Have I really gotten anywhere?
I feel like I have been holding my breath for a very long time. I feel like I have been holding it for the past 7 months and never realized it until now. I have truly felt like I have been doing well most of the time. Like I have been making progress; like I have been getting somewhere. Now I stop for a minute and look at myself around myself and I am surprised by what I see. I feel like I have been walking around in a haze, just doing enough to get by; just doing enough to subsist. I look around now at my life at myself and I am apalled.
It is so difficult now to look ahead any length of time. Even planning my weekends seems like a feat now; I used to be such a planner. My house is an absolute mess, I am so drained that I clean haphazardly and infrequently. I have been trying deperately to lose weight to feel better about myself, only to sabotage myself at the supermarket and drive thru. I used to love cooking for myself and my husband; it feels like such an effort now. I know it's getting really bad all around because even though I pretty much hate the way everything is right now I just don't even have the will to care anymore. I think I want to fix it all sometime, but then think what is the point? It will just get crappy again so why fix it? I know deep down that I want things to be better, but how?
I feel like I am justing waiting for something to happen; I just have no idea what it is.
Before work this morning I cried; it was the first time I cried in the morning in two months. My DH is no help at all. As I cry and say I feel like my life is falling apart slowly and that I feel norrible about myself all he can say is that maybe I should try changing things then. Changing things??? Isn't that how this all started, with too much change? I feel like all I have done in the past 7 months is change! Change jobs from 1 that I mostly liked to 1 that is just to pay the bills; changed my lifestyle when I found out I was pregnant/TTC; changed my outlook on everything after my mc and losing my job. The list seems endless. All I want is for things to feel more normal, more like they used to be; I don't think that changing them yet again would really do me any good. He says that he wants to help me to support me, but I feel like he doedn't see or undertand the problem. He looks at me like he doesn't know who I am when I try to explain my fears and frustrations; it just makes me more afraid. Afraid that this will break us too and not just me. . .
I know that I have control over some of this, I just don't know where to draw my motivation from anymore. I feel like for the last 7 months I thought I was making it up and over the hill only to just now realize that I have been walking in circles.
I guess my question for anyone who reads this is. . . How can I fix this? Where can I find the motivation to find myself again, to find my "normal" again? Am I ruining my marriage? I feel so helpless . . . so hopeless.
It is so difficult now to look ahead any length of time. Even planning my weekends seems like a feat now; I used to be such a planner. My house is an absolute mess, I am so drained that I clean haphazardly and infrequently. I have been trying deperately to lose weight to feel better about myself, only to sabotage myself at the supermarket and drive thru. I used to love cooking for myself and my husband; it feels like such an effort now. I know it's getting really bad all around because even though I pretty much hate the way everything is right now I just don't even have the will to care anymore. I think I want to fix it all sometime, but then think what is the point? It will just get crappy again so why fix it? I know deep down that I want things to be better, but how?
I feel like I am justing waiting for something to happen; I just have no idea what it is.
Before work this morning I cried; it was the first time I cried in the morning in two months. My DH is no help at all. As I cry and say I feel like my life is falling apart slowly and that I feel norrible about myself all he can say is that maybe I should try changing things then. Changing things??? Isn't that how this all started, with too much change? I feel like all I have done in the past 7 months is change! Change jobs from 1 that I mostly liked to 1 that is just to pay the bills; changed my lifestyle when I found out I was pregnant/TTC; changed my outlook on everything after my mc and losing my job. The list seems endless. All I want is for things to feel more normal, more like they used to be; I don't think that changing them yet again would really do me any good. He says that he wants to help me to support me, but I feel like he doedn't see or undertand the problem. He looks at me like he doesn't know who I am when I try to explain my fears and frustrations; it just makes me more afraid. Afraid that this will break us too and not just me. . .
I know that I have control over some of this, I just don't know where to draw my motivation from anymore. I feel like for the last 7 months I thought I was making it up and over the hill only to just now realize that I have been walking in circles.
I guess my question for anyone who reads this is. . . How can I fix this? Where can I find the motivation to find myself again, to find my "normal" again? Am I ruining my marriage? I feel so helpless . . . so hopeless.
Replies
Seeing as we\'ve just become friends, this is my first time reading your journal and it breaks my heart. I ache for you, for what you\'ve lost.
What struck me most was your husband\'s suggestion, but the truth is once you\'ve had a mc, everything changes. Actually, in trying to get pregnant everything changed for me in that instant. The minute we said bye-bye condoms - we\'re gonna do this, my whole life changed. How utterly strange. I was panicked for a good year about actually trying. Fearing I would get pregnant. Fearing I wouldn\'t get pregnant. And the moment I said, \"Let\'s do this,\" I\'ve never been the same. All the anxiety before trying made me depressed and withdrawn. Once we tried and I got pregnant, I thought, \"I can do this.\" But then I suddenly lost two friends who had slowly been pushing me away. So I focused all my energy on that baby and lost it. I had to rethink everything. I had to admit I did want a baby. What a terrible way to figure out what was important to me. So we tried again. And I thought it didn\'t take. I was disappointed. But low and behold I was pregnant. And I thought this is it. I\'m ready. I\'m happy. I\'ve lost some things, but maybe it\'s for the best because I\'ve got a whole new world to focus on. I mean I had a name picked out and ... just devastating to lose it. And my world changed again. And nothing is the same. That person I was four months ago ... I don\'t know who that person is. And I don\'t know who I am now ... except a girl who can\'t have a baby.
You\'re not ruining your marriage. This is the part in the vows where we talked about being there in bad times. This is a bad time. But now you\'re planning a vacation and I think that\'s wonderful.
I\'m trying to figure out the point to my response ... I just want to say I appreciate your words and your thoughts. And keep getting up each day because you give me strength. Thank you.
Every word you wrote is exactly how I feel. I have had 3 miscarriages in a year\'s time, the last one being in May. My normal tendency all my life has been to just work, over schedule myself, and basically bury things inside. I\'m a perfectionist and normally my house is immaculate, completely and sickeningly organized. I have always been this way. I didn\'t have the greatest childhood, so i worked hard to deal with it. When I left my first marriage (got married for the wrong reasons), i left it with nothing in hand. I gave him everything. I changed everything. I went from complete dependency on him, to having to learn to depend on myself. In the next six years I went from couch hopping at various friends houses to having a high paying corporate job after several promotions and buying a house of my own for my son and I to live in.
I was happy, I was stable, I was me, and I was strong. Since that time I continued to work hard and of course over-schedule myself. It\'s how I thrive. on top of my 45+ hour a week job I decided to put myself into college. I was the opitomy of over worked, but I liked it that way I thought.
Then over two years ago I met my now husband. We got married June 2009. We had found out we were pregnant before we got married in March 2009 and it was a short lived pregnancy and ended at 6 weeks. For whatever reason that heartache brought my husband and I closer together. In early May he proposed to me.... a couple days later I found out that I was pregnant again. So we decided to put the wedding plans in overdrive and i put a wedding together in 5 weeks so we could get married in June and live together (we had to get married to live together because of custody laws in my state it\'s illegal to live unmarried when you have a child from a previous marriage). A week before the wedding I miscarried again (3rd time) and had to have a D&C. I had no idea how i was gonna get through my wedding feeling the way i did, but i put on a fake smile and at the reception drank large quantaties of champagne.
We decided to wait 6 months before trying again so we did. In January we started trying again, in May I got pregnant again and at 6 weeks I lost it again. In all of this time I have continued to over-schedule myself and just thrive. I thought I would be okay. We started seeing a fertility specialist, which at the time kinda gave me a little more courage to fight this. I kept trucking and found myself changing things.... i changed my whole wardrobe (went from a rocker tomboy to a girly fashionista, wanted to change my car, my hair, my job, i stopped cleaning as much, cooking as much, going out as much) Then in early July everything changed and I crashed.
I was sitting at my desk at work and around lunch time I felt this run-down feeling come over me. I thought I might be getting sick. So I went home for the day and slept until the next day. I didn\'t get out of bed for the next four days. I didn\'t talk for those four days, I didn\'t smile for those four days, I didn\'t do anything at all for those for days, but consider giving up everything like my job, and just everything. Finally towards the end of that week it all came gushing out, I was crying like I hadn\'t in forever, I was texting my husband with every thought and emotion in me, and I knew then that I had to get help. I called my counselor and she referred me to a doctor. The doctor took an assessment and decided to put me on Zoloft, which was hard for me cause I don\'t like taking any medication. She also put me on a medical LOA. So I have been off of work for the past month and she is recommending that I extend it cause I am not where she wanted me to be. This is the first time in my life I have done nothing for a month. I finally cleaned a little today. My bathrooms had been neglected for far too long. I have taken the time to just reflect on this. Some days I feel great, like I am going to beat this depression and some days I stay on the couch all day and do nothing. One day last week I went for a drive all day long. I just drove all over the state, then when I got tired I came home. I was kinda nice having that freedom, but it brought up a lot of emotions too. The only clarity that has come out of this has been that I have decided that i can\'t continue to overbook myself. I haven\'t finished school yet so I decided it\'s either the job or school. My husband has been sometimes a little impatient with my recovery process but he got on board with my desire to finish school and supports me leaving my job to do it. So i decided to apply for a full-time university and plan to leave my job at the end of the year. That is a big change, which brings a little more anxiety cause now I am going to be fully supported by my husband when right now I make half the income.
But, i am still very much where you are. I want to lose some weight but haven\'t motivated myself to do so, and i hit the drive-thru more than i used to, i have lost interest in many things I once loved, i hardly ever clean anymore, i don\'t see my friends much, i just tend to hide and i most certainly don\'t know who i am anymore and get disgusted with whatever it is i am at the moment. I feel like I am in a hell I just cant get out. And i am getting impatient with feeling like this. I wish I could get over it already. And just when i think i might be getting there i get knocked down again. last week i got some test results from my fertility doctor (i have had so many tests done) and these like all the others came back normal and she said it may just be bad luck. Really?! 4 miscarriages is just bad luck?! I refuse to believe it. I am a solutions person, so the fact that I don\'t have an answer to the most important thing in my life drives me even more into anxiety and depression. I would rather be told I have a no-cure condition or that i will never have kids then be told that its just bad luck.... at least then i would have an answer and I can work on mending my heart and accepting my fate, but there is nothing to hold on to when \"it\'s just bad luck\".
Anyway, i am sorry for such a lengthy response, but I hope it lets you know that I do understand how you feel, exactly how you feel.
My only advice is, if you can manage it, take some time for you (time off work, a long drive on the weekend, whatever). Just do nothing and be with yourself. Give yourself time to feel whatever you are feeling. Avoiding it makes it worse.
Secondly, embrace making changes even if they are ones that you never thought you would make.... You never thought you would have a miscarriage... I don\'t think any woman actually does. I know I sure didn\'t. So embrace strange thoughts of surprising changes.... it may just be the start of a brighter path.
Thirdly, take to the things you like to do.... if you like to take pictures, draw, play piano, write, knit, cook, shop, whatever it is.... do it in abundance. There is something therapudic about doing these things even if you have to force yourself. That sense of accomplishment might help you gain a bit more hope for your future.
Hugs and hang in there.