I felt guilt for years after Patrick died. Maybe I still do. I am his mother. I should have done more. I should have gone to a different hospital. I should have chained myself to the hospital bed and refused to leave.
But you know what? Why would I have done those things? Hindsight brings guilt. The human need to blame fosters guilt. But the guilt is ALWAYS unfounded. It is not real. It is something that my heart tells my head. Or maybe my head tells my heart. I know that I should not feel guilty for something that I had no control over. The guilt is irrational. The same is true for my feelings of shame (that is for another day!). No-one should feel guilty about the loss of their child. Since Patrick died, I have read, talked, and conducted research into stillbirth and baby loss. I think about it all a lot, maybe a bit too much. I think about what happened. How it happened. Why it had to happen... It was only when I realised that I was carrying a whole lot of guilt that I was able to do something about it. I was able to break the cycle that I was in - negative self-talk, berating myself for not being a good enough mother, depression, waiting to come up and out of the hole. I started to write about how I felt guilty over Patrick's death. I talked to others about how I thought that I should have done more and told people that I harboured feelings of guilt for not being able to 'save' Patrick. Voicing these feelings and thoughts allowed them to 'leave' my head. Voicing everything gave me the opportunity to talk about what I was feeling and how, even though I felt guilt, I knew that it was unfounded. And the great thing was was that no-one judged me. The healing element was that no-one enforced my feelings of guilt. The feelings of guilt which parents experience are unfounded. They are unnecessary. They are also incredibly harmful. And they are very much present for a great majority of people who experience a loss. I just hope that those people who experience a loss are able to realise that the voice in their head telling them that they should have done more, is not real. It is not the truth. It is fake. For me, I voiced those thought and feelings. I saw them as a part of my story with Patrick, and a part that was always going to be obvious when experiencing something so traumatic, but a part that was not true. I accepted this part and owned it. And then those feelings and that voice went away. What I am saying is that the guilt is an obvious emotion, but one that should not be taken seriously. There is nothing to feel guilty about and nothing that could have been done. Don't believe that voice in your head.
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