Disenfranchised Grief
Over the next few days I want to shine a spot light on disenfranchised grief. This is when our grief does not fit with the societal attitudes around grief and so is not acknowledged or recognised in the same way as other, more ‘acceptable’ grief. This type of grief is normally hidden by shame, by complexities of all sorts and so is not given the agency or a much needed place to be held and grieved.
My hope in sharing some of what these griefs look like is to raise our awareness of grief and how that exists in ourselves, our loved ones & our communities.
I am starting with Infertility Grief and so I am placing trigger warning alongside this post
Infertility grief is a complex grief as it’s not a clearly defined loss. In most cases of infertility there is no physical person to grieve, no memories of a life lived to look back on, no ritual or ceremony to mark an ending and no community acknowledgement of the grief. It’s private & normally deeply held & hidden.
When we look at infertility grief we often find a shattering of dreams, hopes and expectations , the loss of never experiencing pregnancy milestones, the joy of the announcements, the dreams of being a parent, of being a family, of being a grandparent, of so many things, all underpinned by a grief that does not count in the same way as other griefs as it’s not tangible.
These are some of the threads of conversations I have had with people who experience infertility , which I am sharing here, with permission, as an awareness for all and so we can start making space for these people to be heard, to be witnessed to be seen.
This is a small part of what disenfranchised Infertility grief sounds like…..
- I had to have treatment to save my life. This left me unable to have children. I secretly grieve that I will never be able to have children biologically, but I hide that because I survived, I have my life and so I should be thankful, but instead I am quietly and internally grieving all the hopes and dreams that I held about being mother since I was a little girl.
- I cannot have children, my body doesn’t work like other peoples. Not only have I had to try to come to terms with the deep judgement & grief about my own body, but also from other women, who look at me like somehow I am not whole or fully women. I grieve my child that I will never meet & who never was & all the dreams that have never been fulfilled.
- When I tell people I am unable to have children, they try to give me advice. This makes me feel I am not doing enough, or they tell me about the lady down the road who was told she couldn’t have children and then she just fell pregnant. They tell me if I stop worrying about it & just relax, it will just happen. Seriously this just invalidates my grief. Why can people not really listen to what I am saying. Why can people not hear my grief,
- I put on a happy face about the person’s announcement of pregnancy. I am genuinely happy for them, but it’s bittersweet on so many levels, a reminder of all that will never be for me. I don’t share my infertility journey as I cannot bear the judgement & always worry I will take someone’s else’s joy away.
- I had my baby through IVF, I am so beyond happy and deeply grateful, but I grieve that I was unable to do the most natural thing for my child, which was to create them. I feel that I failed my child from the start and feel such a deep sadness around this, but I don’t feel I can talk about that grief as I feel ungrateful.
As someone who has experienced the pain and grief of infertility I can feel all these griefs in my body. If you are experiencing infertility grief, old or new - please know that I am here and your grief is more than welcome with me.
I hear you and I see you.
Much love. Xx