Trauma, Childlessness and Grief: Finding the Missing Piece of the Picture

Talking to my therapist recently, I described how I felt trapped and powerless in relation to my childlessness. Had I ever felt like that before, she asked? I immediately thought of a time, over 20 years ago, when I was sexually abused at the age of 17. It was a visceral feeling of being lost, and trapped in a traumatic situation when someone else was in control.

When I feel in the full grip of trauma related memories, it is like a hot, stabbing needle to the soul. I am both not myself and the most raw, visceral version of myself. I am terrified, teenage me, walking to and from that man’s home from my own, so disconnected from the world that I feel outside my own body.

It’s hard not to wonder how things might have turned out if I’d never met that man who abused both me and my mum’s trust at a very low ebb in both of our lives. When I was in the grip of psychosis, he persuaded her that he was an osteopath. Really, he was a sick and evil man who preyed on vulnerable people.

Fortunately, I was able to get help and recover from both the abuse and the mental illness I was subsequently diagnosed with. But it is perhaps hardly surprising that there is a link between this trauma and the tumult of feelings that go with being childless not by choice (CNBC).

My reasons for being CNBC are complex, although part of the story is that my mum said no when I asked for her help to become a mum myself. She told me she couldn’t be there to look after any baby I might have if I became unwell. She was in her 70s by then, and perhaps the idea of dealing with a new-born was a step too far for her.

It has been several years now since I first grieved this loss. And while I am through the worst of it, it was a relief to gain greater insight this week into why the grief also triggers other complex feelings. I realise I need to be kind and gentle with my terrified, teenage self when she emerges. Also, lashing out at others when I’m in visceral pain doesn’t change anything, in the long run. After all, my mum did what she thought was best.

Perhaps what those of us who are CNBC need more than anything is understanding that our behaviour and feelings can come from such a raw, primal place that it shocks us as much as it does those around us. It is a rage that is unfeminine, unseemly and always unwelcome.

But it is real and an understandable response to pain. If channeled in the right way, this rage can be the fire that fuels a different, better life. As a Christian, I try to turn to light, not darkness. Even so, sometimes it is impossible to remember lighter, happier times when the storm is raging at its height.

Joan Phillips

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