Our baby is dead.
Our baby is dead.
I was taken into a hospital in an ambulance last night because I was bleeding. After 25 hours of hysteria and hoping and painful examinations a scan showed our little dead baby. It had been dead for weeks, but the placenta was still growing so there was no sign that anything was wrong until the blood. Our baby was dead inside me and I did not know. I had some medicine to make the cervix open so that I can pass the little dead baby into the world. It will take a few days.
We have named the baby Tam, and we have a scan photo of him/her (they can't tell which it is from the scan, but might be able to when it has come out of me). I will show you the photo when it has been uploaded.
I will not die, I will live and I will have more children. Whatever I may feel for now.
It is very painful, emotionally obviously, but also physically. I am basically giving birth to a tiny dead fetus so there are cramps and blood and sickness and that will be the case for up to a week apparently.
We are grieving because our child is dead. And so are all of the excitement and plans and specialness that came with being pregnant.
If you are the sort of fuckwit who thinks a dead baby doesn't matter because it was unborn then do me a favour and don't read this or ever come anywhere near me. I hope I have made that clear.
We are grieving. That will take a long time I expect. For now, I have to deal with the very physical consequences of our baby's death. And then arranging for it to be buried in the ground.
Hope or pray for us, and little Tam.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Our baby is still dead, and will be forever.
Our baby is called Tam, and has been laid gently into the earth to be with everything again. Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.
I could try to write here about my feelings. I can do that. I can record only the shadows and husks of those feelings, but I can do my best. That is all anyone can do.
I am not screaming and howling and tearing at anything. Perhaps that is expected of me. Equally, perhaps I am expected to cook meals and eat and wash my face and be something… I don't know what is expected and I really couldn't give a damn. Nothing has changed in that respect, you might say. But everything has changed. And nothing has changed.
Our baby Tam is in dead in the earth and will be forever. I don't know if our baby will grow, perhaps. We will discover, I imagine. Perhaps our baby will simply lay in the ground and slowly grow into trees and insects and all things. There is a tiny angel in our hearts and in my blood forever, and within each brother and sister that will come in time.
They didn't tell me, in the hospital, that I would go into labour. They did mention contractions, but nothing about the pelvis opening or excruciating agony or anything like that. At the time, it felt like the cruellest thing in the world to have to go through the agony and terror of a labour only to receive a tiny dead baby and blood. I felt that until the tiny dead baby slipped out of me, and then I felt utter calm. It just made sense. I won't tell you it felt fair, but it did feel right. There is our tiny baby, our baby Tam. Who is dead.
I think the phrase the nurse used on the phone was "mini-labour". This is the only labour I have experienced, but I imagine it was actually a great deal more painful than one which will result in the first breaths of your living child. As I made those strange animal hollow cries and rocked and moved around and squatted on the floor and shuddered I felt no anticipation or hope, only shattering excruciating grief and a sense of complete certainty of the death of my child, a death I had been told about hours before, when I saw the shockingly tiny figure of the ultrasound. A death that occurred several weeks ago.
My mother watched me whilst holding her face. Gary tried to nurture me. Gary was within everything but I cannot tell you what he felt, I know he loves Tam and I so deeply and that we loved him and love him still. That is all I can say.
There were some strong painkillers, and exhaustion. I lay on the floor and felt a part of me lift out and slightly above my body, overlapping. I became calm in a hollow desolate way. I crawled up the stairs and into our bed, the pain became rhythmic and I made only quiet grunts. I felt like a tiny boat on a giant ocean, carrying a baby somewhere. I slept I think for an hour. When I woke the labour was over and there was only aching and openness.
Bethyn was lying beside me and pressed a tiny rose quartz elephant into my hand. I recognised it even though I could not see it or even feel my hands. It made sense, I accepted. It was a gift for Tam. Elephants never forget. Elephants understand about death.
I delivered our tiny dead baby, placenta, and all things into the world, and I stared at it all. So beautiful and painful and very very real. Such surprising colours. All sliding out of my body together, entirely without violence. Our baby has been very real to us from the very first moments of pegnancy and of course clearly was real, and sitting in front of us.
All of that was the day before yesterday. I think. It is hard to think about days and hours sometimes. That is what they ask about in the hospital, and you want to scream "Tell me if my baby's alive, what else can possibly matter?" You may scream that. But that is the way things are done. Whatever you may feel about it, those processes exist. There will be doctors who will try to call your baby "the retained products of conception" and you can tell remind them that it is a baby, your child, and not a fucking product of any kind. It is obvious and they know it really. They just don't like to say Death.
They will try to put you back into a ward full of women waiting to have their wombs removed and just chatting about fucking meaningless things, but when you scream and wail and collapse in grief and desperation in the toilet that will remind them that you need to be alone with your baby and the father of your baby. They will remember that, and be kind.
Yesterday we buried little Tam. We could not bear to take our baby back to the hospital to be put in the cold dark mortuary with all of the other dead people who are just laying and waiting for "arrangements" to be made. Gary dug the grave and we lay our baby into the earth together, with a rose from the alotmeant and a bird flew out from the hollow of the tree and across the ground where Tam's grave was and through my hair out into the sky.
If the baby dies before he or she has gestated for 24 weeks then you can bury him or her wherever you choose. There are a lot of things wrong with that law, actually, but it exists whatever I think and feel about it. There are a lot of things like that. I am glad we could bury Tam where our Tam wanted to be, and so that is.
I did not have "a miscarriage". I did not miscarry, my baby died inside my womb and actually I continued to carry Tam for several weeks after death. That is very far from a failure of carriage. That is an incredible feat that my body and my baby achieved together and to speak of that as some kind of failure is obscene. I will not allow it. There is no obligation to allow it.
My first feelings when the sonographer told us that our baby was dead were of crushing, indescribable grief. Second came a feeling of disbelief, how could I possibly not have realised. With that was a sudden distrust of my body which was unfamiliar and frightening. I no longer distrust my body. My body nurtured a tiny life and then protected it even after that life faded.
Our baby lay within my body for three months, for most of that time alive. We don't know exactly when our baby died, but we do know that obviously, that was an entire life. There was no failure and no violence, only life and then death. Which is what we all have. Some people live to be eighty and some live to be thirty or a toddler of three. Some live to only gestate for two months. Each of those is an entire life.
It is often extremely difficult and painful to accept that things are how they are, and even harder to accept that they are meant to be. I still feel at moments that it is all horribly, obscenely unfair. I know, really, that fairness is just not a part of the cycle of life and death. But I feel it so hard, and it is at those times that I cry and moan and do the things that people mistakenly think of as being "Grief".
Thos things are grief, of course, but so is sadness which is silent and invisible. So is managing to make a cup of tea, and laughing at a joke. A person cannot scream and sob and lay on the floor unwashed for a lifetime, who decides how much is enough? Grief is necessary and can be and is a part of all things. We will grieve a long time for our tiny child, and we will grieve for the loss of the child we imagined would grow and speak and wear tiny shoes. The tiny shoes that Dawn sent me, which will now be worn by another son or daughter. We will grieve for the loss of a tiny person inside of me who would kick and be born and breathe. We will grieve the excitement of buying a pram and a little toy rabbit and painting a yellow room.
I will grieve the loss of looking in the mirror in wonder at my growing belly, at the loss of the milk from my breast, the loss of my hopes and dreams for my child who I wanted and yearned for so desperately and was so ecstatic to discover. The loss of people stroking my belly and smiling. The loss of a tiny baby with me, all the time every day. The loss of all, of all, of all of that.
As I type now I am truly sobbing, for the first time since I was in labour.
My breasts are already too small for my new bras. My belly is a little smaller, but I still look pregnant. No one told me that would happen, but I suppose it was obvious. I can't begin to tell you what it's like to look at my body in the mirror and still look pregnant. Parts of my body still believe I am pregnant, I suppose.
The morning sickness has gone, of course. I still can't eat, but that is the grief.
Or what I felt this morning, when I woke and reached for my belly, good morning little one, as I do every morning. As I used to do every morning, when I was pregnant. Which I am not.
I can't sleep now. Or possibly don't want to. I really don't know.
Please hope for us, that Tam's brothers and sister will join us soon.
I am so frightened.
I must trust my body to grow more children, and I must trust those children will live exactly as long as they I meant to. I hope, I hope so hard that it will be for a long time, full of running and speaking and crying and journeying and babies of their own perhaps. I hope.
That is all there is, at the bottom of all things at the very bottom of everything there is hope. Whether we see it or believe in it or scream and stamp on it the hope remains constant. I must trust I will always be able to recognise it. If I did not have hope and love then I would have died with my baby. I would have died with our baby and there would be no more babies and I don't know what would happen to Gary. The hope is so necessary.
It seems like nothing will ever be OK, but it will. And if I can survive this, I can survive anything. And I already know I can survive anything actually.
I am a mother. I have been pregnant. I have a mother's body, and I have a baby who is dead and in the ground. I will always be a mother, and I will have several children. And I will have children who are born living and who will grow with us. I am a mother, Gary is a father and we have a baby called Tam. Tam is dead. Tam is with the earth and belongs.
It would be easy to be angry with women who have abortions. It would be easy to be angry with the universe for giving babies to women who simply do not want them and who will choose to kill them. That would be easier than accepting that things are as they are meant to be, and some women are meant to have abortions and some women are meant to have babies who die inside them. Some women are meant to give birth to babies who will die a few minutes or a few hours or a few years later. Some women are meant to give birth to children they will hate and abuse. I was given a child who died inside me. I love my child so much, and I would never exchange Tam for anyone else. That is inconceivable. My baby is dead.
Those children could not have been given to me because they were not mine. There is no finding a reason or an answer or an explanation for this, it is simply what it is. If I see a baby in the street and think, that child should be mine it will be natural and not evil but it will be mistaken. That child is not mine, and will never be and should not be. I have had my perfect tiny baby, and I will have other perfect babies. They will be mine as Tam is mine.
Our children will be exactly who and how they are meant to be. We will love them, and that is everything. Other people have babies who do not die in their wombs and so will I. Children do not come because we deserve them. I do not deserve a baby more than a woman who doesn't want one, deserving and fairness simply so not come into it. My baby is dead, there is no fairness because the earth and the universe do not follow laws that we invent for ourselves.
So much pain, it is incredible how much pain and grief there can be.
I will stop writing this because there will be a time when I have to. I do not have to prove anything, there is no obligation.
There will be a time when I have to sleep, when I have to stop crying to be quiet and still.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Our baby Tam is dead and with the earth.
About ten minutes ago, I thought my cat was dead. She was stretched out on a floor cushion with her eyes half open and my heart stopped. Not you too, not you too, I cried in my head or possibly out loud. But then I realised she was breathing, and her eyes blinked. Of course she isn't dead, no one else is going to die.
Twenty minutes before that, I thought my other cat was dead. Half an hour before that My heart leapt into my mouth because when I turned to look at Gary sleeping beside me I thought he had just died. He looked dead. I cannot explain it, he simply looked dead… and then he didn't anymore. This was a couple of minutes after I first decided that my cat was dead, and then decided that she wasn't.
That is four perceived deaths in a single hour, two of those being the same cat.
Clearly none of them are dead. That is so obvious. It's almost as though I don't trust myself anymore to recognise when someone I love has died.
I keep smelling some sort of decay in the house, and have become convinced that there is a dead animal hidden somewhere in here. There isn't, and the smell is very likely the fridge which has recently partly defrosted. Or possibly there isn't a smell at all, I really don't know. Gary says he can't smell it, but wants to clean everything to make it better.
I don't want to go to sleep again. I really have to, because at 11:30 tomorrow, well today, I have to go back to the hospital for the ultrasound that will tell me whether I have to have an operation on my womb or not. I hope I will not have to. If I do have to, then I need to have had sleep. I know that.
A week before we were told that our little Tam was dead, both of my rats died within two days of each other. That is not unusual; they were very old and very sick and had lived together all their lives. I spent several days nursing them in turn, and it was not surprising when it happened finally. Kettricken went first, and Molly went mad and then died after. When we buried Kettricken I didn't mind, she was clearly gone, rigid and light, and it was a matter of returning her body to the earth.
Molly didn't seem to be completely gone, though. I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was burying her alive, even though I left her for a whole day before I buried her to make sure she wasn't going to come to life again. She was warm and heavy and soft and seemed as though she would stretch and yawn at any moment. I couldn't leave her any longer, so I did it. I still sometimes panic that I buried her alive, even though she was absolutely dead. I had to wrap her in cloth as her eyes were open and I just couldn't bear to put dirt in her eyes.
The day before Molly died I found a dead bird in the middle of our front lawn. It hadn't been mauled by a cat or anything, it seemed like it had just fallen from the sky. I took it along the path and laid it under a tree. It was still warm. What else could I have done?
I try not to be superstitious.
My doctor phoned today, because he had received a message that I had gone to hospital and wanted to know what had happened. I had to tell him my baby was dead. It was entirely hideous. Why in the world could the hospital have sent him a message to say I had gone in there and forgot to mention the single most fucking important thing that has happened in my entire medical history and in fact my life. How can you forget to mention a death? I cried and cried and my voice was foreign. My doctor is a kind man.
Those are the times that I cannot stop the tears and the moaning and all of that noise. When Gary and I talk together I can say that our baby is dead because that is the truth. It even feels peaceful. I know our little Tam is safe. But I cannot tell people that news for the first time, it breaks me completely each and every time. Perhaps that will continue.
I have just checked that Belinda, our cat, is not dead. She isn't dead, obviously.
I have always loved and deeply related to this poem, but I didn't understand why until now:
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
(William Wordsworth)
Our tiny angel is in the ground.
I hate reading the things I have written lately, because none of them express what I am feeling. A little bit, but not enough. Never enough.
When I have the ultrasound, I will obviously be in the maternity unit. Which will be full of pregnant women with beautiful babies inside them. I don't know if I will cope with that. At all.
I feel very scared.
I am bleeding, and using sanitary towels. It is very different to a period but in some ways looks the same now. I don't feel that I can cope with my periods returning. I used to love my periods because they represented to me the ability and possibility of pregnancy. Now they are a loss of that same dream.
I will become pregnant again, and have babies who will live a long time. And that is why I must eat and sleep and enable my body to heal. I have an obligation to my little family. To Gary, Tam and the children who will come after Tam. Brothers and sisters. I have always wished for brothers and sisters.
My breasts look so tiny to me, and almost shrivelled. They probably aren't that bad but that is how I feel about them at the moment. I don't hate them or anything, but that is what I see. I loved my pregnant body so much. I looked truly like me. My whole body showed me the little baby growing inside me.
I am not a Christian. If I was, I couldn't be any longer. People manage it, I don't know how. Determination, perhaps. I know people would say that God was testing them. What kind of a fucking test is that? What if God came up to you in the street and thrust a knitting needle through your newborn's head? "Just testing", he says to you. Would you love him for that?
I am not saying that I believe our baby's death was an injustice. A lifetime is an entire lifetime, and our baby simply did not live a long time. Justice has no impact on death. I don't feel that Tam died violently or in fear. That was Tam's time to die, and it is devastating to us because we love our little baby with all our hearts and have done since the very moment of creation and will do until we die and after that even I suppose. The cycle of life and death continues regardless of grief and tragedy, and it is beautiful and honest and entirely pure. But a benevolent God couldn't and wouldn't do it to us. That would be so cruel.
That is what I believe.
I love being a mother. I love our baby and I will love our other babies when they come.
We have been so blessed. I know that. I wish I could feel that all the time but I just can't. There is so much grief and pain and desperation.
Hope.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
forever,
Monday, May 28, 2007
My little song.
I am sitting here in the wee hours, feeling that I must write something. I am not sure what I could write, but I want to try.
Our baby Tam is in the earth. A lot of people have told me not to say our baby is dead, but our baby IS dead, and is buried in the earth. It's not negative, or even painful to say - it is simply the plain, peaceful and beautiful truth. Our loss is immense and the grief indescribable, but the simple fact of death is just honest. We love our baby, and our baby is with us constantly, in our hearts and minds, and in my blood. That doesn't mean Tam is not dead and becoming a part of all things once again.
The fact that our tiny child is buried in the earth, at a place we can visit as often as we wish, is the most comfortable fact that I can imagine. We buried our little one in such a way that the capsule protecting that tiny body in entwined with the roots of a great strong tree. A tree in which so many creatures live. A tree which shelters and seeks sun and does all of the things that trees do.
Yes, grief. Indescribable, agonising grief. Rage. Fear, Also: gratitude, love, and hope.
Grief. Our baby is dead. Our baby died inside me and I had to go to a cold, cold hospital to find out. Grief that I have lost my pregnancy, and the joy of carrying that little life with me everywhere. The grief of losing the hopes and dreams we had for our precious little Tam. Rage at idiots who want to call my baby revolting clinical things. Rage that people will say "You can always have another one" and completely disregard the life of our precious baby. Rage that people in the street just carried on ("Don't you people know my baby is dead?!") as normal, Fear of losing another child. Fear that my body is somehow not able to support a child completely. Fear that I just won't cope.
Gratitude that we could concieve a perfect little child. Love for our baby and each other and our tiny family that will grow and grow. Love for a body so incredible that it grew a new person. Love for a man who adores his family with all his heart. Hope. Hope that the grief will grow into something we can cope and live with (not just survive, but live). Hope that we will feel the presence of Tam in our lives every single day. Hope for more little ones. Hope that they will live to be born and to grow and grow.
We will concieve again, and our babies will grow and grow. I am as sure as I can be of this.
Tam said goodbye to me at Beltane. I felt a little "pop" inside, and imagined it to be a stretch of some kind though a lot of people said it was too early to feel the baby move. Actually, I had felt little flutters several times before then, but this was such a strong, unfamiliar sensation. I felt unease and foreboding coupled with a sense of incredible wonder. And then peace. I believe that was when our baby died. Gary told me he had felt this too when we talked the other night, before I dared to mention it. We shared that moment, the three of us.
Both times I have been at Tam's resting place, the song "Singing You Through" by Heather Nova arrived within me. It's a song I hadn't heard for a long while, since I listened to it at Bethyn's old home. When I heard it, I remember telling Beth that it made me imagine myself watching some children playing, and feeling sad. That was puzzling to me, and I remember wondering why that image appeared, and why I would ever feel sad watching children play. I know now - I was missing my little Tam, in that vision of myself.
"Singing You Through"
Do you think I can't see through to who you are?
All the life that shines below the pain, the scars
Did you think that you could hide?
Build up a wall inside?
Just turn yourself to stone, and go through this alone?
No, I'll be there
Like a bird, singing to you
I'll be there
Like a bird, singing you through
I'll be there, I'll be there
Holding the light for you
Making it right for you
Singing you through
Do you think that I don't know how far you've come?
All the heights you've had to climb, the miles you've run
Did you think I'd let you down?
Just turn this ship around
and leave you in the dust?
But you must know you must
That I'd be there
Like a bird, singing to you
I'll be there
Like a bird, singing you through
I'll be there, I'll be there
Holding the light for you
Making it right for you
Singing you through
People think that they can heal without the touch
Learn to live without the love they need so much
But everybody hurts, and everybody cries
And everybody needs a helping hand sometimes
And I'll be there
Like a bird, singing to you
I'll be there
Like a bird, singing you through
I'll be there, I'll be there
Holding the light for you
Making it right for you
Singing you through
It's surprising in a way, that the song my baby sent to me would be so... maternal and wise. But there it is. I have never been one of the "angels and sunbeams" brigade - far from it, in many respects - but I know what I know. Our baby is dead and in the earth, I am bleeding, and little Tam tells me something through that song that I can't explain or even understand fully.
I called Tam my little song, in my belly. So I suppose it makes a lot of sense, really. Not that it needs to. Sense in intuitive terms, certainly, but not cold science fact. Science is not always cold, I know, but often.
I love our little Tam so much, and the grief is necessary and I suppose quite pure. I wish I didn't feel so grief-stricken and empty when I see little babies in other people's arms - those babies are so very loved, I am sure, and bring so much joy into so many lives. I know that. I can't help it though, and I will not reprimand myself. It is natural to be jealous and that will ease. Everything is still so raw - it has not even quite been a week yet.
A beautiful lady called Kirsty said that a huge physical emptiness would be present in my body and she was so very, very right. I am surprised at how empty I feel in a place I had barely thought of as full before. I placed my hand there, and told my mother "There is a big space. Here." And she absolutely amazed me by saying simply, "I know." My mother doesn't say that to me very often.
I don't look pregnant anymore. At all. I am insisting to myself that I look at my body in the mirror every day and to try to accept it for what it is. It is a mother's body, and though I look almost the same as before I was pregnant, inside the difference is immense. I nurtured a baby, I am a mother.
It is hard to look at. Not because it isn't beautiful, but because it illustrates so excruciatingly my loss. And our loss.
Well,
it looks like rain.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Tamazepam is not my friend.
It didn't make me go to sleep.
It did make me feel extremely paranoid and very, very hot.
It made my mouth dry.
It meant that when I woke up, I wasn't able to move or speak for quite a long time.
I don't think I'm going to take that anymore.
Monday, June 04, 2007
It's difficult for me
to cope with people insistently trying to make my baby's death into something bite-size and easy for them to swallow. But they will continue to do so, and I will continue to feel angry about it. Obviously.
Same old, really. Just bigger.
It's also difficult for me to cope with Danny insistently trying to squash me down in the eyes of other people in order to convince them (and himself) that he is in some way "better" than me. And he does know about Tam.
I'm slightly disappointed with myself that I couldn't bear to just leave that unsaid, but I don't know whether that is just or not.
It must be easy, if you are able to just cut people away from yourself. And simply absolve yourself of any suffering you have caused.
"Not my problem any more".
I am so glad I'm not like that, painful as it is some times.
I danced today - to Muse, and it felt good. My body told me to stop after just one song, but that doesn't matter. I had my dance, and maybe tomorrow it will be two songs. And the music will remain, after all.
If you visit this page, you can find a beautiful and very important song called "Silence Fades Gently". Perhaps you would like to listen to it. It's the sister of another song.
It is amazing, and I suppose very obvious in some ways, that whenever I visit Tam's grave, all of the pain and the fear and the strangling grief just... fall away. And then I can appreciate the afternoon, and the earth beneath my feet and the sky and just EVERYTHING, absolutely everything, with clear new eyes. I can sit with little Tam and just be. Absolutely content. No tears, or screaming and no desperation or lethargy, simply myself beside my little dead baby in the earth. It's not morbid, simply the truth.
I can't tell you that the feeling lasts forever, but I am so grateful for that little island in the mist.
Monday, June 18, 2007
I think I am depressed.
I am having my period, it seems. It's hard to say, because it is very different than a period would normally be. And it's a lot sooner than I was expecting.
In a way, it's a good thing. It suggests my body is healed, and I can concieve again.
It's also a reminder that my baby is dead. No more swollen belly, no little kicks and flutters.
I don't feel like a woman anymore, and I have realised that whenever I look in the mirror I say in my head, "Oh, she's pretty". Like it's not even me. Just some pretty girl. Girl, being the important word.
I can't write anything.
BUT,
I know that a large part of this depression is probably the incredble hormone crash I am going through.
And the other parts... well, grief is certainly some of it. And that is a very healthy and beautiful thing. Tam is dead, I grieve.
Also, my pregnancy is gone, and for that I am allowed to grive too.
I have started to not want to get up in the morning, though, and that is not a good thing.
I don't entirely understand.
I feel like my self has been taken from me, not only my baby but me.
I feel meaningless.
BUT,
I know I am strong, and it's likely I will feel a lot better than this as my hormone levels become normal.
And hope,
Always hope.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Prozac Nation?
So.
I went to see my doctor on Tuesday, and he was very concerned about me. So. I was given an emergency appointment with the duty psychiatric nurse, which - amazingly - I attended. He was a nice man, well-meaning and with his shirt tucked into his trousers. I liked him, even though to be honest he was laughably stereotypical. That doesn't mean he doesn't know his shit, after all.
So.
I talked to him in a rambling, tearful way for about an hour an a half. Which surprised me. I talked to him about the fact that I am often feeling suicidal. I don't consider that I'm likely to harm myself because I have an awareness that there are people who love me and who would be incredibly harmed by me making that choice - and also, although I absolutely cannot imagine a future, not even a few days away, I guess I know, in an intellectual sense, that there must obviously be one. And children.
The worrying this is, that I become very detatched from all of the things that I know, when the big tidal wave of... I don't know what. Something. Crashes over me. That's why I agreed to take the prozac - because I am frightened that I might stop thinking clearly altogether and make a choice that I would not take in my "right" mind.
The thing is, that I am feeling like I am not real again. I haven't felt that for a few years, but here it is again and more insistent than ever. I can't describe it really, it's a feeling that I am not inhabiting my body - my body is a separate thing that functions more or less by itself and I am somewhere else outside of and sort of floating above it. People don't talk to me, and I don't affect anything because I am not really there. I don't know, something like that.
Also, I keep hearing things that aren't there. Apparently, this is caled psychosis. Not voices (the nurse kept saying voices, but they aren't) but stupid, non-human sounds. Phones ringing, alarm clock, microwave beeps... all kind of things. It's stressful and anoying - also, it's a problem because I can't always recognise that they aren't there, if that makes any kind of sense. I've never had that before.
Oh, and losing time. The other day I was heating up some soup, and I sat doewn on the sofa to wait for it. The next thing I knew, the house was full of smoke and the soup was now a thick black crust at the bottom of the pan. How in the world did I not noticed that? It felt as though only a minute had passed. That scares me a lot, I could have burned the place down, for fuck's sake.
I haven't been hungry for about a month now. The only time I realise I need food is if I get dizzy or literally faint. I don't get any of that tummy rumbling stuff that people get to tell them they need food. Which also worries me, because I am not caring for myself in the most basic way. I'm supposed to be creating a family and I can't even remember to eat when I need to.
So, am I crazy? The nurse didn't think so, and neither do I.
I am going to see a the nurse, Peter, again, and a psychiatric doctor on Monday. In the mean time, is the hat fair, and Gary's sister visiting. I'm not worried about it, because it doesn't feel real. I suppose I don't really believe I will be here, even though it's just a day away. I will be, of course I will, but I don't feel that.
I am getting married in four weeks.
I feel as though I am full of butterflies and panic, writing this.
After everything, and now this. I am so tired.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Power.
Gary passed his maths GCSE! Eleven years after leaving school, in one year and on his first try. He's brilliant. Teacher training in autumn next year, then...
I have been running a lot, recently. It feels good - powerful and vibrant and dangerously FEMALE.
Yesterday, I ran to Twyford. That's quite a long way, and not at all bad for someone with M.E.
And I am feeling very sociable. Most unusual! But pleasant...
I keep dreaming about having msn conversations with people. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Possibly that I'm a geek...
And now I'm going to talk about my period. If that bothers you, feel free not to read. I don't make you come here, after all.
My period. Moon thyme. Absolutely not a curse. What a revolting, mysoginistic idea.
Women: love your blood. Seriously, respect your body and it's amazing ability to nurture lives. Respect yourself.
My moon time was last week. And though it is a reminder that I am no longer pregnant, it's also a reminder that I have the potential to become pregnant.
And it's brilliant and dark and powerful. I don't have mood swings during my period, but I TAKE NO SHIT. From anyone. At all. Which is marvellous, I love how fierce I am when I bleed.
I love that I stand up for every voiceless or frightened person, and say NO. No, you can't oppress them, I will speak. And if you want a fight that's just fine: I will win.
No, you can't shut me up, no I won't talk more quietly, no I won't avoid socially unacceptable subjects in public places.
Yes, I will say fuck if I want to. No you can't touch me. My sexuality is not an invitation, it belongs to me.
My short skirt belongs to me. My breasts are luscious and they belong to me. Fuck you, you can't touch me.
Unless I choose.
Teenage boys on the train in Croydon are no match for a strong, fierce, independant woman. Be sure of that.
I don't need to speak softly, smile coquettishly, dance in small, delicate shapes or stay home after dark.
I don't need you, I don't need him, and I don't need permission. I am my own.
I will reflect truth back at you.
|
|
|
