My story... by someone else!

amother

Fri, Jan 03 2014, 12:50 am

This was so strange, I just have to share, but I don't really feel comfortable talking about it in real life so here ya go imamother friends! Only you won't even know it's me because then you'd know who I am. Luv, amother.

Anyway, as I read this week's LifeLines in Mishpacha (The Quest for Boredom) it was so weird because it was exactly me! Besides some of the thoughts and feelings. But seriously, how many people can have the exact same story?! Married after a few years of waiting, then within the first year lost a parent to a sudden but months-long illness, difficult highly symptomatic early pregnancy, complications and bedrest in later pregnancy, and a baby within the first year, resulting in a very confusing mix of feeling lucky but grieving. And then another child not so long after and feeling like you never got your bearings.

Only I didn't have that lovely rosy ending like the story. At first I felt so strong and resilient like I could handle anything after that, but around the time of my second baby I completely fell apart. I've been discovering that the kind of mettle that makes a person hold it all together during a crisis prevents you from processing the emotions at the time, and if you just keep pushing on longer and longer without ever stopping to take care of yourself, you might just break down or burn out or whatever. I guess they can only write the experience that was shared with them, but I wonder if the protagonist will also feel the other shoe drop in another year or later. I feel like the ending was grossly oversimplified - she was feeling gypped out of her honeymoon or whatever, and without even validating that the loss of her dream was real, her husband tells her to snap out of it and - voila! She does! Cue the happy music. Really?

I almost wrote a letter to the editor about that but couldn't figure out how to do it without rambling on too long like I did here.

amother

Fri, Jan 03 2014, 3:12 am

My story is similar to yours but different...

I lost my mother after she went through a year long illness that was very suddenly diagnosed in a late stage. Got married not long after she died. I was in aveilus for shana rishona - never got a happy engagement period or honeymoon, everything was so bittersweet - and to me - loss and confusion.

Then shana rishona ended and I had to face the fact that I was probably going through infertility (most likely stress induced). On top of everything. And I didn't have my mom to speak to through all this - we starting doing tests and treatment.

First of all, lots of people don't want to admit that they're not coping, especially when writing an article. They want to be seen as strong and spriritual. Secondly, like you said OP, I've seen it with me and with my friends who went through other nisyonos, small or large - people go into coping mode - which is often a 'high' where they're 'Baruch Hashem'ing everything, and speaking about how we see Hashem's Hand even in the bad etc. and it's grea. When I was doing it, I only realized later it was another way to ignore the difficult feelings I was having inside. After the high ended, I crashed and ended up severely depressed and in a very very bad way. Only when I worked through those feelings was I able to reach a true sense of calm and carry on with my life. Like the pp said, it's a process.

Hugs to you.

Another amother.