Volunteering

I have recently been in touch with a charity organisation which supports bereaved children. I've thought about doing this kind of voluntary work for a while. Although I have a very creative job, have two university degrees (yeah I know, who could tell from my posts?!) and have a range of skills I could offer which might benefit them, my concern in this. I was bereaved as a child when my mother died. This they know. My father was a narc, and as a result I have been in therapy much of my adult life. This they do not know. We were not given any opportunity to grieve and indeed my father pretended like it never happened . He got rid of everything my mother ever owned and it was never spoken of. Like she never existed. Many years later I met the narc whose children were grieving over their dying mother. I suspect this is partially what drew me to him. Naturally I have not told them this either.

My therapist says she thinks I would be really good at this but I am worried that I have not processed my own feelings sufficiently and that I might get emotional when faced with these children and/or their parents. But I feel like, at what point will I ever be ‘well’ enough to do this? Do they need to know any of this stuff that has happened to me? It's unlikely I know, but my question is this: I wonder if anyone else has been in a similar situation where they were doing voluntary work which was so closely linked to their own past and how did they handle it? I would not be working there as a counsellor (though I would quite like to) just as additional support but I would like to think I could help. I told a family member I was thinking about doing this and she just laughed?!