My children

First of all this short on empathy... is pretty perfect. I've already posted it on my FB page but, you know, a second look-see wont hurt anyone.

So... life, right?

Have any of you noticed how unbelievably hard it is to keep putting one foot in front of the other? If you haven't I pretty much hate you. I should say "I'm so happy that you haven't faced the kinds of pain blah blah blah..." And, ok, I wouldn't wish this kind of agony on ANYONE, EVER, NEVER EVER.

Ever

But seriously... if you are one of those sunshine and roses people.

I hate you.

And if you're that happy you can take it. So there.


Moving on.

I've gotten pretty good at partitioning. Apparently men do this naturally. If you need a funny five minute break from my ever sunny disposition you can find a video about men's boxes here.

Hi, welcome back. I was talking about partitioning. I've gotten pretty good at it. Apparently in my case its called PTSD. I take the reality that my son died in front of me and I put that white hot searing memory deep deep in my mind. I close and lock the doors to that box, wrap chains around the openings, and run. I run hard and fast and for as long as I possibly can. While I'm running I do things like research, parent, go out to dinner, have conversations... all while running screaming inside my head.

Partitioning.

I can usually feel it when the heat of that pressure cooker is about to blow. There's only so much repressed pain my mind can take. I get snappy and restless and more forgetful than usual. Instead of forgetting really complicated and unusual words like "TV" (yes, its happened) once or twice a week it starts happening once or twice a day. Then I crash. I cry and cry and cry until I can't breathe or think anymore and I hibernate for as long as I possibly can.

Those times are brutal.

But, in my busy little partitioning way I'd managed to persuade myself that I was managing better. My lies to the world convinced me to let my guard down... It's been weeks since your last crash. You're busy, you're getting stuff done, you're doing ok.

Then, I have a moment when that searing box of agony is opened by someone else. A time when I have to confront something for which there are no words, unprepared.

Today, I sat in a small room, pulling tissues out of a box shaped like a schoolhouse listening to the deep, profound ways that my eldest child is wounded by his brother's death. And suddenly all the lies, all the chains, all the walls I've thrown up are seared to ash and it's just me, naked in the inferno.

My children...

Will it never end?

Is it?

I've been extra messy lately. The pain is welling up and running over and I never know what to do with it.

Sometimes when I'm like this I end up at Hobby Lobby wondering aimlessly through the isles. 

I often see things like this.

I feel as if the jagged, rusted shard of a past life that resides in my chest gets twisted every time. I've never said anything before. I don't want to debate God, or religion, or anything really... But this hurts. 

I did believe. I believed.

Anti

I've decided that I'm anti...

I'm anti posed perfection.

I'm anti cleaning my house because company is coming.

I'm anti fake smiles (but all about the real ones).

I'm anti BS.

So here's some reality. This is my living room this evening. It's a wreck. It's pretty much always a wreck. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm not going to clean it before I go to bed tonight. I'm not going to apologize to you if you come over and it's a wreck and that's ok.

Here's to anti-pretending I have it together and anti-trying to make myself feel better by competing (because that's really what it is)

Here's to anti...

fear...

There's a C.S. Lewis quote that I've probably posted here many many times. In it he says that no one told him grief felt so much like fear.

There is so much fear.

It occurred to me last night that the ever present pain now has a close companion. Fear, fear, and more fear...

There are the fears you probably expect.

When I rock my rainbow before bed it always takes many minutes of talking myself into laying him down because of the fear that he wont wake up. When he wonders into another room and I realize that he is quiet my heart screams every step to find him because I fear that something horrible will have happened. Every four months when the blood work comes back I fear the worst. I fear that his body will start losing a battle with the world...

There are those fears, then there are these:

I fear conversation. I fear small talk and "how are you?" I fear being alone because it is then that the darkness can find me but I fear being with people because I can't fake it like I used to. I fear losing yet another friend because I am just too much to handle. I fear people's unconsidered, thoughtless, or judgmental words... because they hurt like hell. I fear those many, many moments when the words just wont come, when I can't remember why I am where I am, or what the names of things are. I fear being perceived as a jerk because I just can't operate in the world like you can. I fear the panic attacks, the helplessness, the ever crashing waves. I am terrified to celebrate that my rainbow has turned TWO because what if that is the end? What if whatever force or being that runs the world notices that he is growing, and loved, and helping to heal his broken parents?

My world is entirely ruled by fear and I have no idea what to do about it.
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I know no other thing to say but to ask again that you, who allow this kind of pain and confusion into your life when you read my words, be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

I hurt... I fear... I hurt...

Until next time...

I carry him...

In one of my classes we are studying the endocrinology of development, specifically what hormones are involved in sexual differentiation. As part of our assigned reading we read an article about many of the ways a person can be an intermediate between the sexes. One of the things we read about is called a michrochimera.

Turns out that during gestation fetal stem cells cross the placenta into the maternal circulation and that these cells incorporate themselves into the maternal system. The fetal cells have been detected, living and functioning, in a woman as old as 94.

When I read this I was in scientist mode and my mind went off on a tangent about how that could work... biologically speaking. I mean seriously, HOW does that work. Cells that are genetically different from the body are working as part of the body. Cool.

Today, while I was sitting in class, my instructor said "So a mother carries cells from every fetus she has ever carried." and I lost it.

It hit me.

I carry him with me.

I LITERALLY carry him with me, physically.

Nothing will every make Damon's death better, or ok, or his absence any less agonizing but I am holding on to this with everything I have.

I carry him...

Every Second, Every Minute, Every Day

I miss you

mediocre

So, I have PTSD... ya'll knew that... I knew that

I had a full on panic attack on Friday but that's the first I've had in months. I can go to the grocery store and restaurants (I even order for myself now). I can even do that really horrible "how are you?" "Fine, you?" bull crap now. (Though today someone asked how I'm doing and I said "shitty" and they didn't know what to say for a full minute... I guess sometimes I can't do it). Long ramble short, I've come a long way back into society. I think I was starting to believe that I'm functioning pretty close to "normally."

I've always had to work hard to learn. I'm not a hear it once, got it kind of kid (my hubby is). Knowledge is hard won for me but I've always functioned really naturally in an academic environment. This is the first semester since I've come back to school that I've had a truly full plate. I'm teaching, taking classes, and researching... and its kicking my butt.

I'm not new to this either. I was a single parent through much of my master's work. I put in nearly a full year on my PhD before Damon's death. Sure, it was hard but I rarely felt like I just couldn't hack it.

My brain is broken.

I was told by a few therapists before I gave up on the whole therapy thing that my mind is fractured. Because I can't deal with my memories of Damon's death I've partitioned it off, thrown up iron walls surrounded by a moat filled with crocodiles... you get the picture... and that this dividing of my mind prevents it from working correctly. I believe them. I believed them then. Believing them doesn't make me any more likely to walk back into those memories, but I believe.

I believed them because of the panic attacks, the incessant crying, the constant fear, the all consuming ever-present hurt.

But only in the past few months have I started to realize that the damage is not only emotional.

I regularly forget words, as in five or six times in a day, words like "door" and "computer" not to mention "argenine vassopressin" or "dompamenergic neuron." Everyday. I can't remember where I parked my car and perhaps most frightening of all to an academic, I cannot incorporate new information. I can learn it but I can't get it to sink down into me. It just sits there on the surface, tickling my mind when I try to go find it.

So I'm asking myself the question... can I deal with being mediocre? Can I accept average (really below average for a PhD). If I face the fact that I simply am not the person that I was in all ways, including my intelligence and capability, what does that mean? Can I still do this?

I don't know.

Until next time...