by Band Back Together | Jul 3, 2014 | Anxiety, Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Sadness, Stillbirth, Trauma, Uncategorized |
I’m not a sentimental mom – I don’t save everything my kids own to cherish forever. Sure, some things are special, but others I’ve never felt attached to.
My first son’s crib? Take that away. Don’t need it. It served as a toddler bed from the time he was 18 months until he got a big boy bed at age … I don’t know. When he had his little brother had to share a room because I was pregnant with my fourth son.
See? Not sentimental.
My third son was kicked out of his crib and moved into the bedroom with the first to give his crib to the fourth. My oldest got a real bed and we said goodbye to his toddler bed.
Life changes man, life changes.
My fourth was the second baby to use this crib – a gift from my mom for our second son.
Our second son that never came home. Well, I guess he did.
Our second son was a full-term stillbirth. The crib was his. A crib he never got to use; not for even a minute. Unless you count me leaning on it while I was heavily pregnant.
This was a fancy $500 crib that we didn’t even put together until I was 38 weeks pregnant because we were lazy and busy with our oldest son, Jules, who was seventeen months. For a while I blamed Joel’s death on this; obviously I didn’t prove that I wanted him because it took us so long to paint and fix up his room. Logically he died because we didn’t put his crib together.
That, The Band, is just one of the many insane things you think when your baby dies and you’re trying to figure out why. Because babies don’t just die. There has to be a reason, even if it’s silly and pathetic.
After we found out that Joel was dead, one of the worst moments was coming home and going to take a bath. I was surrounded by baby stuff. My husband went to that bedroom and shut that door. We had to block that out. That was the only way. That door was both literally and figuratively shut. His urn was placed in there after his service. His funeral flowers, too.
Over the next year, the room had magic and hope again when Blair came into this world, our rainbow baby that survived. It was a little hard turning Joel’s room into Blair’s, but we did it. Joel came into our bedroom. His crib was still his crib though, even though it was in Blair’s room and being used by Blair.
By the time Blair was ready for a big boy bed, I’d gotten pregnant with our fourth son, Reid. Now it was Reid’s turn to use the crib. Blair moved into Jules room and Blair’s room turned into Reid’s room which still housed Joel’s crib.
I don’t know why it was Joel’s crib but it was. It’s that one item allowed me to have a piece of him and to share a piece of him with his younger brothers. Even though he never used it, he passed that down to them.
A couple years later, Reid is becoming a big boy. He needs a toddler bed. Thankfully the $500 crib converts into a bed but the problem with that is that it’ll no longer be Joel’s crib. It becomes Reid’s bed. And even though it’s been five years of grief and trying to find ways to let go … I can’t let go of Joel’s crib. If I convert it, Joel’s crib is gone.
Then what do I have left?
I’ll make another painful decision and piece by piece, we will take Joel’s crib apart. Tears will flow, like everything else that normally involves him. We will load it up and store it at my parents, who understand. When I asked if we could store a crib there, they asked why I was saving a crib. When they asked who’s crib it was, I replied, “Joel’s.”
Without hesitation, my parents said, “Sure, we can find a safe place for that.” I’ll buy a toddler bed for Reid and, in a couple years, I’ll buy him a real bed instead of converting Joel’s crib for him.
Sometimes I wonder how this story will play out when I’m old and dying.
Will I find peace?
Will I continue to run his story through my head over and over, asking why?
Will my chest still hurt?
Will my eyes still pour tears?
Will the events run on a loop through my head like a bad movie?
Will my last thoughts be, “what could I have done differently?”
I won’t know until I get there. But I do know that some memories aren’t painful. Knowing that my rainbow babies – my pregnancies after we lost Joel – used Joel’s crib doesn’t make me sad.
I know I’ll always love that crib.
Joel’s crib.
by Band Back Together | Jun 27, 2014 | Anger, Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Coping With Bullying, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Sadness, Teen Bullying |
Have you ever gone to school early to decorate your friend’s locker for her birthday, only have the candy and supplies – the ones you saved up your babysitting money to buy – stolen by some bonehead boys and suddenly, there’s a game of Monkey in the Middle in the halls?
You’re the monkey.
Kids walk by, teachers pass, no one helps you get your stuff back. Moments before your friend arrives, a pretty, popular girl shows up to her locker across the hall and the boys give her the stuff you wanted to give your friend. Your friend finds you sitting teary-eyed in front of her locker with a few meager pieces of candy and streamer shreds to give her, and she gets upset and blames you for ruining her thirteenth birthday.
Have you ever come upon a group of kids who hush as you approach and resume whispering and giggling, pointing at you as you turn down another hallway? You swear you hear your name, so you turn around to give them a good glare you’re are met with raised eyebrows and “What are you looking at, freak?”
Have you ever been assigned to sit next to same pretty, popular girl in class who, when you have to work in pairs, hands you the assignment and instructs you to do all the work while she mocks you? She calls you poor, says you only own one pair of jeans, even though you have many pairs of jeans. When you get eczema on your face partway through the year, she and the cute boy behind you laugh about your “beard.”
Have you ever walking through the cafeteria with your best friend and had kids call out names, insults, and threats? You give them the finger and try not to cry while your best friend stays silent because she’s too afraid to trade her invisible status for yours – the target.
Have you ever been on the bus, chatting with your best friend, when the kid behind you starts making fun of you, calling you fat and stupid? This time, when your friend tells the kid to cut it out, he calls her ugly, says she has a unibrow. You’ve been mocked for years, his insults don’t bother you, but your sweet friend, she was just trying to help you – why would he go after her?
You tell the kid to cut it out. He doesn’t listen. So you punch him in the face. But you’re on the bus, which is school property. He gets is a bruised face and wounded ego while you get two weeks detention.
Have you ever been chosen to give the final book report in class; you’re super excited because it was a great book about bulimia, while everyone else gives book reports on Artemis Fowl and Twilight? You know you’ll be taunted by your classmates so you get to the front of the room, look down at your note cards, look at the class and your teacher, all waiting expectantly. The kids smirk and murmur to each other. You open your mouth but nothing comes out. You can’t speak. The whole class laughs at you but you know they would have laughed harder if you’d given your report so, at least, you escaped that.
Have you ever worn red lipstick to school because it makes your skin look dewy and your eyes look smoldery, and because it’s your birthday and you wanted to do something special? Only when your teacher makes you stand up on your chair so the class can sing happy birthday, your classmates begin to mock you. Your teacher makes no effort to stop them. You escape to the bathroom to find that red isn’t just on your lips, it’s on your underpants and dammit why today? You have to go home early because the cramps are so bad you can’t sit up straight and the red lipstick wouldn’t come all the way off and you look sort of clownish.
Have you ever been in class, minding your own business, when a girl – a friend – someone you’ve known since kindergarten calls you “goth” as if it’s a bad thing? When you point out that your blouse is bright blue with flowered embroidery, she says it doesn’t matter, you wear black every other day – besides, your skirt is navy which is basically black. The boy next to her calls you emo while the boy on your other side says you probably like death metal. You like Hannah Montana and the only reason you wear so much black is because your mom only buys you black clothes because she thinks you like them. You don’t say this, you bark a “shut up” because you’re starting to get angry and you don’t want this to escalate into a full-blown episodes. The teacher scolds you for telling your classmates to shut up and for chatting when you should’ve been working. You just grit your teeth, nod, and apologize.
Have you ever been pulled aside by a close friend to have her tell you that you’re not “cool enough” for her anymore? You two stop talking. A year later, your families got together, which was awkward at first, but then you played together – you thought you had your friend back, but when you waved to her at school, she pretended not to see you.
Have you ever had your only close male friend whom you walk with to and from the bus refuse to sit with you on the bus? He was afraid that the other boys would find out he thought you were a pretty cool person.
Have you ever had a favorite teacher who you adored and looked up to? Have you ever been put into a class with one of the biggest assholes, that teacher, the same one you thought could do no wrong puts you in a group with that jackass? When you talk to this teacher after class, explain that working with the boy causes personal conflicts, she says she can’t do anything about it – which is bullshit you choose to believe.
One day, that boy gets you all worked up, making it impossible for your group to accomplish anything because he’s making faces and interjecting rude comments whenever you suggest something for the assignment and finally, you blow up. You’ve learned that anger is a better response than sadness – tears provide the bullies with too much satisfaction. Your teacher, witness to the whole thing, comes over, and you think “thank god, she’s getting rid of him. We can finally get some work done.” But instead, she pulls you aside and tells you that your reaction was inappropriate; she expects poor behavior from him but not from you.
Like that makes any sense.
Have you ever had boys spread rumors that they were dating you because you were the “pretty pariah?” Then, kids come up to you and ask if you’re dating what’s-his-face and you say no, you’ve never spoken to him. You think they’re talking about that kid but you aren’t sure; you really don’t know him. And the kid asking you about it says that the boy has been telling everyone that you’re going out. And another kid comes up to you; he heard you broke up with what’s-his-face for so-and-so and half the grade thinks you’re dating a different short, fat kid. You think about it and you can see why they’d believe it.
These boys, were you dating, could help with your social standing, but you’re 11 and don’t have any interest in dating so you tell the kids that you’re not dating either boy and they leave you alone, now uninterested in you.
Have you ever been made to sit in art class with several of your tormentors, while they all ask you questions – why you’re so weird, why do you cut yourself, what made go goth?
You’re not even goth.
You’re so angry that you can’t form a coherent response there are a million things you could say but if you bothered, they’d turn it around on you. So you cut the construction paper roughly while they laugh at your agitation. When finally take a swing at one of them, they give you a dumb nickname – Swiper the Fox from that kids show Dora. The teacher thinks it’s cute but really, they’re mocking you.
Have you ever had a nickname that made no sense, but everyone called you that like it was a dirty word, the way your grandfather says things like “liberals” and “feminism?” So you walk down the halls and boys whistle at you like you’re an animal, while the girls hold up their hands to signal “STOP” just like in that Dora cartoon. One boy doesn’t just say the name; no, he calls out the song – “Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping!” You see red and tackle him to the ground. A teacher pulls you off. You’re in trouble for being violent and he gets a warning for the bullying. You don’t know why your kind of mean is worse than his – wounds you inflict heal, but the bullying has left emotional scars that never fade.
Have you ever had a teacher call you morbid in front of the whole class because you wrote a journal entry about your cat dying? The same teacher who, just days before, said his favorite play is Macbeth. You’re the morbid one? How does that work?
Have you ever come home from a day where any, all of these things happened, and you just wanted to fall into your mother’s arms and sob, but you’re in middle school now, you’re a big girl, and like Fergie said, big girls don’t cry, and besides, Mom doesn’t have time? Your little brother has another ear infection, she has to pick up your sister, the baby has been crying all day, she doesn’t know what to do so she really can’t listen to you whine about your life. She has a husband who’s never home, four young children, bills to pay, a house to keep clean, errands to run, and a dissertation to write.
Have you ever felt you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, but your problems were too petty to discuss? You should suck it up and get over it; the mean things other kids say shouldn’t bother you, you’re not important enough anyway.
After all, the only person who listens is your psychiatrist, and you don’t even like him – he’s paid to listen to you, it isn’t genuine.
by Band Back Together | Jun 23, 2014 | Anger, Fear, Feelings, Help With Relationships, Psychological Manipulation, Romantic Relationships, Sadness, Suicide |
Today was my two month anniversary. Now, you might be pretty happy for me, but let me explain how it went.
First he was gone all morning to watch his brother, ok no big deal, it is a family thing. Next, just normal talking and flirting pretty fun and I was happy to talk.
Then he got upset and started saying negative things, I honestly thought he was going to kill himself and he was swearing at me a lot. I got so upset with myself that I said “I deserve to die.” This just made it worse and he offered no support or care.
It’s like I can’t be upset. I can’t be hurt or need a minute to heal. He makes excuses as to why he is upset, or treating me poorly, or just not trying to make today special. After about 3 hours of that we talked it through and I calmed him down.
Happy fucking two months to me.
by Band Back Together | Jun 18, 2014 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Forgiveness, Intimate Partner Rape, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sadness, Trust |
I was laying in my bed with him, and we were kissing. It was nice. I was having fun. Then, he put his hand in my pants in a way he’d done before, but this time, I had explicitly asked him not to. After all, my family was home.
I told him to stop. I said no. I said please. He would take his hand out of my pants after several moments of my insistence, but it kept managing to snake it’s way back down there. Every time, it was the same. I would protest and, temporarily, he would grudgingly comply, until he decided again that I didn’t really mean my protestations.
One time, when we were just first dating, he asked me how to know when he should stop. I told him that it he did something I didn’t like or didn’t want him to do, I would tell him. He said okay. But when it came down to it, he didn’t listen.
After it happened, he apologized over text, citing what I had said when we first started dating about letting him know when I was uncomfortable. I felt guilty, and sad, and hollow, and dirty, and I didn’t know why. I think if I had known, I wouldn’t have forgiven him so easily, simply warning him not to do it again.
I didn’t realize what exactly had happened until months after the fact. I was reading Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti (great book) and I came across a definition of sexual assault. I realized that the incident with my ex-boyfriend fit the definition of unwanted sexual contact. More importantly, I realized that the weight on my shoulders and the uneasy feeling in my stomach had a valid reason for plaguing me. I realized I FELT like a victim of sexual assault.
I felt violated, and by someone I had trusted.
We broke up after that happened, but before my epiphany, because he was an unsupportive jerk with the inability to listen. He doesn’t know that I think he’s a predator, a source of fear and anguish. I want him to know, though. I want everyone to know, because it could happen to any girl or woman. After all, it happened to me, and what am I? A well-to-do, privileged, white, cisgendered straight person. I’m not the sort of person people think this happens to. But my gender identity, my sexuality, my race, or socioeconomic class don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that he was my boyfriend, that I had consented in the past or that I would consent again in the future. I said no. And no doesn’t mean anything but NO.
I am a victim of sexual assault. It hurts me. But it is what it is. All I can do is move on, deal with it, and try to help others deal with their experiences as well. I have no animosity towards him. Just sadness. Just a sense of defeat. Just a hollow ache inside of me. I don’t think he realized the severity of his actions, or how they affected me. He didn’t mean any harm. It’s no excuse, but to me, it’s enough reason not to press charges. I hope I can someday have to courage to inform him of what he did to me. To let him know that it was wrong and he should never do it again. Perhaps once I’ve healed a bit. I just hope he doesn’t hurt anyone else in the interim.
by Band Back Together | Jun 6, 2014 | Abandonment, Child Neglect, Emotional Boundaries, Estrangement, Sadness |
Being denied the love and tenderness of a mother lead us to want something we can never have.
This is her story:
Some people should never be allowed to have children. Carol is one of those people. One of my earliest memories is her visiting me at my grandmother’s house during her lunch break at work when I was 3 or 4.
When it was time for her to leave, I would cry uncontrollably, begging her to stay and grabbing at her clothes as if I could stop her from leaving by sheer force of will. Inevitably, she’d go and I’d be left there with my heart broken until the next day when she’d come and start the process over again.
Eventually she stopped coming.
Eventually I got used to it.
In time, I came to accept that our relationship would never be as I wanted it to be.
She calls me a cold-hearted bitch (which is ironic, considering) and I very well may be – where she’s concerned, at least – but if I am, it’s an act of self-preservation; building a wall to keep the thing that hurt me the most out.
It works, or at least I thought it did. Two sentences in a romance novel:
“She hugged her tight, patted her hair and guided her to a kitchen chair. Within minutes her hands were wrapped around a mug of her mothers coffee.”
Punched in the face by experiences I’ll never have and opportunities I missed, suddenly I’m 4 years old again, laying on my grandmother’s floor, desperate for affection and love from someone incapable of giving it.
by Band Back Together | Mar 21, 2014 | Depression, Loss, Pet Loss, Sadness |
You hear about people losing homes to fires all the time on the news, but you never hear about how the people are doing afterward.
I lost my home December 3rd, 2013, and I feel as if my whole life has been stolen from me. I’m having a hard time carrying on. This can’t be my life. I sleep maybe four or five hours a night, then I wake with the worst feeling of despair, thinking about the things we lost.
The fire took my 10 cats, that I loved dearly. Two may be missing – I go back to the property and search every evening, but have had no luck. Our home was in a rural area, and I have posters hung on poles nearby, but there are just farmers and some homes in the area, miles away from any vets or pet stores.
I’m grieving my cats, but also my home. All of my things are gone. People tell you it’s just material things, and you can get new, but I don’t want new. I was happy with my old things. I can’t get back the afghan my grandma made me, or the yearbooks that were signed by my best school friend, who died last January.
I’m stuck in a rental home until we get our land cleared and a new home. I’m surrounded by unfamiliar people, things, even different clothes. We even have a different car now because our car is what started the fire. It caught fire under the hood and spread to the garage door. I ask myself questions like, “Where did my life go?” or just “Why?” or “How are all my cats gone all at once?”
Our house looks as if it were hit with a bomb. I didn’t know the metal in your windows could melt and twist like that. Firefighters put a huge hole in our bedroom window. The things I had hanging on the wall there are gone. Even the pot of chili I had on the stove is gone. Papers my son brought home from school that I had on the fridge aren’t there now. My son’s toys and the toy box just melted all together.
I’ve had my piano since I was 7 and began taking lessons. The top has been taken off. The varnish looks like it melted. Some keys are sticking up. I’ll probably need a new one.
All the ceiling has been torn off. A lot is just hanging down. The study above the garage is just a burnt black room with no roof. It rains and snows in my study. Pages from my books burnt and laying in the yard. All my music melted.
Only one of the arms and the metal bed springs are left of the wooden daybed where the cats loved to lay. My telescope that I put together myself is gone – it was mostly plastic and wood. The whole place is beyond repair. It has to be knocked down. That brings up another whole set of emotions. Ten years of life there turned to rubble and going to be discarded in a dump.
I was having panic attacks. Self-talk is helping, but I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. I’ve never been so depressed and anxious in my life. I used to love my life. Just five days before it happened, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family. I felt so blessed to be surrounded by all I loved, and in abundance. It was all taken from me in 3 hours. It still feels like a strange dream. I wonder if I will ever feel happy again, if I’ll ever even smile.
The days are long. I always used to be busy, so they used to speed by, but now I plod through the day at this rental home doing a little cleaning just to get the day over with.
I’m not myself. I don’t feel like interacting with anyone. I can’t afford counseling. I try to journal and read self-help books, but I still feel so dead inside.
One thing I’ve learned from this already is who is on my side and who’s not. My relations to various people have changed. I’ve had to distance myself from some family members who were hurtful or whose words just make me feel worse. Many people don’t seem to understand just how huge this loss is. It’s loss at multiple levels, pet loss, home loss, things that were special, my daily routine is gone. It’s a huge change.
To say it’s all unreal is an understatement. I don’t know what the future holds. We’ve picked out a double wide home already and have much of the paper work done to get it. We just have to wait on the destruction of our old house. We’re having a hard time finding a local company to do that. And as much as I hate it, it has to be done. I will take my sister’s cat and am thinking about a kitten to keep it company, but in my heart right now I’m just wanting the ones I lost back. I don’t think anything would give me any happiness now but to get my two missing cats back.
For now, I’m just trying to get through each day, one day at a time. I don’t know how I’m going to pick myself up from this, but I have to move on somehow. Each day is a day further away in time, and hopefully a day closer to getting my life back together again.
