Unconscious Grief

I haven't posted in a while, obviously, even though I've had plenty of time and actually have plenty to say. Those thoughts are all rattling around though, not piercing through like previous posts. Until last night. Suddenly something shattered through and inspired me to write this post. I rarely dream about real life, it seems. I often dream about places and things from my past, and even people, but not the people I see the most often. I have had a few dreams about my daughter since she passed away and of course each one is like a blissful opportunity to spend a little more time with her. I haven't had one of those in a while. But until last night, it was almost like my unconscious mind wasn't quite convinced that she really is gone. In most of the dreams I've had about her, she's obviously alive, but somehow I'm aware that she shouldn't be with me. Last night, I dreamt that I was attending a meeting of some sort of grief group, maybe for parents who've lost children. I did attend one real meeting like that a few months after losing my daughter, but haven't been back since. Nothing about it comforted me and I didn't feel a connection to anyone there. So the meeting I dreamt about was purely fictional. All I remember is that at this meeting, we were reading something from a book. And like many such things these days, what I read made me cry. It made me so, so sad. This woke me up, somehow. And I realized I was actually crying. My pillow was wet, so I had apparently been crying for a while. Initially, I thought maybe I just haven't taken the time to grieve enough, or to do comforting things for myself. Later today, I realized maybe it's my unconscious mind finally realizing that she's gone and grieving. My unconscious mind seems to be doing something these days. Last week, I went away for a few days to a conference. It required a 4-hour flight there and 5 hours back. On the way back, I started to doze off and suddenly found myself back in the car being driven home from the hospital after saying goodbye to my daughter. I can't remember the actual drive at all--can't remember the car, the route, anything that happened or that we talked about along the way. My husband's bosses at the time picked us up. I'd never met them before and I have absolutely no memory of them other than just initially seeing them in the hospital. In my half-asleep dream, I was in the car and screaming to be let out. I was completely falling apart, insisting that I couldn't leave her there. I've said that out loud many times, that maybe if I hadn't let them take her to the hospital, or hadn't left her there, maybe I could have done something. I was finally acting on that in my dream, but it wasn't a good feeling and I woke up almost in a panic. And then I spent the next 15 minutes or so pulling myself together so I wouldn't burst into tears there on the plane. As I said, it seems my unconscious mind is doing some processing that it hadn't done before. I think I really need to get in to see my therapist again. I believe it's been about 6 months--she doesn't even know I'm pregnant. I feel OK about both of these experiences, I am just sort of baffled at how unique they were.

Another Look at Comfort

I've been thinking more about comfort. I know when I'm at the absolutely depths, or at least as close to them as I can get without actually being back to the day my daughter died, I just can't comfort myself. I suppose that's why my house was filled with people for days on end. They knew I couldn't find comfort, could barely find the bathroom in the morning, so they came to make sure that at least I ate and drank.

Anyway, I was able to think of a few things. As one of the comments mentioned, my younger daughter does continue to be a source of comfort for me. As she gets older, she's no longer completely dependent on me. She asks for and is comfortable with other peopleother people, and even asks to see particular people. But that doesn't mean we aren't connected anymore. After my last post, I was completely down for a couple of days. I honestly couldn't figure out what would bring me out of it.

Then one night, I was home alone after putting my daughter to bed. She was in her crib for 5 or 10 minutes, then stood up absolutely distraught. She sometimes does fuss, and it almost always means she has a wet diaper. Other times, I'll sing her one more song and she's fine. But that night, nothing I did seemed to help. I kept asking her what she wanted and she just kept getting upset. After a while, I put her back in the crib, which seemed OK, but then I started to leave and she again started crying. I never did figure it out, but I did eventually leave her there and she fell asleep.

The next day, she was with the nanny all day. When the nanny left, she told me that even though another little boy was with them, my daughter had been uncharacteristically quiet all day. It occurred to me that she might somehow be reflecting my feelings. I hadn't been talking much either for 3 days by then. So I pulled myself out of it. I still can't stand the idea that I might negatively affect her.

And I started thinking of other comforts. After my daughter's memorial, our house was quiet. My brother stayed a few days after everyone left, and then we escaped to a vacation house owned by friends. At some point, we found ourselves back in the now-quiet house with just a small baby who slept a lot. But all the debris of the people who'd been there was left behind, so we started cleaning. We cleaned and cleaned. Then a friend of mine visited for a week. After she left, we cleaned some more. The cleaning went on until I went back to work, I believe, except for about a week when we flew across the country to visit my parents.

Another thing I did a lot was watch TV. I don't watch much TV, especially during the day. But at that time, I watched a LOT. I tried renting movies, but you never know what you might see in a movie, and I didn't know what would upset me. So I started watching HGTV--Home and Garden TV, along with cooking shows. That's about as inocuous (and in many ways, irrelevant) as you can get. I watched people remodel homes, shopping for homes, shopping for their first homes, getting homes ready to sell.

So these are two things I've done a bit of recently--excessive cleaning and watching cooking shows. It's funny how they numb and soothe my mind.

Here's one other thing I find oddly comforting. I bought my daughter this toy in early November. I honestly find it cute and hilarious. It's even funnier when she dances around with it.

It's the little things, I suppose. Other people just can't always be there for you. Life gets in the way of some of the things that provide us comfort. I'm hoping that posting these things, I might remember then when I really need them.