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Amélie Boukhobza (Clinical Psychologist)
Due to various health issues – including systemic lupus erythematosus – singer Selena Gomez has announced that she will never be able to carry her children. A massive blow for the young woman, who has had to begin “mourning”.
The 32-year-old singer and actress recently revealed that she would never be able to carry her own children. Selena Gomez suffers from bipolar disorder as well as lupus – a chronic autoimmune disease affecting different organs – which could endanger the baby’s health. How can she mourn this long-awaited child? How can she accept, at only 32 years old, that her body is not able to give life? Amélie Boukhobza, a clinical psychologist, gives us some answers.
“I thought it would be like everyone else”
It is with the media Vanity Fairwhich the young singer confided in.
“I never said it”she admits, “But unfortunately I can’t carry my own children. I have a lot of medical issues that would put my life and the baby’s life in danger. I had to grieve for a while.”
The actress is in fact suffering from lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease which increases the risk of obstetric complications, but also from bipolar disorders, associated with an increased risk of neonatal complications, according to theANSM (preterm birth, presence of gestational diabetes, children with low or high birth weight, neonatal morbidity and presence of congenital malformations, etc.).
Aware of these risks, Selena Gomez gave up on the idea of getting pregnant. But she hadn’t thought things would turn out this way.
“It’s not necessarily what I had imagined. I thought it would happen like for everyone else”says the actress, who is now thinking about adoption or surrogacy.
Grieving motherhood at a young age: a long process
Grieving the loss of motherhood at a young age, as Selena Gomez shares, is a complex and deeply personal ordeal, says Amélie Boukhobza.
“It’s not just saying goodbye to the idea of having biological children, it’s also facing a kind of break with one’s self-image, with one’s own body. And all this happens at a time in life when most young people are just beginning to consider what their family future might be,” she relates.
Grief here is not limited to a childhood dream, it is also a loss of the “functional” body, a body that one thought one could count on to carry life.
“When this certainty collapses, there is a real process of mourning to begin. It is accepting that the body does not bend to our expectations, that it has its limits and this can be experienced as a profound injustice”, the specialist continues.
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A space to reinvent your desire for parenthood differently
If the child never really existed, the suffering is still very much present.
“This mourning, paradoxically, is invisible. We do not mourn a being who never existed, but we mourn the hope, the projection of a future that we had created for ourselves. What is particularly painful is the solitude in this loss. Many women do not feel legitimate to talk about it, because the child was not conceived, it is only in their mind, in their desire. And yet, the suffering is there”, emphasizes the expert.
Then there is this idea of ”repairing” or “reclaiming” one’s body. How can one live with a body that seems to betray oneself? How can one not feel inadequate, imperfect?
“It is a fight that requires patience and a certain reconciliation with oneself. The body, even imperfect, is still ours, it cannot be reduced to what it cannot do. There is a path to travel to detach ourselves from this functional vision of the body, from the idea that it should necessarily respond to all our life projects”, she says.
But as in any grieving process, there is no recipe.
“There are stages, ups and downs, sometimes acceptance, sometimes revolt. It is a journey that belongs to the person who goes through it, where resilience takes different forms. It is also a space to reinvent one’s desire for parenthood differently, but that is a step that we take when we are ready. It is not about finding immediate “solutions”, but rather about leaving room for the possibility of another future, a future that, even if different, can be just as rich and full of meaning”, confides Amélie Boukhobza.
“What Selena Gomez expresses is this raw humanity, this painful confrontation with a reality that she did not choose. But by expressing it publicly, she also breaks a taboo, she reminds us that this mourning, although invisible to the eyes of others, is indeed real, and that it deserves to be heard. Obviously this testimony can speak to many other women in the same situation…”, concludes the specialist.
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