Here I am, 5 months from my loss, and-- wow-- I can't believe how many of my friendships have unravelled. Friends who have abandoned me altogether or friends who have punctuated their lukewarm compassion with moments of utter thoughtlessness. I vacillate between anger and "who cares." At this point, I am just too tired to make the effort with so many people. I've been disappointed too many times.

What about you? Are there friends that you've lost? I'm not the only one, right??

Nope. You are not alone at all. Now - over six months since I lost an entire group of friends - I still blink and wonder what happened. I still vacillate between anger, betrayal, bewilderment, guilt and sorrow.

I sort of see how it happened, but it's still just so horrible in some ways . . . loss compounded by loss.

I miss them still. That is perhaps the thing that makes me most angry. That I still sometimes think . . . I should tell S this or text B about that and then realize and say, "Oh, right."

You know, until this happened, I was growing closer to this group and away from another group. Funny how they drew away and another stepped up. But I guess I had a longer history that wasn't predicated on babies with the other group.

Yes, me too. Yes, it hurts. Some of it is my fault, drawing away and locking myself up, but these people . . . I don't know.

loads.
six months out, i'm mostly relieved.
but two of the friends i still want to keep are moving away :(

i'm sorry your friends haven't been there for you. it hurts, i know.
x

I've lost one (not sure she knows that yet) due to her behaving unbelievably insensitively over and over in the first two months after losing Matilda. I know people say things that hurt without meaning too but for me, this friend has crossed the line of doing it that I'm scared to see her fullstop now.

And I think I may have lost another this week. Here's the long explanation:

I have a friend who's close (lived with me and DH for the first couple of years we lived together and was a bridesmaid at our wedding) but our lives are very different now - she's single, in her mid-thirties, and doesn't want kids. She really wants to be there for me and support me but the thing is she's just not the sort of support I need. She's never had a baby/been pregnant and I don't talk to her about what we went through with Matilda or what I'm going through now with this pregnancy. So that leaves her life but I'm not interested in hearing about the great sex she's having with her 23 year old fling or the latest work dramas (she works in a gym and there seems to be lots of dramas). Writing it down like that I feel like a b**ch but I really don't feel supported by seeing her.

Up until now it's been fine but while I was in NZ she couldn't get a hold of me on my mobile (not unusual because I hardly ever answer it) so she rang my neighbour next door to check I was OK and I arrived back to an email saying 'let me in, I'm worried about you, I miss you, I want to help'. I know all of this is coming from a good place but having another person to reassure I'm OK and having to return phone calls too just stresses me out more. I have a supportive husband, SIL, and neighbours on both sides that will notice if I fall badly into the depression hole so I don't really feel like having to check in with more people.

So I sent an email explaining that everything's fine and I appreciate her support but the reality is I feel most supported by people who've been through this and having another person to check in with to reassure I'm OK stresses me out. I got no reply to this and sent another email a couple of days ago and have received no reply to that either. I'm sad and feel bad that I've probably hurt her (she also had some other family issues at the moment) but if I can't be honest with someone then how can they support me?

Ugh - it's all so hard. And I'm sick of being told 'People just want to help - you need to realise they don't understand'. I get that but sometimes I think 'people just need to think' - really is it that much of a leap to realise that I probably don't want to hear about people's wonderful pregnancies and healthy babies, that I don't feel like answering the phone all the time, that comments like 'my screaming kids are going to put you off having any' are extremely painful.

See, Maddie, I got (and still get) SO tired of hearing that people don't understand/don't know what to say/don't know what to do/want to help . . . the underlying messages being that I was over-sensitive, that I needed to cut people more slack, that I needed to guide them . . . I finally said the hell with it.

Why do I have to accommodate everyone else all the time? Especially when we are dealing with *my* loss? I know that's rude and not terribly gracious and selfish and all sorts of things that I don't want to be, but I finally stopped caring. Trying to take care of everyone else's feelings, smooth their ruffled feathers, soothe their hurt -- and deal with my own grief over losing Gabe was too much.

That is one of the things that most resonated with me in Kate's post 'The Passing Through of Necessary Spaces' - when she says

"Fuck grace.

So says the anarchist in me, she who wants to protect the right of babylost mothers and fathers to be self-pitying, unnavigable motherfuckers as long as they need to be. Because nodding to the gracelessness, the ugly, the void—that's the only way to allow it to get on with its business, to scab over. It is a necessary space, a state of mind that is honourable and normal and not to be denied.

One day, you breathe. And you know that, despite not being fashionable or palatable, you are more compassionate now than you ever were before. You know how surreal it is to cradle an urn in rush hour traffic. You are all at once a giant and a meek, trembling, spitting thing. You know now to embrace both. You know that it's not your fault that some people can't bear the taste of black licorice."

And that's how I feel. Fuck it. I can't be everything for everyone. I can't make others comfortable with my grief and who I am now that I've been marked by it and changed by it. And when I realized that I didn't have to anymore, I could choose not to do so, that was it. No more looking back. That was my black licorice moment.

It's not that I wish to be militant or rude or abrasive. It's that my own self-protection and my own healing requires me to stop. And the unfortunate part is accepting that that has cost me relationships. But were they really relationships to my benefit if they required so much of me in the after-math of the earthquake that destroyed my world?

When contrasted with my other friends and they ways and means in which they reached out . . . it was the people who allowed me space to grieve free of judgement, who did not require me to prop them up or put on a show for them, who were ok with me sitting in a heap, crying in the corner that have stuck. That I cherish.

The others are not bad people. Quite the contrary. They simply could not be what I needed them to be, or allow me to be what I am. I have every confidence that had Gabriel lived, it would not be so, but as it is. . . well, I'm more grateful than ever to see that there are people in my life who are staunchly supportive and amazing through everything. I have a pattern to try and follow.

Oh yes, many friendships have fallen away, and a surprising few have gotten stronger or deeper. The worst part for me has been the loss of babyloss friends who couldnt cope when I became pregnant again and they were not yet -- it was devastating to me honestly because I thought of them as my rocks. Also some of my oldest friends that I thought would be there have simply not been at all -- its really been eye opening about who I want in my "circle", and who can just stay the hell out.

Eliza - I could have written those first two paragraphs. In fact I was going to add similar ones to my post. Even my very understanding SIL who's a social worker keeps saying this to me and I'm sick of it!!!

I'm guessing the friends who will still be around at the end of this are those that gave me space and didn't complain about the fact they haven't seen me for 12 months and didn't call me over-sensitive.

I hate the 'when can I see you, I miss you' emails as well. I miss me too but that's not enough to bring *me* back.

I'm only two weeks out and I've already lost a friend. She had her second baby May 3rd. I haven't heard from her since two days before Charlotte was born. I'm afraid more will fall by the wayside because I just want to be left alone right now. It's good to know I'm not the only one though, and that it really is best to put my needs in front of everyone else's right now.

You're not alone - I lost a whole group of friends and my best friend. They just weren't capable, I suppose. It hurt like hell at a time when you're so raw and need help the most. I can say almost 2 years later, I don't really miss them, I'm not that angry anymore and I do wish (most of) them well.

I sometimes would like to have people to go to a movie with, have a beer or go to the occasional dinner party - I have become much more isolated and introverted but I have no energy to invest in getting new friends.

I'm sorry you're having hurt on top of hurt. What helped me in the beginning was my online friends - I wrote daily (or more) with a woman I met online during that early, raw time and it was a lifeline. We even met in person once and it was a bright spot for both of us when we had none in our lives.

I didn't lose my friends. I got rid of them.