Mommy guilt

Mommy guilt:
The feelings of guilt, and/or despair, when a Mommy realizes she is not perfect.

I have Mommy guilt sometimes.
When it seems I can say nothing but "no" to my son.
When I give my son food I know he shouldn't have.
When I turn on the tv because I need to hear actual words instead of just baby chatter.
When I realize that another week has gone by without me reading anything to my son...
Right now, because I'm writing  instead of sleeping and I'll probably be grumpy tomorrow.

Now I'm feeling a different kind of guilt, too. History guilt.
I am standing in the midst of history. History is currently happening and more history is coming. Big things are coming - I feel it in my bones, I smell it in the wind, I read it in the news, I see it in the clouds.
I spend most of my days surviving - barely squeaking by with most of my marbles - and cannot think beyond the walls of my home. I owe people thank you notes, I owe phone calls, I owe visits with friends. I have piles of dirty laundry and dirty dishes, I have piles of  projects with varying degrees of necessity.
History is happening, change is coming.
I like being part of change. I love challenging the way things have always been done. I like having a tiny part in something big.
History is happening, change is coming and I won't be part of it.
I know that history will not remember me. I am not of interest to history. I do nothing single-handedly and I am not a leader. I would simply like to look back on my life when I am old - look back over the course of recent history - and say, "I was part of that change. I helped fight that fight. I helped lay the foundation for that beacon of hope."
Part of me wonders if I am raising a leader. Maybe my place in history is to raise a revolutionary.

If I could just get rid of the Mommy guilt...

PTSD

The symptoms of PTSD can arise suddenly, gradually, or come and go over time. Sometimes symptoms appear seemingly out of the blue. At other times, they are triggered by something that reminds you of the original traumatic event, such as a noise, an image, certain words, or a smell.

While everyone experiences PTSD differently, there are three main types of symptoms:

1. Re-experiencing the traumatic event
2. Avoiding reminders of the trauma
3. Increased anxiety and emotional arousal

Re-experiencing the traumatic event:

Intrusive, upsetting memories of the event
Flashbacks (acting or feeling like the event is happening again) - for minutes or even days at a time
Nightmares (either of the event or of other frightening things)
Feelings of intense distress when reminded of the trauma
Intense physical reactions to reminders of the event (e.g. pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, muscle tension, sweating)

Avoidance and numbing:

Avoiding activities, places, thoughts, or feelings that remind you of the trauma
Inability to remember important aspects of the trauma [and memory issues in general]
Loss of interest in activities and life in general
Feeling detached from others
Experiencing difficulties having positive feelings, such as happiness or love.
Sense of a limited future (you don’t expect to live a normal life span, get married, have a career)

Increased anxiety and emotional arousal:

Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Irritability or outbursts of anger
Difficulty concentrating
Hypervigilance (on constant "red alert")
Feeling jumpy and easily startled
Self-destructive behavior
Hearing or seeing things that aren't there

Other common symptoms:

Anger and irritability
Guilt, shame, or self-blame
Substance abuse
Feelings of mistrust and betrayal
Depression and hopelessness
Suicidal thoughts and feelings
Feeling alienated and alone
Physical aches and pains

Mostly from: http://m.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd

People with PTSD have intrusive re-experiences of traumatic events which lack awareness of context and time. These episodes aggravate and maintain PTSD symptoms since the individual re-experiences trauma as if it was happening in the present moment.

Predictor models have consistently found that childhood trauma, chronic adversity, and familial stressors increase risk for PTSD as well as risk for biological markers of risk for PTSD after a traumatic event in adulthood. Peritraumatic dissociation in children is a predictive indicator of the development of PTSD later in life. This effect of childhood trauma, which is not well understood, may be a marker for both traumatic experiences and attachment problems. Proximity to, duration of, and severity of the trauma also make an impact, and interpersonal traumas cause more problems than impersonal ones.

Quasi-experimental studies have demonstrated a relationship between intrusive thoughts and intentional control responses such that suppression increases the frequency of unwanted intrusive thoughts. These results suggest that suppression of intrusive thoughts may be important in the development and maintenance of PTSD.

From: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder

I think the only symptom I haven't had at some point in my life is substance abuse - which is somewhat shocking.

Comparison

Comparing me to the person who destroyed me is cruel.

Comparing me to the person who destroyed me and saying I am the lesser of the two...

Would you like your knife back? Or would you like to twist it a few times first?

Ah, yes, you always choose the twisting.

What I want for my son

I want my son to be strong and brave. I want him to be capable of playing peacefully with girls. I want him to fall in love with God and know His peace. I want him to discover his passion. I want him to be respectful. I want him to take risks. I want him to be gentle. I want him to be goofy. I want him to think for himself. I want him to do stupid things because the fun will be worth the consequences. I want him to be passionate. I want him to be responsible. I want him to feel safe. I want him to laugh through it all. I want him to appreciate order and chaos because life is full of both. I want him to love music. I want him to love learning. I want him to be physical. I want him to be memorable. I want him to be playful. I want him to appreciate beauty. I want him to work with his hands. I want him to be helpful. I want him to be self-sufficient. I want him to yearn.

But most of all, right now, I want him to sleep.

Birth

Some friends of mine are expecting their first child and I just heard that their child should be born sometime today. This news makes me cry happy tears! Then I think about the birth of my own child and the tears stop.

I know I was pretty much terrified of becoming a mother. I know I wasn't thrilled since I never wanted to have kids. I know I was worried about how my relationship with my husband was going to change. I know there is more to my lack of emotion.

I built up emotional walls during my pregnancy. I started shutting down emotionally while preparing to give birth. I did both to save myself and my child.

I shut down so much that I didn't write, didn't think, didn't process. It wasn't safe. And I needed to keep us safe most of all.

One day, the baby in my belly kicked so hard and wore me out so fast that I just wanted him to stop. I didn't want him inside me anymore. I didn't want him inside me in the first place! He was an unwelcome intruder.
And then it started - the connections between an unwanted pregnancy and the abuse I have survived.

The abuse and the baby were both unwanted and unwelcome. Both took over my body and used it against me. Both made me feel terrified. Both stripped me of control. Both changed my relationships with other people. Both made the world around me change. It was too much! I wanted out. I wanted the cowards way out... I started figuring which was the sharpest blade in the house. They say that if the blade is sharp enough, it doesn't hurt at first. I even decided that where I bled out didn't really matter, as long as it wasn't on furniture, because my husband wouldn't stay here long enough for the mess to matter.

My husband...
It took an internal debate - a short one, but still a debate - to decide that I couldn't put my husband through that. To take his wife and child in one fell swoop... it would break him. I couldn't stand the thought of causing him so much pain. So I started shutting down and building walls.

I didn't write about it, I didn't tell anyone and I tried to unthink the whole thing. I was simply trying to survive. I still am, to some extent.

The physical healing process has not been easy. There has been a lot of pain and discomfort and unpleasantness in a part of my body that is very sensitive. Very sensitive physically and connected to a whole mess of emotional baggage. I am slowly begining to feel human. I am starting to think that my body might heal completely someday.

If only the rest of me could heal completely.

I know there was joy when my son was born - I couldn't stop smiling when I was holding him for the first time - but I didn't feel it. To me, the whole birthing process was little more than a medical procedure.

I never got mad and yelled at my husband. I never did the "touch me, don't touch me" thing. I know that not every woman goes through that but... I was calmer than the medical staff. My husband was the most emotional person in the room and the medical staff fawned over our son more than I did. I feel like I have deprived my son the specialness of his own birth.

I have to move forward. I cannot stay in the past and wish things had been better. Things are better! Right now, in this moment, I am in this moment with my son. I am present. I am tearing down the walls and becoming emotionally available.
Things are better.
Things are getting better.
While "better" doesn't always mean happy, it does mean healthy.
Things may not get happier but they will get (and are getting) healthier.
All is well.

The veil of death

I am afraid of losing my child. Our child.
I am afraid I will wake up one day with a corpse beside me.
Every day I am afraid our child will die while in my care.
Every time our child stops crying, I have to check to make sure he's still breathing.
It is almost an expectation, an inevitability, that our child will not survive to adulthood.

He has no known health problems. He is very well natured. He has even been attractive since the moment he was born. There is nothing that agrees with what I feel in my heart to be true.

When I check on him and see no obvious signs of life I get heartsick, fearing - almost knowing- the worst. I look first to see if he has turned blue and if I don't see him breathing soon enough, I'll check to see if he's cold.

What mother lives like this? What mother sees her child as a living corpse?

I do.
I know I don't deserve a child. I know I'm not promised "normal" and "happy". I know life is full of heart break and tragedy. I know my life. I know pain. I know pain intimately. I have survived pain I wish had killed me. More than once I have given up on living. What right do I have to create and nurture another living being when I'm still not convinced that my being alive is a good thing?

So many pieces of me have died... how can I give birth to anything but death? And so I live - as if I have given birth to death.

I do not worry about our child when he is in the care of others. Sometimes I won't let him get very far away from me when other people are holding him but it's not because I'm anxious. It's almost as if I want to experience him without the veil of death I see when he's in my arms.

I know mothers worry about their children - especially new mothers - but, from what I understand, they worry about the unkown. Most mothers worry about what injury or discomfort might befall their child... I know what will befall my child - death! It's not a question of what might happen, it's simply a question of when. Is today the day my child dies?

I feel almost as if my genes are poison. The only reason our child has survived this long is because my husband's genes diluted mine.

I hope to someday not live with this certainty of death. I hope it mostly for the well-being of our child.

I miss my husband

I miss my husband. He is sleeping only a room away but I cannot go to him. We have a newborn who has had a long, fussy day and will not sleep without me. My husband has to go to work far too early in the morning and I don't want the baby to disturb his sleep.

My husband and I have barely touched, barely spoken all day. I have spent most of the day feeding and comforting our child. My husband spent much of the day doing "my" chores. He is a grown man who can take care of himself completely but I don't like it when he has to - it is my job to take care of him.

I miss my husband's touch. I miss sleeping together in our bed. I miss being able to touch him whenever I want. I miss cuddling. I miss having the same schedule.

Tonight I broke down after watching my husband go to bed without me - it was too much. Once he turned off the bedroom light all I could think about was how much I ached to be with him. How much I want to sleep in our bed instead of on the living room furniture. How much I miss the cute little scratching on my back when he turns toward me while he's just barely awake. How much I miss the quiet safety of our bedtime chats in the dark. How much I miss feeling connected to him.

I miss my husband.
I feel alone.