Fears & Feelings

After Tinsley’s sudden death, fear isn’t just knocking at my door, but sleeping in my bed with me.

The fears I’ve been experiencing I’ve also heard from other loss moms, too.  The top 3 are the ones that truly haunt me.

I know that pretending I don’t have the fears, or trying to bury them, doesn’t help me manage them.  So I give them a voice – I write them down, I talk to someone about them, I ask God to remove them (or help me find the meaning in them).

1. What if there is no God or afterlife and I never get to see Tinsley again?
2. What if one of my living children dies?
3. What if I forget her?
4. What if I ever want to forget her?
5. What if Tinsley doesn’t know how much I love her?
6. What if I killed her – what if the knot really was my fault?
7. How could I not have known she was in trouble? Work at the Pregnancy Institute has indicated that “hyperactivity, hypoactivity, and hiccups may be clinical indicators of fetal distress.”  The day before she died she was really active, and I thought she was happy and healthy — now I realize she might have been trying to tell me she wasn’t okay.
8. What if I never stop feeling this horrible pain?
9. What if I can never concentrate again?
10. What if I actually go insane?
11. What if I actually go dig her up out of her grave?
12. What if I’m never happy again?
13. What if this feeling in the pit of my stomach never leaves?
14. What if I always see Tinsley everywhere I go?
15. What if I stop seeing Tinsley everywhere I go?
16. What if I miss happiness with Charlie and James because I’m too consumed in mourning Tinsley?
17. What if I can’t get pregnant again?
18. What if I don’t ever want to get pregnant again?
19. What if I have another stillborn?
20. What if I can’t endure another HG pregnancy?
21. What if Tinsley doesn’t know I can never or will never try to replace her?
22. What if people think I should be “over it” but I’m not… and my support system gets tired of me?
23. What if my husband dies?
24. What if we ever have to move, and I can’t go visit her whenever I need/want to?

Feelings

devastated
anxious
sad
lost
powerless
angry
mad
scared
frightened
afraid
helpless
stressed out
terrorized
horrified
numb
dead
traumatized
dumb-founded
frozen
confused
insecure
hurt
weak
obsessive
alone
empty
lonely
robbed
impatient
judged
guarded
misunderstood
fearful
timid
anxious
bitter
betrayed
let down
jealous
paralyzed
vulnerable
unbalanced
unhinged
unstable
unfit
panicked
desperate