DD Can Help Grief

For those of you that have joined us this year, you may not know this about us, but it's something I'm processing this week.  Eight years ago this coming week we welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world, and two hours later, had to say goodbye.  We knew when I was in labour he would not live long, the question was if he would be born alive at all, so those two hours were very precious to us.  We took more photos of him in that two hours than we probably did of baby girl in her first three days or more. lol.

First of all, please, those of you that have been reading for years, because we talked of him often, you probably remember his name, if you do, could you not share it in the comments? :)  Just trying to protect our privacy more now.  Thank you.

So, I'm looking back, and am so glad we have DD, D/s now.  They are great for grief.  It is so helpful, at least as a tih.  I can't speak for the HOH, I'll ask the Duke if he'll post his thoughts below. :)  But for me, how we live was great for my grief. 

50%  That is the number of marriages that apparently split after the loss of a child, even within hours after birth.  50%  That is also the number of women who try to commit suicide after losing a baby during the post partum period.  A social worker during labour delivered these not so happy numbers.

Those of you who read back 5 or 6 years ago will know all this I'm about to share, sorry for the repeat.  To understand where I was to see how much the Duke helped me, I was labelled "Severe Post Partum accompanied by Grief".  Those are forever imprinted on every single medical file I have, no matter that I have healed and am well past that now.  I know I wasn't weak, but still, part of me feels it's a forever record of just how bad I fell apart.  Grief is it's own depression.  It isn't known if I would have had Post Partum naturally, I didn't with our daughter, but the hormones and grief set it off.  My milk still came in, that inner voice to check on your child every few hours stayed for a few months, and more.  I was also diagnosed, because it was my first child, as having loss of identity as a mother, even though several tried to tell me I was still a mom.  The last of the four depressions was a crisis of faith.  I felt God had used my hearts desire against me, we weren't supposed to be able to have our own children, and felt teased with the miracle of getting pregnant and then him being stolen from me, etc.  I felt He had utterly and completely betrayed me and it took a long time for my anger against Him to pass.  All of this was explained to me by someone in the mental health field when they saw I was getting confused over all the terms the counsellor and psychiatrist were throwing at me.  (Doctors got me to go for a handful of visits to both afterwards)  My plate was full, and she proved it.

In the middle of all this, I call it hell, there was the Duke.  The reason I didn't commit suicide was because first of all, I'm a chicken, I couldn't seem to do it, but also, the Duke kept barging in and not letting me have the time to get talk myself into being brave enough to do it.  In fact, the Duke fought a knife away from me one day, and I even got a nick in the fight against him.  The poor man, how I must have scared him. :( :(  I feel HORRIBLE about that now.  I just was so out of my mind missing my son.  The reason our marriage is still intact is because, when it got to it's worst, and I tried to leave the house and never, ever come back, I wanted to be anywhere else, because anywhere else wouldn't hurt as bad, the Duke blocked the doors and refused to let me leave in the condition I was in.  I can't thank him enough.  And then we started DD.  Having his strength, having him help me cry out all the negative emotions, being held accountable for how I lived my life when I was self destructing on my own, helped me so much.  The Duke behind me gave me the freedom to fight with God and go back to Him.  When I would get too dark, the Duke had the right to make me face the day, to rescue me from sinking deeper into oblivion or hatred.  When I would get angry at the world, he'd spank me if I needed so that I could cry it out, and realize it was just my pain talking.  When things became overwhelming, he could step in and tell me I'd done enough, that I needed to rest and not worry about what others thought.  It was so freeing to answer to someone instead of being in charge of it all myself.  In a way, it rescues you from having to figure out for yourself what you need compared to what you want to do.

One night, I'll never forget, he had gone earlier in the week and found a Jane Austen movie playing on TV without telling me.  He then got a treat for take out that night, and brought it home.  He pulled up the movie on Masterpiece Theatre when it came on and told me he wanted to watch it with me.  And he did, he watched the WHOLE thing and repeated the whole evening a week or two later when Masterpiece Theatre played another Jane Austen movie.  My husband, and Jane Austen, never, but because he loved me, and wanted to do something nice for me in the middle of all the pain, I will never, ever forget that.  It was a crummy old apartment, we didn't have money for good food, my heart was in a million pieces, but I will forever cherish that among my most favourite memories ever.

So, grief is one of the things you don't hear often about in this lifestyle, but another reason I'm so glad we have it.  This year, it's amazing how much healing there has been.  I don't feel tears remembering our son today, and I'm not digging too deep inside myself today so that I stay that way. :)  That could change on his birthday, I don't know, but for now, I'm in a much better place because of how the Duke helped me.  Time didn't help, it was supposed to, that is what everyone says, but it didn't.  In fact, until DD really took root, (over two years later) I was getting worse every day.  The anger and bitterness, fear and hurting, grew to very scary depths.  As my friend's former fiancé said when they found out we practice DD, "She can go from happy to dark in 0 to 60.  This could be good for her."  He and I didn't really get along usually, but what he said was so true because of the grief.  And DD really was good for me, during the grief, and several years past. :)

Thank you, Duke, for helping me get to where I am today.  I will never, ever forget how you saved me, and our marriage.  :)

The Duke's Deductions: 
You are very welcome Esmay. It was a very difficult process to get through when we lost out son. It was so sad getting to know him and then having to say goodbye and then all that time afterwards not understanding why we had to say goodbye, remembering the time I had with him, and being sad about missing him. I really want to thank Esmay for staying with me through it. I think DD does help because it gave me something to focus on, and another person  (my spouse) to think about. I feel that it helped Esmay and our relationship for us to use DD at that time. I remember hearing that it is easy to break apart if after losing a child you don't go through things together. I thought DD was a good way for us to still work on our relationship and still focus on each other. I am thankful Esmay went through this with me.