“When people I loved were hurting, I tried to fix them too. I said, ‘At least it’s not X’ and ‘Why don’t you do Y.’ I was trying to hurry away their hurt, as if their hurt were shameful. But in my darkest days, I was moved by friends who said, ‘This hurts like hell, and I’m sorry,’ without trying to make it better.”
People in the infertility groups I’m part of often say how painful it is when others try to fix or diminish our pain; how desperately we just need acknowledgment and validation of our grief. It’s such a human reflex to want to make the hurt stop, but you’re right; we need to be allowed to feel everything in order to heal and grow. ❤️
So so true, and something I really didn’t learn until I was in pain myself. I think as a society we tend to think of grief as a time-bound thing: crisis, grief period, emerge stronger. But we have few models of ongoing pain that’s woven into daily life — I’m both OK and not, and I’m gonna be here for a while. Sometimes I feel silly for still writing about a divorce that ended a year ago. But then I’m unwinding and remaking my entire adult life (and all the childhood stuff that fed those adult choices.) Of *course* I’m still processing!
You sharing your work and candor is the gift to us ❤️
Thank you Tatiana! ❤️
This resonates so deeply:
“When people I loved were hurting, I tried to fix them too. I said, ‘At least it’s not X’ and ‘Why don’t you do Y.’ I was trying to hurry away their hurt, as if their hurt were shameful. But in my darkest days, I was moved by friends who said, ‘This hurts like hell, and I’m sorry,’ without trying to make it better.”
People in the infertility groups I’m part of often say how painful it is when others try to fix or diminish our pain; how desperately we just need acknowledgment and validation of our grief. It’s such a human reflex to want to make the hurt stop, but you’re right; we need to be allowed to feel everything in order to heal and grow. ❤️
So so true, and something I really didn’t learn until I was in pain myself. I think as a society we tend to think of grief as a time-bound thing: crisis, grief period, emerge stronger. But we have few models of ongoing pain that’s woven into daily life — I’m both OK and not, and I’m gonna be here for a while. Sometimes I feel silly for still writing about a divorce that ended a year ago. But then I’m unwinding and remaking my entire adult life (and all the childhood stuff that fed those adult choices.) Of *course* I’m still processing!
Beautiful essay ❤️ I got chills thinking of you putting a flower on that grave for me.
I got chills from this comment. Thank you for sharing! ❤️