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S2: E7: Stepping Past the Clinical: The Healing Power of Peer Support and Caring for the Carers
0 Playsin 10 hours
In this episode, host Stacey welcomes Lauren Sun, Pink Elephants' Peer Support Coordinator, to discuss the profound impact of peer support and the crucial need for caring for the carers.
Lauren openly shares her personal history of loss, which includes three miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy that required emergency surgery, and a vanishing twin that resulted in the birth of her son, Marcus. She notes that her losses were often so rushed and medical—especially the ectopic pregnancy and the twin loss—that she didn't have time to fully process the grief at the moment, only to have it resurface years later.
Lauren found her way to Pink Elephants five years after her last loss, feeling she had reached a point of healing where she could give back. She describes the first peer support chat as "simple" and "empowering," realizing the profound therapeutic power of acknowledgement and validation—the client only wanted to be heard and told, "I'm really sorry."
Lauren defines peer support as being there to simply hear you and validate your feelings, offering a message of hope: "It will be okay." It differs from clinical support by avoiding jargon and advice; the core service is listening and sitting with you in your pain.
She notes that peer support often acts as a frontline service, seeing people in moments of acute emotional pain, whether they are straight out of the hospital, experiencing an anniversary, or struggling with complicated emotions like being both sad for themselves and happy for a pregnant friend.
As the Peer Support Coordinator, Lauren also manages a team of lived-experience volunteers, a role she takes on by "caring for the carers." She conducts check-ins, covers shifts, and facilitates a supportive WhatsApp group, ensuring the team's capacity to continue their demanding frontline work. She believes this support system gives her own losses meaning.
Lauren shares that her relationship with grief has evolved from fear and avoidance to acceptance. She now sees grief as a normal part of life, often fitting in her pocket, but occasionally growing "huge." Her advice for dealing with a sudden onset of intense pain years after a loss is to "let it roll over you." Allow the sadness and feel the feelings, because pushing it away will only make it pop up at worse times.
EARLY PREGNANCY LOSS SUPPORT
If you or someone you know has experienced miscarriage or early pregnancy loss, please know you are not alone.
- For crisis support, please call Lifeline - 13 11 14.
- Access all our support
- Connect through Live Chat with Peer Support
- Join Online Communities
- Call out Pregnancy Loss helpline delivered by PANDA
- Join the Circle of support
- Follow @pinkelephantssupport on Instagram.
Pink Elephants thanks the Australian Government for their support in funding this podcast series under the Miscarriage Support grant.
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the miscarriage rebellion. I am Stacey June Lewis, lead of the Pink Elephant Support Network group counseling program, Grief and Grace.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
And along with Pink Elephant's co-founder and CEO, Sam Payne, through this podcast, we will share the stories of many Australians who have lost their babies to early pregnancy loss.
Confronting Pregnancy Loss Stigma
00:00:21
Speaker
With evidence and empathy, we unpack the shame, blame and stigma and lack of support that they may face. This is a loss that has been silenced for far too long and we deserve better. We are here to normalise the conversation and to make lasting change.
Introducing Lauren Sunt & Peer Support
00:00:36
Speaker
Today I welcome Lauren Sunt, Pink Elephant's Peer Support Coordinator, to discuss the powerful impact of peer support and the crucial work of caring for the carers.
Lauren's Personal Story & Ectopic Pregnancy
00:00:46
Speaker
Lauren shares her deeply personal history of loss, including an ectopic pregnancy and the complex grief of a vanishing twin.
The Role of Validation in Peer Support
00:00:54
Speaker
She explains how simple validation, being heard and acknowledged, is the core service setting peer support apart from clinical advice at times.
00:01:04
Speaker
Lauren also discusses the essential work of sustaining lived experience volunteers. Yes, that is her name, lovely son. That's exactly how the kind of energy that comes into the room when Lauren walks into a room.
00:01:16
Speaker
Lauren is our Pink Elephant um Peer Support Coordinator and she joins me on the show um today to talk about the power of peer support and caring for the carers, which is a conversation that I am really looking forward to Lauren, thank you so much for joining us on the Miscarriage Rebellion podcast.
00:01:36
Speaker
Thank you for having me. It's so nice. It's nice to catch up with, not that it isn't nice to talk to all of our guests, but it is nice but to talk to, you know, colleagues and and people that are essentially in in kind of, I'm going to say the trenches with you, you know. 100%. Yeah, and really understanding the real specifics and your intricacies of what it is that we're all trying to achieve here at Pink Alive. That's Definitely is.
00:02:01
Speaker
So you want to take us back to really what was the bridge between your experience and working with Pink Elephants?
Lauren's Motivation to Join Pink Elephants
00:02:12
Speaker
I think it was just after I'd given birth to our last child. I believe I was just on Facebook. It was like mid-COVID, you know, you were doing your COVID things and you were on social media 24 hours a day and an ad for Pink Elephants popped up and I thought, oh,
00:02:28
Speaker
That's something nice and positive I could give back from my experiences. So I just sent through. I think they were actually looking for peer support people at the time.
00:02:39
Speaker
So I just thought, well, I'll put my expression of interest in and then I was contacted and here I am. So what was the timeline between when you say your experiences, and I'd like to hear more about that um if you are willing to share, what was the timeline between those said experiences and that ad coming up?
00:03:00
Speaker
I think, well, my last loss was nearly 10 years ago now, so it would have been five years ago.
00:03:08
Speaker
Hang on, let me start again. It would have been, last loss is now 10 years ago. So it would have been probably four to five years after my last loss at the ad popped up.
00:03:19
Speaker
And I just had a baby and I knew our family was complete. So I think that was a time where I felt like I was healed enough that I could reach out and help other people. Okay. And so do you mind sharing about your experiences and and what potentially had you believed that you specifically could support others that were walking this path?
Open Conversations on Loss
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So i'm not good at being quiet. So all the way through my losses, I've been very vocal, which I've always found for some people is really confronting because,
00:03:51
Speaker
you know, pregnancy loss is not something that is often enough talked about. um but I spoke to friends about it. I spoke to family about it. I spoke to anyone who would listen about my losses.
00:04:02
Speaker
So, um my losses were secondary infertility. I had a baby in 2011 and it was the most boring run of the mill pregnancy.
00:04:14
Speaker
Um, And then after that, during one of my scans, actually, during the pregnancy, um they saw that I had cysts on my
Struggles with PCOS and Fertility Treatments
00:04:22
Speaker
ovaries. so they said to us, you know, six months after you've had the baby, sort of go and get that checked out.
00:04:27
Speaker
So it did. It turned out I had PCOS. So they sort of said, start trying again straight away. So we did. um We had our first loss. six months after that.
00:04:39
Speaker
And then there was two more in between that. And then there was an ectopic. Just we decided we'd started assisted fertility and that hadn't worked. Nothing was happening for us.
00:04:53
Speaker
um So we sort of said, well, we'll take a month off before we start IVF. um So in that month, of course, I fell pregnant. And it ended up being an ectopic pregnancy, which was a big, I didn't have pain. I didn't have anything exciting, but my tube had started to rupture and it was a big, oh my gosh, you need emergency surgery.
00:05:15
Speaker
So that happened. And then we went in for IVF, took, oh my gosh, I think it was four fresh and five frozen to get pregnant.
00:05:29
Speaker
I was pregnant with twins, which was very exciting. Um, but at eight weeks we lost one of them. So that I'm now 10 years removed from that. And one of those babies you got to meet?
00:05:41
Speaker
i did. Yeah. Okay. and their name is? Marcus. Marcus. Yeah. Okay. So thank you for sharing that. and I am, I know about some of these losses, but I want to acknowledge them and and say I am and continue to be so sorry for those experiences.
00:05:58
Speaker
um I've got two questions off the back of that, especially considering, yeah, you are, um as you say, kind of separated in a time capacity from these experiences, um which is an interesting time to ask you those questions now because I feel like often when we are speaking to people with lived experience on the show, it does feel like it's a little more closer in that time. Yeah, it's very raw. So i am really intrigued.
00:06:25
Speaker
Myself, I'm much more closer to it um currently also in terms of, you know, just a distance, time distance. I think you can have different phases and different seasons where you feel very close to it. I'm just talking specifically on the structure and measuring system of time. yeah um But the ectopic at that particular time, was it to manage...
00:06:49
Speaker
both the physical elements and the kind of surgery element and that emergency perspective as well as the loss? I think i didn't actually even compute the loss, if that makes sense.
00:07:04
Speaker
I think it was so rushed and so quick and so medical. um that I didn't have time to think about that pregnancy. I just knew that, and it did have a heartbeat ah when they found it in the tube, it did have a heartbeat. And I think,
00:07:22
Speaker
I just didn't have time to think about it. And afterwards, it's even sort of, even now sometimes I just go, ah just, I don't know. i don't know how I dealt with it, honestly.
00:07:34
Speaker
I think we were just wrapped up in healing and moving forward to the next thing that I probably, didn't deal with it as much as I should have at the time. Did you find that you felt feelings about the experience later or do you feel like moving into that more restorative grief process was something that carried you differently through this that particular loss?
00:07:54
Speaker
I think it's a bit of both actually. i think at the time it was, yeah, healing and all of that. And then afterwards, I don't think it was until I actually fell pregnant again, that that fear hits you and that, oh, it's going to happen again and all of those things and, you know, you're going to scans and you're thinking, where is it? Is it in the right place? All of those things.
Processing Ectopic Pregnancy Loss
00:08:21
Speaker
That's really where I started. I actually spoke to the um counsellor through my IVF clinic about that. She was an absolute angel and she was so helpful. But before that, I don't think I'd even really thought about it as much as much as I should anyway.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we speak about this in what's now titled Grief and Grace, our ah group counselling program, in that, you know, there's never really a should. These kinds of things will really start to ah develop or... you know, evolve in the way that they do. And I think sometimes, like you said, when you have now then realised there's a physicality to it in a way now that you have to think in practical terms for the next pregnancy, um that brings those things up, you know. But prior to that, you know, it may not be something that is then considered for that to be then a process.
00:09:15
Speaker
um I think with the ectopic as well, because it was EPAS and I'm going to a hospital, there are obviously pregnant women around and things like that, and I'm sitting there facing... Well, I didn't know what at the time. I was just bleeding and they were just checking it out.
00:09:29
Speaker
And it's just, it's all a lot. Do you know what I mean? It's just, and yeah, trying to deal with it and trying to understand it is difficult.
00:09:40
Speaker
it's all It all hits you Absolutely. And then further to that, then to have your loss at eight weeks with your twin, with Marcus's twin, was that a similar scenario where you felt like you were kind of drawn and then focused on the baby and it was something that was processed later? Or do you did you experience that?
00:10:01
Speaker
I think once again, it was quite medical because with him, ah when we lost the twin, it was a hematoma that had caused tearing at the at the placenta and that caused the twin to be lost.
00:10:15
Speaker
And once again, it was very medical.
Grieving a Vanishing Twin
00:10:17
Speaker
It was very medical. And it wasn't actually until Marcus was born that I looked at this baby and went, oh, there's something missing. And I think even now I will look at him and go, oh, there's something missing. He's just, yeah, he's just,
00:10:33
Speaker
yeah you are missing from me. There's a saying that you are missing from me, not I miss you. And that's how I feel about him. I feel like his twin is missing from him and you can just feel it sometimes.
00:10:44
Speaker
We've had this discussion because yeah we had yeah Sunday, my um child was a twin as well. And I think he was just over one. So, um I think after after having so such a you know big experience with reoccurring loss prior, then to find that you do meet a baby, it's its own kind of absolute monster of a gift and monster of an experience really to even just understand that it's happening and you receive.
00:11:14
Speaker
To then have to kind of manage that loss at the same time, I think, as you've mentioned earlier, it definitely may start to see, be seen in them more so than in your experience in ah in a very different way. Like it, it kind of develops and evolves in a way through what, how it affects them as much as it affects them. really interesting.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like it's, it's not so mean, I'm sad for me, but I'm sad for him at the same time. And it's, it's a strange feeling. Yeah, yeah. i'm um it's so You've said it so poignantly because it's such a complex and quite layered but beautifully layered um particular discussion because I really don't think that, I mean, it's called the vanishing twin, right? So literally the the language suggests that it vanishes and I think that The language also then, as we know, encourages the way that people deal with it and the way that people discuss it, which means that there is no discussion. It literally really vanishes. No one's ever mentioned that twin to me ever again.
00:12:18
Speaker
um that's ah that amazes me, actually. I think I'm very – he doesn't know he was a twin. I think at nine he's not ready to know he was a twin. But my friends know and I do – they do mention it. Mm-hmm.
00:12:33
Speaker
But I think that's once again because I don't know how to shut up. Yeah. And also sounds like wonderful friends. i we Yeah, that's true. That's true. And I believe that we can have wonderful friends that don't know how to have this conversation, which is exactly why we're sitting here having it right now. Exactly.
00:12:50
Speaker
So you find this ad, you've been through those experiences um and you get accepted to join the team. What is the first experience that you have in peer support coordination? What was the very first chat and how was that for you sitting in a very different seat, even though that lived experience is very real?
00:13:15
Speaker
um i know from my own experience, it's a a completely different ah process and processing that you go through. yeah I remember being terrified because I thought, oh, yeah, I can do this. would be lovely. Yeah.
00:13:30
Speaker
And then I was accepted and then I'm sitting there going, oh no, what if what if I say the wrong thing? What if I'm not the right person for this person to talk to? And I do actually remember my first chat, it was, she just wanted to talk.
00:13:42
Speaker
She just wanted to say the words out loud and have someone hear her and say to her, I'm really sorry. And that's awful. if That's all she wanted. And I then realized,
00:13:54
Speaker
that That's all I wanted. I just wanted someone to hear me and say, that sucks. I'm so sorry. And that's all it was. And it was wonderful. That was really empowering to feel like, oh, i it's just that simple. It's just as simple as...
00:14:10
Speaker
You just want to be heard. It's quite beautiful, actually, when you place it like that. And I think acknowledgement, the power that very simple things have mean that we can really water them down to not be as effective in terms of a therapeutic approach and a supportive approach.
00:14:29
Speaker
So on that, peer support continues to be
Empathy in Peer Support vs Clinical Advice
00:14:34
Speaker
exactly what? How would you describe the service um that you help run? We are just there to hear you. We're just there to tell you it will be okay. It might not be okay right now. It might not be okay in a month. It might not be okay in six months, but it will be okay.
00:14:54
Speaker
We've been there and we've lived a similar experience to you and we're just here for you. we can just we We're here to hear you. And what do you think is very unique about the peer support program that may differ from other supports? So even obviously I see the benefit of our breakout rooms and the importance of peer support in our group therapy program, but it does offer different things. You know, there is an element of um psychoeducation and a little more of ah
00:15:27
Speaker
ah conversation around what's actually happening from a clinical perspective which we really try and avoid i mean if you've met me there's not a lot of clinically ah you know not a lot of clinically presenting about me but there are clinical aspects to the program yeah what how would you describe that peer support differs and therefore offers something special and unique I think often it's very medical or very, as you said, it's it's all jargon. It's all, you know, i can offer you a medical opinion or a clinical opinion on this.
00:16:02
Speaker
And this is what I think you should do. This is what I think you can do. Whereas I'm just here to tell you it's okay. It's okay to feel that way. It's okay to, um um i there to validate you basically. Um,
00:16:19
Speaker
And I think that's the difference is I'm not going to give you advice. I'm not going to tell you how you should handle it. I'm just here to listen and I'm just here to sit with you.
00:16:31
Speaker
I know the work, right? When I hear that, my I have to share that my body inhaled and exhaled like it it it responded somatically yeah because in that very simplicity is ah relief for a woman that goes through this um and then there are steps to take after that you know so i i would say that um what you're describing potentially for some is more of an acute situation so someone has perhaps
00:17:02
Speaker
just found out or found a space where they are experiencing pain for the first time. doesn't have to have just happened physically, but often we can put things off, put things off, or medically we're processing different things.
00:17:15
Speaker
Do you find that... um people come in and present acute as in, and what I mean by acute is it's quite raw and it you know the the pain is pressing. It's kind of more urgent if for a case of a better word, but potentially the actual loss could be across a ah lot of like a bigger timeframe.
00:17:36
Speaker
Like what when you say when I say acute, what do you see in front of you as an acute symptom or acute ah an acute
Varied Grief Experiences
00:17:44
Speaker
presentation? Yeah. Often we will see people either right after the loss, like I'm literally home from hospital and I've just had a DNC or sometimes it's around anniversaries. It's around times like that where it's about emotion.
00:17:59
Speaker
It's not about i don't need a clinical opinion. I just need to say to you how sad I feel. i just want to talk to talk to you about what got you through. How did you deal with anniversaries? How did you deal with coming home from hospital without a baby?
00:18:13
Speaker
All of those things. Um, yeah, I think we see, you'll see, like, you'll go to a therapist, you'll talk to your therapist weekly and your therapist will say, you know, I've got homework for you. I want you to do this. I want you to do that. um Some, some.
00:18:30
Speaker
Some. Um, and we're just, yeah, we we are frontline. We do see the saddest of the sad and it's just people want to talk. They just want to talk.
00:18:41
Speaker
I just want someone to tell me. And obviously sometimes it is, I think you should speak to a counsellor. I think you do need extra support. But I'm here to listen to you now and here's your extra support resources.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I think the way the reason I use the word acute is not to flex from a clinical perspective. It's to ensure that we start redefining what acute looks like from an emotional perspective. Yeah, agree actually.
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah, because I think we could present acute and use that word as if physically it's just happened, but it is okay to present if your emotions are acute and you may have had a loss 12 months ago, you know, and now all of a sudden it has hit you like a ton of bricks. That to me is also, as a you know, a person that specializes in the mental and the emotional element of this, that is an acute expectation of how this is because it shows us that it can happen and come on in very different ways at very different seasons.
00:19:43
Speaker
Can you give us a bit of an example of just how different people can look like I know you gave us a little bit of an example of how when people might present but how people show up with their emotions so example a would be someone shows up and presents in this way emotionally and then another person presents this way just to give us the spectrum of the people in front of you and how they deal with things emotionally differently I think well we will see people, as you said, at at the very at the very first moment and that's often raw and it's often this is so unfair, I'm i'm so sad, I'm so broken, my body's not doing the things I want it to do and then I'll talk to someone who is, you know, 12 months down the track, their best friends just announce that they're pregnant and i'm I'm so sad for myself but I'm happy for my friend and I feel like a bad person because I can't give them what I think
00:20:38
Speaker
that should look like. um So that there is definitely a spectrum. There is a very broad spectrum. um And obviously the different types of losses that we see and things like that. So it's just, yeah, it's huge. It is a huge spectrum.
00:20:55
Speaker
What is it like moving into the role of holding space for those people, especially when it it may even start to dance out of areas that you have experienced?
00:21:07
Speaker
does it far Do you find that you get different perspectives? Does it find that you want to lean in more? has it Has it burnt you out at times? What has it been like to be a peer support coordinator with lived experience?
00:21:23
Speaker
It is some days I'll get off chat at 9.30 at night and just go, That one was a lot. I feel terrible. And I will go and I will think about that person and hope that they're okay.
00:21:37
Speaker
um It's even in our my fellow coordinat ah could not coordinate ass peer support companions, there is a vast lived experience of things. So oftentimes we can pass if someone else is on chat that you need to talk to someone who's been through a TFMR. I haven't.
00:21:57
Speaker
so I can pass them on to someone who has, so that's a more personalized, I understand all of that. um I've actually learned so many things about different types of loss through this work that I wasn't aware of.
00:22:12
Speaker
um It has made me want to lean in. I would say it has made me want to lean in because there's no one, I think, that does this work like we
Connecting Through Shared Experiences
00:22:23
Speaker
do.
00:22:23
Speaker
I don't think anybody else does. And I think it's really, really important work. Because you've just explained exactly why, you know, there is a team with lived experience that has potentially, maybe not always, but have has potentially been gone, has gone through one of the elements you know,
00:22:44
Speaker
someone is showing up and experiencing in that moment. yeah So it might not be an immediate connection, but it is often very soon that someone can be connected with someone that has experienced specifics around that particular experience, which offers a very, very unique connection.
00:23:02
Speaker
um connection and and level of support for sure. And so on that, because there is it a team that you help support as well. So you, as we said the beginning of the chat that we were going to talk about caring for carers, how do you approach that particular role differently and I have to, I check in.
Supporting Peer Companions
00:23:24
Speaker
I will often just do check-ins and just say to them, you know, how are you going? Like I know, i always make sure I go through the chats at the end of the night and see who's been talking to who and what they've been talking about. And with the knowledge of the different losses that everyone's got been through.
00:23:39
Speaker
Hey, I know you've been through that. It's a bit close to home. how are you doing? Are you okay? Always reach out to me. And we do have catch-ups and we do talk a lot and it's often fun actually in our WhatsApp group. So, but it is, it's it's just checking in.
00:23:55
Speaker
And do you want me to cover you tonight? I know you've had some heavy ones. Do you want to take a night off? Catch your breath? all of those things. And I think that in itself is also important. And the girls are wonderful as well. They'll also step up and say, hey, you've been on a lot. Do you need a break?
00:24:12
Speaker
And it's just, it's amazing. Yeah. So in essence, you're getting support from each other by supporting, which you may not have had that connection and that community if you weren't there supporting others in the first place.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, 100%, 100%. hundred percent And they are amazing women. I just, I'm so in awe of all of them. I mean, I know all of this, but it's so nice to hear. It's like I'm hearing it for the first time, but it is it just continues to, um yeah, reinstate the cause and the purpose, right?
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. And I think the whole of Pink Elephants, all of us are just such an amazing group of women with so many different experiences. And being able to give back like this is, i always say it gives...
00:25:00
Speaker
my loss is meaning. It gives all those little little angels that I have that float around, that's what they were for. They were here so that I could be there to support someone else and that means a lot to me to be able to do that.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's and it's an incredible thing and I think it's incredible what you do and what you all do
Challenges & Rewards of Supporting Others
00:25:18
Speaker
as you say. It is frontline work. It is really frontline work. So to talk a little more about grief specifically, it has been – a you know, a period of time where you now have children, you work in this space um and you look at it from a different lens, I'm sure, or at least a different position. Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
Tell us about how that has evolved with you come up, gone down, turned around. What has been the relationship with your grief since those experiences happened or the wording that we've used today were more acute compared to now and the journey in between?
Journey from Fear to Acceptance of Grief
00:26:02
Speaker
I think I started out quite afraid of grief. Um, it was a negative like you don't you don't want to go through these terrible feelings you don't want to be that person in the room saying i feel so sad i'm such a downer um and i would avoid that at all costs i didn't talk about these things as often as well not as in a way that was healing for me it was i have had that but that's fine don't worry about it um I started out, yeah, I was afraid of grief. I didn't want to be sad. I didn't want, and I've grown now to the point where I think, no, grief is not scary.
00:26:38
Speaker
Grief is a part of life. um And I always say that some days it's huge and you you need help carrying it. So you reach out to people and you say, hey, having a bad day, can we talk? Can I, whatever, um come and catch up with me for a coffee.
00:26:53
Speaker
Um, most of the time my grief is tiny and it fits in my pocket now and I just take it with me and occasionally it struggles and it gets out of my pocket and it is in my face. And then at other times it's just tucked away nicely.
00:27:05
Speaker
Um, yeah, anniversaries are still hard. There are still days where I'm like, and like I said, my son, I look at him and I think there's just, there's just one missing.
00:27:16
Speaker
There really is. And it's not that the other four aren't missing, but I think particularly because I can see him. It's, yeah, there should have been too. And if someone is in, say, let's let's just, because usually I would go to ask the question of if someone's experienced right now, but let's use that.
00:27:37
Speaker
If someone's, say, five years down the track and something comes up and it's almost surprising to them. It yeah. it would come up in their face. How would you now, knowing that you avoided grief for a period of time, how would you...
00:27:53
Speaker
advise them to deal with ah moment of really big pain and big grief, say five years down the track, what would you advise? I would say it's okay. Let it let it roll over you.
00:28:07
Speaker
Feel the feelings that you need to feel because if you don't, I find if I try and push grief back in my pocket and say, no, no, no, not right now, she'll keep popping up and she'll pop up at bad times.
00:28:19
Speaker
If I let myself have that day where I'm sad, I'm on the couch, I'm watching terrible shows on Netflix, I'm eating all the bad foods and I'm just feeling sad, i allow it to be, i'm okay. I'll move past it. Sometimes grief just wants to show up, just wants to be heard, just like you wanted to be heard at the time.
00:28:43
Speaker
And when you said early on that, you know, grief was something you weren't really looking to meet or you were kind of trying to avoid, how do you know, how did you know, where was the moment where you realised you weren't?
00:28:59
Speaker
Because I think sometimes we don't have the language in our community and people that come through our door and use our resources, speak to someone like yourself, come to our group therapy program. Sure, they've now got language. But if you aren't a person that has connected with us yet or you're a person out there that's hearing something like this for the first time, how do you even know that you were missing your grief? How do you even know that it was grief?
00:29:23
Speaker
I think it's it's the it's the grief is the feeling in the pit of your stomach that's just tugging it's just chugging it's just there it's nagging you it's just there tapping can you pay attention to me please listen i just want to be heard for a little while and i think it's it's not always huge it's not always bursting into tears onto on the train it's not always a big outburst of emotion sometimes it's just that little tap in your stomach that little please listen to me um And I think honestly I probably didn't realise until I started working here, until I started helping other people that I went, I i ignored grief for so long.
00:30:05
Speaker
I just ignored it. I just pushed it down. And now I understand. a little bit better that, you know, I should have, I should have done more back then, but I've done a lot of healing now. So i think I'm in a better place.
00:30:18
Speaker
How did you start to correct it, Lauren? Well, correct it. You know what I mean? i think and it was just the acknowledgement I think the acknowledgement of it and allowing myself the space to go, I'm having a bad day.
00:30:31
Speaker
ah I don't want to adult today. i just want to have a moment to feel sad about those things. And I think the correction was to be able to say, I'm having a shit day.
00:30:44
Speaker
I'm having a bad day. And yeah, just acknowledgement. That's all it was for me was to be able to, cause you just, you keep going, well, you know, positive vibes only, you know, we're going to have a beautiful day all the time. No one can be sad ever.
00:31:00
Speaker
And I think also the realization that I have a 14 year old now, so we have a lot of emotions in my house. And for her to be able to look at me and go, mum has a bad day, i can have a bad day and not have it be a bad month, a bad year, a bad life.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's okay to just feel sad for some days. Yeah, it is. So it sounds like really it was more cathartic by joining because you were able to give yourself what you were giving others. Yeah, 100%. That's exactly right.
00:31:31
Speaker
That's incredible, Lauren. We're so lucky to have you. Everyone is lucky to have you. We're lucky to have you as well. and um And i I think to wrap up our conversation, you know, if there was one thing that you felt like a woman going through this experience could receive, what would it be?
Embracing Grief
00:31:56
Speaker
I think it's just the just to allow yourself to feel what you feel and know that it's okay. It's actually fine. It's okay to have a sad day. It's okay to have a sad week.
00:32:07
Speaker
it's You don't have to rush back to work. You don't have to push yourself back into life and ignore all of this. It's okay to feel it. it's It's okay. And don't be afraid of grief. Just don't. it's It's a part of life and it's a part of how we grow as humans is to feel sad when it's sad.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a really important piece and and we talk about it a lot in our program around society's relationship with grief and the way that we have processed feelings that are uncomfortable. You know, a lot of the elements of onset grief or, you know, further kind of extended ah mental and emotional distress are often from the sheer lack of information and knowledge to actually deal with it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:51
Speaker
And so it's really poignant that you say this is that really, again, quite simply that we have capacity, space and permission to just feel what it is we're feeling. That is exactly right, yeah.
00:33:04
Speaker
Thank you very, very much for your time. It was so lovely to talk about all of this stuff. um And if you do feel like this is a service that would be of use to you, you can find some information in our show notes to find out where you can contact someone like Lauren or our incredible team.
00:33:23
Speaker
Thank you.
Accessing Support Resources
00:33:24
Speaker
Today's episode may have brought up some feelings that you need some extra support around, that's totally okay. Thank you. Head to pinkalifans.org.au to access our circle of support.
00:33:34
Speaker
Your space where you can be met with empathy and support through all of your experiences of early pregnancy loss. We're here for you. You're not alone.