Letters To The Other Chair

In a world where 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss and 1 in 8 couples experience fertility struggles, it still amazes me how little we speak of these things.  Behind each #TTC hashtag there is a person or couple trying desperately to start their much wanted family and the pain, love and hope you see in those squares is palpable.

Given it can be so hard to talk about these things openly, social media gives the gift of anonymity; the ability to find a community that will give you overwhelming support without needing to talk to those you don’t feel ready to.  There is work to do to help bring these conversations into our everyday language, but until then, it is incredible that people have a place to go and people to connect with.  We no longer have to feel alone and isolated.

@journeyto_our_dream is one of these wonderful accounts which documents a couple’s journey towards parenthood and this beautiful letter captures one stage of this.  

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Dear Ours,

I don’t know where to begin. We have been on such a tough journey and we haven’t even met or seen you yet! It has been three and half years, I don’t like to count but I cannot help it. It sounds so odd and wrong saying this but I cannot wait to feel you, just to know that you are tucked up in the little home that my magical body can create for you, for nine whole months. 

Dear NHS,

It’s not you, it’s me. Or at least I thought it was for a long time. The inability to get everything done within the working week; constantly worrying about the never shrinking to do list. I thought it was all about me and my failings – and given my vulnerability to feeling this way, I just worked harder. And harder. Until things changed. 

Major life events have a way of doing this to you. They tip everything on its head and force you re-evaluate. Becoming a parent, losing a child and parenting so soon after loss – they all made my skin paper thin. They left me feeling all the things that overworking had locked away. They helped me to see what I could and could not do. And more importantly they showed me that my well-being mattered too.

I love my career. It is something that defines me as a person.  In fact, I’ve dedicated so much of my life to training and working in psychology, that I don’t know who I am without it. The NHS has played the biggest part of this: almost fifteen and a half years, seven Mental Health Trusts, twelve placements / jobs all over the country and many, many clients. I’ve worked with adults, with children, in secure forensic wards and prison, in the community and in people’s homes. I started before the major salary restructures, before the recent years of austerity and I have seen services cut, cut and cut again, with staff being asked to do more and more with less. Or, worse still, learning to say no and close the doors to those who need it most.