The power and the pain of processing trauma

Photo by Johann Siemens on Unsplash

Therapy speak is thrown around willy nilly these days. Millennials are ‘triggered’ and have ‘PTSD’ at the news that low-rise jeans are back in fashion, and ‘processing trauma’ can mean anything from a bad day at work to the end of Succession.

On one hand, it’s great that people are aware of these terms. On the other, it’s kind of a shock when you realise that the reality of processing trauma is actually quite brutal.

I’ve been in therapy on and off since having breast cancer, partly as a way to manage fear of recurrence, but also to process the emotional and physical assault of treatment.

While talking about previous medical experiences, my therapist asked a lot of questions about a pregnancy that I lost at 13 weeks in 2016. Initially, I was dismissive. I didn’t want to dwell on it (after all, we’re here to talk about cancer, right?), so I rattled through the details. At 13 weeks, tests showed the baby had Edwards’ syndrome and wouldn’t survive outside the womb, so I had to have a termination. But, I insisted, I was lucky that it was diagnosed comparatively early, so I didn’t have to go through a later stillbirth. I’m lucky that safe, legal abortion is accessible in this country. And I’m extremely lucky to have ended up with two happy and healthy kids.

I smiled, as if to say ‘and that’s that’.

My therapist being a therapist didn’t accept this sanitised version of events, and asked me to think back to how I felt when I was going through it.

I remembered being at the appointment when I got the diagnosis. Jonathan wasn’t there because we’d already had a joyful 12-week scan that showed everything was fine. We thought this appointment was more of a formality. I remember the sonographer showing me the baby on the screen, and saying ‘that’s a healthy, active boy’ (we knew the gender already, because of the combined test). I told her I have a son at home and she laughed: ‘You’re going to have your hands full.’

Seconds later, the doctor walked in with the results of the test showing the baby had Edwards’ syndrome. I nodded calmly as he told me the news and, perhaps thinking it wasn’t going in, he repeated loudly: ‘Do you understand? The baby will die.’

I’d previously had a miscarriage in 2013, also at 13 weeks, and I filed the two experiences away together in my mind. But now I had to acknowledge they were very different. That first time, the 12-week scan showed no heartbeat, and the miscarriage followed ten days later. It was horrible, but the foetus never reached the size where I could see it kicking around on a screen. This time, I could see him. We had named him. And now we had to make the choice to terminate the pregnancy.

I remembered frantically googling Edwards’ syndrome to find out if there had been any miracle cases where a baby with this condition had gone on to live a full life; scrolling through chatrooms of women describing giving birth to a dead baby, or their child dying within hours of being born.

I remembered the final scan at the Marie Stopes clinic, when they asked if I wanted to see the screen. I said no. Then they asked if I wanted to take home the foetus’s remains. Again, I said no. Both decisions I made alone and terrified. (Jonathan was in the waiting room, not permitted to come with me for the scan or procedure.) Both decisions I later regretted, feeling that I hadn’t said goodbye.

Afterwards I felt sick and hollow. But life was busy and didn’t stop. A week later I flew to LA to interview Jessica Alba for Red magazine. Two months later, I was pregnant with our daughter. I didn’t give my grief and trauma the time and space that it deserved. After finally letting it all out in that therapy room, I cried for a long time.

My therapist used an analogy that compared going back over painful memories to tidying up a linen cupboard. If you cram your trauma into a cupboard without really looking at it, it’s likely to burst out when you least expect it. Going through it properly and putting it away neatly means that, while it’s always going to be there, you’ve confronted it so it’s more manageable. 

This week is Baby Loss Awareness Week, and I have never done anything to mark it before. I’ve seen others light a candle as part of the #WaveOfLight on the Sunday, but I thought that was for people who have experienced more trauma than I did: women who went through a stillbirth, or had a few hours or days with their baby, holding them close before saying goodbye. I didn’t feel entitled to grieve since I was only 13 weeks pregnant, and lucky in so many other ways.

Now I know how important it was to talk it through, to feel the grief that I didn’t let myself feel at the time. This Sunday, I’m going to light a candle for the son that we never got to meet. Next week, coincidentally, is his due date. He would have been turning seven. We’re going to plant a tree, which we’ll always have to remember him by, and finally say goodbye.