Being a bereaved parent feels like a disease, one without a cure. I can imagine the Google layout:
Bereaved Parent Disease
What is Bereaved Parent Disease?
- Bereaved Parent Disease is a mental and physical disease effecting both the emotional and physical well being of a parent who has lost his or her child. Once a person has this disease, they have it for the rest of their life. There is no cure.
Signs and Symptoms
- Bereaved Parent Disease (BPD) begins with the loss of a child. The symptoms include feeling nauseous or dizzy many times a day, headaches, uncontrollable tears, and hyperventilating. A person with BPD may feel sharp pains through their chest, head, or other parts of the body. More common symptoms are distancing themselves from others, regular suicidal thoughts, and a constant feeling of sadness. Those with BPD may lose friends, become suppressed by the disease, or die of heartbreak.
Is BPD contagious?
- BPD is not contagious, but those with BPD do tend to make others around them very uncomfortable and sad, if they say what is on their mind, causing the person with Bereaved Parent Disease feel very alone and unable to express their feelings.
Can BPD be prevented?
- Unfortunately BPD cannot be prevented due to the fact that children die everyday from things like early birth, cancer, car accidents, and many diseases. The only way to prevent BPD would be to save all of the children in the world, and that is not possible.
How is BPD diagnosed?
- BPD can be diagnosed ONLY by the person living the reality of losing a child. No doctor can diagnose this disease.
How can BPD be treated?
- There are support groups, psychiatrists, and anti depressant medications to treat BPD, but there are no relevant treatments available for this disease. The only things that can help BPD is having friends who also have BPD to talk to and having a relationship with God.
Complications
- Complications caused by Bereaved Parent Disease include, but are not limited to: feeling very alone even in a crowded room, sleeping a lot of wishing yourself dead to escape reality, not wanting to do anything outside of close family functions, constant crying and longing for your child, and only being able to truly relate to others who have BPD.
I spent 6 months praying so hard for a miracle for our sweet Payton. I wanted nothing less than for him to become a rare survivor of DIPG. I prayed for him to feel better when he was feeling so bad, in pain, and couldn’t eat or drink. I prayed for him. I just wanted him better.
Now, I pray for myself to get better. Anyone with BPD knows you don’t “get better”. You learn to live with the disease. And as badly as you had wanted your child to live, that’s how bad you don’t want to live. Anti anxiety meds are a necessity, as well as keeping myself busy and trying not to cry every minute are. This is a “disease” I do not think anyone can ever recover from. It is a sickness that only goes away when we meet our savior, Jesus Christ. I do think with God’s grace it can get a bit easier, although for myself it’s too early to tell.
Payton Strong 