A Love Letter to Parents During a Heavy Time…
Empathy can be a beautiful thing, but it can also quickly become a specific kind of fear.
Feeling for others, especially those who share some aspect of identity with us is a normal, human reaction. Sometimes it is helpful, beautiful even. But sometimes it is not.
Saying things to yourself like, “I can imagine if that was me I would feel the same” or “I can feel their suffering as if it were my own” or “I’m scared because there are so many ways I identify with this person, does that mean I am capable of doing the same things?”
Empathy connects us and makes us stronger, but if unchecked, it makes many take on the suffering, fear, and pain of one. This can feel like this pit in your stomach, or ever present dread, since it is not actually happening to you, you are truly helpless to do anything about it.
I ask that all parents who are tuning into the news right now, try to lean in to compassion rather than empathy. Do not try to relate to the Clancy’s. They are two individuals who experienced their own postpartum experience(s) that contained the nuance that makes each person’s journey to and through parenthood unique. Their grief and loss and tragedy belongs to them and their closest community. Let them grieve, let them be.
Do allow for compassion, do surrender to the only thing any of us outsiders can guarantee, that we will never know exactly how this all happened, how it could have been prevented, or who is at fault.
Surrender continuously to one of the mottos of all of us parents, we will never have all the answers.
More importantly, we don’t have to know any of these answers to know that we are safe. To feel safe. To know this is not going to happen to you just because you have experienced depression, anxiety, OCD, intrusive thoughts, and parent guilt.
You do not need to pinpoint that one “aha” thing that sets you apart. That soothes the scared parts of you by seemingly proving, no, in fact, this could not happen to me. Or worse, if you can’t find that “aha” thing, rumination and worry become your constant companions. Empathic fear helps no one, it only brings us together in suffering.
Compassion brings us together in understanding.
Compassionate care and community are what every parent deserves. We live in a country that makes it really hard to access these things. This can make it incredibly isolating to be a parent, navigate all that comes with it, and still try to take care of yourself.
Hold your people close, and let them support you. Turn away from the outside world for just a minute, and allow yourself to simply exist in your own community. Let yourself be.
