The fog hasn't lifted...

Lately I feel like I’ve been wearing a mask…I put on the happy and confident face when I’m out in public. Sometimes I am actually happy and confident – so I fit the mask – but mostly I’m not.

Why?

In the past few months some events have occurred and some issues have arisen that have floored me in terms of my self esteem and self worth. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me especially, because this is just the way it is at the moment, and I will get through it, and many people have far worse things to deal with than I do.

I am going to share what’s going on though – because I want you to know that times like this happen to me and to everyone, and it sucks, but it is also a part of life.

So, here’s what’s going on:

A few months ago Kirby and I had a major falling out with one of our dearest friends. It was a complete communication break down and it has ended up with us not knowing if the friendship can be saved. I hope that it can be, but I’m not sure it will be. It hasn’t only been the loss of the friend, but also of her family. She has a husband who had also become one of our dearest friends, and she has two little girls who we had become very close to.

It’s thrown me in a way that I didn’t know I could be thrown. I feel lost, anxious, confused, hurt, sad, and wondering just who the hell I am and what my worth is. My motivation has dissipated – leaving me with little energy (mental or physical) to follow up on the things that are important to me. Even reading has become too much. And, as you know, writing this blog just hasn’t happened for a while.

This is not our friend’s fault – she cannot be blamed for the way I am at all. This is just the way my mind and body is responding at the moment.

In addition to this, my endometriosis has come back with all the associated pain and discomfort.

And I also have fibromyalgia. My fibro has me feeling like a complete failure. I am sore in all my joints, I can’t sleep because of the pain, and when I do get to sleep I sleep too much (like the other day I was up for a whole seven hours!), and the sleep is not refreshing. Apparently people with fibro don’t get quality sleep because their brains are wired to be on constant alert – so I can get nine hours of sleep but it won’t be quality sleep. My brain gets all foggy and I start struggling to finish sentences when speaking, or I mix up words, or forget a word completely – like the other day I was talking about succulents, but I couldn’t remember the word “succulents” – so I said “you know, those plants that take up water and keep it in their leaves”. For someone who loves words as much as I do this is very hard to take. My body (my legs in particular) doesn’t seem to do what I want it to do sometimes – if I want to pick up a pencil I may have to really concentrate on getting my fingers to move in the right way to pick it up.

I’ve tried all sorts of ways to address the symptoms of the fibro, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any agreement on the best method or therapy among different professionals. So, that probably means a journey of trial and error until I find something that works, if I ever do. And to be honest, I feel too tired to bother at the moment. After all:

• in my childhood it was trying to find a way to stop me wetting the bed
• in my teens it was trying to find a way to stop having heavy, painful periods
• in my twenties it was trying to find a way to deal with depression, anxiety, and OCD
• in my thirties it was trying to find a way to deal with epilepsy, and to overcome infertility
• and, now, in my forties it’s fibromyalgia…

 I’m tired of having to try and find out how to deal with something every damn decade of my life – at least at the moment I am. I know that my inner strength will come back and I will unleash my inner wolf again…I have to. What’s the alternative? I give up? That’s not me.

Then, I can’t help thinking about what our kids might have been like. Hayley would have been 19 this year, and Jacob and/or Ruby 8 this month. How do I let them go? They are so real to me. How do I get to a point where I no longer think about “what if” they had been born? I guess I won’t…I know this in my heart, but sometimes I just wish I could have an operation or something that would make me forget that I ever wanted children.

I feel like a failure. I wasn’t able to have children, I don’t feel productive due to having depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia, and I feel like I am letting everyone who cares about me down. I know that the people who care about me don’t see it this way, but I do.

My lack of self-esteem is killing me. I’m not writing, I’m not walking – I’m putting on a good show of being okay, but I don’t feel it.

I’m not depressed – I know that – but the fog is heavy.

I don’t know – maybe I’m depending too much on the fog to lift on its own, but instead I should be walking, in any direction, to see if I can find a way out of it. Maybe it’s a little bit of both – the fog and I both have to do something to get me out of it.

Well – that’s where I’m at at the moment. Hopefully next entry will be a more uplifting one.

Pain and me...

This post follows on from last week’s post about pain. As I realised that we wouldn’t be having children I grieved, and I felt pain like none I had felt before. I was angry. I was hurt. I thought life would never be good again.

Eventually, though, the pain became less and less and then my days started to be filled with hope and an interest in a different life to the one I thought I’d have – the one I thought Kirby and I would share. This took time.

But every now and then the pain returns with great power and depth. I feel like the wound is raw. I feel inconsolable. I am angry.

I used to try and deal with the pain by focussing on it so much that all I could see was despair.  I saw only what I didn’t have and I wanted that and nothing else. I felt so awful that I wanted to tear at my skin until it bled so that I would have something to show people that represented how much I was hurting. That’s the problem pain of the heart and soul over a broken arm or leg – nobody else can see it.

I thought that to get rid of the pain I had to face it head on and exterminate it. But, that didn’t work. Focussing on the pain just seemed to give it some kind of extra power that hurt me even more.

I’ve realised that, instead of focussing on the pain, I am better off giving it space and honouring it in a way. It’s almost seems that in saying to it “okay, you’re here, here’s a spot for you until you are ready to go” takes away its power. It doesn’t have to force its way into my life with me pushing as much as I can to keep it away. It sits, it ponders, and then it leaves.

In the past few years I’ve developed a list of things to do when I feel the pain again. These things may or may not work for you, but I thought I would share them here as some inspiration for you:

Slow down and take time

The first thing I do is slow down. I put aside as much as I can – housework, my job if possible (even if it’s only for ten minutes, and I admit I’m lucky that I work at home), and other responsibilities. I move through my thoughts and feelings and observe them without getting involved. I let them be.

Then I take my time. I go through what I have to do in a more focussed way than usual. I really concentrate on washing the dishes, or playing with my dogs, or changing the cat litter.

I make sure that whatever activity I am doing I am not using it to completely avoid the pain I am feeling. Rather, I do my activities fully aware that my pain is sitting in the corner waiting for me.

Getting out into nature

I love the natural world. I love water and the night time sky in particular, as both seem to give me a sense of peace and that somehow I am going to be okay – regardless of what happens. That being okay for me isn’t limited to this lifetime, but could be after life, in a next life, or whatever happens after I die.

When I feel that pain and anger, if it’s night time, I go and sit outside and look at the stars. I think about what might be out there, how far away some of those stars are, and how some of them  no longer exist and haven’t for a long, long time. I feel very comforted by that.

I may also go to the wetlands near our house and sit and watch the water and the birds all around. I listen to the birds call to each other, I feel the wind on my face, I may realise a few tears are trickling down my face.

My pain is there with me. It is sitting right there with me. It still wants me to give it my undivided attention, but I don’t. I let it be and let nature soothe it.

Remembering…

Sometimes I find it nice to meet my anger with joy over the children I might have had. I guess this sounds strange. What I mean is that I give my imagination an opportunity to think about those little souls and what they might have been like, what they might have been interested in, what types of mischief they would have gotten into. I think about their hair colour, their eyes, and I let myself feel their little hands in mine.

This meets the pain, for me, by saying to the pain “you’re here, sure, but I won’t let you take them from me.” I hold on to the happiness I have when I think about my children, and my anger finds it doesn’t have much room to stay anymore.

I also like to light a candle, or some incense, and focus on it in reflection about what could have been. Often I feel very wistful – a bit sad and a bit happy. Once again, my pain finds it doesn’t have a lot of room to stay.

Company or solitude…

When pain comes to visit I usually prefer some solitude first. I like to let things be for a while. I don’t want anyone to come in and try to fix it all for me. Nobody can do that anyway. People who love me want me to feel better, but I do need to give space to my pain and be with it in my own way for a while.

There are times, though, when I want company. I usually go and find Kirby and get a hug, but sometimes I will have a chat with a friend or family member. I tell them how I’m feeling, and that can really help.

When it gets real bad…

Pain can be persistent, and with my health conditions, such as depression and epilepsy, I need to be aware that sometimes feelings can cross over from being with me to being destructive. When I feel that this could happen I will seek professional help. I might talk to my doctor who treats me for depression, I might seek counselling. It really depends on what I feel I need at the time.

Self-esteem…

Just as a final word, I used to think I was a failure when I felt pain and anger, and even more so if I sought professional help to deal with those feelings. I thought that I was weak. Now I realise that this isn’t so. Feelings such as pain and anger are part of being human. They are part of me being human.

I don’t welcome them with open arms, but when feelings such as pain and anger arrive, I give them some space, I look after myself, and I watch them without engaging with them, and then I watch them go again. Before, when I used to fight these feelings head-on I always lost, but now, most of the time, they gracefully exit on their own and my life is fully my own again.

Why, Oh Why?

Okay – so adding onto last week as promised. Last week I wrote that there are other reasons, other than the low chance of us becoming pregnant, that have made us decide not to try IVF again. And IVF is really the only way we could expect to get pregnant.

One of the reasons, in all honesty, is the money that it costs to do a round of IVF. It costs thousands of dollars. We could save up for it, but by the time we did I would be just that little bit older (closer to 40), and the risks to any baby we might conceive would have increased significantly. After 40 the risk of having a baby with Down Syndrome is one in 60 compared to one in 1500 at 25 years of age. The risk of complications in pregnancy is also significantly higher. There is a good website that explains it all, so I won’t go into it further here. http://www.babycenter.com.au/pregnancy/antenatalhealth/ageandpregnancy/.

This is something that we do need to take into account, and there is an additional risk to any baby we might conceive due to health issues that I have. I am currently on five different medications for blood pressure, depression and epilepsy. Epilepsy medication in particular has a significant risk of causing harm to a baby – basically I’ve been told not to get pregnant while on it as the risks are so high. I could go off of the medication while trying to get pregnant, but the risk epilepsy has on an unborn child is also significant – talk about a catch 22!

So these are extra reasons why we aren’t going to do another round of IVF – the cost, my age, and the risks of medications and/or conditions on an unborn child.