shift the statistics
So, let’s talk about statistics. I’m a researcher at heart. I love to learn, and I gobble up new topics with ferocity, to the point of becoming “slightly” obsessed. I’m a science and fact-based kind of person, so typically I love statistics.
But the statistics when it comes to surviving child loss? Well, let’s just say they’re a little disheartening.
Ok, they downright suck.
I’ve pored over countless resources for bereaved parents. Books? Check. Podcasts? Check. YouTube videos? Check. TedTalks? Check. Websites? Daily check. According to research, if you lose a child, especially in a traumatic, unexpected way, you are more likely to suffer from a host of problems. Check out this cheery summary from the National Institute of Medicine:
“The death of a child is one of the greatest and most enduring stresses a person can experience. Bereaved parents are more likely to suffer cardiac events, immune dysfunction, depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, less purpose in life, more health complications, marital disruption, psychiatric hospitalization, cancer incidence, dementia, and premature death. These health, social, and economic effects are long lasting - one study found that even after an average of 18 years since the death of a child, parents still suffered from poorer physical and mental health than non-bereaved parents.”
Yippee! There’s so much inspiration here I don’t even know where to start.
In fact, when it comes to inspiration for grieving mothers, it is no wonder that so many of us get stuck in a vicious cycle of hopelessness. Positive inspiration is SEVERELY lacking. And I get it. There’s nothing positive about a child dying.
True story: I almost physically slapped a psychiatrist who recently told me, “Don’t worry, it will get better eventually. Maybe you could look at all of these changes as a positive! You get to re-invent yourself!”
Ok, I didn’t slap her. But I did manage to sulkily grumble, “Having your 10 year-old daughter die is definitely NOT a POSITIVE. I don’t WANT to re-invent myself.”
I know she meant well. And it was definitely TOO SOON to say something like that to someone whose child’s death is still so raw and unbearable. But somewhere in me, there is an inkling that she has a point. When I look at hopelessness and lack of inspiration for parents who have lost a child, I want to do something about it. I want to FIND hope. I want to CHANGE the statistics. I want to beat the odds and offer encouragement and motivation to others. I’m trying to get myself on that path.
Keeping it real, though — I’ve already failed in many areas and become a statistic myself. Depressive symptoms? Yep. Health complications? Do panic attacks count? Divorce? In progress. Psychiatric hospitalization? I checked myself into an adult day program at a mental facility, so I guess that’s a “sort of,” right?
The thing is, all of these things NEEDED to happen for me to grow as a person. To take a deep look at myself and what I had let my life become — a harried, exhausted, overwhelmed mess that was covered up by happy, smiling photos on Facebook and Instagram — and to learn that I am a codependent people-pleaser who would’ve rather been a martyr than admit she couldn’t do it all.
I had started to change this path slightly when I had a breakdown BEFORE Libby died. After a particularly difficult working-mom day, I penned a “Jerry Maguire-esque” article about my first-world mom problems for my former blog that was picked up and published by Filter Free Parents. But nothing about my life actually changed. I just bitched about it and found that a lot of other moms could empathize.
“It’s not a memo. It’s a MISSION STATEMENT.”
Until February 9th. I’ve tried to describe to people what happened to me on that day, but my words always sound cliche. “Something snapped,” is my most common phrase. Something snapped inside of me. My entire world changed in an instant. My daily life, my future— everything went POOF, and no longer existed. I went from an overworked hot mess to a mentally broken hot mess. I could no longer tolerate things in my life that I had endured at the price of my own happiness. I alternated between insane bouts of guilt and devastation and numbness and hopelessness, and I recognized that this life shift was too much to bear on my own, so I sought professional help and started researching EVERYTHING.
And now we’re back to where we started.
I would give absolutely ANYTHING. ANYTHING. ANYTHING in the world to get my old, overworked, exhausted, frazzled life back if it meant that I could have ONE MORE SECOND with my baby girl. I want it so badly that I’m sobbing as I write this just picturing seeing her standing in front of me— having the chance to reach out and touch her face… hold her hand… give her a hug. I would sell my soul for that chance, if I believed in that sort of thing.
But like I said— science, facts, and statistics. I know she’s not coming back. And so I’m left with the FACT that I am now a single mom of two grown boys and absolutely NO idea who I really am or what I want my life to be, because I’ve always been a wife and mom of kids who needed rides everywhere. My life can’t be what I wanted it to be, and I have to figure out what to do with that. But I’ll be damned if I want to spend the next 18 years waiting around for “cardiac events, immune dysfunction, poorer well-being, less purpose in life, health complications, cancer incidence, dementia, and premature death” to hit me.
And, my dear grieving parents, I don’t think that’s what our kids would want for us either. Shock, sadness, overwhelming grief? Absolutely. Random bouts of crying because of a bittersweet memory? Of course! They were our world, after all. But a life sentence of misery with a side of heart attack, cancer, or dementia? I think not.
So as I work to crawl out of this massive hole and find a new normal and a more optimistic future, I will encourage others to join me. If I find anything that even remotely helps, I will share it with you. Maybe together we can change the statistics.
