Dealing With Loss Alone: My Miscarriage Story
Trigger Warning: I am going to discuss my experience with miscarriage. If this is a sore spot for you or don't want to read it, just skip past this post.
One huge point I keep trying to make to people is the sheer magnitude of struggle, tragedy and loss that I've had to endure completely alone. I think people forget that even though people are married, or have family members near, or even have "friends" near, you can fall through the cracks completely. Especially if you unfortunately happen to be surrounded by very self involved individuals. I know we're all self involved at any point here and there, but I have really noticed that stronger individuals like myself seem to attract those types of people. So, I have at the worst times of my life been surrounded by people who didn't actually care about me or anything I was going through, especially not more than whatever they were dealing with. I've never had a circle of people in my life that purposefully put down what was going on with them to put me first. I've never been first, I've never been taken care of.
Because I'm a strong person and it's obvious I've been expected to just take care of myself. To self heal. To handle. And then the expectation is that I will also quietly move on with my life.
But here's the thing 1 + 1 = 2, if my entire season of struggle, tragedy and loss is something I handle alone and you haven't been there for any of it you have also missed out on the best opportunities to cement a relationship with me. Because people grow together through loss, through pain, through hardships. It's supposed to bring people closer together, but what happened with me through some of the worst times of my life was I just realized how alone I was. How completely alone I was.
There are so many examples I could use, but one big one that still bothers me is my miscarriage. After my first baby I miscarried at 13 1/2 weeks on Mother's Day, ironically. But the worst part of it all was not just that I lost a baby, but that we'd already had the ultrasound and heard the heartbeat, etc. And then the baby died. I chose to miscarry naturally at home. And I may have had my mother there, thankfully to watch my son, but she was not there. There were no phone calls from anyone, no one showed up with meals or came to gather around me. My husband was unavailable, he even went to his friend's house and left me alone to miscarry at my parent's house. We were even involved in a church and guess what, not a single anything of from any person. It was just emptiness. I was left to deal with the death of my child, while working a full-time job and caring for my toddler. And at the same time I was expected to show up to a family reunion at my in laws, forced actually, while simultaneously still bleeding like a stuck pig because my body had literally just passed my child. And I sat there in that house, miserable, hurting physically and emotionally, and not a single person reached out to care for me in what I was going through. No one cared. And then I went back to work with the same people I'd worked with for years and no one said anything. No cards, no words of consolation. Just awkward discomfort and then silence, change the subject, move on.
And this wasn't just a blob of skin, my baby had hands and legs and fingers and toes and a face. And I held it in my hands. Alone in a bathroom sobbing.
How can you expect a person to go through so much pain and sorrow alone and not think they will become hardened? They'll just get used to not having anyone there. And pretty soon they won't be there for you either, because they retreat. That's what I've done for self preservation, because it's really hard to care about everyone else and what is going on in their lives and know simultaneously that there is no single person that gives a rip about what you're going through, though they tell you I love you. All it does is make you feel like those words are empty and meaningless.
In fact, when every family member you have practically, and every person that's ever said they've cared about you doesn't answer the phone, answer a text, or even feel the need to check up on you after a few months or so with no word... you get the picture. No one is thinking about me. No one cares about my pain. No one is coming to rescue me. And you become that much more determined to do life alone. If no matter what I do, how often I'm there for you, how much I keep in touch, how I try to show my care and affection for you with very thoughtful gifts, or whatever... if through all that effort you still ignore me in every sense of the word, what's the point?
How can you expect a person to go through so much pain and sorrow alone and not think they will become hardened? They'll just get used to not having anyone there. And pretty soon they won't be there for you either, because they retreat. That's what I've done for self preservation, because it's really hard to care about everyone else and what is going on in their lives and know simultaneously that there is no single person that gives a rip about what you're going through, though they tell you I love you. All it does is make you feel like those words are empty and meaningless.
In fact, when every family member you have practically, and every person that's ever said they've cared about you doesn't answer the phone, answer a text, or even feel the need to check up on you after a few months or so with no word... you get the picture. No one is thinking about me. No one cares about my pain. No one is coming to rescue me. And you become that much more determined to do life alone. If no matter what I do, how often I'm there for you, how much I keep in touch, how I try to show my care and affection for you with very thoughtful gifts, or whatever... if through all that effort you still ignore me in every sense of the word, what's the point?
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