Page 23 - flip book- How To Survive Baby Loss

Triggers Here,Triggers There, Triggers Everywhere

Dealing with the holidays is a whole other beast, as you are
around others who may be insensitive to your pain and your
experience as they are celebrating. People mean well, but they
rarely know what to say or do. My first Christmas without my
son, I woke up and immediately thought of him and cried that
he would not be with us and our family. Can you remember
your first holiday trigger? I distinctly remember Resurrection
Sunday and feeling a pain seeing families posting Easter pic-
tures on social media reminding me of who was not with us.
That day, I realized social media was not my friend. The trig-
gers were too much, so I got off Facebook and talked to a friend.

It is fine to not attend every holiday celebration, to decline
to host the holiday that you usually have at your place, and to
set a different expectation for those around you. You are not ex-
pected to carry on with life as if nothing happened. This is the
perfect time to set boundaries. Do not feel bad about it allowing
yourself the gift of time to grieve.

The reactions to grief are generally very different for men
and women. Women tend to be more emotional and process by
talking and crying, while men tend to focus on work and proj-
ects they can fix. Men may display grief in the form of anger or
frustration. Women tend to worry about helping living children
deal with sibling loss and may get angry and short with others.
Women are more affected by the change in their relationships
post loss, and struggle with feeling like her body “failed.” Per-
sonally, I was upset that I took it lightly about counting kicks
even though I felt something was wrong, but ignored it because
I was busy and had faith. What about you? What do you worry
about? What do you feel guilty about?

Sometimes we want to beat something up. We react to pain
by wanting to cause pain. We want others to care that we are in
pain. There are different reactions.

● Some react by denial.

● Some blame others.

● Some leave spouses.

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