This is me – Struggling with sudden death
Hi I am, Fiona 56, with a 6-year old that I call my tornado. She’s the fastest moving child I know. She can trash a space in seconds. She doesn’t mean to, she just loves to burst into any space and claim it as her own. Every current toy, dolly or game is brought into said space and left while she moves onto something else. I am married to Brian my bestie. We are a fairly ordinary family. I’m Adopted and my daughter is with us on an SGO. She is my great-niece from the family I was adopted out of. My aim with my blog is to capture some of the dripping tap moments where I see my adoption has affected my perception of things.
Death is awful to deal with, sudden death can be crippling
The first death that I can recall was my Grandad. He had been ill for years. It was awful watching the grief of others like my Nana and Dad. I was saddened because I loved him dearly. As the years rolled on all of my grandparents sadly passed away. I realised I was not processing my grief but being very concerned for my parents as their loss was greater. This became a pattern. I seemed to be of the mind that my grief was not to be shared. On reflection, I know that as a child I was always held back from being overly emotional. Being told often to stop being hysterical when I thought I was only crying for good reason. I learned quickly to switch off the tears. Is this an adoption issue? I believe for me it is tied in. My initial loss in being abandoned at birth, knowing I was unwanted. being with one foster family who couldn’t cope then placed with a second family then on to my adoptive family. Of course, attachment issues are going to affect how I feel about things. Death being one of them.
35 years of adulthood later ………..
From 2015 death became a huge wave that almost drowned me. In August of that year, my mother died. The family were all there as she desperately tried to hang on to life. That final breath was the most terrible moment. No one was going to do CPR, everyone was affected in their own hearts and minds in their own way. I wanted to throw myself on the floor and scream my head off. My sister was devastated as was my brother. I hugged my nephew who was nannies best boy. Again I felt the need to be strong for others my Sister especially. Although My Mum was my Mum for just as long as she was my sibling’s Mum, I kept feeling that they had more right than me to be upset. I struggled greatly to manage that grief. I struggled to share that grief. The deaths kept coming. My Step-Dad was found dead on the day we met our daughter for the first time. I was supporting my husband who was physically bereft from the effects of chemo. Again the feelings were all suppressed (not good)
On it went the next 18 months saw me lose 3 very close friends to suicide. Another very close and young friend died in an operating theatre. Within that, I had a diagnosis where I had to go through a massive operation that took a long time to recover from. That was more loss, the loss of my ovaries, my womb and all of my cervix. All that grief was overwhelming. Where were the tears? I kept thinking it’s not my place to cry or get over emotional about any of it.
How do I deal with Death now?
I deal with it badly in a nutshell. I seem to be able to put it somewhere, I have not worked out where I’ve put it yet. Over the past couple of years, I have read many books on grief, grieving and loss. The best one that I’ve read recently is called Sixteen Days. Available on Amazon by Dr Victoria Wilson Crane.
Going Forward
I pray / meditate daily. I read as much as I can on the coping mechanisms needed to deal with trauma. I did have fantastic counselling and I’m now embarking on therapy to look at my emotions. I have a Facebook group that you can join for adoptees only
Thank you for reading this. Look out for Next weeks blog – Attachment issues