My Child Is Seriously Ill. I'm Scared. Part 1

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

There are no parents who, in their dreams or fantasies about family life, imagined how their son or daughter was seriously ill - oncology, kidney failure or some other serious pathology. And the life of parents is forced to obey the rhythm of childhood illness, operations, and taking medications. Of course, they do not dream of such a thing, with horror they exclude such a possibility altogether.

But what they feared came. Not to neighbors, not to strangers, but to you. Suddenly, unexpectedly, with lightning speed, life turns to the side that many do not even know. "How could this have happened," my mother repeated in confusion, "why with us?" The disease does not ask when and to what family it can come. These are processes that we do not control and which we have no influence on. Here, something else is important - if, after all, the disease has come and the diagnosis has been made, it is very important for the mother to find her fulcrum. Turn to a specialist psychologist with all your fears, doubts and expectations. No matter how old the child is - 3, 10 or 15 years old - from how the mother perceives the diagnosis and future treatment, so the child will build his relationship with the disease - ignore, exclude, refuse operations and medications, harm himself, conflict with doctors, violate prescriptions, hysteria, manipulate and so on.

A child's serious illness is a challenge for the whole family. Often, parents close themselves off from each other, and most of all move away from the child, especially when it comes to death. Parents can live with horror and injustice for years. A sick child will also be in this atmosphere, who, unlike adults, has minimal life experience and what happens to him, he is guided by parental reactions, especially by the psycho-emotional state of the mother.

Women with seriously ill children have a number of characteristics: they are closed, depressed, scared, feelings of loneliness and hopelessness become an emotionally disturbing background in their lives. But when a woman is immersed in a child's illness and sets a goal for herself - to conquer and overcome the disease at all costs, all her thoughts and strength are spent on this. She is in the struggle, not in support and resources for the child. It is clear that the bulk of the hardships and problem solving fall on women's shoulders. For a domineering and controlling mother who wears a mask of a strong and independent or for a submissive and weak, wearing a mask of a victim and a sufferer, it may not be possible to ask for additional help or to share with loved ones the hardships of treating a serious illness in a child. One is afraid to seem weak, the other does not know how to ask. What does it mean for a child when a tired, haggard, frightened mother is next to him? It is difficult for him to turn to healing, all the child's strength goes to support his mother.

It is important to understand that any serious illness that came to a child did not happen just like that. Behind this are generic processes, negative family patterns of behavior, a negative life parental scenario, all of this taken together is stronger and larger than us. You can successfully fight oncology, but time passes and, amid the apparent well-being, a relapse occurs and in a matter of weeks the person leaves. And then the parents understand that there was no healing, but a temporary respite.

The child draws a lot of strength and resources for his healing in the atmosphere of the parental home, from mom and dad, who did not hide from life, did not drown in despair and injustice, did not go to rescue or run, but found the courage to agree with what happened, took strength from their fear and despair. A child easily gives up life when he sees that his parents are afraid to accept from life what it sends them. And the value of personal destiny awakens in a child when he sees and feels how parents on the inner plane bow down to their destiny, no matter how unfair and cruel it would seem to them.