I firstly want to say a big thank you to all of you who have posted such beautiful and kind comments, they have been a lifeline to me in at the past week.
As you can see from the ticker, we are go for Thailand 2.1 but I have one more post looking back before I can look forward.
It has been an interesting few days. I went back to work and so we have gone straight back into the busy, busy, busy mode.
I have had some pretty stressful days, it seems I have not gotten over the failed cycle quick enough and apparently, I am also not happy enough for my sister. It is quite strange to me that I have spent years and years drinking and eating my feelings and now that I want to confront them and move on from them, some people seem unwilling to acknowledge that I have any right to feel bad. I mean, I don't want to wallow in misery for weeks on end, I'm not like that, I will pick myself up and go on but I learnt something from the first 5 failed cycles. You move on without dealing with the emotion and it will definitely catch up with you, it caught up with me after JBB had been born. I hadn't released the grief from those cycles and it came back to bite me.
I had wanted to take my time in dealing with the grief as well as the jealously and envy that I feel for my sister so that I would be ready emotionally for Thailand 2.1 as well I didn't want to see my sister until I could only bring joy to the table. This is for both our sakes, I don't want to dump all of my IF blues on her, it is such a happy event for her, I really don't want to be the black cloud. Whilst I am very envious of how easy it was for her to get pregnant, I don't want her to feel bad. She is super lucky she doesn't have to come into our IF world and honestly, I am happy to spare her the horrible details of what it is really like. I also don't want to get emotional and say something that will hurt her as I wouldn't be able to live with myself. We also have a pretty tumultuous relationship, she once didn't talk to me for 6 months because of something she thought I had said (it was my older sister who had said it). I really would be upset if I said something to her that upset her and then I didn't get to share her pregnancy and the new little baby because she didn't want to talk to me anymore.
It actually would really be nice to only bring joy to the table, I also deserve that, I absolutely wish that hearing a pregnancy announcement wouldn't cause mixed emotions, I 100% wish I only ever felt joy and happiness for whoever it is - I hope that someday, I will have that. The IF journey takes so much from us and I find it very hard to articulate to people just how much. I mean, we have just cancelled our family holiday for the year at Christmas so that I can go back for a FET, half my days are spent having vitamins, going to appointments, doing castor oil packs, skin brushing, detoxing, rubbing my fertility crystals, listening to my subliminals, doing hypnosis sessions, yoga - you name it, I try and do it. Even on our last trip / cycle, I was obsessed about whether it worked or not plus we also spent 3 days at the clinic and I had 2 days on bed rest - it is not your normal holiday. Most of all, I feel like I am behind the IF glass wall. It is so isolating. People don't understand or they only want the good news stories, they don't want to hear about the obsession or those icky jealously and envy feelings. Gosh and if you bring bitterness to the table, the main response is 'you should be thankful you have JBB' or 'other people have it way worse than you', 'you need to just get over it'.
Seriously, I know that I am lucky - I have said it enough times on here. I am grateful everyday for JourneyMan, JBB and JourneyDog. I have the best best friend in the world. I have a great family and heaps of fabulous friends. I am damn lucky but seriously that doesn't mean that I am not allowed to feel sorry for myself occasionally. It doesn't usually last long but damn it, I am allowed to feel shit. isn't it better that I acknowledge that I am jealous of my sister and envious of how easy it was for her to get pregnant and move on from that feeling rather than shove it down and have to deal with it worse at some later date?
I have found so many people (not all - JourneyMan and my Bestie being the most notable and fabulous exceptions) want to invalidate any emotions that I have. I understand why, they are pretty icky ones - grief, sadness, envy, jealously, bitterness, isolation - people who love me don't want to see me having those emotions and they think that the best way out of them is through 'positive thinking'. ie 'only having JBB wouldn't be the worst thing in the world' being a classic or 'there are people who have had worse things happen to them than what you have had', All these invalidating statements do is make me feel that I am wrong for feeling (insert yucky emotion here) that particular way. Thankfully, JourneyMan and my Bestie have validated the hell out of these horrible emotions (being able to express myself here helps a bazillion times as well!!) and I feel I am getting over the hump. I don't think I was in the best frame of mind for this past cycle but I am determined to be for Thailand 2.1.
I read a post by someone and I am terribly sorry that I cannot remember who it was because I would post a link to it here but they talked about how people only really want the 'happy ending' stories. This was in regard to the poster dealing with multiple miscarriages and honestly, I think that it is absolutely spot on. I have spent so much of my life running from my emotions (usually drinking them away or eating them away) and I have always been pretty hard on myself for doing so but this week, I realized that I am not alone. I wanted to confront the yucky emotions and some of my friends and family wanted to run as far away from them as possible. I honestly don't blame them who in their right mind wants to deal with this shit. What this week has taught me is that in previous failed cycles, I isolated myself and didn't really talk about what had happened, this time I tried a different tack and it showed me who in my support group can cope with it (JourneyMan, the Bestie and my sisters in blogland). This is a great lesson to learn as I now know who has the stomach for the ickiness and I am one lucky 'b' to have all of you. I heart JourneyMan. I heart the Bestie. I heart by bloggy sisters. Thank you all for getting me over the hump - I appreciate it more than you will ever know!!
Posts
Steel bars and shoelaces
2 years ago
Wow, this sucks! When will people learn that emotions are there for a reason?! To be felt, shared, written about, whatever you want and need. I agree that people just want you to snap out of it or put a positive spin on things and it's all about them, not you. They just are so insecure that they can't handle anyone's difficult or sad feelings.
ReplyDeleteI think what you are doing is very healthy. Don't stuff those feelings away, and do all you can to make sure you are feeling relaxed and healthy!
We can't all be happy about everything 100% of the time. I guarantee you anyone who tries to invalidate your feelings has gone through their own shitty patches. And maybe they try to invalidate you because that is what everyone else does to them, so they don't know any better. Until you have had a good, hard lesson in wanting to be allowed to wallow, you don't get it when it is someone else.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me when I say I have had to eat a LOT of crow when it came to my sister and being an automaton droid saying all of the stupid shitty canned invalidating comments when she lost her second child (the first one is alive and 11 years old). I didn't really get what she was going through until I went through infertility. Even though I haven't lost a child, I knew the sting of not being able to have any. I still apoilogize to her to this day. We laugh now about how much crow I have had to eat since being diagnosed as an infertile and finally becoming a mother. Perspective can be a b****.
I often kind of hope that people can stay niaeve when handing out their canned assvice because it means they haven't had to experience the hurt and pain. I wouldn't wish this hurt and pain on anyone. I envy the ignorant. But at the same time, I am so glad I know what I do and went through what I did because I am a different person, a better, more compassionate person.
Wallow, girl. Wallow until your fingers and toes get all pruney and you are sick to death of wallowing. Then get out, dry yourself off, and move foward. But only when YOU are ready.