What Social Filter?

A while ago, another bereaved parent posted a link on the TCF Facebook page to an article that an American author had written on why other parents are ‘frightened’ of bereaved parents. I was curious about the title, so I read the article. While I agreed with the observations contained within in it, I didn’t necessarily agree with the analysis and conclusion. Frightened is a strong word with a definite meaning, and even if you soften it to something like ‘wary’ I don’t think that is right either. Fear isn’t the issue.

The points that the author was making in the article were completely valid and reflected accurately the world that I live in. I’m not going to debate the whole article here, but rather just lift a couple of key points because events over the last few days have reminded me of them. The first point is around ‘social filters’. In normal day to day conversations, relationships or work situations, in the micro-second between our brains having a thought and the words spilling out of our mouths, the social filters within our brains have a quick think and stop us from dropping ourselves in it from a great height. My social filter is not only ‘turned off’, I think it might have been surgically removed. Writing here is my ‘safe place’, I can express what I am feeling because you can choose to read it or not. Equally, the book (first proof copy has arrived!) is even more open because even kids can read this blog easily without supervision, whereas the book doesn’t have that barrier. I temper the language used here. In real life though, there are many occasions when I have adopted the same attitude of being honest as the social filter isn’t there; the subject might not necessarily be to do with being a bereaved parent, but also everyday things. I speak my mind, am totally honest and don’t pull that many punches either. The problem is that our society isn’t used to honesty any more. People have spent so long worrying about stepping over PC lines, or maintaining peoples’ self esteem that they take the sting out of everything and I truly believe that we have lost the ability to cope with honesty or even constructive criticism as a result. We’ve got used to being pink and fluffy. As a bereaved parent, with no social filter, the truth comes out whether I want it to or not.

That leads me into the second thought from the article; why do we do this. The author talked about a lot of things that have changed with regard to how we relate to others. But they didn’t make the connection that has occurred to me, or at least, didn’t print it if she had. Why has the social filter been turned off, or why doesn’t it work properly any more? My theory is quite simple. Evie’s death was the most horrendous event in my life. Losing a child is the absolute worst thing that any parent can experience. It questions you in a way that other events only hint at. It questions your very existence and your purpose in life itself. Being sat here typing away, nearly two years after Evie’s death, I have survived. I have survived the worst thing that God, fate, or life can throw at me. Nothing else will ever come close. What that means is that if I have survived this, I can survive anything, and therefore, nothing else holds any fear for me. Even death doesn’t bother me any more. Whatever the result of me being honest may be, it doesn’t frighten me because quite simply, I know that I can deal with it or its consequences. I’m not saying that I am invulnerable in any way, far from it, just that at a social level, my attitude to truth has changed. Unlike the rest of the world, I seek out honesty even if it is hard for me to hear.

As I have talked about before, when people change the subject when I’m talking about Evie, I will change it back again, and keep doing so because I am no longer afraid of the reaction. The added benefit is that we all learn by experience, so if I do it frequently enough, people will realise that I won’t be a blubbering heap on the floor. They will also realise that your child dying isn’t contagious. Pats and I were talking about it the other night, we still feel like lepers, unapproachable and isolated; the unclean. So with my social filters gone, I’ll still keep stating what for me is obvious, telling the truth and making the rest of the world aware of what it feels like to be a parent whose child has died. We are a huge minority - thousands of parents join us each year.

Evie was, and still is, an amazing loving caring person and I am going to do my very best to educate the rest of the world about what this life of ours, and thousands of others, feels like, because you know what - it can happen to you too. Are other parents ‘afraid’ of bereaved parents? I don’t think so, but some almost certainly have trouble hearing with the truth.