What grief sounds like in your head

Grief can impact the kindness of our inner voice, but there is huge value of meeting those thoughts with compassion rather than judgement. Here Petals Senior Counsellor, Dr Russ Hargreaves shares how to manage the inner dialogue of grief.

Grief can be a noisy, intrusive affair. Just when you think you started to wrap your head around your loss, there it is again: the lost hopes and dreams; all that might have been; the triggers around you that remind you of where your pregnancy should’ve been by now; the expectations of others who might think your head should be in a different space by now. 

One of the things about an inner dialogue is that others may not be aware that these thoughts are swirling around your head. These voices and noises often happen in private, making this feel like a terribly lonely journey. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way, and we hope this blog will help to demystify what grief sounds like in your head. 

5 common thoughts of grief 

 1. “Was it my fault?”  

I can’t tell you how often we hear parents blaming themselves for their loss. What I can tell you is that it’s one of the most common sources of an inner dialogue. It’s usually mum who questions herself: why couldn’t my body sustain a pregnancy? Is it something I did throughout my pregnancy that caused this loss? How can I ever trust my body to begin to think about trying for another baby in the future? In my experience, it’s very unusual that anybody causes their pregnancy loss and even more uncommon that this is done with intention. So, the short answer is, it almost certainly wasn’t your fault, any more than it was your partner’s fault. It might be worth trying to imagine what you would say to a friend that was blaming themselves after their own pregnancy loss. 

2.  “I should be over this.” – expectations around how long grief “should” last. 

Again, we hear this all the time, the suggestion that it is time to move on. I’m never really sure what this means? Does moving on mean forgetting that you’ve had this experience? Baby loss is almost certainly the most traumatic thing that you will ever experience in your life, and so to imagine that you should be over this is very unrealistic. When somebody dies, we don’t get over them. We continue to yearn for them, and we often replay all of the things that we might have done differently had we known that we were going to lose them. It might be worth asking yourself “What would moving on look like”. I’ve been doing this work for a very long time and I still don’t have an answer to this question. Something we find much more helpful at Petals is spending time leaning into your loss and equally, spending some time doing “normal” things. This is what healthy grief looks like. 

3. “People are tired of hearing about it.”  

If you find that you’re in a dialogue is telling you that people are tired of hearing about your loss, you may be surrounding yourselves with some of the wrong people. It’s important to try and locate people who are open to the idea that you have been through an enormous trauma and are willing to hear this as often as you’re willing to tell it. Admittedly, this is not always easy, as these people don’t grow on trees. You will certainly find counsellors at Petals who are more than willing to hear your story, as often as you need to tell it, and they will not tire of this. Additionally, you may find people online with a similar experience to yourself, and they too will never tire of hearing of your experience. You are not a burden. You are not a problem. You are not somebody to be avoided. You are having these thoughts because others are finding your trauma painful, especially when they cannot come up with answers and solutions. 

 4. “I don’t recognise myself anymore.”  

I don’t need to remind you about the enormity of the events that you’ve been through with regards to pregnancy and baby loss. This makes it very unlikely that you will recognise yourself because you are certainly not the person you were before your baby died. You have changed and sometimes, it can be very difficult to find the new you. You may have once been the life and soul of the party, but following such a loss, it’s normal to be the person that doesn’t want to be at the party at all. Once again, you have changed, and this change may be your baby’s legacy. It’s not the outcome you wanted or hoped for, nor is it the legacy that you wanted, but we are all a product of our history and I’m so sorry to say that baby loss is now a part of your history. This does not mean you become a bad person, just a different one. To the person you perhaps hoped to be. 

5. “What if I forget them?” – the fear that moving forward means leaving someone behind. 

Petals has worked with thousands of couples and individuals following the loss of a baby or child. We are yet to meet a single person who has forgotten their baby. On the contrary, I have worked with women in their 80s who still remember and cry for a baby they lost many, many years before. We do not forget our babies, we never lose the sense of hope and love that was once attached to your baby and it will remain forevermore. There will always be milestones such as a due date or birthday that can be remembered and perhaps even celebrated one day. You may also go on to have siblings that can be invited to remember the brother or sister they will never have. You will undoubtedly have people around you that will also remember your baby for many, many years to come. 

 How to meet those thoughts with compassion

If you are struggling with grief, and at times, feel like you are being drowned out by a noisy inner dialogue, remember that you’re not alone. Almost all of the baby loss community experiences these inner voices, some of them louder than others. This inner dialogue is a powerful connection to your baby. But notice that many of the questions that you ask yourself will be critical questions. You might begin to find a balance by asking yourself other more compassionate and loving questions. 

Five sentences to help you flip the narrative of your thoughts: 

1. I would never have harmed my baby, nothing could be further from the truth.
2. I did everything I could to have this baby, they meant the world to me.
3. I don’t have to ‘get over it’. My relationship with my baby continues, forever.
4. I have changed and this is part of my bay’s legacy. They mattered enough to make me a different person to the one I was before my pregnancy.
5. There will be hours and days where I don’t think about my baby and that’s OK. But this does not mean I have forgotten them. I will never forget this experience nor the hopes and dreams I had around my pregnancy.

Remember, you are on a journey with your grief, and you may find that grief comes in waves. At times you may find that you’re drowning in these waves and at other times your grief feels more like ripples. Please think about sharing these waves with others rather than trying to keep your head above water without the help of anybody else. 

If you need to talk to people who understand, our supportive Petals groups are here: communities of other people who ‘get it’.