It’s Not Your Fault
“It’s not your fault.”
I remember that is what most people said to me when I revealed to them I had miscarried. My doctor was the first one to say it. It seems like a good thing to say and it is true. It isn’t our faults. Somehow, our bodies know to take control over a situation that isn’t going to work out.
It’s a good thing to say, doesn’t mean it’s easy to believe. I have blogged before about fault in miscarriage because I feel as though I still struggle with it. How can one not think it’s their fault? When something bad happens, we feel the need to find the source. In this case, I was the one carrying the babies, so, therefore, it’s my fault. It seems to make sense, but it’s the easy way out.
A friend of mine recently sent me a Thought Catalog blog post regarding trauma. It starts out with “what happened to you is not your fault.” It details how we all have bad things happen to us, things that we never asked for or wanted. We are not to take responsibility for the loss, but we need to take responsibility for how we heal.
We are not responsible for what our bodies decide is good for us. As easy as it is to allow ourselves to slip into our grief and hide from the world, we need to take responsibility for our grief.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way, “healing is your responsibility. ” We have little control in terms of pregnancy. Yes, we make the decision to get pregnant. Sure, we eat well and take care of ourselves to ensure the baby is healthy, but overall, our bodies decide what will happen. Nature takes over. We surrender ourselves to chance. When these bad things happen though, we do have control over how we process it. Accepting this control and embracing this new understanding of what can happen can actually be a form of a gift. Sounds absurd to refer to a traumatic event as a gift. When my daughter was born, she was in the NICU for three days because she was exhibiting seizures. I blogged about this in a previous post. The seizures were caused by a stroke they think occurred at the time of delivery. She is doing very well now and has had no serious side effects, but 15 months later I am still blaming myself. Even though the doctor said, “It’s not your fault. It just happened.” I still struggle with placing blame on myself.
When a traumatic event such as a miscarriage or any type of pregnancy loss occurs, we are faced with a decision to retreat or come out stronger. In an uncontrollable situation, the control we can take is over our journey of grief. It takes a lot of strength and inner peace to begin to accept our losses or bumps in the road as gifts. They are learning experiences that hopefully will make us better people. Isn’t that why God gives us challenges…so we can prove to ourselves that we can get back up and move forward?
Category : Kate , Volunteer Bloggers