Maps

My therapist went over the map of grief with me just a few sessions in to our time together last year, it hangs on a board near the kitchen where I can pass by and see it every single day. Basically, you have acceptance in the middle, and it is surrounded by feelings such as depression/sadness, envy/jealousy, anger, longing, etc. As life keeps going, I am moving throughout this map, sometimes sitting between two feelings like envy and anger, and then shooting over to longing, bouncing over to sadness. With each change or shift I may or may not pass through acceptance. This is life daily, monthly, yearly.
The thing that others just don't get, is that in a grief journey, one doesn't end up in acceptance. It's not an end to the journey, but simply a phase that is felt from time to time. As it's not an end, or even a goal necessarily, the feelings of sadness, longing, and even anger are feelings that I will feel off and on for the rest of my life. I may feel them for a minute or for months at a time. It may appear unexplainable to others, but for me, it is completely justifiable, and it is who I am now. Since June 2012. And it's not going away.
In support group (which I haven't attended in forever and maybe need to go to a couple times in the coming months), we all understand each others grief and actions from our grief, even years out from losses. I may be handling everything just fine, but then the slightest trigger will set off a cascade of emotions that I struggle to keep in check. Others in group have complained how family members, friends, even close coworkers who seemed to understand in the early years, begin to wonder when they'll finally be over their loss and just move on. We've all gasped at how disrespectful and uncaring these people have been to our fellow DBC members (a group I wish no one had to join), and I'm sure many, like me, in early years after loss have felt relieved that those immediately surrounding us have not treated us this way. That we've still been allowed our new normal.
Sadly, it seems even my allowed normal has reached it's perceived end point in others eyes. Thankfully, not everyone I hold close to me seems to feel this way about me, but unfortunately, some of the people I see and interact with nearly every day are increasingly making it more and more obvious that they think I'm done grieving, and need to just move on. And I honestly don't know where to go from here. Until now, they've been so supportive, so accepting of who I have become. And yet suddenly, the me I have become is no longer acceptable and harsh changes need to happen in their eyes. They just don't get it. Hopefully they never will.
Everyone's grief journey is different. Some steal away all emotion and become hard as a rock. Some can't hide every emotion they feel. Navigating society and what's accepted as normal is difficult regardless of how one walks through their own grief journey. Especially as society doesn't accept grief as okay.
Sometimes moving forward is difficult. And sometimes it means accepting big and sudden changes.
Moving forward currently is proving to be extremely difficult. But I just have to take life one day at a time. One foot in front of the other.
Because I got a lotta love to give.

Support

As we near the six year mark of Korbin's passing, my emotional state has definitely taken a nose dive. I've mentioned this before, but spring time is the hardest. Despite the outside being so full of lush, green life, my mind mostly just wanders to the upcoming date that is Korbin's anniversary of his passing. Thankfully this spring has been lighter than last year's, which was so exhaustingly dark and rainy. There's been more light to counteract the darkness that weighs over me. And I think this helped me be a light to another couple's darkness from their recent loss.
Before seeing a patient or a couple for their transfer (putting embryos back in to the uterus), we do a quick look through their chart to be familiar with their history. Have they had a transfer before? Was it successful? Is this their first? Their fifth? In the smallest amount of details, we can gage much of their mental and emotional state and how much time we'll be spending with each particular patient. In the past, if we knew a patient had had a similar loss to my loss of Korbin, I had avoided the transfer. The emotional connection has been much to strong for me to even be able to function. The first time we came across one that I had originally volunteered for, I had to excuse myself to recover. And I didn't even do the transfer. Just reading the patient's story breaks my heart. And I'll never forget that couple.
Today, I was it for doing transfers. There were no other options as my coworker who could also do them was doing the difficult ICSI case for the afternoon. I didn't think much of doing the transfers at this point, and saw that the first patient's had had a positive pregnancy test, and one long enough ago to have had a child. Going back further, the first note that jumped out to me is one of expressing condolences for their loss. My heart stopped. Shit. I had to get it together and go talk to these patients, even though I was about to break down myself. Somehow I managed that and walked in and introduced myself. Each couple responds differently. There are those that have had negative after negative after negative and still sit their smiling with excitement about this transfer and possibility. Then there are those who don't even want to talk to you they are so angry with their lot in life (understandably so). This couple was bubbly, but emotional as well. I acknowledged that this is a bit emotional. The husband said, "well, a lot emotional." And I couldn't stop myself but found myself saying that yes, of course it is, and I can understand as I lost my first son. And that I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to make light of their emotional state. The very next question from the husband, as they both broke down, "does it get any easier?" And suddenly I was the one 5+ years out helping these parents in their fresh, new anguish. The self blame, the need for counseling and therapy, support groups, time, we talked about all of it. And in such a short time. My heart goes out to them, and I even said a prayer as I loaded the catheter, "please God, let this be positive for them."
This new experience in my grief journey has definitely left me a bit drained, but also healed in a way. It hurts, god damn it hurts so bad still. But I'm okay. And I can tell someone who feels it so raw and fresh that it will be okay, even when it still hurts so bad. That there can be hope. We talked about P a little bit, and how being part of this shitty group changes the type of parent you are and how you parent. But that's okay too. And it doesn't mean you were a bad parent, but again, that self blame...that's what therapy's for, right?
For me, this was definitely a huge step forward in my emotional capabilities at work. I never thought I'd see the day where I could do a transfer with another loss parent and step away feeling okay, an emotional mess, but okay. And I have done one just once before, knowingly, that sapped me of every ounce of energy I had that day. I was done. But not this time. Time really does heal. So here's hoping this continues, that there's more emotional growth in this new step in my grief journey.
Because I got a lotta love to give.