Counselling on the Death Of A Child
Without Prejudice
I would advise anyone that goes through a major life trauma they must have counselling. After the death of my daughter I had the best counselling that money could buy. I listened to hours of tapes and was counselled personally by a man and a woman team, working closely together. The first thing they said to me that made any sense was that they couldn't know what I was going through. They hadn't been through it themselves.
But, they had counselled many people that had been in my situation and they also went to a pool late at night, in darkness to see what the experience was like for Lauren. I was touched by that as I thought it was a kind thing to do. I didn't have the courage to do that myself. I probably never will. They told me that I couldn't help Lauren any more but I could help my self.
They said that they knew I had just had a new baby grandson born into the family, my first grand child and at the time I had been over the moon with excitement. I will never forget the feeling of euphoria I had when Kyle was born. I felt that all was right in my world that day. Simon, Kyle's dad and I smashed raw eggs into each others hair, that night, as it was a symbol of good luck. We both seemed so young, then and carefree.
Within two weeks my youngest daughter had died in a senseless tragedy, drowning at a local pool and even though there have been many births of grand children since then, there was never again to be the ecstatic joy we felt when Kyle was born. There has been plenty of Joy for all of us, but not quite the same as that one. After a traumatic event you are never quite as happy or laugh as much and my heart goes out to any parent that has lost a beautiful child, no matter how old, before birth, stillborn, miscarriage, it really doesn't matter.
All deaths of babies and children are too hard to imagine and yet we have to live with it. And they said that one day I would learn to live around it. And I do now, but I can't possibly;y ever forget. Some of the myths of grief they told me and they helped me more than anything, so I am passing them on.
First and foremost "Time", does not help anything. That is a myth. What actually happens is that in "time" grief gets worse but it becomes more private. I can acknowledge that to be true.
Distance doesn't help it either. Sooner or later you can't "run" from the grief and you are going to have to bald faced deal with it. Your guilt and pain cannot be measured on any scale, it's always excruciating and yes, you will blame yourself, somehow, as that is only human. Ever after when you "fail" at something it will bring to mind all the rejections and all the pain that you have felt before.
It helps to be among happy positive people and it's especially lovely to be with people who knew you when you went through the death and they will just let you cry and sob and scream if you have to. And if in that moment you hate the world and want to die then that is Ok too. It's also only human.
If you defer grief sooner or later you are going to have to deal with it or you will deflect it on to something else and suddenly you are sobbing for days about your cat you had to have put down. its happened to me and I felt like a complete idiot. The good vet had to put me in another room as I was scaring the other clients. Expect to be like this for the rest of your life.
Avoid funerals for the exact same reason. You will over react and memories will come flooding back and it's at times not appropriate. I went to my older daughters best friends Mum's funeral and sobbed all the way through the funeral and then some. I am sure her brothers and sisters were thinking,
Who is that dreaful woman, that we don't know, and why is she wailing like a banshee when we are not."
The counsellors told me I would go through all the stages of grief until I came to the last, acceptance. I have no idea why anyone thinks it is good television to talk to the parents of a child that has died straight after the tragedy. In the first stage you are completely numb and in shock and your body in it's attempt to cope is flooding your body with "feel good" endorphins. They last about a month and then wear off.
The next stage is just sheer raw unbearable pain. You feel like the skin of your body has been taken off with a razor and even your hair hurts, your eyelashes hurt, there is no future. You feel alone and isolated and like no one in the world can understand you.
Don't drive when you are like that as you are so out of control you are likely to have a smash. I stayed indoors pretty much for the first 12 months. And that is another thing the counsellors told me, don't make any big changes to your life for 12 months. My ex and I had already separated before Lauren died and the joining of us together to get through the first 5 months was a waste of time and energy for both of us. But we did it.
We then found we still couldn't stand each other and we were both better off when we did. I'm glad for one thing he organised the counselling within a week of her dying and that counselling became my out. It became family counselling and they counselled me on how to break away from him and be on my own. So grateful for that too.
They also told me that one day I would come to an understanding. That I would see a reason for Lauren being born and a reason for her dying. I can remember at the time I thought they were both completely mad. But I did come to an understanding of her being born and for her death and that fact alone has helped me more than anything.
When they spoke of my new grandson I also thought they were mad. I felt like I didn't know him. He was just a tiny little blob in a basket and I wanted to talk about my 12 year old. But I see the wisdom, now, in what they were saying. They were saying,
"You can't help your little girl, but you can be something of importance to your future, a new life, a new future "
I see the wisdom in that now.
They also said the worst cases of grief they see are the parents of babies born stillborn or miscarried. That society does not "see" it as a recognised grief the way my child's death was. That the parents of stillborn or miscarried children feel the grief just as much as a child that had lived. And that if I was still crying in public at the twelve month anniversary I was in trouble.
They said I was to talk about her and talk about her until I could leave room in my brain for something else. So I did. I brought the subject up to others. I talked of her as my Mother had not. That was the way in the 1950's when my brother Jamie died aged 11. We kids did not talk of Jamie and the grief came out years later when we realised the not speaking about him made us feel like he hadn't existed. That was a rough time too.
The counsellors explained, simply, that was the way it was then. And times and ideas have changed. My family and I grieved for a brother who had died fort two years earlier when Lauren died. We were about to find out then that they had both died on the exact same day. November 30th. Strange how that day out of 365 days in the Year. Were we cursed in someway ?
Two kids in the one family dying on the exact same day, what are the odds? We had no idea of the day he died until my Sister went to make a proper headstone for him and checked the archives. James Stuart Bruckshaw died in the sane day as Lauren Jade Hancock. It was too bizarre to be made up. We were stunned beyond belief when we found out. I was pregnant with Lauren when Mum died. She died in the November of 1976 and she did it by her own hand. She was 53.
She had been pretty full on for the last few years of her life, quite mad and given to schizoid behaviour. She had all the psychiatrists on the Gold Coast trying to help her, but antidepressants were not available then. It was terribly hard for my little sister then as she was only ten.
Just 10, when Mum died, rendering her virtually an orphan as Dad remarried 18 months after Mum died and my family was furious at the timing. The marriage didn't work out and Dad stated then he'd rather go through a death than a divorce, as the divorce was worse. He returned to England and my little sister didn't go with him but stayed with my older sister in Australia.
So she lost both parents in a way and was quick to marry and build her own security with babies and her own family. My girls made it out of the whole mess after Lauren died fairly quickly too. My ex husband and I divorced only two years later and have barely spoken to each other since than and that is the way it is for us. I hated him then and I hate him now, I forgive him for my own sanity but I don't forget. You can't ever forget if someone has done you great harm.
The counsellors told me to let him go. I sometimes felt that I kept him connected to the world and they said he was a grown man and was certainly not feeling sorry for me. That they had written to him personally and asked him to come and see them. He had been once at the first session. They could tell he had anger issues. I was on my own after that and things were better.
I never forget Lauren, it's a pain that I nurse like a toothache. If I probe it, it hurts. So I don't probe, I prefer to think she is somewhere and that one day I will see her again. But until that time, it's my role in life to be happy and that is what I intend to do.
Love Janette
I would advise anyone that goes through a major life trauma they must have counselling. After the death of my daughter I had the best counselling that money could buy. I listened to hours of tapes and was counselled personally by a man and a woman team, working closely together. The first thing they said to me that made any sense was that they couldn't know what I was going through. They hadn't been through it themselves.
But, they had counselled many people that had been in my situation and they also went to a pool late at night, in darkness to see what the experience was like for Lauren. I was touched by that as I thought it was a kind thing to do. I didn't have the courage to do that myself. I probably never will. They told me that I couldn't help Lauren any more but I could help my self.
They said that they knew I had just had a new baby grandson born into the family, my first grand child and at the time I had been over the moon with excitement. I will never forget the feeling of euphoria I had when Kyle was born. I felt that all was right in my world that day. Simon, Kyle's dad and I smashed raw eggs into each others hair, that night, as it was a symbol of good luck. We both seemed so young, then and carefree.
Within two weeks my youngest daughter had died in a senseless tragedy, drowning at a local pool and even though there have been many births of grand children since then, there was never again to be the ecstatic joy we felt when Kyle was born. There has been plenty of Joy for all of us, but not quite the same as that one. After a traumatic event you are never quite as happy or laugh as much and my heart goes out to any parent that has lost a beautiful child, no matter how old, before birth, stillborn, miscarriage, it really doesn't matter.
All deaths of babies and children are too hard to imagine and yet we have to live with it. And they said that one day I would learn to live around it. And I do now, but I can't possibly;y ever forget. Some of the myths of grief they told me and they helped me more than anything, so I am passing them on.
First and foremost "Time", does not help anything. That is a myth. What actually happens is that in "time" grief gets worse but it becomes more private. I can acknowledge that to be true.
Distance doesn't help it either. Sooner or later you can't "run" from the grief and you are going to have to bald faced deal with it. Your guilt and pain cannot be measured on any scale, it's always excruciating and yes, you will blame yourself, somehow, as that is only human. Ever after when you "fail" at something it will bring to mind all the rejections and all the pain that you have felt before.
It helps to be among happy positive people and it's especially lovely to be with people who knew you when you went through the death and they will just let you cry and sob and scream if you have to. And if in that moment you hate the world and want to die then that is Ok too. It's also only human.
If you defer grief sooner or later you are going to have to deal with it or you will deflect it on to something else and suddenly you are sobbing for days about your cat you had to have put down. its happened to me and I felt like a complete idiot. The good vet had to put me in another room as I was scaring the other clients. Expect to be like this for the rest of your life.
Avoid funerals for the exact same reason. You will over react and memories will come flooding back and it's at times not appropriate. I went to my older daughters best friends Mum's funeral and sobbed all the way through the funeral and then some. I am sure her brothers and sisters were thinking,
Who is that dreaful woman, that we don't know, and why is she wailing like a banshee when we are not."
The counsellors told me I would go through all the stages of grief until I came to the last, acceptance. I have no idea why anyone thinks it is good television to talk to the parents of a child that has died straight after the tragedy. In the first stage you are completely numb and in shock and your body in it's attempt to cope is flooding your body with "feel good" endorphins. They last about a month and then wear off.
The next stage is just sheer raw unbearable pain. You feel like the skin of your body has been taken off with a razor and even your hair hurts, your eyelashes hurt, there is no future. You feel alone and isolated and like no one in the world can understand you.
Don't drive when you are like that as you are so out of control you are likely to have a smash. I stayed indoors pretty much for the first 12 months. And that is another thing the counsellors told me, don't make any big changes to your life for 12 months. My ex and I had already separated before Lauren died and the joining of us together to get through the first 5 months was a waste of time and energy for both of us. But we did it.
We then found we still couldn't stand each other and we were both better off when we did. I'm glad for one thing he organised the counselling within a week of her dying and that counselling became my out. It became family counselling and they counselled me on how to break away from him and be on my own. So grateful for that too.
They also told me that one day I would come to an understanding. That I would see a reason for Lauren being born and a reason for her dying. I can remember at the time I thought they were both completely mad. But I did come to an understanding of her being born and for her death and that fact alone has helped me more than anything.
When they spoke of my new grandson I also thought they were mad. I felt like I didn't know him. He was just a tiny little blob in a basket and I wanted to talk about my 12 year old. But I see the wisdom, now, in what they were saying. They were saying,
"You can't help your little girl, but you can be something of importance to your future, a new life, a new future "
I see the wisdom in that now.
They also said the worst cases of grief they see are the parents of babies born stillborn or miscarried. That society does not "see" it as a recognised grief the way my child's death was. That the parents of stillborn or miscarried children feel the grief just as much as a child that had lived. And that if I was still crying in public at the twelve month anniversary I was in trouble.
They said I was to talk about her and talk about her until I could leave room in my brain for something else. So I did. I brought the subject up to others. I talked of her as my Mother had not. That was the way in the 1950's when my brother Jamie died aged 11. We kids did not talk of Jamie and the grief came out years later when we realised the not speaking about him made us feel like he hadn't existed. That was a rough time too.
The counsellors explained, simply, that was the way it was then. And times and ideas have changed. My family and I grieved for a brother who had died fort two years earlier when Lauren died. We were about to find out then that they had both died on the exact same day. November 30th. Strange how that day out of 365 days in the Year. Were we cursed in someway ?
Two kids in the one family dying on the exact same day, what are the odds? We had no idea of the day he died until my Sister went to make a proper headstone for him and checked the archives. James Stuart Bruckshaw died in the sane day as Lauren Jade Hancock. It was too bizarre to be made up. We were stunned beyond belief when we found out. I was pregnant with Lauren when Mum died. She died in the November of 1976 and she did it by her own hand. She was 53.
She had been pretty full on for the last few years of her life, quite mad and given to schizoid behaviour. She had all the psychiatrists on the Gold Coast trying to help her, but antidepressants were not available then. It was terribly hard for my little sister then as she was only ten.
Just 10, when Mum died, rendering her virtually an orphan as Dad remarried 18 months after Mum died and my family was furious at the timing. The marriage didn't work out and Dad stated then he'd rather go through a death than a divorce, as the divorce was worse. He returned to England and my little sister didn't go with him but stayed with my older sister in Australia.
So she lost both parents in a way and was quick to marry and build her own security with babies and her own family. My girls made it out of the whole mess after Lauren died fairly quickly too. My ex husband and I divorced only two years later and have barely spoken to each other since than and that is the way it is for us. I hated him then and I hate him now, I forgive him for my own sanity but I don't forget. You can't ever forget if someone has done you great harm.
The counsellors told me to let him go. I sometimes felt that I kept him connected to the world and they said he was a grown man and was certainly not feeling sorry for me. That they had written to him personally and asked him to come and see them. He had been once at the first session. They could tell he had anger issues. I was on my own after that and things were better.
I never forget Lauren, it's a pain that I nurse like a toothache. If I probe it, it hurts. So I don't probe, I prefer to think she is somewhere and that one day I will see her again. But until that time, it's my role in life to be happy and that is what I intend to do.
Love Janette
