How Stressful is Infertility?
Are you wondering how stressful infertility is?
We know that infertility is extremely stressful. We know that chronic stress can lead to things like anxiety and depression, and we’re now learning in research that infertility can be triggering trauma symptoms.
How stressful is infertility from an emotional point of view?
Infertility is an experience of grief and loss. And we refer to this grief and loss as disenfranchised grief.
Disenfranchised grief is the kind of grief that you'll experience yourself yet your community or society doesn't see it. So how are you supposed to heal and feel supported when people in your community don’t see your pain?
This often happens with people with infertility. What ends up happening that causes so much stress is that isolation. You end up isolating yourself because of the lack of support from your community.
Other forms of stress and infertility
Stress can be induced because of financial stress. It is really expensive to go through fertility treatment.
We are so lucky to have so many people trying to provide grants, employers who are starting to provide benefits and some legislation where we have some states covering fertility treatment.
In addition to financial stress, we also have the physical stress of moving forward to work through and fertility through fertility treatment. Fertility treatment requires so much of you emotionally, physically, and financially.
If so much is going to be taken away from you emotionally, physically, and financially, what are you getting back?
How to manage stress through infertility
So here are some strategies that you can use to help you manage stress through infertility.
Start including an activity in your life that restores you. Stress is something that is going to be ongoing through infertility and if you're going through fertility treatment. So implementing those activities, those tools are going to be crucial to help you mentally get through treatment. Of course, if you're going to start anything new, start small and be consistent, it doesn't have to be a huge life change to get this.
Another tip I would recommend is to see if you can break through that disenfranchised grief. See if you can get your friends and family on board and support you. As a starting point, you could share with friends and family on how they can support you. I’ve got a great article on how to support a loved one through infertility.
Being in the present vs dwelling in the past or future
How much time are you spending in the past or in the future or in the present? We know when individuals are much more present, it really helps them with their mental health symptoms.
To figure out where you’re dwelling the most try this exercise with three empty glasses. The first one represents the past. Then second, the middle glass represents the present and the third glass on the right represents the future. Fill each up with how much time you spend dwelling on the past, being in the present, and worrying about the future.
Which one is the most empty?
When I do this exercise with patients, they're a really great representation of what I mostly see with people who are coming to me, looking for help with their mental health symptoms.
They're spending so much time in thinking about the past and worried about the future and history repeating itself, or worrying about what might happen that could be negative or scary in the future.
How much are you filling them up? How could you fill that glass in the middle?
How can you just take steps to fill it a little bit more each day?
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