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The psychological consequences of impaired fertility are common and painful.
Worrying about whether each treatment, when it is administered, will be effective – and whether any of them will ever be effective – is natural. In addition, other difficult thoughts and feelings are often stirred up by infertility and miscarriage. These include:
- A sense of failure. The feeling that your body has failed in one of the most basic of human functions may generalize to feeling that you, as a person, are a failure.
- Shame. Infertility can induce the sense of being damaged, which can then lead to deep shame.
- Guilt. Feeling responsible for inflicting the deep deprivation of childlessness on someone they love is painful.
- Loss of control. People facing infertility can feel that they are losing control over their lives, both in the present and into the future.
All these thoughts and feelings can lead to much anxiety. Sometimes, the degree of anxiety may rise to the level of a diagnosable anxiety disorder that requires treatment.
But even when it doesn’t reach this level, the anxiety is still very painful and can seriously affect a person’s quality of life.
Methods to help manage and reduce anxiety:
Establish a brief time-limited period during the day devoted to worrying.
Allow yourself 15 minutes a day for thinking about, worrying about, or grieving about your infertility. When that time is over, continue the rest of your day without paying attention to the infertility. If such thoughts occur, remind yourself that you will have another opportunity to worry tomorrow. That way, you don’t have to try and suppress the negative feelings and thoughts, and you also have the freedom of not having them intrude into the rest of your day.
Learn and practice additional effective self-help techniques.
An overview study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine examined research projects that used do-at-home techniques to reduce anxiety in people with infertility – as well as in several other conditions provoking anxiety such as heart disease and cancer. Here are several easily-learned techniques that were determined to be effective.
- Recall three positive things in your day and write them down.
- Set aside time in your day to do something enjoyable.
- Write a letter of gratitude to a person who did something for you.
- Identify your personal strengths and think about how you can use them in new ways.
- Identify those things that are most meaningful for you in life.
- Write about your best possible future despite the problem.
Limiting the time spent worrying and feeling anxious about infertility to a specific interval in the day helps by putting things in perspective. These techniques can help a person coping with infertility manage their anxiety and focus on the good things still present in their lives.
Additional Readings about the psychological stresses of infertility and miscarriage:
Articles
Memoirs
- Becoming, by Michelle Obama
- An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken
Novels
- The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman
- The End of Miracles, by Monica Starkman
- What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty
