The unfixable problem

SOURCE

“Are you seeing a therapist?” 

In the weeks and months following my daughter’s death, if I started crying – on the phone with my mom, on a hike with a friend, at the doctor’s office – chances are I would get asked that question. It was almost rhetorical, and I eventually learned that the correct answer is “yes.” Once I said yes, people seemed relieved. Like they had confirmed that a professional was involved, and then we could continue the conversation. Someone else was going to fix it. 

It was true for a while. In fact, I saw several different therapists after my daughter died. None of them could help me. After each session, she was still dead and I was still so, so sad.

I understand why those doctors, sisters, friends, thought I needed therapy. I was filling out those questionnaires at every postpartum appointment.. “How many times in the last two weeks have you felt down, depressed or hopeless…Little interest or pleasure in doing things…” According to these forms, something was wrong with me. It was quantifiably pathological how sad I was, how I sat for days on end crying and staring at the wall. 

First, I tried a therapist who I had seen before Olivia died for what now seem like very minor life difficulties. She was someone I genuinely liked and respected, but somehow she was not able to speed up my grieving or make life suck less. So, she referred me to a woman who supposedly specialized in child loss in the hopes that she would have the key to ending my suffering, one 50-minute session at a time. This person turned out to be a self-proclaimed “life coach” who made me Venmo her $150 to listen to me recount the whole sad story on the phone one time. Feeling scammed, but still willing to pursue the promise that therapy was the cure I needed, I tried one more legitimate, licensed therapist, who was also very nice. She was sadly unable to turn back time to before my child died.

It felt exhausting to explain my child’s death over and over to people who had never experienced it, but who had an expectation that they could “help” (and were invoicing me for it). They had an impossible task, but they were not willing to give up, so we were locked in a mutually frustrating stalemate. They wanted to fix my problem – they were trained to, they were being paid to – and neither one of us wanted to acknowledge that it wasn’t working. It almost felt impolite for me to suggest such a thing.

Finally, I gave up. I came to realize that there is nothing wrong with crying a lot when something really sad happens. That’s normal. It just makes people uncomfortable to watch. They would rather you did it behind closed doors, under the supervision of a professional. 

There are some things that just can’t be fixed, even with the best schooling and the most empathetic “mm-hmms.” That idea makes people extremely uncomfortable. Not just about me, their loved one whose suffering is un-fixable, but about what that could mean for them someday. What if something terrible happens? You just have to sit with the pain, and you can’t change your situation? You just cry in public all the time? 

Well, yes. 

That is not the answer people want. It’s not something we will voluntarily confront or acknowledge. I certainly didn’t. While I was pregnant with Olivia, I did not want to acknowledge that my baby could die. I think because that felt simply un-fixable. I did not know what I would do in that situation – how I would continue living. I couldn’t picture it, so I tried to avoid knowing about it. 

We live in a time when so many of our problems have the promise of a quick fix. You can have groceries delivered with the click of a button and take away pain with the pop of a pill. For many emotional afflictions or events, you can “process” it in therapy – or even on a therapy app – and “heal.” So, how do you fix “my beloved child died”? Is there a pill? Can you process it and be healed?

No? 

Are you telling me I just have to experience this deep pain for an indefinite period of time, possibly forever? 

And she’s not coming back?

***

So that’s where I am now. I’m experiencing the pain, and I don’t expect it to ever stop. In a way, I don’t want it to, because it’s my connection to my daughter. It’s how I know she was here, is still here in some ways. Five years on, it’s not as all-consuming as it was in those days when every third conversation involved someone telling me to go to therapy. But I do still cry in public sometimes. It’s not something I’m trying to fix. 

Did you feel like your grief was ‘pathologized’? Did you try therapy? How did it go for you? What did you do to try to ‘fix’ your grief? What did you learn about grief from trying? What helped? What didn’t?