Guest blogs

Getting good (better) at feeling bad

Ruth McDonald writes...

If you have recently lost your darling precious child - this is for you…

My heart breaks every time I hear about a new family starting out on this horrific journey - too many broken shattered hearts struggling to believe the unbelievable!

Before my son died I hardly used social media… now I’m a member of four very different bereaved parents Facebook groups - which quite frankly have been my lifeline. I don’t know how I would have survived without the care and support of virtual friends carrying their own torturous pain.

Without fear of judgement we dump a minefield of confused complicated thoughts on strangers knitted together by tragedy; each using brokenness to comfort the broken.

And every time a new parent joins we instinctively reach out. We feel their pain and desperation. There is no fixing… so we don’t try. But we listen. We empathise. We give advice (when asked). We share experiences and tell them to take a minute at a time; to cry, scream, rant, to talk about their darling child.

I’ve heard newly bereaved parents being described as ‘doing really well’ and it makes me cringe. Once you have had to kiss the lifeless face of your darling precious child… you cannot be doing really well. Comparisons and assumptions like that do little more than add another layer of guilt to our already complex grief. There is simply no right or wrong way to do this. And what is visible on the outside probably bears little resemblance to the agony on the inside.

So I’ve written a blog for newly bereaved parents because I was that mum not so long ago. I’ve tried to write what I needed to read because it helps to know how others are living this same kind of loss. I’m so grateful to those who inspired me to keep going - when I thought I couldn’t!

This is an overview of almost five years of pain, sadness and love - words barely scratch the surface of a heartache that has no words. It’s taken weeks and been a struggle to write as I look back and wonder how we’ve got this far. I share extracts from some of my early journals - comparing then to now.

Whatever people might say - time is not a great healer and I wouldn’t describe myself as doing really well… but there must be strength in pain because somehow I’m still here - and I’m surviving!

So if you’re hanging on by a thread or you know someone who is - this might help (a little).

Read Ruth's blog here...

Getting good (better) at feeling bad…