Do you ever just not engage with a story or a person because, frankly, it's just too sad? I have a lot of connections to people with Vacterl children, and a lot of those people are connected to other people with sick children, and then my friends who know friends where the parents of young children are sick and.....I just can't anymore.
A little girl I followed, who had a form of Vacterl, died recently. I cried for hours over that little girl; she was within a month of Brody's age. It wrecked me, and I'm not even close with her family. I have to make a conscious decision to stop. I am subscribed to probably 10 caring bridge sites and 15 carepages. I'm friends on facebook with an inordinate amount of people who have serious illnesses in their lives. Except for, currently, one person, I just can't participate in supporting them. I unfriended a woman on Facebook because all she would post about was her dead child. I mean, I didn't know her except online, and through someone else, and she's a lovely person. But I couldn't take seeing her posts. I'm going to hell.
And it's not just illness. Tragedy too. Like a friend who has a friend whose child got run over by an ATV, or another friend's cousin is terminal and has a young child.
These are my worst fears. And I cannot stand to know about them. It brings me down to a place I don't like, and I can't process it. I think in the age of internet, so much of the information that we can access is informative and it can be life-changing. The support one can receive is awe-inspiring. But I have to protect my state of mind, right? I mean, I just cannot support and be involved with every sick person I know about. Right? Or am I bad person?
Even if it makes me a bad person, I am still limiting my exposure.
7 comments:
You are wise. Too much bad news can scew your world view, and you have plenty to do already. Find the joy, and stay there, and reach out as you are able. But you and your family first because that is the commitment you made. Love.
Skew. Sigh
You are so not a bad person. I, too, have deleted people on FB and stopped reading blogs, because you just can't bear to read the stuff anymore. It is called self preservation.
Be Kind to Yourself xx
No. It doesn't make you a bad person. I know after E died it was heart wrenching being she was only a week older than Maggie. I still grieve for a little girl we never had the chance to meet. Sometimes I wonder if I should stop reading yet at the same time it reminds me that life is so precious and fragile. It reminds me to that there are others out there in the world that are going through much worse than what we go through. I know after a while I wonder how much is to much? I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. As long as you remember that you have to deal with your own stuff. LOL
E's death broke my heart. Same as you, probably b/c Rosie and E were born a month apart and we did meet her in Boston.
I'll meet you in hell. I had to do the same thing. Being emotionnally invested in so many sites was taking something away from me. Plus I was on these sites when I was supposed to be either working or spending time with Rosie, or doing something that would allow me to spend more time with my husband and daughter. CB is good to be able to get support from your friends and family when you are in crisis mode and when time is limited, you can keep everyone updated all at once. But when people use it to send daily updates on regular stuff, you just can't keep up. I couldn't. And how can you stay emotionally strong for your own kids when you know so many of them in terminal stages? We are just trying to keep our sanity.
Thank you for all of your wonderful comments. xoxo
It is such a serious post, and yet I laughed. I don't know why I laughed it was such a strange reaction, and yet, I have been feeling the same lately. Actually it has been a very long time since I have read your blog, because I am never going to have another child and I had to self preserve after you had Liam. Hence reading your August posts now Maybe I had to self preserve because I no longer fit into the group that once supported me in the early years of Olivia;s VACTERL and you put it right out there for me. Anyways, thanks for putting my thoughts into words, and know that even though I don't follow you (and the others) as much anymore, you and Brody are still an inspiration to me.
Post a Comment