Collateral losses
The ripple effect of loss can result in other losses
The shockwave of loss can bring us to our knees. And while we’re dealing with the effects of that, what we may not recognize are the repercussions that become collateral losses.
What comes after a loss
When we are children, we take for granted many things – including how easy it is to make friends. You both like the same color? That’s enough. You both want to play the same game at recess? New bestie. We don’t realize that proximity has such an influence on who we become friends with or who we may eventually date or marry.
As a childless, married woman in my mid-thirties who doesn’t drink, finding friends when I moved from Utah to South Carolina was a real challenge. Due to proximity through church and work, I did make some good (and still very dear) friends. Most women my age are either friends with the people they grew up/went to high school/went to college with or – more often – are friends with the parents of their children’s friends. One more collateral loss of infertility.
I recently attended an activity where a group of moms of young children were talking about different challenges they’re facing at this particular phase. Even though I’m now a bonus mom of two, I had nothing to contribute. I was on the outside of that circle because I’m not in and never will be in that phase of life. In no way do I blame them – those moms need support right now. What they’re going through is hard. Me being on the outside isn’t their fault. It’s another collateral loss of infertility.
The other losses
When we experience losses, we may think of them as the inciting incident. This is The Loss™️. While The Loss™️ may take up most of our energy and focus, there are often impacts that come later, some expected and some not.
A friend talked to me about their divorce. They were shocked by the filing. Because they understand divorce, they expected the relationship that had lasted nearly half their life to end. What they were unprepared for was beginning to feel they never knew the person they’d been married to. This person now felt like a stranger, not the person they used to think they knew.
Then there was the community where my friend lived. It was small and they had been active in it. The divorce sent ripples through everyone. They weren’t prepared for friends who had been close to fade into the reflection. A handful of people showed up privately to support, but most people didn’t say anything at all.
Someone else shared that when they lost a parent, a close friend didn’t know how to talk about it. So they didn’t talk about it at all. Which lead to them not talking to each other anymore. Now this person wasn’t just living with the loss of their parent, they also have the collateral loss of what had been a close friendship.
The loss of identity
One of the collateral losses I was unprepared for in the aftermath of my mom’s death was my intellect. I’m not traditionally beautiful like my sisters. I’m not particularly talented. I have a divisive personality and am not universally well-liked. The one thing I pinned a lot my identity to was my mind. I was accustomed to being smart. Grief has changed my brain. I cannot explain what exactly I’ve lost, but I know I’m different. Not just different, but processing from a detriment. Some things have come back, but most have not.
Awash in the agony this was for me, I remember telling my therapist at the time (which, frankly, I cringe to recall), “I’m used to being smart. Like, really smart. And now my brain doesn’t work the way I’m used to. I lose words and information and whole conversations. This isn’t like someone who runs as a hobby now has a sprained ankle. This is like an olympic sprinter who’s been told they’ll never walk again.” Bless my therapist, they told me this was a symptom of grief. They explained that my brain needed time to heal and that it was in a protective mode while processing this tragedy, which meant it couldn’t work the way it used to. They also gently suggested that things may never fully go back to the way they were before.
When my paternal grandmother lost her vision to macular degeneration, she didn’t just lose the ability to sew or read, she lost one of her earliest identities as a reader. She’d been reading since she was four years old.
Many of us, through incidence of age or illness will likely have collateral losses of identities we may once have had. No longer a pianist. No longer an accountant. No longer a friend of so-and-so. No longer a gardener. No longer a dancer. No longer a knitter. No longer a person who walks.
If we’re accustomed to being able-bodied, with these changes may also come identities we eschew (thanks to a lifetime of being socialized by ableism). A person who needs mobility devices. A person who wears hearing aids. A person who showers with assistance. A person who needs thickening agents to swallow liquids. A person who needs everything liquified to eat. A person who takes daily medications. A person who loses the threads of conversations.
What more can I give?
People who’ve experienced loss are often dealing with more than The Loss™️, and they may not even know it yet. Some collateral losses are immediate and apparent. Many are more like fog that slowly burns away, the change almost imperceptible until it’s gone, like it was never there at all. Except we remember and in remembering feel the absence.
It felt especially cruel to lose the thing I relied on most when dealing with the grief of losing my mother. It felt like too much was being asked of me. In the taking, a void was created. Nature doesn’t like voids, but that’s a topic for another time.
What have losses cost you?
Has a loss taken more than the thing/belief/identity/person itself from you? What else have your losses cost you? I’d love to know.