friendships after babyloss - when they let you down

[givingmeaheadache]

Lost a baby a few years ago and now have another baby - the pain has eased but of course it never goes away completely

My life feels so different now and I am trying to reevaluate. Work, family.. and friendships.
And friendships is where I am stuck.
Many old friends ran in the other direction.
Others tried but didn't get it quite right or tried and then went all passive aggressive which has really messed with my head.
Some were acquaintances - who have hung in there and proved the old adage that "friends become strangers and strangers become friends"
I have met new people thro babygroups recently who have become friends but haven't told them details as I was worried they would get scared and run in the other direction. It was too big a risk to take in view of how my oldest friends behaved.

I feel stuck and don't know how to move past this. I would like some genunine friendships in my life and to be able to have a clearout. Even though these are people I no longer see or speak to, they are still on my mind. I guess I cannot believe the way their behaviour, it was almost as painful as the loss itself.

Did anyone else successfully manage to navigate changes in friendships after a loss?

lost my daughter 5 years ago,had 2 sons since and had people cross the road to avoid me when my daughter died, people i thought of as good friends!
5 years down the line, i wouldnt speak to them if they tried. and yet had people i hardly knew come and speak to me...yes you find out the good from the bad and you remember their friendship and support.

Thanks for posting.
Everlong the bit where you say "I think that people are sad for us intially when the drama of it is going on, but then I think they just carry on with their life and cannot give us the head space tbh" has particularly helped me.
That is what one good friend effectively said.
And the last bit about it boiling down to the sort of friend it was in the first place. Well I guess I thought they were true long-term friends but now I realise the bonds had already fractured and weren't strong enough to survive this.

I so want to rebuild my life and I have been thinking a lot.
I think it's to do with the whole Queen Bee and being a magnet for them, and relational aggression. Am going away to do more thinking.
Thank you

Thank you.
I guess part of the sadness is in actual fact to do with the loss - and it's just me displacing it.
Part of it is that the new people don't really on the whole know much or anything about the loss.
And also it's to do with going with the new me that I have become - the same idea as in the last part of your 2nd paragraph (I am what I am..)

I wanted to be what I was. With her (and them) in my lives.

It's a new, different life now.
And he is lovely though I am sad that he's not her (Or rather that she is not here).

I guess I need to mourn not only for her, but also for the life I had imagined. It is sad isn't it, how it changes everything.

Aww thanks everlong.
I did have a bit of counselling earlier in the year and laid a lot to rest.
But situations, reminders crop up don't they.. it's never really "laid to rest" as it will always be there.
I am lucky that I do have a nice DH and family but noone would ever really talk about it. Tho I know my DH thinks about her too.

Really it has been a week of reminders. DS was ill and it was scary the thought of losing him (he was better after a few hours and is fine now but it was still scary).

A child the same age she would have been we came into contact with at a friends "do".

Been thinking a lot.
And maybe it is that I am scared to start believing that my new life is permanent in case it too crumbles, like a world made out of sand, in case it turns out to be shifting sands.
I'm also so tired cos of DS's sleeping that the world has a sort of unreal quality.

I guess I just have to take a leap and realise that DS is here to stay and that this life is for living. What's to lose? The alternative is to let it all slip by.
She would not have wanted anything but for us to be living life to the full now.

Thanks everlong for taking the time to post, much appreciated. I hope that tomorrow is as gentle as possible and will be thinking of you.

love (no longer) givingmeaheadache

Sounds like an understandably emotive yet mixed day yesterday for you all.

I hope the week goes smoothly for you from now.

Thanks for what you wrote.
Life has gone off in a different direction you are right, and I guess I have been lamenting what would have been if I'd stayed on the same road.

I have to make the most of life now and try to integrate her as best I can.
I have to let go of my anger with those who I felt let down by. And I will never understand why they behaved that way, but it is probably a mixture of self-protection however unconscious, lack of understanding, and as you say, no spare headspace.

Sad how different it would have been. But that is life.

I can understand how you feel. We lost our second son last year and I was amazed at who stuck around and who just left our lives. I do feel let down but at the same time the poeple who did come through were fantastic.
I think also the death of a child leads you on a fairly dark journey.
I feel that I am a different person and I know some of my former friends had difficulty dealing with the new me.

Thank you for the replies, I just wanted to report back as I have been doing a lot of thinking.
I must take some of the responsibility for the friendships falling apart; perhaps to them it seemed like I didn't want to be in touch or was backing off. If you have no experience of bereavement you could mistake it.

Would it seem odd to get back in touch so many years down the line and just put a note about how we'd love to meet up now that we are rebuilding things? Perhaps in Christmas cards (albeit it probably slightly late ones!)?
Then I could gauge if any of the friendships were salvagable/had fallen apart due to misunderstanding and which really were just because people were too heartless to care.

I think I need to do this in order to move on properly.

Sorry to have come to this so late.

It does sound a fine idea to reconnect, or at least try to. But perhaps it would be a good idea to send out a lot of these letters, and then follow them up in the New Year, as plenty of people mean to reply to letters for ages, especially if they mean to write a good, long, meaningful and worthwhile letter. Give them all a good chance, eh?

Thanks again, just wanted to report back on something that has really helped me. It was a phrase in an article that talked about losing a child. It said that people don't have the "emotional wherewithal" to remain present.
So it's not really a personal rejection if people didn't stick around, just to do with their own lack of emotional wherewithal. (Reading back through the posts, that's also what everlong was saying "cannot give us the headspace")

Somehow that has transformed things for me.

I think the solution is coming to me.
When she died, I said to myself "nothing bad must come from this".
That's why the right thing to do is forgive them. It's not their fault they lacked emotional wherewithal or headspace. You can't really understand unless you have been through it, and let's face it, we wouldn't wish that on anyone.
It's really weird, I felt a rush of calm as I realised that. ie what everlong put about being at one with yourself. (thanks everlong, you've written several phrases that will stay with me)