Chemical exhaustion

I've been wondering when this exhaustion, this feeling of being absolutely worn out will pass. Or IF it will. My therapist told me today that the feeling is chemical, physical, related to serotonin levels, which are affected by loss, grieving, and all the other stress I've faced. In most people, healing happens (physical, emotional, etc.) but that isn't always the case.

I was looking for more information, and found an article on complicated grief. It's interesting, I feel like I half fit the description. My longing to see my daughter again is so strong, I can feel it, see it, taste it. But I don't think grieving has stripped me of my humanity, as the article describes. It is hard to be interested in things. Maybe that's not a bad thing--I've always tended towards being a control freak, towards only participating in things I can do really well, or am really interested in. Maybe now I can sit back and let some of the world go by.

Would that be considered healing? I have no idea.

Now I have it in my head that when I finally feel at least somewhat rested after a good night's sleep, healing will have begun. I suspect, however, that this may take several more months, or even years. My daughter's death has become oddly abstract, as has her life. It took a lot of energy to change paths, to go from imaging the future with her, to imaging a future that includes her in my past, her death, and her absence from my future.

I'm still doing that. How do you let go of an imagined future? I think once I figure that out, I can call it healing. The day she died, I knew that only time would really make any difference. That's not entirely true--other people, things they've done and said, and things I've done or tried to do have helped. Counseling has helped. Just participating in life has helped.

But everything happens over time, so once again, hopefully over time, my chemical imbalance will be taken care of somehow.

Gathering my thoughts

I realized this morning that I really am quite scattered in a variety of ways. Losing my daughter was like carrying a stack of books and papers and suddenly running smack into someone who knocks everything out of your hands. Most of the time, someone who does that is courteous enough to help you pick things up. Not so in this case.

Initially, I left the jumbled pile where it was and fled. Literally. We (as a family) traveled all over the place--to a friend's house 40 minutes away, to another state--just trying to get away from our house that no longer held a young child's sounds, activities, and things. I didn't know how to pass the time.

When I returned to work, I was forced to start picking up the pieces. I'd like to think I had help. Friends who listened to me when I was freaking out about being in that house, having to think straight, missing my daughter, or just needed to vent all helped. Eventually, I got to the point where I was carrying some of my stuff again. It was still jumbled, but at least I had a grip on it.

This morning, I was thinking that I've probably managed to pick up most of the pieces. There's still a pile on the floor, but maybe I can leave some of it there. And what I'm carrying around is still a jumbled mess, but like my desk, I'm usually able to sort through the junk and find what I need. For now, that has to be good enough.

No more dreams or nightmares

I'm back home after being out of town for several days. It's a relief--I have my baby back in sight and am at least a tiny bit less anxious. But it's also a disappointment. I realized this morning that resuming my routine means it's reality. I can't imagine that I'll come home and both my girls will be here.

I didn't even realize I was hoping that until this morning. My husband asked why I would imagine that, and I told him because I WANT to. I WANT that to be reality.

Being away made reality attack me, but it also made my imagined life a possibility. I guess when you're not home, it can almost be whatever you want it to be.

In the movie Akeelah and the Bee, Laurence Fishburne coaches Akeelah to win the national spelling bee. He's an odd, isolated character in the movie. It turns out his young daughter died years earlier. He says at one point that he needs structure and predictability. I didn't realize what he meant until I went away. The lack of structure made my thoughts go haywire.

Returning to structure and routine are, well, somewhat disappointing. But leaving reality isn't an option (not to me) so given a choice, structure and routine are the best form of reality I can hope for.

I want to know!

So many of my friends have supported me in a variety of friends ever since I lost my daughter. They've done everything from driven me to appointments to just been there when I didn't want to be alone. And now that over a year has passed, I'm trying to repay them.

To me, paying attention and remembering things about people are among the highest of compliments. If you actually remember a story I tell you about work, or where I'm going for a conference, it shows me you care enough to pay attention and store it in your memory.

I confess, my memory has been really bad since my daughter died. In the first few weeks, I couldn't remember anything, and that was OK since there were so many people around helping out. Now, since I choose to continue to live life (not just survive) I'm forced to remember everything from when and what bills to pay, to when my daughter's playdate is this weekend.

Friends seem...reluctant to tell me things. Some seem to not want to tell me anything. Maybe they feel they should just listen and that anything they tell me would be overwhelming, or unimportant. It's not true--my friends, their trials and tribulations, vacations, children's accomplishments--all of it is important, and I want to know!

The caveat is, my memory still isn't great. If you tell me you're going to the beach in July, I'll probably ask you several times where and when you're going, remembering only that you're going somewhere later this summer.

I'm working on it and hope to get better. In the meantime, just know that I (meaning, anyone who's lost a child or suffered trauma) want to be involved and informed about others' lives, and be gentle to me if I have trouble remembering everything.

Fears

I'm away from my baby for the first time since she was born. She's 14 months old, weaned, toddling, and signing, so it's not as if she NEEDS ME. Her father, the nanny, and others can take care of her at this point. And I'm not afraid that something will happen because I'm gone. I've learned that even if I'm there, I can't necessarily prevent things from happening.

What I fear is that something will happen to her, and unlike my other daughter, I won't be around to say goodbye. I know of other parents who've experienced that. I know that for me, losing my other daughter is the only thing that could be worse than what's already happened.

In the book Survivor's Club (which I just started reading), it seems many of the people survived incredible situations because they had someone to survive for. My baby girl is my reason. But when I think that she doesn't need me, I guess it gets that much harder to hold on. My daughter died and the world didn't stop. It kept right on moving. And because of my baby, I decided to keep moving with it, to keep her moving. Without her, it's really tough.

My husband suggested I bring her and the nanny, but I didn't want to do that to either of them. I know now it probably would have given me some peace. Someday though, I have to let go. I might as well start now.

What the Body Remembers

I think this is a title of a book. It's come to mind many times in the past few months. Initially, everything reminded me of my daughter and her death, and everything upset me. After a while, it was the predictable things that upset me--a pair of her shoes that hadn't been put out of sight, seeing a mother with two girls--and then I got used to those. I was able to brace myself.

Now, I don't always know what will upset me, what will remind me of her or her death. I do know that it's not limited to one sense--sight, sound, etc. I was at the therapist's office a couple of months ago. The therapist had me doing a relaxation exercise where I tensed up each area of my body and then released it several times. When I tensed up my neck and shoulders, I suddenly remembered that the day she died, my neck got really stiff. And suddenly, I was back at the moment when that happened.

I almost stopped and said, I can't do this. But I wanted to try, so I stuck with it, tried to focus on the instructions, and it passed. Now I know that even though I felt numb at the time, I experienced her death, that day, everything with all of my senses. And that explains why I can be doing almost anything and suddenly burst into tears. A sight, a sound, a smell, the way the air feels on a cool day can remind me of her or that day.

I've gotten one piece of great advice from my counselor to help pull myself out of those memories. Focus on the present, by reciting facts like my name, the date, my address, and if possible, touch something and concentrate on that texture. It really helps.

What I still haven't figured out is whether I'm supposed to keep pulling myself out of the memories. Sometimes I do let myself go with them, until I feel such despair that I fear if I don't stop remembering, I will literally go insane. I do at least know that it's not always conscious. I have to live my life, and I can't avoid anything I fear might bring up memories. I don't even know what all of those things are.

The good news--my body also remembers holding my girl, when she was a baby, a toddler, and a big girl I had to hoist above my pregnant belly which held her little sister. Sometimes I forget those things too, but pictures and video of her help. And at times, even that makes me sad, but holding on to her in these ways is never a bad thing.

Go easy on yourself (AKA Responsibility)

I've been trying to figure out how to go easy on myself. My counselor told me I'm hard on myself, which is true. I have high expectations of myself and this probably spreads to my expectations for others. It's really tiring. I've been trying to figure out how to go easy on myself.

I think it comes down to me not taking so much responsibility. I generally take responsibility for everything, even things that probably aren't my responsibility. I pay my bills on my time, I went to school (lots of school) like I was supposed to (according to my family, society, etc.), I teach my children manners, I recycle...on and on. To me, these are all signs of responsibility.

Responsibility is exhausting. Specific to this blog, I keep thinking of the responsibilities I have in relation to my daughter's death. A therapist once told me that you can't change something you don't take responsibility for. If I take responsibility for it, I can convince myself that I could have changed something, done something just a little differently. As I said, this is exhausting.

With respect to other things/situations, it's the same. If you take responsibility and think you can change someone or something, you exhaust yourself trying to make things better.

So for now, I've decided to back off on taking responsibility. For everything, anyway. I'm going to work on letting go of things I can't control. My plan is to take this to the semi-extreme, at least for the weekend. So far, just thinking about this has made me feel a little better. This should be the practice of focusing on myself, listening to my needs. I did this in the extreme after my daughter's death. It gets easier to be hard on yourself once you're out of crisis mode.

For a weekend, I can pretend I'm in crisis mode and let go of responsibility.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a man I work with who lost his son just before Thanksgiving. He's always been a strong personality, in the middle of everything (as his job dictates), loud and in charge. But when I saw him this time, I noticed a change. He looked...quieter. Subdued. I don't know if someone can LOOK quieter, but that's the word that comes to mind.

And I wondered if I look quieter. I know I am quieter--don't participate in discussions (with friends or collagues) as readily. Even if I have something to say, I'll wait and see if anyone else says it, and then speak only if I feel the thought really needs to be expressed.

It's as if losing my daughter has led me to measure my words, movements, even thoughts. Or maybe there's so much going on under the surface that I try my best to keep the outside under control.

I wonder too, whether I seem so different to people who know me. Losing my daughter changed who I am, just as having her changed me. My one hope is that it didn't make me a lesser person, somehow. I fear my younger daughter getting a lesser version of me. As always, I believe some of that is up to me, is a choice I can make. The experience of losing my daughter has affected me in some immeasurable, unchangeable way though. I wonder if anyone can see or hear that.