A Type Of Pain That Has No Name

Some types of pain leave a mark on you and make you speechless. For some losses, there are really no words. It hurts to be an orphan or a widow, but when your child dies, you realize that nothing you can say can reflect how you feel. This is a kind of pain that has no name.

A pain that hurts inside, because you have lost a part of you, a part on which you have built your life. And therefore your life has lost some of its significance, because everything you feel is guilt, because you should have gone first, you should have been good enough to keep them from going away.

Although the distress you feel is normal , making yourself feel guilty is nothing more than a product of self-loathing that you feel because you continue to live when there are children living longer than their parents.

It’s not your fault

The inner voice of your conscience is especially intense during these painful times. Little Timmy Grasshopper who usually helps you distinguish right from wrong can bother you when you remember a past that could have been and was not. It causes you to blame yourself for a past that was not under your control.

It fills you with thoughts of self-guilt, such as:  What if I woke up earlier? What if he was sick and I did not see it? If I had acted differently…  But the truth is that there was probably nothing you could have done to change what happened. Death happens. We usually do not know when, and it is irrational to try to understand it.

Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish between guilt and responsibility. If you are eaten by pain that surrounds you, you will prevent yourself from overcoming it and moving forward. Guilt does not respond to logic, it invades you completely,  because you do not understand what happened, and you can not accept it without feeling guilty about it.

And while understanding pain is the first step toward acceptance, you do not always have to understand all the “why” questions behind the loss, because often there is no reason why; it just happens.

Treat guilt in times of grief

Guilt is one of the emotions that causes the greatest difficulties during the grieving process. However, there are some steps you can follow to help yourself overcome it:

• Talk about the pain. Talk to friends and family members you trust. Do not let the loss become a taboo subject. Accepting what happened is important, and hearing different points of view will help you overcome the guilt.
• Accept your feelings. It is normal for grief to bring countless other emotions, from sadness to exhaustion. Accept them all and experience them, but do not be consumed by them.

• Do not throw your life aside. During the grieving process, you may feel so bad that you neglect your routines yourself without realizing it. This gives you more time to continue searching for the causes behind the loss. Do not stop taking care of yourself and your loved ones, who also need you.

• Remember the life of your loved one who passed away. Your child is not defined only at the moment you lost them. Remember all the love they had for you and the good moments you shared together. This is the best tribute you can give them.
• Ask for professional help if you need it. Even if you think that many other people have been through the same thing, not all of them are the same, and asking for help can help you overcome the emotions that have gripped you.