In the history of some families there is an episode associated with the death of a child. In the past, others occurred perinatal losses or termination of pregnancy. What does it mean for us today? Whether to remember these stories or betray?
“I brought it in Podil”, “I walked …”, “I disgraced the family …”. In our memory, these murderous stigma are still fresh.
Times are changing, and now society is not so acute reacting to the appearance of a child out of marriage. And yet, on their own decision or at the insistence of the family, women are now abortion for medical reasons, or if the pregnancy has come from the “wrong” man: not that nationality, status, religion, or – from unloved.
And yet, these children who have not happened to be born, psychologists believe, are invisibly present in the family. Like those who have not grown, having passed away from life as a result of an illness or accident. They change the life of not only mothers and father, but also born children born.
Another future
The loss of a child and pregnancy is not a separate event, but a complex phenomenon, emphasizes the family systemic psychologist Veronika Losenko, the head of the psychological service of the Charitable Foundation “Light in their hands”: “My customers who have lost children often draw the same thing: in it, and in itThe family is walking – mom, dad, two children, dog, they throw her ball, and everyone laughs. This is the image of the family and the future that has not happened “.
Many failed mothers experience the crisis of identity. 44-year-old Elena decided that she had no right to call herself a woman after she lost her daughter in the first birth.
“I considered myself a short -lived, since I could not give birth. I punished myself for this, including the lack of care of myself and my body, because it betrayed me. Drove herself into work and load in the country, literally buried in the ground. I did not need a manicure: there was dirt under my nails, there was a place for her.
I wore only trousers, for the first time put on a skirt after the fifth month of therapy with a psychologist, to whom I went after the birth of my second child. Only then did I realize the reason for my workaholism, which did not stop even after the second birth: I ran away from pain, but thereby deprived my family of love. I sobbed because I not only lost my first child, but almost left without a family. “.
If a woman had a loss before the birth of other children, then she often tolerates the image of an unborn son or daughter to them
A feeling of guilt and shame associated with a forced termination of pregnancy can manifest itself as psychological infertility.
“One of the women who contacted me made an abortion, yielding to the pressure of relatives: she was a Muslim, and her partner was Orthodox, and relatives opposed a foreigner,” says Tatyana Grigoryeva, an emotionally-shaped therapist. – She tried to forget about it, but the new pregnancy did not come.
When we worked with the image of the future child, whom she really wanted, she introduced her horror and pain, medical instruments and a bloodied piece of meat. For her, the child is associated with pain, shame, guilt, fear. She took all the blame for herself not protecting her baby. She believed that she had no right to be a mother “.
Not only sorrow and sadness are connected with loss, but also guilt and shame. Often they are not quite realized. But until this has happened, it is difficult to create a new future.
Alien life
If a child is lost in the family, then other children born before or after lost, get a large psychological stress. They work out all the hopes and fears of the parents. And often become objects of hyper -peaks: parents, grandparents are so afraid to lose them that they are fenced not only from all the difficulties of the world, but also from contact with it.
“The younger brother drowned when I was 12,” recalls 34-year-old Svetlana. – Since then, I was forbidden to go to school alone, they called an ambulance at a temperature of 37.5. It already seemed to me that I could die at any moment. I began to be afraid of water and stopped swimming.
My children are also afraid to swim, although we took them to the pool, to the coach. We never discussed the death of his brother in the family, but in some elusive way, the panic of my mother was transferred to her grandchildren. “.
“If a woman had a loss before the birth of other children, then she often tolerates the image of an unborn son or daughter on them,” explains Tatyana Grigoryeva. – These are the so -called replacement children. Often such a child receives the same name as the deceased brother or sister.
The image of the child who died in childbirth or at an older age is present invisibly nearby, and the silence does not facilitate this situation, but aggravates it. Mother suffers, sad, feels guilty, and the child, getting into her emotional field, takes the guilt for her condition. “Mom is sad – I’m bad”. Or begins to be afraid of the world, perceiving it as a source of dangers “.
Often all the hopes of the parents are entrusted to the remaining child. He lives for two or for seven. “In my practice there were cases when customers admitted to me: I have such a feeling
of guilt for living! Or: I seem to live someone else’s life, ”says Veronika Losenko. – If the family had abortions, but they didn’t even talk about them matured by the matured children, they feel it anyway.
I propose to put a chairs to the client, as much as he wants, as he feels. He may not know the exact number of aborted or dead brothers or sisters. But when his inner sensation is visualized, it becomes easier for him. It seems to be sharing the load between all. In such moments, incredible discoveries occur. Someone suddenly realizes that he is not alone in the family: “I am the youngest, senior or medium”.
After such insights, many change even externally: they brighten in the face, straighten their shoulders and back.
Between us the wall
Когда супруги не обсуждают потерю, из нее делается секрет, табу, можно часто увидеть, что они вроде бы вместе, но на самом деле порознь.
“The couple is kept on synchronization. They cried together, went to the grave, then, having calmed down, we went to cook dinner, – explains Veronika Losenko. – When it is difficult for one or both to raise a difficult topic of the loss of a child, they have a rasinchron, everyone grieves by themselves.
A couple comes to the reception, not a word about the loss. But I see that the wall seemed to have grown between them: they do not look at each other, turn away in different directions, try to stay at the distance. “It feels like there is something between you that interferes with your relationship.”.
I put a chair between them at a consultation and I propose to put this something on it. And then they are breaking through. It turns out that a lost child between them. He either cannot forgive the insult, or everyone still suffers and has not yet experienced his grief. If this happened in the family, then grieve together, let it be unifying, and not a dividing process. “.
An unequivocal topic, created a secret, like a black hole, pulls attention, sucks energy, deprives a couple of true intimacy. Like the opened deception. “For example, a woman received an installation from her mother that all the men are bastards, they only need sex. We do not know, maybe in her family we encountered this. And now she gets pregnant and already initially does not trust her partner. She does not understand why, but decides to do an abortion without saying anything to her husband, ”says Tatyana Grigoryeva. – And he breaks anger at her husband: you are worthless, you will leave me if I want to give birth. Husband, having learned that she got rid of the child, leaves. The fact that she became the victim of the installation of her mother, who, in turn, accepted her from her grandmother, became clear only during therapy. “.
Why speak?
But if secrets are so harmful, it turns out, they must be taken from the shadow to the light of God?
“Whether to tell a partner, for example, about previous pregnancies? This will be a very harmful advice, especially when it comes to Abuser relationships, where they can literally kill us, ”Veronika Losenko argues. – I know that some psychologists believe that partners should not have secrets. But it seems to me that it is impossible to completely avoid secrets, this is utopia. “.
Better to figure out why I want to share a secret. I do not want to be dishonest with a partner or something else moves me? Or I want to tell my child that he had a brother or sister – why?