Today I looked out the window thinking it was November. My Healing
The Child Within book talks about grieving a loss so today I am going
to travel back in time and revisit a memory of when I was in college. My
first year was not so bad. I was able to pay for it using money I had
earned from my jobs and I had received financial aid which was a
blessing. Before my sophomore year started someone called to tell me
that a guy I had gone to high school with had been killed during a
construction accident when a truck fell on him. Later that same year a
girl that had been a friend of mine would be killed when her vehicle hit
a patch of ice and hit another vehicle head on, but before school
started there was a funeral that I wasn't going to attend.
This guy and I had not been friends, his brother had been going out
with my sister and he made some nasty remarks about it. One day guys
were fooling around downstairs, the next day he came to school with a
large bandage around his wrist. Months later I would see the scar that
seperated his hand from his wrist, something about it bothered me, but I
couldn't really figure out what it was. I was curious about the scar
and maybe that was the extent of it. I was in the bathroom before school
started, at least this is how I'm remembering it, but when I looked
down I was shocked to see so much pink in the water where none should
have been.
I told my mom about the incident, she told me to call the doctor and
make an appointment so I did. I hated doing things like that even though
I was certainly old enough to be scheduling my own doctor's
appointment. What I wanted was someone to put an arm around me, hug me,
and give me some reassurance that pink urine was indicative of a not
very major problem that could easily be treated by the appropriate
medication. When I went to the doctor, it was an old fashioned setting
in a house that had been converted to accomodate a doctor and staff. The
woman asked me if I could be pregnant, I said no, and she disbelieved
me and asked again.
Again I told her that there was no possible chance I could be
pregnant, and again she gave me her skeptical look. I was in quite a bit
of pain and needed to use the bathroom again. I think they got a
specimen from me. I wanted to get my prescription and get the hell out
of that creepy mistrustful place so when I got my sheet of paper I was
relieved. I went home and told my mom that I had a urinary tract
infection. The doctor had given me a lecture about unlubicated sex and
ways that women should be wiping themselves after the sex act and using
the bathroom that was shameful to me, but I told myself that she was
just doing her job.
The medication did help clear up the infection, and I hate to share
these kinds of details, however the fact that I got my period when I was
taking antibiotics was another reminder of how she hadn't believed that
I wasn't pregnant when I had never had sex with anyone. There was
massive flooding that year so when I got to school the hallways were
dark and so were the classrooms. I was so miserable on the drive there
and back. Everything hurt and I hadn't liked the guy who had died, but
it was sad to think of someone being crushed to death on the side of a
highway in Minnesota and that added to my despair.
I can't remember exactly what happened when my mom got the bill for
my appointment. She may have slapped me, if so, I have forgotten that
detail. She was enraged, shaking, and monstrous. Screaming at me when I
had no idea why she was so upset so she shoved the bill in my face. I
was a teenager at the time so I didn't know how to read a bill or what
the words in front of me meant until she told me they were for a
pregnancy test. Big deal I thought, she hadn't believed me and maybe
that was a routine type of test they did for menstruating women just in
case someone who was pregnant didn't know that they were.
My mom wouldn't believe that I hadn't slept with anyone, the fight
escalated and I remember thinking, this is what happens when I tell
people the truth. I am not believed. I am shamed and degraded and yelled
at and fuck you and that doctor who was such a bitch to me and got me
into even more trouble. I think I ended up having to pay for that bill.
There was some sort of consequence, but the details aren't clear. Fast
forward to the winter when I was in terrible pain like I had not
experienced before. I told my mom about it, describing the severity and
intensity of the pain and once again she went off on me.
She yelled at me for being promiscuous and told me I was probably
having a miscarriage. That didn't ring true at the time, and now that
I've had miscarriages and at least one ovarian cyst, I think it was
the latter that was giving me problems since I had pain on my right
side, but not on my left, and when I was miscarrying, the pain was more
centralized in my second one. The first one was on my right side, but
the physicians and staff at the ER told us that was likely an ectopic
pregnancy which is why the pain was so profound over there. For anyone
who may find this useful, I had flu like symptoms with the cyst and not
with the miscarriage, but don't know if that is customary or not so
don't misconstrue that as medically accurate.
My book talks about sharing things with a safe and supportive group
of people. The other day a friend of mine said she wanted to be numb. I
didn't know I was blocking and repressing so many things. I actually
felt like I was an open and communicative person, ha ha, isn't that
funny? But no, it's not really, I didn't understand the difference
between sharing with an appropriate person or group of people, and
indiscriminately telling anyone and everyone something. The book talks
about this too, and today I am grateful that I have this book as a
resource to help me see that people go through steps and stages as they
learn how to identify and feel their feelings.
For a long time I have been numb and empty inside. Things hurt me,
but I could kind of step back and not really feel the full pain. I could
write about certain things, but from a distance, which is why I've
always really admired people who are able to convey emotions well. I
feel stupid when my therapist asks me what I'm feeling and I don't know
what to tell her. Now I can say that I am hurt, lost, lonely, sad,
grieving for the teenager whose mother was so hostile, abusive, and
uncaring about her daughter's health and welfare. Suppose that I was
having a miscarriage. I've had at least two that I know about, and
afterwards I sat and cried for the children that could have been.
You're in physical pain, but for me at least, that was blunted by the
psychological, spiritual, mental, and emotional hurt. No one could
comfort me and I didn't want them to either. I went back to work, I was
at work for the first one, and now I can't believe that they let me
drive myself home since I was in no shape to be on the roads and why
didn't I go across town to the hospital instead of going to the much
smaller one that was forty minutes away? Big hospitals scare me, I felt
like the one in town would be cozier somehow, maybe it was. People were
very kind to me, I remember thinking, these women are nicer to me than
my own mother, but the pain was intense as they probed and needled.
We were at a family function when my aunt came up to me. She was
crying and she told me that my mom had told her about the miscarriage. I
was genuinely grateful for her arms around me and I'm very thankful
that I have my aunts to fill some of the maternal void that remains
mostly emtpy. Today my daughter is sleeping in my bed. She went out to
eat last night and had a cheeseburger, fries, and a smoothie so today
her stomach hurts. She wanted tea so I made her some, but she didn't
drink it so it's on the counter becoming a mug of iced mint that won't
soothe a troubled tummy.
I always want things to work out so here's a happier ending. Today I
have a thirteen year old and an eleven year old who have some health
challenges of their own, but now that I know about conditions I have,
and what they have, I can only marvel that we are doing as well as we
are. I took an iron pill yesterday and as I laid in bed I thought to
myself, how odd, I can feel blood flowing through me down to my
fingertips and toes. My extremities are chronically cold. When I was in
fourth grade I remember my sock coming off with my winter boot and being
frightened at the ghastly yellow color on my right big toe.
Now I get those streaks that go down my toes frequently. I know I
wrote about the time that the fourth finger on my left hand turned
white, and the shock that I felt when my practitioner tried to reassure
me that that was not a big deal. I saw my finger being amputated and
subsequent digits joining the departed one until my hands were free from
fingers. I'm strangely optimistic about the future. I've been reading
up on mineral deficiencies, I have a calcium and magnesium powder that
you mix with hot water and all of these things help in small ways so I
feel better. I don't want to be a person whose cabinets are filled with
pills instead of food, but we have absorption issues and until someone
gives me a protocol to follow, I'm going to experiment at home.
I used to have a sheet of paper that listed what vitamins and
minerals celiacs tend to lack, I'm upset that I can't find it and as
silly as that may sound, because it's just a sheet of paper, to me it
represents more than that. I've been to a lot of people throughout my
life, there's a lot that I'm mad about it and I'd like to hunt down the
doctor who didn't believe that I wasn't pregnant and smack her, or
worse, just like I'd like to really get into it with my mom, but
violence isn't the answer. It didn't help me to have her shake and slap
and disbelieve me, and it won't help either us of if I lose my temper
and lash out at her.
I'm completely exhausted today. I didn't go to church, Jane is sick.
She's eleven and doesn't even weigh sixty pounds so I worry about her
and Jill too. I want this happy sunny farm style kitchen where people
can sit down to plates that are loaded with fluffy eggs and syrupy piles
of French toast or pancakes that are stacked high and lightly dusted
with sugar. I can see in my mind how I want things to be, maybe we're
getting closer to some of that with the raspberry plants in back that
have survived transplantation. Maybe as our soil gets better with
composting and we start growing our own food we will be healthier,
stronger, sunnier, juicier, and sweeter. I can only hope.
P.S. I found ten hours of cello music and it's sad, but nice to write to when things like this are on my mind. Cheers.