grieving

There will come a day when you don’t get sick thinking about her.

Ask Erin: Help! I Can’t Let Go Of My Ex

She’s made all the mistakes, so you don’t have to… Ask Erin is a weekly advice column, in which Erin answers your burning questions about anything at all.

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It’s been ten years, and I’m still reckoning with his death

Reckoning With Grief In The Wake Of A Suicide

Death, we know because it’s drilled into us from an early age, is a natural part of life.

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Be there for your friend, but be very careful what you say.

6 Things You Should Never Say To A Mother After A Miscarriage

Whether this is news to you, seemingly irrelevant to you, or deeply personal to your experience, this truth remains that statistically speaking, one in every four pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Some of you are vaguely familiar with this, many of you have suffered this loss yourselves, and the likelihood is high that almost all of you know someone who’s lost a child in utero, whether or not they’ve ever spoken publicl about it.

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Social media notoriously gives its users the opportunity to present their lives as perfect and conflict-free. Image: Thinkstock.

My Friend's Instagram Post About Her Miscarriage Changed How I See Social Media

I scrolled through my Instagram feed to catch a photo of a friend’s first tattoo. It was an abstract design that paid homage to her wedding venue, a distinctive historic site in her home state. The tattoo seemed sweet at first, but then I read the photo caption. My friend had gotten inked to honor the child she lost in miscarriage.

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Television can actually save your life. Image: Thinkstock.

Netflix Marathons Can Save Your Life: Specific Shows To Watch For Specific Horrible Life Events

Sometimes I imagine what life would be like if I had lived back before glasses and contacts were invented and I couldn’t see anything and just had to fumble around blindly squinting at everything. Or before antidepressants, and I just had to spend my whole life crying in bed. Both those options still seem more manageable than living life without the ability to watch 6-10 episodes of a television show in one sitting.

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What if we regret it? Now we’re worried. Image: Thinkstock.

Regret Is Inevitable (And That's OK)

Most people view regret as a sign of personal failure. As a sign that they have made some sort of error. The more serious they believe that error to be, the more regret they feel. It’s as if people view decisions as diverging paths, with one side leading to happiness and the other leading to regret. If you’re smart, you’ll choose the correct path. Therefore, when you end up experiencing regret, it’s evidence that you were foolish enough to choose the “wrong” path.

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His birth was supposed to be peaceful, swimming into the world in our kitchen, surrounded by his family, welcomed with cake and champagne. Image: supplied.

My Labor And Birth Didn't Go As Planned — And No, I'm Not 'Over' It

I was lucky I didn’t have a c-section. I was lucky he was born, healthy and huge at 10+ pounds, with two hefty pushes. I was lucky. I sobbed anyway.

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