I will never forget the night when I shared, or tried to share, with a colleague the pain associated with being childless not by choice. The night when I tried, in vain to explain to them the awful grief associated with being childless not by choice. Equally I will never forget going to work the following day and getting told that on this issue I needed to ‘get over myself, plenty of people go through worse’. I will never forget and to this day even understand, why my initial reaction was to apologise to her for sharing, for bothering her! I am still quite mad at myself for doing that!
It wasn’t just the words but the vicious and nasty way that it was thrown at me that got to me that day; that sticks in my mind to this day. I was already suffering and instead of support I was viciously kicked. It really was a case of being kicked when you are already on the ground. Okay, I understand that people feel awkward around this issue and don’t know what to say but deciding to say ‘get over yourself, plenty of people go through worse’ when you can see the pain a person is in falls under two words in my opinion: SICK and EVIL! There were days when I did not know what to say when she was complaining about parental issues but I was never hurtful toward her.
There were days when I wonder since then, and it does frighten me to admit this, if that comment kicked on top the awful disenfranchised grief would have pushed me over the edge had I not had a good friend and also found out about Gateway Women. By pushed over the edge I do mean contemplating suicide. I was very low!
What makes it worse, in a monumentally awful way is that this girl was our mental health and wellbeing person. This girl only ever supported the mental health and wellbeing of parents. A few years later, I was brave enough to tell my boss, who was quite supportive in his words. But this girl is still our mental health and wellbeing person. This girl is still only supporting the mental health and wellbeing of parents!
Anonymous
Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay