When Grief Crashes In: The Unseen Battle

You know, sometimes you feel you’ve finally found peace in the storm. Like sadness is not picking in suddenly to make a deep hole, like that deep despair, the grief has gone away, leaving things quiet, maybe a little empty.

I felt that way for days on end. After being sick for weeks, I hadn’t really felt the sharp pain, the heavy sadness. Was it just because I was still a bit out of it from being sick, or had I just gone numb? My therapist keeps on insisting I need to feel my feelings, learn to express my sadness and anger. That bottling it up won’t make it disappear. And I get it, she is right, but I have felt like there was nothing there to be felt or even embraced.

This week, I was talking to a friend, and I told her I was feeling quite a peace, that I was unsure if I had gone numb, or the pain had just gone away, but that I was fine. And yes, I know that I tend to say I’m fine and put up a smile, even when I’m not okay, but I was just blah, with a sense of nothingness. I wasn’t feeling triggered. I simply felt okay. 

But as the saying goes, it’s not the same to call the devil than to see him come. 

A few hours later, the devil arrived, uninvited and unwelcome.  I was sitting at a table with four coworkers. They were talking about their lives: kids, pregnancies (theirs or their spouses), C-sections. And I was there. Smiling. Quiet. But the ache was immediate and sharp.

The Unbearable Truth

It will never be me.

Those words, unspoken but screaming in my mind, brought with them a sharp, physical pain. And just like that, I was drowning again. That familiar wave: chest tight, throat closed, eyes burning. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. So, I excused myself to the bathroom, cried quietly behind a locked door, and then came back out like nothing happened. I returned to the table, my face a mask of composure, unfazed. 

I’m really fucking good at hiding my emotions. I’ve mastered the art of appearing fine. No one at that table knows what I’m going through. They don’t know I have gone through 12 grueling infertility treatments, and I’m crushed, I’m grieving the loss, after ending empty-handed. No one knows that each time I’m out with co-workers and as everyone talks about their families, I lose myself a little and feel inadequate. But how could they know I was breaking? And honestly… people are going to have these conversations. They’re living their lives. This isn’t about them.

It’s about the pain that finds me anyway.

The Flood of Tears

It wasn’t until I was back in the car, driving home, that the real waterworks began. The tears came hard, with a vengeance. The sorrow, the ache, the unfairness of it all. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I had thought maybe I’d stopped feeling, but the pain is still there. Maybe buried under exhaustion and distraction, but still raw. Still alive.

My gut was punched, and I lost my breath. The injustice of it all still feels unbearable. Will this be forever? I scream silently into the void. FUCK. Make it go away. I haven’t been so bad. I didn’t deserve this pain.

I’m trying so damn hard to be okay. I’m trying to understand. To make peace with something that makes no sense. But the truth is, the pain is relentless, and sometimes, it feels utterly unfair.

And yeah, I’m angry. I’m tired. I didn’t deserve this. This kind of pain. This kind of grief.

To anyone else who has felt this sudden, overwhelming return of grief, this sharp reminder that the pain is still very much alive, please know you are not alone. It’s a testament to our strength that we navigate these moments, even when they threaten to shatter us.

If you’ve ever felt this sudden, big wave of sadness come back, this clear sign that the pain is still very much alive, please know you’re not alone. It shows how strong we are that we can get through these moments, even when they feel like they’ll break us.

Struggling with infertility as part of your trauma journey? Learn how to find support without falling into painful comparison traps.
👉 Read: How to Find Support During Infertility Without Comparison