Here is an example of why you are going to love Charlie’s soon-to-be-up-and-running blog. Last night we were watching Alias, and he looked at Michael Vartan and said, “That man is mayonnaise come to life.”
Moving on.
I have certain, oh, let’s call them habits. Attitudes. Behaviors. Defects. They are instinctive and deeply ingrained. My new therapist has an amazing capacity to recognize them and call them out into the light (where they cringe shrieking, “My eyes! My eyes!”).
Since I got sober and was given a little dose of self-awareness, I’ve had hundreds if not thousands of little moments where all of a sudden a lifetime of behavior is explained in one blinding flash of clarity. Now most people--in sobriety-- have someone they call, someone who has been sober longer, and discuss these things until they begin to make sense in a larger context.
But not me. I behave exactly the same way my dog Hammer does when he gets a brand new tennis ball. I get on the couch, I suck and chew on it until my paws are covered with slobber and it’s making an annoying popping sound as I repeatedly collapse and release it. I don’t want anyone to touch it or throw it for me. I want it all to myself.
So yesterday, there I was in therapy, and one of those moments struck. It was about half way through my session. We were talking about my very bad day on Sunday, and she was trying to convince me that it was actually a very good day because I opened myself up and let myself process some feelings. We were also talking about the way I communicate with myself.
I suddenly realized that my impatience to get better already, to get over the loss of my sons, has nothing to do with me. It’s a voice in my head.
I wanted to get up and leave the therapist’s office immediately. She looked at me a moment and asked me how I was feeling. “Fine. That's really interesting.” I said. She asked how I felt in my body, and I said that my chest felt tight. She asked what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to think about that realization for a while. She asked if I had anyone I worked stuff like that out with. I said, oh, yeah, but usually I’ll write about it and think about it for a while and then it will begin to make some sense to me.
She looked at me for a moment and said, “Any chance you want to do that here?”
Once again, I was not taking that outstretched hand.
A couple of summers ago, I was swimming at the Jersey shore. There had been some rocky weather recently, and a hurricane was still out to sea a couple hundred of miles away. It was pretty rough playing in the waves, so I was doing what I love to do in the ocean, which is swim out past where the waves are breaking and just kinda bob along.
Well, I didn’t realize until too late that there was no place the waves weren’t breaking. I couldn’t touch the bottom so I couldn’t protect myself from the constant crashing of the waves on my head. I kept getting tossed and turned (my heart is racing just writing this) and at one point had that awful, awful experience of stretching out my hands to break the surface and hitting sand instead. I was getting tired, I was scared, and totally out of my league and helpless.
A very tall young man--still able to touch the bottom--saw my struggles and asked if he could help. You know what I said? “I’m fine! Thanks!” and then I smiled at him. I practically did a thumbs up sign. I let another wave hit me in the face before I saw him, still standing there, and said yes, please, I need help. I collapsed on the shore, my lungs full of salty water, completely exhausted. I had to almost drown in order to allow myself to take his hand.
My mother loved me dearly, but she was young, alone, and terrified. We were terribly poor, she couldn’t afford a baby sitter, so I began staying home alone when I was five. I rode city buses across town by myself every day by the time I was seven. I cooked my own food. I packed my own lunches, brushed my own hair, chose my own clothes all at an early age. If I hurt myself, I patched myself up.
I became completely self-reliant. I learned not to tell my mother about things that bothered me unless it was something really big and physical--like I’d broken my arm or I was having an asthma attack. Even then, I hesitated, because we didn’t have insurance, and my mom would see the hospital bills before she’d see my injury. I don’t mean this as a criticism--she did the best she could.
But it’s made it very difficult for me to learn to accept help. I’m very comfortable just doing it all on my own, thanks. But it’s lonely. I’ve been learning, slowly, over these last few years, to allow myself to take that outstretched hand.
I wouldn’t have learned this if it weren’t for my infertility. This last three years has so completely and utterly broken me down that I have no choice but to see these behaviors, identify them, and try to change. The feelings surrounding infertility are so big, so unwieldy that change is inevitable.
Before my IVF cycle, I’d really begun to soften. I’d slowly grown to trust the people around me to hold me up. I’d started this blog and begun to meet people like me, people who’s help it was easy to take because it was indirect, via words, rather than hugs. I struggled a bit during the pregnancy, but I allowed myself to take advice and the help that was offered.
Even in the first weeks after I was in the hospital, I was soft. Grief-stricken, wrecked, but open to the arms reaching out to help me.
Somewhere, though, in this last month I’ve closed up again. As I said on Sunday, I’ve built up the walls. There I was, sitting in my therapist’s office, refusing her outstretched hand. The hand I’m PAYING her to stretch out to me.
Blessedly, she was able to ease me over my walls. We didn’t knock them down, exactly, but I walked outside. The air is fresher out here, clearer, not as close.
A jackhammer is in order, I think. It may not be Berlin, but it’s time to tear down these walls.
