- suzannedenigris
Ep 9 - When Your Baby Is Hurting
In this episode I talk about how my son's grief started showing up as rage and frustration and tears, how I worried that because my husband died by suicide my son might do the same and how replacing my anger and worry and fear with empathy allowed me to parent from a much more loving place.
Just when I thought he wasn't going to grieve at all, the pandemic hit. And when the world shut down and we were stuck at home, his emotions starting slipping out one by one. They showed up as rage. They came as frustration. There was an overreaction to every... single... thing. There was slamming and stomping. There was crying. There was negativity, sarcasm and so many tears.
I was terrified that because my husband died by suicide, that my son might do the same. That he would suffer from depression his whole life. That he would never recover. That he would struggle with anxiety. That the grief would swallow him whole and he would never feel happy again. I would check up on him all the time. I would read into everything he did and said. I would wonder if his behavior was normal.
I never knew how unwilling I was to allow my feelings until I started working with a life coach. Once I realized how much I was pushing my own feelings away, I also became aware that I wasn't exactly allowing his feelings either. They made me uncomfortable. I would do whatever I could to calm him down, shut him up or make it all go away. When I could replace my anger and worry and fear with empathy, I could parent from a much more loving place. But it was hard. I still struggle with it to this day.