Going through the Motions

This is another article found on the Silent Grief website. The original article appeared at:http://www.silentgrief.com/articles/index.cgi?view_records=1&Category=Loss+Of+A+Young+Child&ID=25

I, too, feel a lot like this. That's one of the reasons that even though I sometimes don't WANT to leave the house I try to leave anyway and do different things. I know that I'm not alone in this, others going through similar things have told me the same thing.

I'm afraid that people invite us out or invite us to do things and they might actually get offended we turn them down, but the fact of the matter is, there are some days when we just CAN'T leave. Or we do and we have panic or grief attacks. Like at that author reading the other night, which really should have been pretty easy to me. For now, I just have to say that it's not personal and that we still like to get invitations but if we can't come it's not because we don't like you or think you smell. In fact, I've cried because I've wanted to go to things but couldn't. Some days, it's all I can do to go to work and all that entails for me is getting out of bed and walking down the hallway to my office!

So here is an article that might give some insight into some of these things.


Going Through the Motions
Written by Clara Hinton | Oct 07, 2001
When a young child dies, the impact of the loss on a parent is devastating. American society allows only a few days off from work to recognize the death, and then life is soon supposed to take on the look and feel of normalcy in a very rapid time. Grief doesn’t work that way!

Many times, parents will say that entering the house where their child once walked and talked and played is an overwhelming grief. Their entire world has been torn apart, and nothing seems to make sense any more. Simple tasks such as getting dressed, brushing teeth, and combing hair are major chores for the parent who is experiencing the early stages of deep, unrelenting grief.

After a few weeks of feeling numb and just bumping around through the daily routine of life, parents realize that they are not functioning well. Decision-making is difficult. It is a major ordeal to organize thoughts enough to do the marketing and to try to put together a meal. It is extremely difficult to remember such things as walking the dog or remembering to pay the bills. A parent in deep grief realizes these difficulties exist, but feels powerless to change the situation.

Going through the motions of the everyday activities of living is quite difficult for a parent who has lost a young child. Because it is so totally out of the normal text of life for a child to die, life feels like it is whirling out of control. Nothing makes much sense. Yet, the fact remains that the daily activities of living must continue on in spite of the inability to function at regular speed. A parent is still required to perform duties at work and at home, when, in fact, most days it feels like all you can do is move through the motions, falling into bed at the end of the day in tears.

Going through the motions without feelings is quite normal in the early stages of grief following the death of a young child. We often fall into the trap of believing that we should snap to it and get back to normal living in a few weeks. When life has been torn apart, it takes time to pick up the broken pieces and move on. Grief is hard work and drains every area of our living.

Parents need to remind themselves each day that this lack of feeling joy and the inability to concentrate will not last forever. It is common for parents to look back on the first year following the death of their child and wonder how they managed to get through those first several months. They can’t remember very much of anything. Life, in general, can be described as a big blur. Parents will say they lived in a fog and don’t remember much of anything.

When does this numb feeling end? When does a parent begin doing more than just go through the motions? There is no exact time when enthusiasm for living begins to return. You will begin noticing subtle changes that will tell you that you are on the path to healing. Slowly, but surely, you will begin to keep appointments. You will remember to pay the bills on time. You will be able to make decisions about what clothes to wear and what food to prepare for the day. Getting out of bed in the morning is something you want to do. You will notice the beauty in a sunrise.

Part of a parent dies when a young child dies. You will feel like you are only going through the motions of living for a long time. Remember that grief is one step at a time, and one day at a time. Sometimes, we only manage one hour at a time. The good news is that each amount of time is a minute closer to your own personal journey of healing. And, that day will surely come!

Another Late Night

October 14, 2010

I have also updated my Travels and Rambles blog. The most recent post regards my thoughts about writers. You can find the link to that blog on this page as well.

Someone asked Mom the other day if things were getting “better” at our house and she didn’t know how to answer that. Is it better that time has gone by? Are we eating better? Sleeping better? It’s almost like we have to re-learn how to communicate with people.

Like today, I posted on FB about how now at this point Toby has been dead longer than he was alive and someone wrote in and said “But your memories will last forever.” Like it was a Hallmark Greeting card or something. And I KNOW that shouldn’t make me upset and that the person was honestly just trying to be helpful, yet I felt my blood rise. Why?

Maybe because it was such a simple, meaningless thing to say. Some offhand comment that could be said about anything, even in jest. And maybe because memories do last forever-even the bad ones. I will never forget the look of him after he died, once lividity had set in. When his cheeks and tongue were blue and the blood was pooling in his arms, leaving white splotches on his elbows and fingers. Or how that little line of blood trickled out of his mouth from where they had put the tube in and no matter how I kept wiping it away, it kept coming back. Those memories won’t go away either.

I need space from people, but I need to see people, too. I have so much anxiety that it’s unbelievable. Last night I went to a reading by an author I liked and in the middle of it I had a panic attack. I had the attack because a woman who had been at the Grailville retreat, where we had Toby with us, was in the audience and didn’t recognize me. She had no idea who I was, even though I had invited HER to the event last night and I even reminded her that I had been the one at the retreat with the baby. Still, not a trace of recognition.

The attacks come on slowly and coldly. I don’t think I’m having a heart attack and I don’t feel the walls closing in on me. But I do feel coldness and deepness and everything seems so big. The room feels big, the chair feels big-even I feel big. Maybe that’s why I like spending so much time in our pool room, because even though it’s the biggest room in the house, my sitting area with the couch is small and there is only one tiny window at the back of the room so it’s usually pretty dark. I can hunker on the couch, wrapped in blankets, and feel small. I can’t take the bigness.

We have Court Day this weekend and I am concerned about it. I don’t like being so far away from home and I don’t know about the crowds. A friend has invited us over afterwards and I don’t think I’ll be able to go. I get restless when I’m away and I’m not sure that I can handle being away all day and then, when we’re finished, not going straight home. After the event last night I very much felt the distance from our house and it bothered me and practically ate at me until we were on HWY 52 again, heading toward Irvine.

But yes, communication. It’s so difficult. I got in the car with my friend Melissa one day and just burst into tears. She carried like it was normal and drove to a store and bought me an Ale-8. She didn’t ask me if I needed it or wanted it or even ask me what was wrong and that was very helpful. I’m not being facetious-it really was helpful. Other people address it and want to talk about it or touch me and that just brings more attention to it and it makes me embarrassed.

I think about going to counseling and it worries me that my options here are limited. Some of the counselors have simple Psychology degrees and that would be like going to…Lynn. Good God. Then there’s the fact that I know a lot of the Comp. Care counselors because I used to work with them when I was on the other side of the fence. I need a good psychiatrist, not a counselor, but I haven’t found one. I am still going to do the group thing. Pete and I are planning on going to the session in November, if we don’t back out of it.

I wonder about things like Facebook and MySpace and my blog and how easy communication is on these things. How easy it is to send a virtual hug or a quick message or a simple text and then feel as though you’ve accomplished something and “reached out” to someone. I know I’m guilty of doing that myself. I have a whole stack of “thank you” cards to mail and I haven’t sent a single one, yet I’ve messaged people on FB and thanked them.

I wonder if I shut down all of my online access and turned off my phone if people would still come around. How much of an effort would be made then. Probably not much. I remember after Nana died that we had company for the first couple of weeks and then it slowly died down until we were rarely seeing anyone at all. People move on with their lives and when you can’t keep up with them, they just move on without you. I saw that when I was pregnant, too.

I’m not feeling particularly sad tonight. I’m just thinking about things in different ways. I slept for most of the day today because I had a bad night last night and stayed up all night. I was thinking about Pete’s friend Tom who apparently got “so upset” at something that he wrote that he “had to go for a run.” Yet I got so upset about what he and his girlfriend were writing to me and Pete that I cut my wrists. Perspective. And giving people too much power when they really don’t mean a damn to me. And when his girlfriend wrote that I was a “piece of work” and “couldn’t even blame it on grief” I took that badly. Hell, who wouldn’t? But then, I stopped and realized (okay, so this was weeks later) that she had written that to someone who had just lost their child. What kind of person does THAT? And what could she blame her ignorant immaturity on? Perspective. When one of my friends suggested that we go over and kick some British ass I laughed and said that I had met those people before and wasn’t impressed and that we should use our money instead to go to Spain because I had been there too and that was really something to see. The more I thought about it, and the more I thought about them, the more I realized that it was just words. Meaningless words written on a computer screen. There was no thought behind them, no idea of the harm they might be causing, of the long term effects that might be hindering. Just words. From people that are about as real to me as a character in a novel. Actually, I’ve read novels where the characters had more personality and were more drawn out.

Pete’s sister asked Pete how he dealt with it when people told him that he needed to move on and get on with his life. I know how I would deal with it. I would tell them to fuck off. Of course, I would do it publicly, in my blog, and cause a lot of trouble in the process. But of course, I’ve written that before. Still, it was worth repeating. It’s just words. Nobody can make you move on, regroup, or feel anything that you don’t already want to do or feel. When we stop giving people the power over us to make us feel things or act in a certain way then we can really start the process of dealing with our grief. But we can’t do that as long as we keep letting other people influence us.

I have learned that when it comes to a lot of things that people are saying or doing, it’s about them and not about us. When people tell us to move on it’s because they feel uncomfortable with our situation. When people tell us where Toby is right now (in heaven, floating around as an angel, reincarnated, or still in the house) it’s because their own beliefs are comforting to them. And that’s fine.

But I think this is a personal matter and it’s about me, too. So maybe I can grow from this and hopefully not be as resentful as I have been in the past. The astrologer told me and Pete that we might be going to England after Christmas and Pete said, “I hope not” at the same time that I said “I don’t think so.” Sometimes, in order to move forward you have to disconnect from the ones that are bringing you negativity. That I learned even before Toby died.