Hologram

Lately I've been reacting to several things in ways that I couldn't do when I was still in the depths of TTC after infertility. Two friends who are at least 40 y.o. have just told me they are pregnant again (one was a surprise pregnancy) and I could congratulate them in a neutral state of mind/heart. Another friend joked on FB, "Go make five (children)!" when I commented how cute someone's baby was. Years ago, I made a similar cute comment on someone's baby photo and the mother said, "Quick, you should go make a baby then!" and it took all that I had not to lash out to her. This time, though, the words didn't affect me in such a way at all. Instead, I instantly joked back and told her, "You go and make 5 children yourself LOL!" (side note: I know the word "make" sounds weird, but it's the direct translation from the Indonesian word).

These three events have made me think of 3D holograms (use your imagination freely as you read the next lines). You see, in the beginning of my infertility journey, whenever I saw someone's bulging belly, I often had a strong reaction to it and many times I almost cried right then and there. It was as though my 3D hologram jumped right in front of myself. The grieving hologram of myself with an empty belly, who was crying out loud right then and there and screaming in agony, "Why not me, too? I've done everything right and prepared myself to be a mother etc. etc." 

And in the past when someone told me she was pregnant (especially if it was an unexpected one), my grieving hologram showed up again and the unexpectedness of it all was like a (serrated) blade that stabbed me. The wound then started bleeding again (or started bleeding more) or the gaping wound became even bigger or deeper. It hurt. It hurt because I knew they didn't mean to hurt me, yet I was in so much pain. It hurt because I wanted to be happy for them, but I couldn't. And it hurt even more because I felt like a horrible person, so I got even more frustrated at myself, but at the same time I felt that I had the right and the need to take care of myself.

You see, my own hologram (that popped up between me and that person) was blocking me from accessing the other person's happiness fully. I mean, how can you disregard that kind of projection when she's standing right in front of you in such a state and in such intensity?

In the beginning of my healing journey, this hologram (the projection of my grief/pain) was so intense, vivid, and relentless (even uncontrollable). Over time and plenty of grief work (with lots of help and support from my tribe), the intensity and the frequency of my grieving hologram has diminished. In fact, as the hologram gets weaker and weaker, at times I can even press "pause" so that I can be fully present in someone else's company and then press "play" when I'm on my own again.

'Nuff Said

The Search for Purpose/Meaning

One thing I felt deeply about during my infertility journey was the search for purpose/meaning in my pain experience. What is the purpose of this pain experience? Can I find some meanings from all this chaos? 

When someone is wallowing in grief, when someone's just experienced a tragedy, we will normally let the person grieve and wallow. Only after some time of wallowing and grieving, when the person can feel the wind on her cheeks and the sun on her body again, then it's good time to try to find some purpose/meaning in the tragedy (pain experience).


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One of the things that has helped me is finding the purposes/meanings of my pain experience. The buried and broken dream can become fertilizer for something else that way. Otherwise the buried and broken dream will stench and I'd end up focusing on the rottenness of the stench and that wouldn't propel me forward in my healing journey. Once I get a clearer sense of some of the purposes/meanings of my pain experience, I am more able to focus on the tiny buds growing from the ground that is being fertilized by that buried/broken part. It's true that every now and then I can still smell the stench, but over time the more meanings/purposes I find, the more seeds are growing from the ground and the easier it gets to focus more on the growing buds/trees/flowers.

No wonder many times over I've read how people overcome a tragedy by creating an organization to honor their loved ones' memories as well as help other people who may be experiencing a similar thing. 

During my worst moment in my IF journey, I found a purpose to my pain despite the fact that I was really angry at that time (or maybe because I was angry, my pride wouldn't let me feel like all that pain and anger were for nothing). At that time I felt the need to cut myself (though I didn't do it), but it was only then and there did I get a real glimpse of why some people do it. That was an important moment for me, because that experience adds a layer of understanding from my part towards others in a more straightforward and personal way (as opposed to learning about it from someone else's experience).
 
I also remember finding someone who walks through an infertility path as well (though she walked a different path), but during her tough times she thanked me for being there for her and for not saying the wrong words. That was one of my first inklings of the purpose of my pain experience. If my shared experience makes just one person feel less alone, then it's one purpose. One seed. 

During the dark moments, I also found comfort when I read these verses from 2 Cor 1:3-4:

Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 

These verses spoke through me and reminded me of what I had written in my previous post: what another blogger had once told me about my being a good encourager. Another purpose added to the layer of purpose above, thank you very much.


I find it crucial to believe with all my heart and soul that my pain experience isn't for nothing when it comes to continuing my healing journey. Your pain is not for nothing, either. We are interconnected. Imagine the wealth of wisdom we get to learn from one another's pain experiences. So much fertilizer material everywhere...what has your pain experience taught you? I find it helpful to write about them, as well, because when I'm in my dark spot, I can always go back and reread them and feel encouraged by them again.

On Being Inclusive

Is it possible to be inclusive? I've been wondering about this matter for a while now. I think in this fast-paced world, it's easier to feel left out or excluded, especially with online medias where people keep on posting and reposting sentiments such as "You'll never know real/true love until..." or "There's no greater joy than..." or "You'll never be a real woman/man until..." or "I feel so blessed because of..." or "Thank God for..." or "I have the best mother/husband/dad/wife...repost this if you have them, too" or "Breastfeeding is best" and the list goes on. And it becomes worse when the same kind of sentiment keeps on being spread from one person to another in your circle at different times.

It's all good when you're "in the club" when you read all those sentiments, but what if you're not in the club? It gets problematic when you have this invisible grief that people don't acknowledge and on bad days, those exclusive sentiments hit you like the sharpest spearhead thrown right at you from a place where you least expect and it split your heart in two, leaving you reeling in pain and wanting to ask the person who threw the spear at you, "How could you do this to me?!?!?!?!?! Look at what you've done!". 

On the other hand, the person who threw the spear didn't even know that it was a spear. In his/her mind, he/she was throwing you a candy in hope that you'd also agree that the candy was tasty or interesting or inspiring.

In the old days, sentiments like the ones I wrote in the first paragraph didn't really show up right in your face the way they do today. Here's my point:



OK, try to imagine that you have to address a group of people in the streets from different backgrounds, but you have to make sure you take into account every single one of their life stories (even if you don't know them, you just have to use your imagination). The topic can be anything, but try imagining saying things that wouldn't hurt anyone at all to the best of your ability. Try being aware that each time you're thankful for something, that very thing may be hurtful for someone else in the group. 

You know what? Just thinking about every possible scenario gives me a headache. So I think it's pretty much impossible to be inclusive, because it's just impossible to know each person's tender spots. I'm not saying that one should be crass and insensitive, but I think if we expect people (in the social media) to be sensitive, then we're in for a lot of disappointment. 

I want to stress again that I'm NOT saying that people shouldn't give a damn about what other people feel/think, but each of us has to deal with what we feel and then decide on the best possible ways to manage our feelings and the impact of what other people post/say to our psyche (whether it means hiding some people, staying away from certain online medias, taking a break from certain online medias, etc.)

Anyway, enough talk about heavy stuff. Let me share with you something that I enjoy watching instead: 

Pain Triggers #2

The previous post about pain triggers reminded me of a conversation I once had with my ex-Junior High School classmate. We got to know each other better over time and then one day, long after we first met she confided to me that she used to be envious of the fact that I had my own bedroom. Mind you, I used to sleep in a bunk bed with my brother for years until I finally moved to a makeshift room at the other side of the house. Mom just put on a rail of curtains to separate it with the rest of the room. After my grandma died, I moved to her bedroom and that was when I got my own room that had an actual door (it was when I was in High School). 

Anyway, back to the story...I was totally surprised when I heard her say that. I mean, I never boasted about the fact that I got my own bedroom, but for her at that time it must've been something pretty important and something she could only daydream about (FYI she had to share a room with a cousin for years). After all, it IS nice to be able to have your own space and be able to have your own privacy. And her words reminded me to be thankful about having my own bedroom and not to take it for granted.


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So, even though sometimes we don't say anything that may spark someone else's pain trigger, somebody else may feel the pain just because it's something out of reach that they've daydreamed about. Sometimes when other people state their thankfulness over something, it may also spark our pain triggers when the thing that they're thankful for is something that we don't have (either yet or can't have). 

I think it's just normal to feel that way, but when I try to think of this in a HUGE scale for every human being I meet online or offline, it feels like I start seeing landmines everywhere. There's NO WAY you'll be able to escape from inadvertently stepping on those landmines in your daily life, especially nowadays when it's easier to communicate with one another through the internet (read: share photos etc.) and there's no way you can avoid having your landmines stepped on, either. The only thing I want to do is recognize that place of pain and then embrace it, soothe it, love it, hug it until I feel better.

I realize that I also find those triggers in unexpected, random places. For example I was browsing through a friend's old album and then I saw a pic where she was holding her baby nephew. Below the pic, another friend commented, "Mother-to-be." Mind you, she wasn't preggy at that time nor was she actually TTC yet, but when I reread that comment today, I felt a little thump on my heart. The thump that whispered, "Ah, nobody'll ever say that to me." It wasn't that painful, but it was clear enough that it was one a small pain trigger 'coz it is connected to my broken dream.


To be honest, the first time we realized we were IFers, I think I must've thought IF was a kind of insolent uninvited stranger barging into our life. After a while, I started to think of it as my enemy. An enemy who tried to ransack my relationships with other people as well as hubby and then mockingly laughed at our wrecked state. I battled it with all my might, trying my best not to lose (my sanity, control over my emotions, etc.). But alas, it was WAY too strong for me. I wept buckets, bled inside, and cursed it, but after a while I surrendered and that was when I started healing. And I think after I started recognizing it as a kind of guru instead of an enemy, I've been walking further along this path of healing even more as time goes by (it's like I'm experiencing a different shift in this path of healing).

Anyway, let me end this post with some more quotes.

Lord, help us to accept the pains and conflicts that come to us each day as opportunities to grow as people and become more like you.
- Mother Teresa, A Gift for God

Adversity introduces one to oneself. 
- Unknown 

"I walked a mile with Pleasure
She chattered all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne'er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me."

- Robert Browning Hamilton

Quotes taken from here and here

Pain Triggers

Was talking to a wise friend about our IF journeys and she told me this: "Just remember, everybody has pain triggers."

That's very true, isn't it? Her words remind me to keep things in perspective and that no matter how hard we try not to hurt others, there's bound to be something we say/post that triggers the pain in someone else's heart because we don't know the pain triggers in their lives. 

I think this is made even more acute with sites like FB where people get to share many things with whomever they choose. For example: a travel extensive friend has posted lots and lots of travel photo albums, to which a mother of two young children commented, "Owwwww...I can probably only start doing that at the earliest 5 years from now."

A father with a young child replied to the comment, "Yeah, the same goes for me, too!" 

And of course as IFers, we've had our own shares of pain triggers from sites like FB. Let me end this post with some quotes instead...

“It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
- James Baldwin

“Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim--letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.”
- C. R. Strahan“

“Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”
- Jim Butcher

Quote sources: here and here

Forgiveness

The more I reflect upon my own weaknesses as a human being, especially in terms of forgiveness, the more I'm in awe at what Jesus said:

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

- Luke 23:24

For when I hear something disturbing from well-meaning people that poked at my IF scars, it's SO hard for me to forgive them, even when I know that more often than not, they don't mean to hurt me. 

Today I nailed my pains and anger and hurt at the cross...and sang this song: 
 

Wondering About The Pain of IF

After reading many blogs and experiencing IF myself, there's plenty of voices echoing similar themes. One of them is the "Pain Olympics". I'm not going to write about the Pain Olympics here, but just a simple question about the strong desire I felt when I was feeling low while battling IF: that feeling that I wanted to let the WHOLE world knows about how shitty, grimy, and dark it was.

I think one big reason is that IF causes silent grief/sorrow/pain - the kind that other people who haven't experienced it would never understand, especially 'coz there aren't many non-IFers out there who would voluntarily be looking for info about the ups and downs of IFers (unless perhaps one of their loved ones experiences IF - heck, I didn't even start looking until I was thrust into that category!). Thus this strong current of desire to SHOUT OUT LOUD to the world (to let them know how painful and twisted and crazy it can be) builds up within.

Not many people understand either how tricky IF can be - that even after you "give up" and "stop", it can still haunt you and the wounds can still be so raw. Another problem is also that if you tell some people about this, they'll try to be helpful and in the end you'll end up feeling tired 'coz you have to explain your choices to them (and answer their questions) and depending on your mood, even their best attempts at trying to be helpful would push the wrong buttons inside you and that'll make you explode and the explosion would end up making you feel guilty and you just wished you hadn't told them about your battle but then it'd have made you felt so lonely and unsupported...yada yada yada...

On the other hand, the other possibility is that after you lashed out on them, whenever you share your IF roller-coaster ride again, they'll be afraid to say anything and you'll end up feeling like you're talking to a wall and not being supported and you want to feel upset, but you know that it's not their fault 'coz they just don't want to say the wrong things by "being helpful".

So in the end it's so hard to achieve a win-win situation when dealing with IF and the ugly repercussions it brings. Plus the world doesn't readily grieve with IFers as they grieve along with people who are gravely ill or people who've lost their loved ones.

It's hard when you're grieving and hurting so much and you feel that it's unnoticed or it's not "valid" just because you don't actually lose something "real" in other people's eyes. I think maybe one reason why I felt that urge was 'coz I wanted to convince myself that the feelings I had was valid: that I wasn't crazy or overreacting (even if the pain comes again and again and again at different times), that it was normal to feel that way. Thank GOD for the internet 'coz it's helped me feel that I'm not alone!

Anyway, I also find that people who have kids "normally/easily" don't understand the whole dynamics of what IF causes. It doesn't just affect my relationship with hubby, but also my relationship with other people, my relationship with God, and also my relationship with myself. It's hard to live with myself when I'm so full of anger, self-pity, sorrow, and pain, but on the other hand I can't deny all those feelings, either. I just have to accept whatever it is I'm feeling and deal with it.

Anyway, I haven't really felt anything extreme lately after we had that talk, but God knows what'll happen in the future. I must say, though, that I'm relearning to love myself again, to be my own best friend. I'm relearning to forgive myself and I think I'm doing a pretty good job 'coz I feel pretty light these days. :-D