http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP9Ey8K7CEI
We need to make our babies count because, "This is it. We need to make it as big and bold and beautiful," as we can. That's because our children MATTER. They are our children. Their loss doesn't minimize their LIFE! We can create a beautiful memorial to honor what an impact they have had on us.
When I saw this video for the first
time I realized how much this suited me.
I spent years being ashamed that I felt the need to shout out to the
world how I’d lost babies. I wanted them
all to know my story. The more I
questioned my sanity the more fragmented my thoughts became. I got angrier and more confused. I built myself a hole where I was safe and
the rest of the world was dangerous.
I couldn’t face a world where no
one knew I was a Mom. I couldn’t face a
world where I was supposed to be quiet about what happened. It was a joke to assume I was fit to “live
again.” There was the immense pressure
from some people to jump into living a life that can get stressful for normal
people. This was at a time where I was
terrified to walk out my front door to get the mail.
Before you assume every parent who
loses children is going to become a shut-in who rants to the world through a
blog about imagined grievances, understand that I only recently discovered I’m
Autistic. It’s a common symptom under
extreme duress for me to lock myself away from the world where I’m safe.
That doesn’t mean it’s any less
horrible for any other parent. You all
give your condolences and after six months you have moved on. You are only barely tolerable of any special
needs a grieving family may still have.
You celebrate the year anniversaries and then it’s in the past. Some people understand but others expect
parents to “go back to normal.” You wonder
why we talk about losing our kids all the time.
You want us to “get over it.”
For me that pressure was too
much. I have a tendency to crowd
please. It’s a flaw I’m working on which
stems from trying so hard to fit in when I have such a difficult time in social
situations. If I’m quiet and do what I
know will make people happy I can often get away with not being quite normal. If you met me you might wonder what exactly
it is about me. You won’t be able to put
your finger on it and that would be the Asperger’s.
That makes grief a complication for
me. Autistic people are more prone to
bouts of Major Depression and PTSD with grief.
We often relive situations over and over and over. Most people will relive that situation over
and over. We have nightmares and
depression. Imagine it taking longer to
process everything and you have me. So,
when the world was starting to ask if I needed mental help I wondered if they
weren’t correct. I had too much pride at
the time though and I doubt they would have caught the Autism anyway
.
The point is what I felt was so
traumatic that I wished God would kill me. I wasn’t suicidal; I just didn’t want to hold
all those feelings. I was bursting with
so much sadness and it had nowhere to go. I started taking anti-depressants because I
didn’t want to have emotions any more.
If I could have lived my life completely void of any feeling I would
have done it back then. There was no “light
at the end of the tunnel" because there was infertility. When you have a kid after stillbirth or
miscarriage they call it your “rainbow baby” as if that baby would be the jackpot to resolve the
grief you feel for the other baby. I’m
told it doesn’t but I haven’t experienced that to know first hand.
When I see this video and know that
the message is to help people who are where I was just a few years ago I’m
overjoyed. These people get me. They are just like me. They know me and they haven’t even met
me. I survived to see that there is
happiness again but so many people can’t see the good in the world. You can’t know that pain unless you’ve felt
it. It’s made so much worse when you can’t
express your loss to the world. You may
as well have gagged me and thrown me in a closet because I felt like a
prisoner. I acted like a prisoner trying
to be set free. That means I wasn’t
always rational or fair. That is why I
called this blog “Taboo.” We have to
speak up for the losses we’ve endured.
If we don’t do it for us we have to do it for everyone else who is
suffering in silence.
Five days stands between getting
that message out and letting someone like me suffer in the same ignorance. Less than $20,000 stands between helping millions
of families around the world and having to stop production. That is not impossible. You have to tell everyone and they have to
tell everyone. You have to be able to
give any amount of money you can no matter how much or how little.
Thank you so much for listening and
for remembering the lost little children.
They will always be loved and always matter!
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