Loss, Love and Family: Experiencing loss following infant loss and helping loved ones understand your grief
- Charlie's Warrior of the Angels
- 21 hours ago
- 9 min read
A Message of Compassion and Strength for Families Navigating Grief
A loss Mom has a different perspective on the way of the world. Each day brings new struggles and joys that you have to adapt to and learn to live with. Grief isn't just the first year or holidays. It is something that lingers inside of you. It becomes a part of you, that you learn to carry. People learn the new you. They may want the "old you" before your loss, but that is not going to happen. The loss is so prolific that every trauma or loss after it compounds your grief. It may be as if they remind you in ways of your CDH or infant loss journey. The recent and unexpected loss of my dog, about 2 weeks before Charlie's 8th Birthday, shook me to the core. The looks of her medical team and holding her as she passed away reopened wounds. I always thought that I could handle any future loss with ease, but I have had a hard time understanding the timeline and progression of death. I can rationalize that understanding death and loss at a young age is not something anyone will ever be capable of comprehending, but my heart wants answers that unfortunately don't exist.
Any trauma and loss or even the slightest look from someone can bring you back to that day. To this day I cringe when someone calls me stoic. The doctors and EMT's kept telling me I was stoic when they arrived to transfer me to a hospital with a higher-level NICU. I had basically just been told that my body has gone into labor and was currently 6cm dilated and my baby was very unlikely to survive at birth. My mind was running on overdrive in a system that was crashing; stoic was all I could project outwards at that time.
Life after loss will always have a different ring to it. Your perspective has changed. Your vision of the world has been forever altered. This month we will discuss how we view loss and trauma following the loss of your child and how to help your loved ones understand the changed you. There are resources and a community that is always there for you. Charlie Polizzi’s Warrior of the Angels is here to walk alongside you and offer guidance and strength along the way.
The dynamics of serial loss
Loss will always be relevant to the loss of your child, and you may feel like no loss can break you like losing your child. That can be very true but future losses, will always be seen with a different lense. PTSD is real with child loss and different things can trigger you. Grief is the loss of loved ones and displacing the ability to show them the love that you have in your heart, in a physical sense. Essentially it is love with nowhere to go.
What loved ones don't understand is that a secondary loss is compounding on the loss and pain of losing your child. They try to rationalize and compare but many times that minimizes what you are experiencing. Talk with them and let them know how you feel. This is the time to be honest and blunt with them. If you feel like a third-party counselor would help you communicate your emotions and thoughts, I highly recommend contacting yours or acquiring a local counselor. They are trained in these situations and help both parties to understand each other in a way that helps them to travel through grief more effectively.
As we have discussed, everyone handles grief and loss differently. Every generation
believes you should handle loss and grief substantially differently and in their own personal and individualized manner. Older generations may be more dismissive of loss and are more in the mind set of having to move on and accept early on in the journey. Sometimes they may even emanate a feeling of disrespect to the losses that you have experienced, and it may feel like they expect you to grieve their way and may become defensive or reactionary.
Following the loss of my son Charlie, I carried his ashes with me everywhere. When I brought him to a family dinner, that I didn't really feel up to attending, I was told to "move on" and to "put it down" while referring to HIS ashes by my grandmother. I will never forgive or forget those statements. You may hear crazy things from friends and family such as, "I don't like to attend funerals" as to why they did not stay long at the funeral. No one wants to attend a funeral, let alone their child's funeral. Many times, these statements come from someone so blind to the extent of your pain, maybe not with a mean hearted intent, but from their inability to grasp the agonizing pain you are experiencing.
Many times, when you experience this kind of loss, you do not have the bandwidth to "understand and accept" other people's statements and opinions of where you are at in your loss and grief journey and you may lash out at loved ones. Trying to push yourself to understand and accept their opinions may bring you further down a rabbit hole that may end with you pointing a finger at yourself, causing self-doubt and self-worth issues. Traveling through grief is like walking a tight rope and each tumble you take, may bring you back a few steps or all the way to the beginning with all the initial emotions flooding into you. This is not only difficult to communicate to loved ones but many times impossible, as you don't understand it yourself. That is where a third party, such as a therapist would be very beneficial.
Having an intermediary to help create an accepting environment without hurting any relationships is a step within a grief journey that many overlook and may even look down on as weakness. It is okay to need help to understand yourself and communicate it out to others. The key to therapy is that all parties need to be open and truthful in a kind and passionate manner for an improved outcome to be achieved. Once you find the right therapist for you, you will understand why I recommend such support. Therapist can be helpful in making yourself and loved ones more understanding of each other and where you are in your grief.
A serial loss, or a secondary or tertiary loss, hits differently for the person impacted by it firsthand than those watching the inflicted person/people travel through their loss and grief. These people, many times friends and family, carry their own set of trauma and stress but something that needs to be understood is that comparing losses does nothing but irrationally set a standard of grief that is not plausible for those in the trenches of grief to grasp. Losing your child is not the same as watching your child struggle to rebuild themselves. You did not lose a child too. Although it is extremely difficult to watch your child struggle and experience a pain that most cannot even imagine, it is not losing your child. It includes its own array of traumatic and horrific experiences including answering many difficult and at times unanswerable questions, but it is not holding your child as they die in your arms. Parents never want to see their child in pain or struggling. Comparing these situations may make the infants parents feel as it is impossible to come out of the darkness of the loss.
When someone who lost their child is not handling a loss as you may have expected, know that holding a loved one when they pass brings in a flood of emotions and grief that no one who has not physically done so before can grasp. When you feel a body release their last breath or when they look at you so deeply before passing, looking to love you and support you in their last moment, even though they are the one struggling, your mind will struggle to function and many times will crash. I am not demeaning love of anyone or anyone’s loss, but family and loved ones should understand that each loss may be unique but after such a prolific loss, each loss following, especially when so young, has its own array of ramifications on the mind of a loss parent.
Family and loved ones do experience their own trauma, which can be and many times is excruciating in its own way, but comparing the two is unrealistic. Losing a grandchild or niece/nephew carries its own weight and leaning on a supportive network, that many times should not include the loss parents, is imperative to a successful grief journey. No one expects anyone to travel grief alone. Grief and loss can lead to many awful things such as PTSD, depression and loss of self-worth but having someone help you build the scaffold around your shattered heart will help you see the light at the end of the tunnel. Reaching this light does not mean you have forgotten your loved one(s) or that you are no longer grieving but you are more capable of carrying your grief and loss.
Loss and grief so profound may not let you return to the old you, but in many ways builds a stronger shell around the new you. This is one of the hardest things to have your family and loved ones accept and understand. I remember telling many people, many times, that you will never have the old Kristin back, that person is gone. I have grown to understand how my mind works but that does not necessarily mean that I can control it and that my heart will accept it. Having loved ones understand is even harder as it is, many times, impossible to explain to your own heart and mind. This is why I highly recommend getting outside support such as a therapist, priest or other secular leader, as they can, most times, help to construct a shared understanding of each other as you travel your own grief journey.
A Final Note
Loss is never a journey that comes with a complete understanding or rational mind which complicates every other factor of life. A key to this journey is having loved ones accept you for where you are at, as long as you are not dangerous to yourself or others. Many times, you will find the greatest support from those that you never would have expected. Through this journey, many will find a new family of support through similar experiences. For me this was parents of other CDH angels and warriors, who know what CDH means and what it does to a family and child. With these friends I feel like I can be more open about my experiences with less judgement because they have gone through similar experiences. Finding your loss family, will not only help you, but your loss family and your biological family who is desperately looking for you to be more “yourself” again. You are stronger than you believe and braver than you could ever imagine. You made it through the worst days of your life, now you just have to rebuild after the trauma.
Emotional Support and Community Resources
The journey through loss and grief is never easy, but no one should walk it alone.
Charlie Polizzi's Warrior of the Angels Foundation is dedicated to raising awareness, supporting families, and funding research. At Charlie Polizzi's Warrior of the Angels, families can find resources, education, and a community that understands the heartbreak and the hope of CDH.
Additional Trusted Resources:
Frequently Asked Questions about serial losses and communicating with loved ones
How do I find the right therapist?
There are many resources out there that will provide listings of local therapists. If you have a trusted doctor or someone in the field that knows you, I recommend speaking to them about recommendations, but you can also look at reviews of doctors to see what their strengths are and how they might best fit you best. You need to be able to engage with this therapist and like their personality and characteristics, so you and your family are comfortable around them.
How do I know when to seek help of a therapist?
This is a situational question but many times when you keep spiraling around the same thought processes it would be beneficial to seek support to help you unravel your spiraling mind. They are specialized in helping you make sense of your heart and mind.
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