Upset by triggering photos

[ChockaChick]

A lady in a group I’m in lost her twins at 20 weeks. Today is a significant anniversary for her and she has posted a photo of them on her personal newsfeed.

I have also suffered from loss and waking up to dead baby pictures really wasn’t what I needed this morning. I want to tell her to put them behind a trigger warning.

That would make me a nasty insensitive bitch though, wouldn’t it? She has every right to mark the anniversary as she chooses. She wasn’t protected from suffering at all so why should she have to protect others from it?

[quote Mickarooni]@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

I think it’s awful that bereaved parents have to navigate the painful loss whilst also considering other people’s feelings. What the fuck is that all about?! Would I be upset at seeing a stillborn baby? Well, of course, it’s very sad and I’d feel sad for the family. As a non bereaved parent, I don’t get to say that my sadness trumps their right to share photos nor is my emotion relevant in the grand scheme of things. I fully appreciate bereaved parents are not one homogeneous group, so opinions will vary but honestly, I think it is one of those things if you’ve not been through it, you need to listen to people who have.[/quote]
I don't think anyone's thinking about non bereaved parents, they're thinking of other bereaved parents.

Bereaved parents are also triggered by pregnancy announcements, birth announcements, school photos etc.

Why is it these particular photos that need to be hidden to 'protect' bereaved parents?

Thank you @RazorSharp and @AccidentallyOnPurpose.

The more usual photos are easier for me to cope with because I expect to see them. I have a friend whose daughter was born about the same time as mine- her daughter survived and mine did not. I know that I should unfollow her just before the start of a new school year and at other times when she will be posting photos about milestones. I'm glad for her, but I know that I can't really cope with it, so I make sure that I don't have to.

The difference with photos of a dead child, is that they would come as a shock to me, and I would be right back at the time of her death. It can take me weeks to recover from something like that.

Sorry, my first para wasn't clear. I DO unfollow my friend. I don't torture myself by not doing it when I know I should!

I am sorry @QueeniesCroft, its really not easy

I know various things can trigger me right back to that time, but would never expect someone to regulate their own page for me.

When I had social media I had a lot of bereaved parents on there and I muted their pages and only looked when I felt able. Most of the people I met through groups on there did that.

I think there is a rawness to the loss of an infant or child that makes the grief hard to face for those of us looking in. I didn’t understand at first a friend’s desire to share her pictures but as the years have passed and she talks about the milestones her child has missed while life has moved on around her, it’s clearly a grief that never really mellows in the same way the loss of an adult might. Needing to show the world that her child existed is really important, so I can understand why others feel the need to do so too.

@Yutes deepest darkest secrets????

Seriously? One of the most insensitive comments I've read in a while.

Deepest darkest secret. No wonder Baby loss is such a taboo subject with an attitude like that!!

Scan pics, bump pics and pregnancy announcements trigger me massively after 5 losses. If I reported every one of them I'd have no friends left on Facebook. I just unfollow but stay friends. Just unfollow her or hide the post, don't report it to Facebook. Believe me it's heartbreaking seeing that censor sign placed over your little one.

Our babies aren't gross. What a disgusting thing to say.

@grey12 what a disgusting, cruel comment.

You should be ashamed.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

Bereaved parents are also triggered by pregnancy announcements, birth announcements, school photos etc.

Why is it these particular photos that need to be hidden to 'protect' bereaved parents?

Exactly!

@grey12 I thought the comment about the deepest darkest secret was the worst thing I'd read on here in months. You've just beaten the level of nastiness x1000

@grey12 it’s unlikely the photos are medicalised but as @Formaldeheidi pointed out upthread, more likely to be thoughtful images to commemorate the baby.

Honestly, i think it depends on context.

Ok the fb of someone who had lost a baby, or a baby loss group, it can be anticipated that you might see photos of someone's beloved stillborn child. They are the parents photos and shouldn't come with a warning!

However, when i had my last baby, i was on a fb group for the due date, and someone started a post talking about previous babies. I think we were at about 20 something weeks pregnant at that point. One mum put up a picture of her (sadly clearly) deceased premature baby firstborn, born at the same gestation we were all at, at that time. Whilst if course she should have been able to talk about her baby, I think it would have been better for her to talk about her, and then post her photos in a reply, rather than directly in the post. Not so much a trigger warning, but so that people weren't totally blindsided by it. But then again, those are the only photos she has...

I am so very, very tempted to put a picture of my darling baby boy alongside this post. He was born at 21+4 and lived for an hour or so after birth. He is my son. I have less than a 100 pictures to mark his entire short existence.

All those turning their nose up at pictures of lost babies, think for a moment if you only had pictures of your babies when they were dead. In tiny moses basket caskets, surrounded by flowers. And then having someone tell you they didn't want to hear about them, or see them. Don't talk about them or bring them up. To snub the life of your child because they find it distasteful.

I'm sorry for your loss

At first I thought she had posted them in the group page and thought that should have a TW, but actually your OP says it was her personal feed, so I don't think she's BU and the onus would be on your to unfollow/mute etc.

You are not unreasonable in how you feel. You are unreasonable in expecting her to modify her behavior. People process things differently. And, I’m sorry, but the truth is there are always going to be triggers. It sucks, but you do have to learn how to deal with them. If it wasn’t her post, eventually it would be something else. Focus on your own healing and learn new coping skills as opposed to expecting to be sheltered or protected from anything triggering. Because that’s impossible and that’s where the unreasonable part comes in.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

I find it genuinely unbelievable that someone who has had the immeasurable heartbreak of holding their dead child in their arms is expected to think 'oh dear who might I upset with my celebration of my lovely babies' and then take steps to protect the feelings of others. I mean FFS! It really shows up how the stuff that goes around about 'share your feelings, others will listen' is well and truly empty bollocks.

This. 100%. I'm astounded by some of the comments and opinions here.

I don't believe the op expects the bereaved mother to modify her behaviour, she is just sharing how she feels about it. She had an instant reaction. It's true there are always triggers, about this and other sorts of things, and eventually we grow thicker skins.

There was no facebook and the like years ago and, for me, it still seems strange that people are willing to put their personal business on show but that's probably an age thing for me. I'm not generally old fashioned, just find this odd but I am a very, very private person.

The issue of losing a child, particularly a still born baby, has been much on my mind over the past week after long talks with a dear friend whom I have known since childhood, whose third, unplanned but much wanted, baby was still born. He was telling me how he remembers sitting outside the room crying while the doctor was talking to his wife. He was pondering that when they are no longer around, there will be nobody to remember the baby; his children were very small when their sibling was born.

I've been thinking about the realities of that ever since. I will write to him later.

It hasn't happened to me so maybe I should not get too involved here. My first instinct was sympathy with how the op felt, we are here to support each other above all.

I'm so sorry for all your losses, mums on here. I am a mother too. x

It’s really hard. Everyone who has lost a child is triggered differently, and all you can do is avoid it as best you can. Your friend has the same right to post photos of their beloved child as any parent of a loving one.

I don’t share picture of my lost baby on SM (but then I also don’t share my loving kids either).

I don’t mind others doing for a moment. I know how important it is to remember and honour them and talk about them. I guess if kind of heals my heart a little when I know I can say how beautiful their child is abs remember them and hopefully ease their pain a little.

Anyone who hasn’t lost a child who is in any way offended clearly lacks empathy.

I lost a young son to cancer. I am now part of several grief groups/ follow fellow loss parents.

Whilst I choose not to show pictures of my son after he died, that is because I have many (but not enough, there can never be enough once your child has died) that were taken before he died.

I understand that many of my fellow loss parents did not get that precious time with their children. Maybe their babies were still born, maybe they were born with massive heart problems and went straight onto machines to try and help them survive, maybe they were tiny but still alive Premmies and needed machines to breathe and their delicate tissue paper skin was not ready for this world.

I am still affected by the photos but I am not offended by them. How could I be?

I am saddened by them of course, as I may be saddened by my friends pictures of their living children together celebrating and being together happily. I may find those images triggering now.

I am offended by people dismissing this loss of my child, my beautiful boy and trying to tell me I should just forget about him, not share my memories of him alive or dead.

I can tell you my fellow grieving parents and I, we notice when you unfollow us because you don't want to see pictures of our sick (or dying or already dead) children, you don't want us to talk about them. We just think how lucky you are that you have no idea of the pain we are in a and have gone through

Hope that helps

But you chose to be part of a group for bereaved parents so the chances of coming across those photos are high.

In the case of the OP, we have a normal timeline and info shared to the whole list.

FWIW, I am part of a few groups on FB with women struggling with infertility. Those women all know that both miscarriages and giving birth are at the same time likely to happen AND upsetting for many. Most people put a TW at the start of their post if they talk about either.
It’s not hard.

It is hard when you have a photo of your precious baby, who you love infinitely, and, despite your own pain, people are expecting you to put a bloody trigger warning to spare their feelings. I don't want to add a trigger warning every time I talk about my kids, or if I chose to share a photo of them.

In the ops case she is friends with a bereaved parent, she cannot expect that woman to keep her kids hidden away from her own Facebook page in case the image of her children upsets others.