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PTSD And My Sinking Ship

by | Sep 6, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Child Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Faith, Family, Fear, Grief, Guilt, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hope, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Loss, Marriage and Partnership, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Romantic Relationships, Shame, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

As women, we have to learn to listen to our gut. {Even when it’s telling us something we don’t want to hear.} And in March 2010 my gut was telling me one thing – loud & clear – “You must turn this ship around or it’s going to sink!”

I know, right? Clearly, something I didn’t want to hear.

You see, my son was nearly killed in an accident in July 2009 and eight months later, the bones were healing, but I was still broken.  And, something had to give.  I was bending and bowing under the heavy load I was carrying & I had to make a choice. The first choice that would turn my life, this ship, around was telling my husband the truth. I had to tell him of the awful thoughts that would fill my soul and haunt my nights.

I had to tell the man I love how often I had pictured him dead or dying, with our beautiful, innocent, children at his side. I had to tell him of the times I lied and told him I was sleeping downstairs, when really? I was sitting in one of the kids rooms crying. Picturing them dead. There is no marriage course that prepares you for that conversation. No book that tells you what to say when you’re wife is losing her mind.

I am blessed. And he reinforced what my heart knew and my mind couldn’t comprehend when he hugged me and held me and told me that I needed to call a doctor. {I knew in my gut that this was what I needed, but it was nice to hear him say it.}

You see, I was dying a slow death at the hand of post traumatic stress disorder. At the time I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that anxiety and fear were ruling my life. I was not living with intent.

Post Traumatic Stress had taken over & changed the woman I had once loved. It had stolen my husband’s wife & my children’s mother. I am a firm believer that life shouldn’t be the same after trauma, I expect that. I accept that. But, I also knew that I was not living and I didn’t want to settle for anything less. When you believe in your heart that one of your children is dying, is going to die, may die…there are no books or blogs or words or friendships that are inspiring enough to settle your soul.

And, even after I tucked my boy away in a bed, EIGHT long months later…safely upstairs, without a wheelchair, after a long day of school and baseball practice, I couldn’t shake my spirit of those haunting thoughts. Those reoccurring nightmares, I had when I was awake.

Nighttime would creep up on me like a thief and steal any sanity I had managed to build up in my reserves for the day. It was always worse at night.

The blackness would slip under the door frame and suddenly I would grow weak under the urge to hold my children tightly and scream into the thick air. The thoughts that filled my head were not that of a “sane” woman. I no longer recognized the woman that replaced me when night fell. The fear of losing my loved ones began to grow…and grow…and grow…

I didn’t tell the therapist everything right away. But after a week of visits, I let it all go. I told him that I pictured my baby dying of SIDS every time I closed my eyes. I would sit in her room in the dark on the floor and use my phone to light up her face so I could watch her breathe. I would rock in her room through the night and cry. And torture myself with the thought of finding her lifeless in the morning. A thought that wouldn’t let me close my eyes.

The blanket the boy brought home from the hospital would trigger phantom day-dreams that would leave me shuttering. I could hear him screaming in the night, in pain, even after the pain was gone. I would lay awake at night and watch my husbands’ chest rise and fall with each breath. I would picture how badly my heart would/will hurt when he dies, I would think of losing my parents…losing my aunts. Death consumed my thoughts.

I couldn’t drive in my car without sobbing uncontrollably. Every slammed brake or rushed traffic light would leave me in a puddle of doubt and fear. I was convinced someone was going to hit me, hit us, kill my family…

And, I knew this wasn’t right.

There were times when my mind would convince my heart that I was better off dead, rather than face the sadness the future holds. I would pray to please let me die before my children, my husband…and at times, I would even think “before my parents.” I would remember the agonizing pain of the unknown – as my son was air-cared to the local Children’s Hospital – and I would pray that the demon of memory be taken away from me.

But, as I told my therapist of my thoughts & fears…as I spoke of the anxiety that chased me in the night…the fear seemed to find a place where it could lay dormant. And I was fine with that. For now.

It’s been just over one year since the accident. And I still know that the dormant monster is waiting. Lurking…

And, there are times when I have talk myself off the ledge. Times when I feel the anxiety creeping back in. I accept the fact that life will never be the same. I accept the fact that it’s not suppose to. And, I know that with that change comes baggage, that at times will be too much to carry. But I also know I can face this demon head on, with the help of my family & friends…and even my blogging community.

I am working hard to turn this ship around. To make up for the ground that has been lost. To find my way back to the shore of safety and maybe, just maybe, even learn how to live on the sandy, white beaches of satisfaction.

Someday.

Solitary

by | Sep 6, 2010 | Anxiety, Baby Loss, Child Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Fear, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Jealousy, Loneliness, Loss | 3 comments

I’m turning into a hermit. Not in the traditional sense, exactly. I leave my house almost every day. But I hate leaving. When I leave, I can’t wait to get back. I can’t wait to put on the same clothes I’ve worn for twelve weeks, even though they stink and have stains on them. I long to lay on my couch and stare blankly at the TV.

I’m not finding comfort in anything anymore. Flipping around on the internet, my surefire way to escape, now makes me tired. I have thousands of unopened emails, dozens of unread text messages. I want to look at them but I just don’t have the stamina.

The only things I seem to have energy for? Envy and crying.

When I was on bed rest with Madeline, the only time I was allowed to leave my house was to go to the doctor. I remember sitting in my OB’s office, seeing happy pregnant ladies with their growing bellies, and being overcome with jealousy. Or when Maddie was in the NICU, I would constantly see happy parents going home with their new babies, and my body would become hot with anger.

This is so much worse.

Everything sets me off now. Seeing a child walking down the street with a parent, or a man buying diapers, or a plastic toy in the grass turns me into an ugly, hateful shell of my former self. I say that I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but that’s not entirely true. If it meant I could have my little girl back? If a magical genie said, “OK, pick another family and they’ll lose their child instead,” there isn’t a single person in the world that would be safe. Even the people I know.

I felt guilty about this at first, but I realized that everyone who knows me or reads this would feel the same way. And everyone who knows me or reads this has already had a similar thought. “Man, that sucks, but better them than us.” Who WOULDN’T think that way? I know that, before Maddie passed, when I heard about a family that lost a child I would be so relieved it wasn’t MY baby that was gone. It wasn’t MY family whose worst nightmare came true.

So I’m slowly becoming a hermit, because I’m afraid soon I won’t be able to keep it in. So that the next person that says something well-intentioned won’t get me screaming in their face. So that the next person who rightfully complains online about their cranky child won’t get an expletive-filled email or comment. So that the innocent man buying diapers won’t have to see me glaring at him with my swollen blood-shot eyes.

Am I protecting others, or myself? I don’t really know.

How Do I Deal With Not Being Able To Have a Baby?

by | Sep 6, 2010 | Anger, Chronic Illness, How To Help A Friend With Chronic Illness, Infertility, Invisible Illness | 13 comments

Before I start, this is not your typical “I can’t have a baby post.” I am not the face of infertility, at least not as far as I know.  I’ve never lost a baby. I’ve never even tried to get pregnant.

However, I do have Spondylolisthesis & Spondylosis which, in shorthand, means my vertebra on L4, L5, and S1 have less space between them than they should and have slipped forward.

This causes the muscles in my mid and lower back to try and compensate for what my spine can’t do, which leaves me in near-constant pain. I currently take medications for the joint inflammation and the pain. If I were to get pregnant, I’d have to stop taking the pain pills in the last trimester, be on bedrest for at least that long, and have to choose between breastfeeding and pain pills.

I’ve trolled through every forum related to my condition and pregnancy. It seems most women have experienced horrific pain during pregnancy that, in some cases, never went away. Many say that though their children are worth it, getting pregnant was the worst mistake they’ve in regards to their back problem. Some doctors advise having surgery to fuse the slipped vertebra together, a surgery with a six month recovery time, before attempting a pregnancy.

Even if I could quit work and devote myself entirely to a pregnancy, I worry the pain will make it impossible for me to care for a child.  As it is, it takes everything I have just to get up the subway steps coming home from work. If I have to stand for the whole forty minutes on the train, I’m crying by the time I get home.

When I consider how many times a day a baby needs to be picked up, how heavy a car seat is, and how much energy it takes to keep up with a toddler, I know it’s totally out of my physical capacity.  Plus, both Spondylolisthesis and Spondylosis are hereditary and I’d never want to pass this kind of suffering on to my child.

I know there’s always adoption or surrogacy, but they’re just not for me.

Selfish as it may be, I want the experience of carrying and delivering our child. I’ve spent a lot of years telling myself I didn’t want kids, but now that I’m with an amazing man, the tick-tocks of the clock are getting louder and I think I may want them…and the idea that I probably don’t have the option is crushing. When I see pregnant women or little girls with My Love’s shiny black hair, I’m hit with a wall of sadness and longing. Something inside tells me that’ll never be me.

So The Band, what do I do?

How can I accept that pregnancy and raising a child aren’t things I’m physically capable of doing?

Falling

by | Aug 15, 2010 | Baby Loss, Child Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Loss, Marriage Problems, Pregnancy, Sadness | 2 comments

again. my spirit, that is.

its one of those days where i have to consciously push against the gravitational pull of grief.

it has been a week since T left. it has been almost ten months since i was pregnant with my babies

by accident i typed ‘ten weeks,’ realized that it has been so much longer than that and just crumbled.

where did all the time go?

i have never been prepared to not realize my goals or get where i want to be in life. i am intelligent and capable. i am kind and helpful. i go over and above in almost every exchange and interaction.

but none of that means anything, and failure could be here to stay.

i feel very alone, and not because T isn’t here, i have felt this way even while in his arms.

i’m not the person i thought i would grow up to be and i’m not sure how to live as the substitution

**

by | May 3, 2010 | Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Sadness, Stillbirth | 1 comment

i don’t cry anymore.

no, that’s not quite right. i don’t let the things that used to make me cry, cry anymore. i don’t lose tears over hallmark commercials, touching moments in sitcoms, the trials and tribulations of people and their misfortunes du jour. sure, i feel for them. this life is not an easy one.

this LIFE, if you are lucky enough to be living it, is not easy at all. but i can’t feel for everyone anymore. i hurt for the helpless, for the children and the animals, for the voiceless, the homeless, the man i saw last week with sweatpants torn and fashioned into shoes. i ache for them and sometimes, i will cry for them.

but on the whole, i am selfish with my tears. my tears are for my girls. my beautiful perfect sweet little girls. my tears are for me and T and our families who waited forever for those gifts, and were rewarded by their too-soon arrival. maybe it’s because i never knew pain like this even filled our world, my old world of choking up at a sweet greeting card advertisement, of welling eyes at a sentimental tv moment. now as i sit and watch or listen to a sad story, i am sympathetic, i wish things were different, but i don’t cry.

it’s true that i didn’t have any idea what horror a life could hold. not a sliver of an idea of the opaque screen which separates the mundane from utter torment; ignorant that the passage would be so easily and unwillingly breached- that i would be forcefully thrown into the revelation of the world’s true sorrows, previously and so gratefully unbeheld. that my family would come rocketing in after me, each of us reeling and wounded.

i was naive, i was innocent and happy. bits and pieces of these affects remain. but i will never be that girl again, the one who cries for everyone, even as i understand that most do not know what i wish they will never know. what the ones of us who live and have become would do anything to forget.

i cry for families who have lost their children, i cry for the sick, for the old and unloved. but mainly i cry for them, and for their mother. selfish, hot tears for the lost innocence of not only the three of us, but too many more that i love and care for. we lost so much more than our babies that day. we lost our wide eyed view of the world, our trust in what should be. the belief that life is fair.

Flashback: Make Me A Day, Make Me Whole Again

by | Feb 29, 2008 | Anger, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, IUI, Sadness, Shame, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder what’s in a day
what’s in your cake this time”

Infertility has forever changed the fundamentals of my being. Almost two years have passed since I suffered through the last of my IVF cycles. Physically, my body seems to have recovered from that violation. Emotionally, I am damaged beyond repair. I mourn the loss of that whole, hopeful person I once was. Even though he’d never admit it, I’ve also crushed my husband’s dreams of normalcy. I can’t help but wonder how many maybe babies there were that we never knew, that never stood a chance. I’m heartbroken for my friends who are still fighting the uphill battle towards motherhood and those who are suffocating under the crushing weight of loss.

Maybe today I’ll file away some of my bitterness and anger. So much of it I carry around in secret. After all, I have my beautiful, perfect little girl here in my arms. What about my friends who don’t? Don’t they better deserve to wear their heartache like a badge of honor? Aren’t I supposed to just get over it and just be happy? I want to, but I know I never will.