Hello My name is Paula Darch.
Today I would like to discuss a topic close to my heart and that is living with grief over a child that is still on this earth. What do I mean by that. I have a wonderful son that is now 21yrs old. I have been grieving over what I thought he would be to me. My son and I have been through an incredible journey together, through lots of ups and downs and plenty of turmoil, stress and worry.
My son was born prem and I had a traumatic pregnancy. That moved into lots of stress and an uptight child. At 3yrs old we went through another trauma of him being abused and then the roller coaster of behaviour. Appointments with counsellors, play therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist and the list of diagnoses that went with each one. In all of these appointments and each diagnosis that was made I found my son living up to each diagnosis and progressively getting worse.
As a mum I decided enough was enough and stopped taking him to more doctors and started working on myself. In this period of time I realised the grief, anger, sadness, blame and guilt that I was holding towards myself. For i just wanted my son to be NORMAL (what is that right)
I was grieving for what I thought my son was meant to be for me. The baby I was holding for 9 months, that picture I had in my mind of what he was going to be, what was he going to do at school, jobs etc etc.
Well my own expectations of what I thought he was going to be crashed and burnt. The depression settled in as I really started grieving even deeper.
Until I realised one thing.
My son is here for his own journey, and regardless of what I thought he was going to be, his not, and its about me releasing the expectations of what I want him to be for me.
Why am I sharing this story with you, because I now realise that my journey with my son is to help, support and guide other children and families with their grief.
To heal the relationship with each other without the expectations.
To heal, coach and support the families and siblings of the child with a diagnosis.
To support the whole family.