Yesterday we published the first installment of this extensive interview to one of the authors of "The Forgotten Voices", the psychologist Mónica Álvarez, a great specialist in the grief of women who go through an abortion and today we continue talking about this issue with her.
Once again the psychologist Mónica Álvarez in this interview that Babies has done and more We are shown as a woman of extraordinary sensitivity and great wisdom that comforts. The way he speaks directly to mothers is very beautiful. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
Whose are those “forgotten voices?
In this book we wanted to pick up the voices of these babies that were not a palpable reality other than for their parents. That they did not occupy more physical space than the mother's womb, her first and only house. Their voices resonate in the everyday life of beings who still love them above conventions and are now included in the pages of this book so that whoever wants to can hear them with the ears of the soul.
And of the mothers?
We also wanted to pick up the forgotten voices of mothers who suffered in their flesh the pain of seeing their children ripped out without the comfort of having been able to contemplate a beloved face to keep in memory. All those silent words, that nobody wanted to hear, all that pain and that cry that nobody wanted to stop to see that it existed, all those emotions denied over and over again by a society that begins to wake up from a long dream and now needs to finally feel , are clustered between the pages of this book waiting to be finally read.
Do parents also need a voice?
We have also accommodated the forgotten voices of parents who suffer in silence their pain for the lost son, the fear for the health of his wife, the helplessness of being able to "do" absolutely nothing. They who silence and postpone their pain to take care of us and protect us from their tears also have their place in this book.
Is this book only for those who have had a natural abortion? What will the readers find?
This book can be read by anyone who has concerns about the subject and wants and wants to be informed truthfully about it.
But you also talk about more issues than natural abortion.
We not only treat natural abortion. There is a whole chapter dedicated to the so-called therapeutic abortions, of the complexity that these losses entail and the duel they entail, since it is very different for your child to die in the womb to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy because a malformation will not leave him live in aerobic mode (or you can live but with very important tasks that will condition your life and that of the people around you) but that for the moment you are alive, you move and could be like this for several more months. A mother told how terrible it was to notice him move and kick her when she headed to the clinic where the interruption was going to occur.
Do you deal with more issues related to abortions and early losses?
There is a very extensive chapter dedicated to the theory of grief, another that I think will be very useful dedicated to rituals, what they are and from what discipline they arise, how to apply them, how to create them and what is more important, which are true tools of mental reprogramming, being able to be used in therapeutic context with great success, and in family context in a clearly positive way. And about the expectant treatment you say something? Of course, there is a whole chapter dedicated to expectant treatment, scientific evidence, what really happens in the body of women when an abortion occurs, the return of cycles ... There is a little reflection on the so-called IVE, voluntary termination of pregnancy. Pregnancies after a loss, how are they, what special needs do the women who live them to be able to overcome the fears of a new loss, anguish ... We also find a chapter of rituals for life, to perform during this new pregnancy that helps them live and enjoy them "as if it were the first time." Curiosities such as the experience of the puerperium after a loss, breastfeeding without baby, other associated losses that are not taken into account but are also important and mark the person. And more topics.
How would you explain "The Forgotten Voices" to your future readers?
Perhaps you are someone who has experienced the loss from silence and misunderstanding. Perhaps you have had a lot of feelings and emotions that neither you nor those around you understood. Perhaps you still have them, doubts, questions, memories with which you don't know very well how to do. They ask you to forget, to follow your life, to be "before" again.
Do you address women who have had a loss?
This book is especially for you, so that you discover that you will never be the same as before, because now you are a different person, you are a whore wishing to return home to be with your baby, but there is no baby.
You are not crazy, you are a mother with the uncontrollable desire to press your child against your chest. You may be attacked by anger or sadness, but that goes into the normal process that you have to carry out, just as a physical injury goes through a series of phases until it heals. Maybe you would like to perform an act to say goodbye to your baby, but everyone tells you to forget without more; you are in your right and in “The forgotten voices” you will discover that precisely saying goodbye is healthy, and you will find tools to be able to do it and then continue your path in life. That you may need to say goodbye many times because there will be many moments in your life when you would like to be with your baby (or with the child or adult in which he would have been transformed) and it will not be and will be small duels that you will have to perform . Perhaps to the pain of loss you blame yourself for having made the decision to terminate the pregnancy because at that time you saw that it was the best for your son and for everyone. You will find a first outline of the treatment of guilt, the need that there is always to put the responsibility in the hands of whoever belongs to it and not to carry more weight than it is for one. For those who did not go through this trance but want to accompany those who did, this book is an indispensable guide to be able to help without putting the leg, without doing more damage than what has already been done, to be effective with the accompaniment offered.
In any case, the book "The Forgotten Voices" is written along the same lines as "The Empty Cradle", which many women said they had finally seen reflected in it, and that for the first time they had felt that they were not crazy in his pain and emptiness.
Awesome everything you've told us in our interview the psychologist Mónica Álvarez about this beautiful book, “The forgotten voices” and, in general, about the loss of a pregnancy and the intense feelings it implies.
