Broken Mirrors

I've been staying as far away as possible from FB for a while. I had been feeling low before the Paris attacks. After the Paris attacks, though, it got worse as I couldn't help reading some random FB discussions/wall posts convos. PMS didn't help, either. The lowest point was when I asked God, "God, I don't understand why You still love us. If I were You, I'd have destroyed the entire world many times over."

Yep, no gratitude whatsoever. Just confusion, anger, disappointment, and frustration. I had a hard time sleeping well at nights and my thoughts and feelings were all muddled. I was disappointed at some of the things people have written in FB, but mainly I was disappointed being human. I wanted to stop being human, if that makes any sense at all. I felt like what should have been talked about privately shouldn't have spilled outside in public places like FB as it only produce more reactions instead of healthy discussions. I felt that people should have just shut up instead of posting things that may only provoke other people.

All those random things that I read in FB made me feel like I was surrounded by so many mirrors, each reflecting my dark sides that had been lurking in the back, threatening to swallow me up whole. It was very disturbing to be made very aware of those sides that dwell inside of me, because all I wanted to do was to close my eyes and stay the hell away from those mirrors or break those mirrors altogether.

Reading Ecclesiastes comforted me somehow. I wasn't the only one who felt like everything we did was like chasing the wind, yet for days my brain was still muddled. Yesterday I finally found a clarifying moment. What disturbed me the most was knowing that I could have been one of those people who fussed over nothing amidst a tragedy (for example why one puts up/doesn't put up a tricolor profile photo), who posted reactive texts instead of discussing my thoughts/feelings in private, who shared stuff without thinking/checking twice, etc. 

You see, if I read about what a psychopath has done (for example), I feel that there's a huge emotional distance between what that person is capable of doing with what I am capable of doing, but what about the emotional distance between me and those people in FB? Well, the distance between us was way too close. I get where they were coming from. I could have easily done similar things. I have been guilty of similar things.

A few nights ago, I had a dream where I had been attacked. All I remember from that scene was that I was standing up, still alive, looking like Frankenstein. Lots of cuts and bruises ALL over me (including my face) and stitch marks all over. Yep, my dream was very much in line with my inner world. But you know what? I was still alive. That was the part that I held on to. I'm still alive. I still have a lot of inner work to do, but may I learn how to be wise with my words and actions...
 

Mourning Has Broken

Today I'm taking as much time as I can to mourn the heart distance between me and some people...

The Positive vs The Negative

Lately I've been wondering why negative events/comments/emotions seem to have more impact on myself. Am I really that hard on myself? I think over the past decade I've learnt to be my own best friend MUCH better than I did when I was younger, so is there something wrong with me?

Out of curiosity I browsed online and I found this really interesting article along with a brilliant piece of advice on how to balance it all out:

Why People Remember Negative Events More Than Positive Ones

Like the author, after reading the article, I feel glad now that I'm not the only one and I'm not being too hard on myself he he he...

Guilt and Infertility #2

Last night I remembered another type of guilt that happened during my IF journey. You see, during the emotional chaos inside me, when envy, jealousy, self-pity, resentment, cynicism, anger (most of all towards God), guilt (for not being able to give joy to the parents and in-laws and hubby in terms of being preggy), frustration, sorrow, grief, pain raged on, another type of guilt came up. This guilt reared its ugly head exactly because I had felt all those emotions within me. I felt like the worst version of myself. 

I DID NOT want to feel envious and jealousy and self-pity and all those. Only after reading hundreds of blog posts echoing similar voices did I start to open myself up to the fact that I wasn't crazy and that it was probably useless to try to fight them all off (to keep them at a distance). And reading about those who had gone much further up on the healing stage than the start of the battlefield that I was in helped A LOT in giving me hope that it was just a phase that I had to go through.

*** Additional note: This type of guilt also came up because whenever jealousy/envy/self-pity appeared, it felt as though I wasn't being thankful for the things that I had. 

So my view shifted. I embraced those feelings and I started thinking that maybe, just maybe...by being able to feel all those feelings would help me understand others who had felt similar emotions. And in the end if that meant that I could make only ONE other person feel "understood", then it was all worth it. And that if all of it brought me closer to God, then it was all worth it.

And just like what Mali said in the comment section, it is imperative to separate the guilt that feels like saying "I am bad" from "I do feel these things, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad person JUST BECAUSE I'm feeling all these things. That only means I'm a human being that is capable of feeling these extreme emotions."
 

Lack of Closure?

I've been wondering about something ever since I heard that one friend of mine had a miscarriage. I can't help reliving my IF journey or moments whenever she shared some things that resonate with my IF losses (or moments of losses) and I have to really stop myself from getting "sentimental on my behalf" on my emails to her. I've been bothered by this 'coz I wonder why on earth I feel this huge force to "relive" the moments whenever I read about her emotions concerning this current experience of hers. I felt "selfish" for having averted focus on HER grief and instead turning inward towards my own, even though my loss did help me understand her grief, too.

Last night I was browsing online for grief and I found this blog post entitled "Is This My Grief or Yours?". This is the paragraph that hit me the most and made me nod in agreement.

When I first began to do my inner work with my own grief it was “an unknown” part of me – it was in my shadow. Other people’s grief, if it was resonating at the same frequency as my own unconscious grief, would trigger my grief. Kind of like tuning forks on the same pitch setting each other to humming, only in this case, we are speaking about emotional resonance rather than pitch resonance.

So that's it! :-)

Then I started thinking about how many times I "relived" my own happy moments when I saw other people's wedding pictures 'coz it reminded me of my own wedding day. I guess my friend's grief has the same sort of effect on me, except that the emotions it brings out are the direct opposite of such a happy memory. It's not that I cried over my own loss, though. I cried for her loss, but at the same time her loss made me remember the hollow part in myself that will never ever go away. If I have to describe the feeling, it's probably like hearing a low thud or echo on the hollow part. I'm not in pain, but there's this uncomfortable feeling of being reminded that it's there.

Then I started thinking about losses in general. What about my IF loss that is different than other losses? If I compare it to my Dad's death in the beginning of this year...if I hear about someone's dad's death, I think I won't really feel as "hollow". But why? Why is that so? Probably because with my dad's death, I have had closure. Even though I wasn't able to attend his funeral, but I'd had the best kind of closure ever. Not long prior to his death, I called him on his birthday and I could tell him verbally how much I appreciated him as a dad. And Mom told me that the morning before his sudden death, he had told Mom that he was satisfied with his life and he was happy to have kids like us. I couldn't have asked for a better closure.

When it comes to my IF loss, I'm unable to say (at least yet) that I've had closure, even though we've decided to surrender to life without kids. One big reason is probably 'coz we've never really had a chance to "say goodbye" properly. There had never been a positive HPT. No due date. No anniversary date of the loss. NOT that I want to experience a real loss of a baby/fetus. It's not that. I suppose her loss just reminded me of how "hollow" mine sounds and that makes me feel sentimental. I suppose her loss made me realize even more than ever how "disenfranchised" my grief is. 

*** Additional note (22.10.2012): One possible reason for the sentimentality factor was that I felt I had been robbed of the opportunity of showing hubby a positive HPT, of being able to see the joy in his eyes. 

I've also been wondering why her grief has a different impact on me than others, 'coz there are others who've told me about their miscarriages as well over the past year (thankfully, though, they've gone on to conceive again and they seem to be doing OK now). I think one reason is because this friend is a very close one and we've been sharing our lives in details with each other whereas with the others, I'm not that close.

Anyway, it's nice to sort through some jumbled mess in my head that's been bugging me for a while. :-)