
4. We stopped going when it became stressful for the time. (And the stress of thinking about going). And we wanted to save the rest of our insurance-paid appts for 'when we really needed them". But she is on retainer for when we TTC again.
5. I think this is surely a time for guidance - who knows how to handle and get through this?