Are we coping well or are we in denial?

It is often recommended getting together with other people who have had a different parenting journey for support and encouragement. I arranged to have tea with such a mum who is a few years ahead on the journey. However, instead of finding our conversation encouraging, I found it to be the opposite. I wondered whether I wasn’t quite ready to hear about other people’s challenges just yet.

I explained this to my pastoral counsellor who said something rather interesting in return – “It may be that it’s too much hearing other people’s stories at this point, or it may be that this mother is not in denial.” Wow. She went on to talk to me about the crisis functional mode that we operate in where denial is strong but it keeps us moving forward. But this can’t be sustained over the long term - we need to walk through the valleys where we take denial off, face up to reality, experience the negativity of the situation, face up to our fears, feel grieved and come to terms with our losses. It’s not a place where we can live, but it is important to visit there when these emotional touch points come up so that having processed that we can have faith for the future. She also encouraged me to be positive out of faith for the future - not out of fear of the negative.

This really got me thinking. I didn’t want to be in denial – only to have to face up to all sorts of issues later on. I wanted to be present in the process of coming to terms with Sarah-Hope’s life. We had most certainly had a “quiet” year so far, and being cautious of exposing Sarah-Hope to unnecessary germs etc, we tried to keep her at home as much as possible. I do think that this has ‘given us time’ – time to recover from the huge build up to the birth, and space to become more comfortable taking Sarah-Hope out. We certainly haven’t put any pressure on ourselves to ‘get life back to normal’. I would describe us as being well but fragile – because I don’t think we have the emotional reserves for much more than what we are dealing with at the moment. I know that each new stage is likely to bring fresh realisations and grief - but for now I felt we were present in our circumstances.

In another conversation with our pastoral counsellor, we spoke about people coming to terms with the choices that they make by fully recognising both the gains and losses of each situation. I continued to think about ‘my denial’… and thought this ‘gains and losses idea’ was a really helpful concept that would help me grieve what I have lost, and embrace what I’ve gained. And so I’ve begun to use it more and more.