Social Media

Wednesday 5th December

It’s only 7 am and I have already been in tears.. god help me. I am not in tears because I am missing my little boy, I have started to be able to think about Findley and miss him without it ending in floods of tears. My tears have come at the kindness of a stranger. One of my anti-natal group contacting me with such a beautiful message, it reminded me of what kindness there still is in this world. In the journey it’s so important to remember that the action of one person can completely change your day.

Those who read regularly, binge read or just sometime read, may have noticed the last month or so, things have started to seem brighter. I hope that this continues into the festive season although I do worry there are some dark days ahead of us this next few weeks. I keep just saying I have to ride the storm and take each day at a time. I have agreed to buy a Christmas tree and I have even bought one for Findley memorial yesterday, which I had wanted to be, truth be told, wasn’t sure if I would be able to bring myself to do. However I realise it’s important that I continue to allow Findley to live on through me.

So anyway my point, the more positive feelings I have been having. The darker days have been less, the brighter one more. I spent a lot of time in The SANDS forum the last 20 weeks, almost addicted to it, every empty space in my day I would fill with reading posts, taking hope from them, and also releasing I am not alone, no one reached out and hand selected me. You may not have your baby! However the last few weeks I have found myself pulling away from the site. For a few reasons, one being a troll who lied about baby loss, this just filled me with such emotion, I can’t even put it in towards. It took away my safe place, but mainly because I don’t think I need to be on there all the time. I can’t keep reading post from all these new people who have had their hopes and dreams stolen, keep knowing about all these other way babies die. I have made an amazing support network but I need to pull back a bit from the site. One of the mummies I speak on there started a Facebook group, and asked if I would join. My initial response was no, am not in social media at all. I actually couldn’t remember the last time I logged into Facebook on purpose. Maybe in October to post my wave of light pictures.

However I though of how important Facebook is to people in this day and age, and decided to bite the bullet and log in to join the group. The first post I am faced with is a rant about how bad someone’s day had been, the final announce to her bad day was that it had rained! Are you serious! Am sorry your day has been ruined with the rain. I immediately unfriended this person. Okay so am fully aware that people have their own stuff going on, I realise no one sits and thinks before the post, wait Jan lost her son 20 weeks ago, this might seem so insignificant to her. However I just don’t want to see it. To be honest being able to log into Facebook gave me some sort of strength. I decided that I needed to make my page a “safe place” for me. I started to delete friends, anyone with young children, anyone who might post a Christmas photo of there children, anyone who was known for moaning. I remember when we were trying for Findley I nearly wanted to punch one of my friends for moaning about her morning sickness, then about her sleepless night, seriously women people would actually kill to know what it felt like to carry a baby. (Obviously I wouldn’t kill anyone ). Once I had done this I felt like I had created a safe place, so for the first time in 20 weeks, I scrolled down my news feed, a strange kind of empowerment came with it, the ability to do this, felt amazing.

Here is the down side though, people may now think I have unfriended them because they have upset me, I now realise I could have just unfollowed people, oops, so I didn’t see their posts. So when I get a message from a friend think she has upset me, and I don’t want to be friend with her anymore, my heart sinks. Well that wasn’t the plan. I remind myself that every action has a reaction. I guess I just have to hope that people understand. I have to go back to that point where I am being selfish, but I have to be. This is part of my healing process. By being off social media I have protected myself from the real world, I have created a bubble to live in. I am very very slowly starting to let that bubble go, little steps at a time.

This world of loss I live in, it’s not just for a few years, we will forever carry the pain that comes from losing our son, 10, 20, 40 years will pass and we will continue to carry the pain that accompanies child loss. The pain will not fade, this I am sure of, however how we cope with the pain will. I just hope that people can understand, that my actions are not about them. Nothing I do is because of someone else. It’s my life, my choice and my way forward. How I survive is my journey.