Good night, sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...
-William Shakespeare


It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.
-Rose Kennedy

Monday, March 31, 2008

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

What the fuck ever! I know, I'm full of crap, I just like to pretend that it'll all get better from here! What I really need to say is this...I'm so damned tired of feeling this way.

I am sad and angry all of the time and it takes absolutely nothing to set me off. This is all so unfair and instead of searching for misplaced items in my house I should be nursing my son. Instead of yelling at someone, I should be sitting in my rocking chair rocking my son. The ringers should be off on the phones and I should be napping when I can. I should have a nursery instead of a guest room. I should have a lot of things and instead I am feeling as though I have nothing.

Don't get me wrong, my imaginary (you in my computer, that's what my mom calls you all!) friends, have and do help tremendously but I am feeling like the one person who should get it doesn't. That one person being, Shan. Instead of talking he shuts down and gets angry about the most insanely stupid crap. Then it starts the domino effect...I start slow and build, then I cry and get really mad! Why can't I support him? He doesn't talk! How can you support someone when they don't talk?

For fucks sake is this ever going to end? Am I ever going to have one full decent day? A day without tears, a day without anger, a day without the utter sadness that I feel?
Yes, again, another rough day and to be honest I thought I was doing alright today...guess not!

14 comments:

Aunt Becky said...

Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. Grief is nasty, hard, and ugly. It sneaks up on you, blindsides you, and then punches you in the face.

I wish you light and love today.

Anonymous said...

I promise you that there will be good moments mixed in, and the sometimes good hours, and then sometimes good afternoons...

And then one day you go to bed and realize you had a whole day of good.

Remember that no matter what it may seem like, and whether or not he'll admit it, this is probably his way of grieving too. When two people grieve very differently it can be really hard. Aaron is so reserved that for a long time I thought he wasn't grieving at all, but he just can't talk about it.

Give it some time and be patient with him and with yourself. I'll be thinking of you, as always.

Sue said...

Amy, I'm sorry this sucks so much. You are totally NOT full of crap. Grief is so hard, and then dealing with it in different ways makes it harder.

As much as C and I do communicate, and communicate well, there are still times when I feel like he doesn't quite get what I'm feeling.

I don't know if it's going to end. I ask myself that almost every day, and try to trust others who have gotten through the first, second, third year. JK's mom has made it 45 years and she's still sad about the loss of her first baby daughter. That scares the hell out of me. But they've gotten through. I hope we can, too.

You *should* be nursing your son, rocking your son. I'm so sorry that you aren't. I hope there is some comfort in knowing you are not alone.

Don't know if you've talked about this, but have you thought about a support group, or grief therapy -- either for you or you and Shan? Sometimes it helps to have someone who's seen a lot of couples, a lot of people through this to help you figure out how to talk about this, how to communicate about it.

Personally, I get a lot out of therapy, and we see the local hospital's grief counselor once a month to check in, get reassurances, tell stories. We both get a lot out of it. It's supposed to be a support group, but we live in a small town -- no other couples yet.

Just a thought.

I hope you are doing okay. We're both thinking about you.

Green Apple Cat said...

Dear Amy,

Hope you did ok today. I'm nearly a year through and for me I would have to say the pain isn't as raw but it's still there. Grief follows me throughout everyday but in the most horrible of horrible moments I try to remember (while taking deliberate slow breaths) that it will pass.

My husband isn't one for talking much about it either. Most days, even when I'm feeling ok all I want to do is talk about my William. What he would be doing, what we would be like as a family. He tends to play guitar really loud and often.

I hope the wind blows you a soft hug and kiss soon.

Thinking of you.
Miranda (greenapplecat is my husband's blog, I haven't set up my own).

c. said...

The husband doesn't do a lot of talking about things. You wouldn't even know he was grieving. Yesterday he said he felt depressed and it was all I could do to not break down.

This is shit, Amy. This crappy deadbaby life. I wonder, as you do, whether life will ever seem tolerable again. I can only hope one day it will be.

XO.

CLC said...

I am sorry that it doesn't seem to get better. It's hard to work on your relationship when you are working on your grief. And sadly, we just grieve differently. Like STE said, have you looked into counseling together?

Amy said...

STE & CLC,
I would love to say that Shan would go to counseling but sadly, I just don't think that will happen! He's just too private and mourns/grieves in his own time.

It is incredibly hard but we are both working on it and trying like hell to get through, I know he is just starting the process. I on the other hand have been grieving since the day I found out. Shan, didn't start to grieve until about 3 weeks ago!

Thank you all for your kind comments I do truly appreciate each and every one of my imaginary friends!

Carrie said...

You should be nursing your son. And it is so unfair that you're not. I am so sorry this is all so difficult.

And the husband thing, although my situation is very different, my husband gets angry when I say we should be ... Or we would be .... If things were different. He doesn't see the need to think like that. I think like that. I wish I didn't. They're just different but it can make it harder.

I'm thinking of you often.

annacyclopedia said...

Just came over from the Lost and Found to wish you some peace in the midst of your grief. Hoping you can be gentle with yourself right now. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Coggy said...

We all grieve differently, it just might take Shan a lot longer to find a way to express his grief. I don't have much advice, but I would say just keep trying to talk to him about it. Maybe things will come out bit by bit and you'll start to work through stuff together. S and I definitely went through a patch where we both sort of went our separate ways grief-wise, but eventually we came back together with it all.


The better days will come Amy, they just take a while and even then they are still punctuated with bad days and weeks. Unfortunately this is a long road we have to walk down. I just wasn't aware of how long it was when we set out. The fact that you are sick of this now is probably a good thing, you will start to move the grief a little more even if it is just because you have had enough for a while.

I hope things are a little easier for you today.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing fair in it. Someone described it as being trapped on a spiral staircase...you'll keep coming around to the same point over and over from a slightly different angle. Some days you get to find a little peace, other days it's all you can do to stand upright and then there are all the variations in between.

I found with Shannon that so much of his anger was wrapped up in feeling like he'd failed to protect us and he didn't like to talk about it. Finally, I told him that I NEEDED him to talk about it, that I needed to know I wasn't the only one feeling what I was. I made getting him to open up a component of caring for me. I also pointed out how many times he'd told me it wasn't my fault, that he didn't blame me and if he didn't blame me...the one whose body failed us...then he absolutely couldn't blame himself. We do a lot of our talking in bed, in the dark. It helps to feel invisible. We still have a long way to go, though.

I'm sorry you have to be going through this. I wish there were magic words to make it all better. I hope you have some of the good days for awhile.

Katie said...

God, I am so, so sorry. I wish that I knew someway to really help you, to make some of the hurt go away and not feel so bad.

I want to echo what others have said that it does get better, but I feel funny saying that to you. Because I have never had this type of grief. I know miscarriage grief, but that isn't the same. It's awful and it's hard, but it's not the same. I just know that grief does get better and time does heal wounds, but that's sometime in the future, and you are hurting now.

Just know that I am here, thinking of you. I hope that helps, somehow.

Antigone said...

We're not imaginary. Although I wish I was. I wish this was all just fiction.

As others have already sad this is really hard. It really tries relationships.

But we're all here to listen and to talk. And that does help a little bit, doesn't it?

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