Sometimes we stand alone.
Today is the last day of child loss awareness week. I’ve not said an awful lot this week, partly because so many other wonderful women are saying things so beautifully and partly because I’m in a strange new phase. Beyond grief and into loneliness.
I’m a woman in my mid-30s. As much as I want to deny the understanding that emotions can be biologically led, there are days when I feel physical pain that there is no child of my own in the house. As much as I know that my life will have many other fulfilments, there are days when I feel such a deep sense of solitary that I want to curl up in bed and never get up.
Talking to other women who have experienced child loss, the overwhelming emotion is loneliness.
We all have an understanding of how we think our lives will be, even if we don’t make plans or set expectations (I certainly haven’t) we still build a world around ourselves that has so many intertwining parts, when one goes a bit tits, it can take years to work out how all the other bits work. How the other people in your life fit into it all. What you see your future being, or not being.
When I first talked about child loss and mental health on this site, I made a bit of a pact to myself to talk about ALL of it. All of the stages, all of the changes. I do it because it helps me and, hopefully, it helps other people to know that they're not alone.
When I’ve figured it all out I’ll let you know. It could be a while.
But rest assured I’m not sad, I’m not incomplete, I’m just a bit lost, and sometimes we have to stand alone.
Em x
