I am a mess today. I haven’t been sleeping well. I am struggling to fall asleep, to stay asleep – I keep waking to make sure Ada is breathing – and my dreams have been terrifying. They are either action movie style blood baths or someone I love is in danger – Ada, Steve, me. Right before I woke today I dreamed I couldn’t find Ada at a party. Then I heard her crying and finally found her in a room with a man who was going to try to molest her. The horror of it has yet to leave.
I told my chiropractor that I’m not sleeping and why. As usual he muscle tested his way to the truth.
Think about Benjamin. He pressed against my arm. Think about Ada. Pressed again. They’re both going to grief.
He checked my digestive system, which had improved Friday from my first week off gluten and it was back to not functioning. He helped me through my disappointment by telling me that it was an indication of another layer of what’s happening in my body. It took him a few minutes to determine if it was my under functioning brain or my emotional tidal wave that was the biggest problem. Emotions won.
Back to grief.
Your grief about Ada not having a little brother. No. Your grief that Ada doesn’t…no, does…what?
I didn’t answer.
Your grief that there are no guarantees. Yes. I start to sob. He works with me to release the emotion for a while then probes further. A deeply and stubbornly held belief that doesn’t serve you.
I spit it out because it’s been running through my mind along with I don’t want my baby to die.
I don’t deserve to be happy.
Bingo.
Oh, we’re here again. I’ve been here so many times. Why do I believe I don’t deserve to be happy? Why do I feel my son was taken as punishment and my daughter is next in line? I sob and sob. He works on me, finds where I’m holding it in my body and together we uncover a belief that was formed over 25 years ago. A belief that isn’t even mine but I absorbed and that has my unconscious mind convinced that I am not allowed to shine. It feels like a black hole in my body, like a shadow filled with anti-matter that keeps me stuck in a fictional past. My belief is the figment of a twelve year old’s imagination sucking in the energy of an adult world and it has held me in it’s death grip for far too long.
He gave me instructions then left me to see other patients, checking in periodically to support me until I had unhooked myself from the belief and in my mind at least, I was walking away from the past. It was magical and powerful and now I’m angry. Angry that my baby died, angry that every time I have a bad parenting moment and think, I don’t want to do this right now, I’m afraid I’m inking a death sentence for my child. I can’t stop crying. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next three days with Steve gone again. I want to break things, throw my body through space and scream at the top of my lungs. I want to know that I will die before my daughter and that day is a lifetime away.
I want that guarantee.
oh, sugar. I wish this black-hole belief, this anger, this fear and longing were like a string of fish that, after about 3 days of laying out in the kitchen, would turn so stinky that you’d have no problem throwing them away for good.
and that guarantee. oh yes, that’s one extended warranty I’d pay cash for.
xo
Reading your blog today made me think of the book I am reading now. It’s very good – a very raw and real memoir of a woman who suffered the loss of her child. It’s called ‘An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination’ by Elizabeth McCracken. It’s a good book. It makes me want to write.
I was just thinking the other day – just wrote in my blog yesterday about how I have lost my naive self – that I know now that with pregnancy there is no ‘safe’ time that you can reach. I would pay and/or give anything for a guarantee that I will have children. Wouldn’t we all….. (((hugs))) to you! <3
I am speechless and awestruck at how powerful this post is. It has definitely touched something alive and preverbal in me.