Well we’re very nearly there as this week hopefully our nearly two year long battle for answers about what happened to our daughter Violet and caused her untimely death will come to the fore.
Inquest
Ever since she died suddenly on 26th September 2016 we have been chasing hospitals, lodging complaints, hounding for the release of medical records, researching the strange medical terminology and random disease mentions that appear in her post mortem report and waiting for the coroner to finally set a date for the inquest hearing. Finally after over 18 months we got a date and it is this week.
Will this be the light at the end of our tunnel? (photos taken beneath a glacier in Iceland)
AvMA
Fortunately a legal charity called AvMA have now agreed to support us with a barrister to act as our mouthpiece during the hearing and she will ask questions on our behalf. We are so relieved about this as were dreading having to question witnesses ourselves. She has also offered to read out my witness statement on my behalf and this has lifted a lot of my dread, as I was worried it would be too traumatic to stand and relive these moments in the courtroom although I know some parents can find this somewhat cathartic.
Questions for barristers
My husband and I spent time this weekend drafting questions for our barrister that we would ideally like to be addressed and it is traumatic thinking again about our precious daughter’s last days and moments. Running through all the “what ifs” in our heads that we know may or may not be answered with any certainty.
Stress and worry
The stress and worry about this week has actually given me a mental block to my writing so apologies for no recent insightful blog posts.
I do have lots of lovely more uplifting things to write about and post, involving travel to amazing places but at the moment these seem too trivial and frivolous to me to be able to focus on when we have more serious emotional events looming.
Stay tuned and I’ll hopefully be able to check in with you all in a week’s time having discovered the light at the end of the tunnel.
Delivering the wonderful news that you are expecting a baby is usually a happy time and I’ve seen people make announcements in the most creative ways via social media. Including an older sibling announcing they are going to be a big brother or sister, a written sign in front of a pet dog, a cutesy family cartoon and even an eviction notice on the side of an older siblings cot. There are of course those that simply post the classic 12-week scan photo with their announcement.
Arthur’s scan photo
Baby news can be a kick in the teeth
For those of us who have lost babies, or perhaps are struggling to conceive a much desired baby, seeing these posts can feel like a real kick in the teeth or like rubbing salt into our open wounds. Of course we are delighted by the announcement and pleased that someone else, a friend or family member, has good news to announce but it still stings.
Violet in hospital
Personal rather than social media
We have some friends who kindly contacted us first to tell us personally about their news before they then announced it on social media and I felt this was an extremely kind gesture. If you have anyone in your circle of friends or in your family who have struggled to conceive or have had a baby die or have lost an older child, then please think about telling them your news in person before you announce it on social media to the whole world, as they can then prepare themselves for when they see it online. They will really appreciate the kindness of you telling them in advance of a more public announcement.
FOMO
For some people baby and pregnancy announcements can bring a whole new meaning to FOMO on social media!
Be caring and considerate to any friends who have suffered loss or struggled to conceive.
When I was a teenager and even throughout my twenties I would talk about having a broken heart over an unrequited love or a relationship break up. Later on once I hit my thirties my parents 38-year marriage came to a sudden end and again I was “heart broken”. The world as I knew it ceased to exist. Then my beloved dog Max died suddenly that Christmas Eve and I was “heart broken” again.
Heart broken
It seems heartache and being “heart broken” is a familiar feeling that us humans often talk about but what I have experienced in the last few years shows that everything is relative and you can only compare the experiences you have been through personally. If you are fortunate to have only ever suffered the break up of a relationship then you will know this to be your worst emotional pain. If you have lost a relative or pet then this might be the worst pain imaginable.
Max
Losing a dog/ best friend
After I lost my amazing dog Max I decided that I probably wouldn’t have another as the pain and grief after losing him I felt was unbearable, so I couldn’t face ever putting myself through that again.
Mother to a heart baby
Six years later I became a mother to Violet who was born with a heart defect. She had to be rushed into open heart surgery at four days old, the stress and anxiety during those nine hours she was under the knife was at the time I thought unbearable. We were so relieved afterwards when we were told her heart was a perfect fix.
Reunited for the first time in several days after she was transferred to Alder Hey in Liverpool & I was still at St Mary’s in Manchester. Cuddles before heart surgery.
Anxiety
Every time she had to go to hospital for a heart check up of course we were stressed again praying all would be ok and it always was, until she was rushed into hospital with suspected pneumonia in September 2016. The anxiety during those ten days in hospital was again almost unbearable. I even told friends that there was nothing worse than watching your child poorly. Being tortured whilst doctors inject them/take samples and attach them to drips and there being nothing you can do to relieve their pain.
Violet during her time in Manchester Children’s Hospital in the days before she died
Death of a child
Then suddenly she died. Our precious daughter died. We then discovered a totally new level of pain and heartache that we had never even come close to before. Every other type of “heartache” I had experienced in my life until this moment paled in comparison. I actually felt my world had truly come to an end and the pain then and now is still sometimes unbearable. But bear it we do, as we have no choice in the matter. It is indescribable to anyone who hasn’t gone through it and unimaginably scary to those of you who have children who are alive.
Metaphorical and physical
Anyway within six months of Violet’s death I discovered that not only do I have a metaphorical “broken heart” but I was diagnosed with an actual physical broken heart too. It was discovered that I have what they call an ASD or hole in between the top two chambers of my heart. I have a truly broken heart both physically and emotionally. How ironic?
Perspective
So life wise I guess the positive take on all of this is that it has helped us (my family) to put things into perspective. We no longer stress about the small things in life anymore and I tell myself that, at the end of the day, I have been through the worst thing imaginable, so everything else, including possible open heart surgery on myself is easy in comparison.
Dexter
Everything is relative
Nine years after the loss of my beloved dog Max we adopted a two-year-old German Shepherd, as I now realise that I can cope with the loss of a pet if I can somehow survive the loss of two children. So we welcomed Dexter to our family and we now have a giant fur baby to look after who gives us unconditional love. What’s not to love about that, even if it only lasts for 8 years? It is relative after all and we have chosen to live in the present moment, as who knows if a bus will hit us tomorrow, so make the most of today folks always.
I often hear parents with more than one child talk about the guilt they feel about spending more time with one over the other. About how guilty that makes them, as they try to give equal attention and time to each child. Well what happens when you have several children but they are no longer living?
Their shared graveside
Second child syndrome
I frequently feel guilt over my second born Arthur because he gets forgotten in favour of his big sister Violet, who is centre stage in everything & poor Arthur as the second child is pushed to one side almost ignored.
Our rainbow Arthur
We never knew Arthur.
Yes I felt him move inside of me. People, our family & friends never met him. He never babbled at people. He never laughed or cried. He never pointed at anything he wanted looking for someone to fetch it for him. He never sighed and rolled his eyes when I attempted to sing poorly. He never looked annoyed when someone sang nursery rhymes to him out of tune. He never orchestrated control of a room full of toddlers & adults so they danced to his tune, despite not saying a word. He never made his displeasure felt through tantruming. He never banged a drum or read a book. He never smiled. He never held a balloon or shrieked with excitement if he spotted a cat or dog. He never saw or rode on an airplane or a boat. He never danced along to music. He never opened his eyes to look around. He never even took a breath or made a sound.
Legally he doesn’t exist
Technically & legally he doesn’t exist, as he was born sleeping at 22 weeks, so he doesn’t have a birth or a death certificate. He did have his own crematorium service and his ashes were buried with his sister. He has his own name in flowers on their grave and in time his name will be written on their shared gravestone but bless him he doesn’t have a lot to remember that he was here.
A photo of Arthur
Easier to talk about Violet
It’s much easier for us to remember and to talk about Violet as lots of people knew her. There are lots of shared memories we can all draw on. We have thousands of photos and some video footage of her. She even had her own circle of friends, who we always remember at Christmas and their birthdays, as that would be what she’d have wanted.
No shared memories or friends
Arthur bless him doesn’t have any shared memories or friends. He didn’t impact any people other than our immediate family but he is still special to us. We still fight to try to get answers for his condition, in the hope that research might help others out there too. In time we will probably fundraise for charity for him also so he has a legacy alongside his sister’s. We’ve chosen to focus on our first child for now, as there’s a clearer legacy path for her. In her memory we will focus on helping other babies to have life saving heart surgery either here in the UK at Alder Hey Hospital or overseas in third world countries through a great charity called Healing Little Hearts.
Photos
This blog is full of photos of Violet and that’s great because we have lots of her. She loved having her photo taken too. It is important for us to recognise that just because we can’t share lots of photos of Arthur or share amusing anecdotes about what he was like as a person it doesn’t mean he isn’t thought about or loved by us.
Violet at 1 year old
I like to think too that if they were both still alive today that Violet would definitely still be stealing the limelight away from her little brother, as much as humanely possible. She would certainly boss him around so maybe him playing second fiddle is just a symptom of him being second born, whether he is alive or not?
What do you think? Do you feel guilty about spending more time with one child over another? Does one of them hog the limelight over a shyer sibling?
It’s very true that no parent can imagine the pain of losing your child or baby until it happens. It might sound like a cliché but your world, as you know it, really does come to an end.
Violet’s grave in Southern Cemetery that’s now also Arthur’s resting place too
Cause of death
It is hard enough when you are given a definitive cause for their death through a post mortem report but what happens if it is inconclusive and you have no answers?
Inquest for the truth
If this happens then the coroner may decide to launch an inquest to try to investigate why your child or baby died. What you don’t expect to happen is to have to wait over a year to get some answers from them. We have been waiting now for over 18 months without a death certificate. Our daughter still has her passport and ISA savings account because ironically in the eyes of the law she isn’t in fact officially dead.
We wish she was still alive because she’d be two and three quarter years old now!
Delays in answers
We were warned after she died by the coroner’s office that her inquest hearing might take at least a year to schedule because of the complexity of her death at Manchester Children’s Hospital. It was explained to us that criminal investigations have to take priority, which is understandable. We have only recently been given a date of this May for her inquest hearing, that will then be a whole 20 months after her death. It makes us wonder whether those involved with her care will even remember events and actions from that long ago?
We took new balloons to our babies today – Violet would have loved the dancing monkey
In limbo
In the intervening 20 months of our lives we have been in a state of limbo awaiting answers. We have received various contradictory reports from the hospital. We also have had to chase access to many documents such as Violet’s medical records that should be turned around within 40 days of our request. Even these processes that were supposed to be relatively smooth have turned into nightmares. Involving me repeatedly chasing the Manchester NHS Trust. Even having to involve a local MP just to get access to something we have a legal right too. The constant battles we’ve had to endure would be enough, without having to deal with our grief and the unknown answers that loom large.
Rainbow baby number 1
In the 20-month void we also became pregnant with our rainbow baby Arthur and unfortunately lost him 6 months ago at 22 weeks gestation. We had a full post mortem done on him too, hoping again for some answers. We were told he had some genetic problems so we were referred to see the geneticists at St Mary’s Hospital. Who are some of the best in the world. This filled us with confidence that they would find the problematic gene so that maybe we could opt for IVF genetic selection or get a pregnancy screened earlier than 20 weeks in the future. We were told this process would take maybe 8 or 9 months in order to be able to identify a particular gene or group of genes that caused his problems.
We had a letter a few days ago to say they have checked for all the obvious gene defects but they can’t find anything obvious. It must be something super rare or undetectable by today’s technology.
No reason why
The not knowing why both our babies died is almost as hard as them dying. I know the answers won’t bring them back but I think it would help my brain to make sense of things. The practical part of me would want to be able to put new procedures or tests (if possible) in place to prevent reoccurrence in the future.
Has anyone else gone through something similar? I’d be interested to know.
Lots of people this week were talking about how they are looking forward to the Easter weekend and spending much needed time with their families and children. I find myself forcing a smile and having to say “I bet”. Then they ask if I’m looking forward to a break and again I smile and say “oh yes of course”. I don’t say that for me my break is being at work away from all the reminders that we have a massive gaping hole in our lives where our daughter should be and isn’t.
Our Easter should be
We should be looking forward to the weekend possibly organising Easter egg hunts in the garden, taking Violet to a farm so she can pet all the animals and we’d take her to the family music events in Heaton Hall too as she’d have loved those.
Loving bad weather news
Is it bad that part of me when they announced we’d have another cold spell this weekend with possible snow thought ‘oh good it’ll save me having to watch smug families going out enjoying spending time with their children, that just hammers home more clearly what we are missing or even having to watch some not enjoying their children, yelling at them which I find even harder to stomach’?
Easter is new life
They say Easter is the time for new life and in previous years I used to find it cheerful and uplifting, as it also meant we were getting close to my birthday, which I used to find exciting. Now it is just a reminder of another year without my precious daughter. Sometimes I feel like a prisoner in a jail striking off lines on the wall with every passing year, while we wait and hope to see Violet once again.
Spring is a time of growth
Spring is the time for growth and lots of children have growth spurts once the weather starts improving in line with more vitamin D and sunshine. It reminds me that our daughter isn’t growing anymore and that she is permanently stuck at age 15 months. She will always be that age in our minds and hearts. We never saw her walk, talk in proper sentences, dance or even eat. She never said “mummy”. This is the really heart breaking thing the realisation of all the things we will never see her do or experience with her.
Make the most of quality time
So if you have children this Easter please make sure you do make the most of your days off work and spend lots of time with them making memories. Hopefully you will always get to enjoy seeing your children grow every year but, if like us, something horrendous happens, then you will only ever have the memories to last you for the rest of your life so make sure they are good ones!
Take photos and make films
Take that photograph and film them opening their Easter presents or doing that Easter egg hunt because it will be over in a flash but the film or photo will last a lifetime, meaning so much to the relatives who bought them that present or organised that egg hunt.
Count your blessings
Also do me, those who have also lost children, struggled to conceive or would just have loved a family but couldn’t have one, a favour and when you feel like your children are getting on your nerves this Easter, stop for a moment. Take a deep breath and for a minute realise how truly lucky you are and that there are those of us who would happily take all the tantrums in the world, sleepless nights and naughty behaviour just to have our children back. Appreciate your families and try to enjoy the moments, as they really don’t last for long.
For all of us without our kids at least we have chocolate!
Happy Easter
Love, Sarah x
p.s. all the photos in this post were taken at an artisan chocolate factory called HR Chocolate established by artisan baker Haflio Ragnarsson in Reykjavik, Iceland.
When I was pregnant with Arthur I remember we were so happy and filled with hope for the future; even more so after his 16-week scan where they checked his heart and confirmed that unlike his older sister’s it was perfectly symmetrical.
I threw myself into getting prepared for the new pregnancy and baby, which included signing up for Pregnancy Yoga and Pilates courses.
Mindfulness
I remember I was so looking forward to the classes. They’d give me chance to focus on this new little life inside me and to try to be positive about the future. I was also looking forward to building a support network of new friends who would be pregnant like me and so would be able to share the experience with some peers too. We’d done NCT classes when pregnant with Violet and gained friends from it. They were then like a support network through pregnancy and baby’s first year.
How chilled out I felt after the first Pilates session
When I registered for the classes I made sure to let the organisers know my sad story about losing Violet the previous September and she said she’d make the teachers aware of this.
Anyway my first class, which was Pilates went well and afterwards all the participants chatted together about their pregnancies. It was very welcoming and inclusive just what I’d have hoped for.
How I hoped my pregnancy yoga would be
My second class, which was Yoga wasn’t anywhere near as relaxing or positive as I had hoped it would be. Lots of the same ladies were at this one that had been at the Pilates class, so it started off very friendly and welcoming again at the start.
Lack of communication
We then took our places and mats to begin the session. The teacher announced that she wasn’t the one we were meant to have and she had been asked to step in at the last minute. Still no red flags in my eyes.
Then she asked everyone to begin by introducing themselves, what stage of pregnancy they were at and if it was your first baby or not. If it wasn’t your first baby then how old your other children were? Were they looking forward to their brother or sister? I felt my positive little safe space and new support network crumble like a house of cards!
Honest words
They went round the circle and I was one of the last, so I spoke about my second pregnancy. I told them all that I had had a little girl who died at 15 months old, just 9 months earlier. How I imagine she’d be delighted to have a new brother or sister but alas she was no longer here. There was total silence and shock in the room you couldn’t even hear anyone breathing. Finally the teacher said how sorry she was to hear the news and thanked me for being so honest in sharing with the group. I remember everyone being in shock and blankly staring at me. Even when the final girl had started talking about her pregnancy, they were still in shock looking at me. How I managed not to break down I don’t know.
Longest yoga class ever
Then we moved on with the class. I think it was the longest Yoga class of my life. Only one of the other participants looked over and smiled at me, reassuring me to check I was ok. Most other class members even those I had spoken to at the earlier Pilates class now avoided my eye contact. At the end of the class the majority of people rushed off desperate to escape quickly, so they didn’t have to face speaking to me or dealing with any emotional heartache. Perhaps they were worried I had some contagious “all my kids die” disease. Maybe they are right?
The one girl who had smiled at me earlier, came up saying how she was blown away by my strength and she just felt the need to give me a hug. The teacher then apologised for having put me in that position in the first place. She said how brave she thought I was, that I had shared what happened so honestly with the group. Then the tears came and I found myself crying all over the teacher and this poor girl who was 40 weeks pregnant and due to give birth anytime!
Devastated
When I got home I was so upset I wrote to the organisers to say how a class I was supposed to find relaxing had become super stressful and emotionally fraught. It certainly wasn’t the Zen experience I had hoped for! They apologised for the miscommunication with the stand in teacher and said they’d give me an extra session for free if I continued with the course. They reassured me all teachers would be briefed about my situation.
I continued with the sessions (Yoga and Pilates) but they just weren’t the same, as I now received pitying looks from all the participants who simply felt sorry for me. The welcoming feeling I had felt at that first Pilates session was now gone and I was an outcast in the group, cast aside by the others. A few of them occasionally spoke to me but it was more so they could settle their curiosity about what had happened to Violet.
Don’t get me wrong if anyone had openly asked about Violet or whether I had other children, I would have told them the truth anyway. I would have preferred a chance for them to get to know me a little first, before they learnt my sad news as that’s the basis of friendship. It needs to be built from mutual understanding and shared interests rather than pity.
Hope shattered
Then when I lost Arthur at 22 weeks of course I contacted the course organisers and they refunded my subscription costs. I asked then perhaps if I could switch onto a postnatal Yoga course so I could try to heal. I was told that they didn’t advise this as it would be too emotionally distressing as everyone would be talking about their babies and my story would upset everyone else in the class too. Instead I was recommended to try some other sessions that after further research were designed for the elderly and infirm. I decided I couldn’t face attending a class full of geriatrics!
I was devastated that when you think of how many women sadly go through miscarriages, stillbirths and other troubled pregnancies that there are no Yoga or Pilates classes designed for those who have suffered loss. Surely we need it even more than those who have birthed a healthy baby who is still alive?
Music really does stir the soul and it can also retrieve memories you forgot you had made.
Whitney Houston
The other day I was driving in the car and a Whitney Houston song came on the radio “I have nothing”. The lyrics are pretty emotional anyway if you listen to them.
“Don’t make me close one more door
I don’t want to hurt anymore
Stay in my arms if you dare
Or must I imagine you there
Don’t walk away from me
I have nothing, nothing, nothing
If I don’t have you, you, you, you, you”
When I heard it start I remembered how much my daughter Violet had liked listening to the great divas sing. Then I remembered that this was also the first Whitney song she ever heard and the entire memory of that came flooding back.
Listening to music with her favourite toy elephant
The memory
I remember that she was about six months old at the time and already had her own playlist on my i-tunes. A playlist that already contained Katherine Jenkin’s 50 romantic arias, all the Adele albums and a few Jennifer Hudson tunes too. She had very particular musical tastes and disliked nursery rhymes. I would play different tunes to her and from a young age she’d let me know if she liked them or not. If she did then they’d be added to her play list. She enjoyed listening to her chosen songs while she read, played or relaxed.
Anyway as she was chilling out with a book that day I suddenly thought ohhh what about a bit of Whitney, I bet she’d like Whitney Houston and the first song I played for her was “I have nothing”.
Whenever a new song came on for the first time Violet adopted a look of concentration and would stop whatever she was doing to listen, making her mind up as to whether to continue focussing or not quite quickly. Violet continued concentrating on the Whitney song and then when she heard her hit the first big note a wide beaming smile appeared on her face. She continued to listen in silence, simply smiling after she hit all the big notes and then at the end of the song Violet was so delighted she actually clapped!
I rapidly downloaded all of Whitney’s Greatest hits onto her playlist for her. She had one of the most particular musical tastes of a baby ever. I often wonder whether she would have had a musical future either as a musician or behind the scenes.
Emotion
The retrieval of this memory reduced me to tears in the car and luckily I wasn’t far from home but I gave the hubby a fright when I pulled onto the driveway in floods of tears!
Are there songs that have brought back happy or painful memories for you? Feel free to share them
I recently discovered through joining an online support group called the Tigerlily Trust that, whilst Mothering Sunday as a concept in UK came from an 16th century English tradition of annually honouring your mother in church the more widely known Mother’s Day was founded in America. In 1907 a lady called Anna Jarvis, wanted to do something to honour her mother who had lost 7 babies. This original version of Mother’s Day was created to remember and honour her grieving mother.
The original Mother’s Day
Anna wanted to create a day where people could honour and treat grieving mothers. To actually recognise their pain and suffering in a day of remembrance. It took only a few years before this day that was associated with deep emotions and grieving mothers was hijacked by commercial organisations in the US. They saw it as an opportunity to sell gifts and greetings cards to all mothers. It was then that the Mother’s Day as we currently know it was born.
Ironic
Now it is with deep irony that those women who are suffering the grief of losing a child or perhaps not being able to conceive one are no longer recognised by this day. Instead they often feel even more isolated and upset by the commercialisation and celebration of motherhood. A motherhood they are grieving the loss of and maybe struggling to come to terms with not having.
Once a mother always a mother
Someone said to me, the first Mother’s Day, after Violet died that I wasn’t to let the day upset me. She was sure I would no doubt become a mum again in the future. I was devastated and not strong enough to reply that I will always be a mother, however it’s just my child is no longer here with us. I still think like a mother, feel like a mother and to a certain extent act like a mother because deep down I am one!
Me & Violet on holiday in Cyprus she was 10 months old
Grieving mums
Anyway to all those grieving mums out there please remember this day was created exactly for women like us. Who have to deal with the pain of losing or not having their babies with them every day. So don’t let other people make that pain worse. Or commercial organisations make you feel bad as they’re just doing it to make money.
Message for all
To all the mother’s out there who have their babies please remember that this day was created for grieving mothers. Mothers who are exactly like you, who through no fault of their own unfortunately lost their children. Please do us grieving mothers or “wish we were mothers” all a favour. Celebrate Mother’s Day and your wonderful children. Hug them close, love them and appreciate all the little moments. Remember that some of us aren’t as lucky. You are blessed not because of the gifts of flowers, chocolates and handmade cards but because of the little people you have in your lives that others would happily give anything to have.
Unless people have been through something similar themselves, they don’t really understand that when you’re grieving, yes you go through waves of sadness, anger and frustration at the world but there’s a huge element of anxiety too.
Anxiety
The anxiety affects every aspect of your life. Almost as though because the worst thing ever actually did happen, then what’s to say something else bad isn’t possible too. This heightened sense of danger makes you nervous and afraid of things that previously you wouldn’t have been concerned about.
Slipping on ice (photo credit: U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Lealan Buehrer)
Like this week the road outside our house was very icy and there was a time I wouldn’t have cared but I was reluctant to go outside, as I know how accident-prone I am. The thought of falling and injuring myself was too scary to contemplate.
Risk avoidance
I find myself constantly trying to avoid risk, whereas as an entrepreneur for many years, risk and calculated odds was something I excelled in. I could easily identify what to take a chance on and what to avoid based on pure instinct. I no longer trust my own instincts.
Violet the morning of day she died playing happily with her balloon. Trying to bash me with it!
The morning my little girl died the hospital said she was doing really well and I could see with my own eyes she was better than she had been for weeks. We were all so very happy. I messaged everyone with photos showing how well she was doing. I thanked every single God that she had turned a corner. That evening she died suddenly and I realised that my eyes and instincts could lie. Also that medical specialists don’t know everything. That deeply affects everything else in your life. It makes me question it all. All of a sudden is “green” really green?
Questioning everything
Not only do I question my instincts more but I also worry about things I never used to. I constantly question everything…
Am I doing a good job for my client? (even when they give me positive feedback!) Am I still a nice person? Have I turned bitter because of losing my child? Have I offended someone somehow because they didn’t phone me back? Does xxx still like me? What if xxx is just trying to be kind because they feel sorry for me? Have I made that person uncomfortable with my honesty? Did xxx feel awkward because I brought up a story about my daughter and they didn’t know how to react? Am I any good at my job? Can I even write? Do I actually know what I’m doing? Does anyone care about what I think? What if I burst into tears how embarrassing? What if no one wants to speak to me as they think I’ll be miserable & I’ll depress them because bad things always happen to me? Maybe xxxx is avoiding seeing me because she thinks her baby/pregnancy/kids will upset me? Perhaps xxxx doesn’t want to have to deal with any negativity as she’s all about positive thinking & I have issues? xxxx clearly doesn’t speak to me anymore or contact me because I make them sad or feel awkward? What if I drive other friends away in the same way? Am I acting odd in social situations? Am I stuttering? what if…what about…Why did that bad thing happen was it because of me?
Confidence
These constant niggles and questions I now ask myself all the time. They started when Violet died and they aren’t going away. They increased even more after Arthur died, as he gave us so much hope for the future and then our world became doomed once again. These thoughts now chip chip chip away at my confidence in every area of my life, so some days I almost feel like I shouldn’t even bother. I find it a real challenge to drive myself onwards, often having to give myself evidence as to why certain things aren’t true. Why some things aren’t the case.
I’m seeing a great counsellor, finally (as I have been through a few, some who I made cry & others that ended up being aggressive with me but that’s a post for the future!). They are trying to help me to work through these issues. You don’t usually hear people talk about confidence and anxiety when they’re grieving but I’m learning now that it is far more common than you think. Quite a few people I have spoken to who have lost a loved one have said that it also really affected their self-confidence.
Thank you to you all for your patience with me and for helping me to believe in myself again!
