I still stand by the notion that I’ve had more good days than bad days because that is true, but when the bad days are me sobbing and begging God to hold me, I would say those are pretty bad. It is those guttural sobs that knock my ass on the ground and make me feel like I will never smile or laugh again. For my fellow Harry Potter nerds – I think that is what it feels like when the dementors appear. It pulls out all the joy and happiness, making everything seem meaningless and hopeless. Add that, plus my nightmares that have been coming back, and I get my ass kicked before I even make it out of bed most mornings. So here is kind of what’s been going on…
Over the summer, I spent a lot of my time avoiding being home because when I was home, the silence was screaming, and it got to be too much. If you know me, you know I always have some music playing or a TV show in the background or talking to someone on the phone, so there is always something cutting out the silence and making it more bearable. At the end of the night, however, when I lie in bed, that silence cuts to the core. In that silence, my brain is repeating the best and worst memories; the what-ifs and what should have been start forming, and I start down a dark rabbit hole.
So, by the end of summer, I was ready to return to work because I like having a routine, and things that keep me busy are good for my mental health. Honestly, the way I am with my lists and organizing and my routines is probably OCD, but I don’t want to deal with another diagnosis right now, so we will put that one on the back burner.
What I wasn’t prepared for in returning to work was the amount of “faking it” I would need to do. It feels like putting on a mask. Last year’s kids were with me in the trenches… I mean, I was literally at school when I got the call about his cause of death, so they saw firsthand the toll that grief was having on me even if I tried to hide it, but for some reason, as we near the one-year mark, it is getting harder and harder not to start building walls and trying to keep people out.
I remember sitting at lunch with one of my best friends right before school started, talking about school and discussing with her whether I would tell my students about me being a widow. When working with teenagers, the more they see you as a human being, the less likely they are to hate you. There you go… some unsolicited advice for building relationships with your students.
So, the first week of school, I always talk about my family, friends, hobbies, etc, and I was asking my friend how I go from saying I like Taylor Swift and elephants to transitioning into my husband dying last year. We laughed about it, but also damn because it’s true. How do you bring it up without it killing the vibe? In the end, I went with a soft and short approach with the kiddos, and they were incredibly sweet, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but still. Having part of your identity as a “widow” is so damn depressing because then the look on people’s faces is a mixture of pity and sadness, and it makes me wish I never told them to begin with.
Another thing that has kicked me in the ass and it is a phrase I have heard before “The body keeps the count,” and boy, is that true. So, all through last spring semester, I just tried to get through each day, but I was also focused on getting healthy and caring for my body. Still, I don’t think what I realized was I was taking care of my body as far as working out and losing weight, but I was walking around with all this stress and trauma just sitting in my bones. So, my body started falling apart when life slowed down at the beginning of summer. At one point this summer, my doctor looked at me with worry in her eyes and said, “Your body is screaming at you that something is wrong!”. Ok doc. Cool.
So, to give you a 30-second summary, starting in June, I was at a different doctor’s office once, if not twice, a week for all different issues, from the family doctor to the OBGYN to the Dermatologist, orthopedic surgeon, eye doctor, and cornea specialist. One of the more significant issues was what started as a slight rash and quickly became ankle-to-collarbone hives. Trust me. I know. I looked like the damn troll under the bridge. It took my dermatologist three weeks of weekly appointments, and he did everything he could to figure out what was causing the hives before he mentioned stress. He asked if I had been under a lot of stress… I laughed… and the rest is history. So basically, what my minimal medical background has taught me is that when we are experiencing chronic or extreme stress, our bodies release extra cortisol, and when your body releases extra cortisol as often as mine was, it makes our immune systems go crazy, and that can lead to rashes and hives. Trust me, I don’t understand all of it either, but the minute he said stress, I said, “Are you shitting me?” And then followed it up with, “So you’re telling me I’m doing this to myself?” he said, “Unfortunately, it seems so!” Wild, right? As far as all the other issues. Well, I’ll save those for another time.
So, finally, to bring all of this to a close, something that I’ve been working through in therapy for the last few months is that I am leaving for Disney World tomorrow. For those new here, I am returning to where I was when I found out Coleman was gone. My first blog post goes into more detail if you’re interested in reading more about it. But yeah… I am heading to Disney World in about 15 hours. We are staying at a different hotel, but yeah. Heavy, right? So Lisa and I have been doing EMDR to prepare me for Disney. EMDR is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it helps you to recover from trauma. I will write more about it later, but it has been good for me. It is exhausting, though. You’re forcing yourself to go back to these traumatic memories and reliving them in a way but also noticing things and processing things. I know you think it sounds like some hippy bullshit, but I promise it works. Our brains are truly incredible… and so is therapy in general, but it takes a toll on you.
So, where does that leave me today? Well, on the one hand, I am dancing in the kitchen and driving with the windows down and just trying to live my life fully, but also, on the other hand, I go down dark rabbit holes where I wonder if my life is over and if my best years might have passed. I worry I will never get the white picket fence and the wrap around porch growing old with someone and having kids and grandkids. I have wanted to be a mother my entire life, so to have been three steps away from having a family of my own to being 20 steps and two flights of stairs away is tough. I’m working through it but still tough. And I don’t say any of this for pity or sympathy. I am saying this because, to be transparent and honest with myself, I’ve got to be honest about how I’m feeling. If you asked me this time last year what my greatest fear was, I would have said losing someone I love. Well, check that box. If you ask me today what my greatest fear is, it’s not being able to have biological children.
So here we are. I’m girl-bossing and independent, and the one-year mark is right around the corner, but I am also scared and tired of second-guessing all the decisions I made and blaming myself for things that are out of my control. And the best part of that is that it is okay. It won’t last forever, but it will last for a while. So when you see me with my head thrown back laughing until I’m crying, be happy because I need that joy. And when you see me with a resting bitch face or looking tired, just know that I am so unbelievably tired, but I am still here, so I am still pushing through.
Love, Brittany