buy 2 get one free
That’s what Mother’s Day felt like this year. Some twisted, backwards buy 2 get one free special. Got two kids, where’s the third? Well, this was a shitty deal-I didn’t get what I paid for! Who do I write to complain? I was MISERABLE almost all day yesterday. I was in anxiety overdrive. Things weren’t right, and there was nothing I could do about it. Feeling the loss of control is a huge anxiety trigger, and the emotions were on high alert. It was a day I was just really, really, enraged. I hated everyone. Everyone that sent me a text (who was obviously caring about me), just reminded me that they got to send me their text, then go about their day with all of their kids, who were all alive. I even felt like my mom and mother-in-law didn’t get to be sad either. They got to have decades of mother’s days with their children, not me. That’s the weird thing about my grief-it’s all mine. Nobody else gets to feel sad about Ian, because you don’t feel as bad as me. He’s mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. That’s obviously not the reality of it , of course other people have pain with Ian’s loss, but I’m practically incapable of seeing it. I don’t know why I want the pain to be only mine, maybe it’s because I feel like I’m the only one who truly loved him so much. And maybe if I keep it all, nobody else will have to feel it.
My PTSD got intense yesterday. I was at my pain threshold for about 5 minutes. I felt my insides burning, I couldn’t breathe, things were starting to get fuzzy. If I stayed in that place for 5 more minutes, I probably would have had to go to the hospital to get heavily medicated and put to sleep. At one point my whole body involuntarily convulsed, almost into a ball. But, I used my amassed coping skills, and medicinal intervention, and got myself to breathe again. Know what did it? I was trying to take a nap and I had on “The Hunger Games” for background noise and she started singing to the little girl that just died. Boom! I was transported to the day Ian died, just holding his little body, singing “hush little baby” before they took him. Damn, I can barely even type it. Just imagine that. How utterly, heartbreakingly, terrifying the thought of it even is. And my whole body was just in that moment. That unbearable moment in my life. Having to relieve it in the present is almost unmanageable. That is PTSD.
I was feeling pretty crappy since Friday, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my subconscious knew something was coming up. I realized that Mother’s Day was coming up and that was causing the unknown sadness. It makes me feel better when I can figure out what my problem is, then I realize I’m not going into depression again. Remission from depression does not free me from the grief and sadness. Pretty sure there is no medical resource for that. But I keep having to remind myself that the pain is love. It’s proof of a life that was cherished and that it mattered. I’m still a mother of three, I will always be Ian’s mother.
By the way-I want a refund