Night time.

Each passing night this week I've laid in bed, awake, staring at the darkness around me, wishing my life was different. Wondering WHY? Why am I where I am right now? Why did she die? Why did this happen to us? Why can't I just feel NORMAL again?

Each night, it gets later and later, I'm consumed by my own thoughts, obsessing, replaying senarios, memories - good and bad and then it's nearly 4am..

I miss my life when everything made sense, I knew where my life was headed, not the particulars but I knew the direction I was headed in and now.. now I just dont know. I'm lost, my emotions go in so many different directions each day - it's hard to keep up and it's exausting.

The mixture of Celexa & Clomazapam calms me down and on the outside I probably seem okay but I still have the thoughts I did before the medication came into the picture - I just dont cry about it anymore and it shows less and less on my face. I still feel hopeless and lost but at least nobody has to listen to me cry about it. Now I'm just stuck in my head with all my thoughts.

I'm calm on the outside, but the racing thoughts in my head around enough to make me go crazy at times.

It's 2am now. My hope is that getting this out of my head will give me some relief to my anxiety and I can get a good nights sleep.

9 months

9 months has passed since I kissed your sweet face for the first and last time, held you in my arms and then had to say good-bye. 9 months has passed and not a day goes by that I dont think of you. I think of where we'd be right now, what you'd be doing, how beautiful you are, and how much it hurts that I get to experience none of it. I miss you my baby Lily, more then I've ever missed anyone in my life. Our time together is all I have, the time you spent inside of me, kicking, hiccuping and me knowing I was never alone because you were with me..

You're still with me, I know. You always will be. <3

This is my life..

Life goes on, and as it does grief becomes easier to handle but memories never fade, whether they are good or bad. But even though the grief becomes easier to deal with, it's still there - just not at the surface anymore. I can smile, when something good happens - I'm happy. I try to laugh, to love and to live. But a part of me is still so damaged I cry myself to see some nights, wishing, aching, wanting so badly to have you in my arms. Lately, my bad days are.. awful. Sometimes it feels like my bad days (weeks?) out weigh the good ones and I know it pains everyone around me to see me laying in bed all day - sad, hurt and feeling utterly hopeless. Cary tries so hard to help me, but in those dark times I want to be alone, I'd rather no one see me like that.

I havent writen here in a really long time. Life seems to be standing still in a dark cloud of anxiety, depression and low self esteem most of the time. No one wants to hear about that, but thats my life. I do still have good things in my life but I'm not working, not doing anything to better myself, over eating, over sleeping, binge drinking once again. My medication helped for a while but doesnt seem to be doing anything anymore so we upped the dose, guess we'll see what happens. Most of the time, I may seem happy enough, but if you knew how I really felt inside you'd wonder how I even got up in the morning, and honestly alot of times I dont or it's a horrible struggle.

Even though I feel like this, I want to try, to try and be happy again, my old self or something close to it. Starting monday, it's all about work, exercise, weight watchers and NO drinking.

Wish me luck and hopefully my next post wont reak of heartache.

Meds

After today, I dont think my views on medication are quite the same as I once thought. I was a firm believer in exercise, good diet, meditation, relaxing - I felt that was the only thing I needed for anxiety and panic attacks. Today, I realized none of that is going to help, not to the point that I need it too. I hate taking medication, I hate it. After today, I'll be thankful for it.

Last night, a bad mood turned into rage then to crying, panic, self-loathing, desperation for my daughter, more guilt then I ever thought I could feel, longing.. I woke up this morning in a haze, constantly on the verge of tears. I got threw school, did what I needed to & left for work. The elevator was broken so I took the stairs. I went up two flights to our office and then decided to go back down for a smoke before I started. I came down the first flight and about 1/4 way down the next and I got the horribly firmilar feeling - tight chest, hard to breath, sweating, vertigo, shaky. These are feelings I know all too well and even so it completely caught me off gaurd. I panicked & I fell. I have a nice bruise on the side of my face, my knee is fucked and my arm is all scraped up.

I never thought panic attacks and anxiety would or could effect my daily life so much, I thought I could control it. I was wrong. I swore I wouldnt take Celexa again and I still wont, but I cant live like this.

Waiting.

I havent posted here in a while. I havent had time, energy - mentally or physically or the drive to really sit down and let it all out. I've been working, going to school, taking care of things at home, trying to keep myself active (sometimes) but mostly I've been pushing every bit of grief, sadness & pain away. Far, far away. I've been trying so hard to ignore it, keep it out of my head and relish in the love and happiness I still have in my life. I still havent put Lily's stuff away, I havent stepped foot in there in probably a month, maybe more. I feel a great amount of guilt, deep down - I dont let that escape the depths of my mind very often either. It hurts too much to think, I'm the reason Lily isnt here, I did something wrong. That is what I think regardless of whether it's the truth or not. It hurts too much, so I just dont think about it anymore. I feel guilty for not going in her room, for not spending the time to put her things away, folding them neatly and putting them in a box, just as I did putting her stuff in her dresser after we'd spent months buying all of it. I feel guilty, but I dont think about it. I rarely talk about her.

I feel like I'm not healing, but I'm just pushing it all away. Keeping it all away from the surface so no one will notice, so even I dont notice how heartbroken I am.

Cary and I are closer than ever, even with our crazy schedules. He makes me happy, he makes me laugh, he makes me feel loved and wanted. He's maybe the only person in my life that truly knows how I am feeling, because even with this charade I put on, no matter how far away I push my pain. He always sees threw me. He's the only one who sees me when I break down. Which may not happen often but when it does, it's an intense wave of emotion that knocks me down and sometimes I cant get up for hours.

I fill my days with work & school, I keep myself busy and when I come home, I spend as much time with Cary as I can even if it's just laying in bed in his arms. He makes me feel safe and just when I feel myself beginning to think about my guilt, my pain - he makes my heart whole again, as whole as it'll ever be after loosing Lily. When I do break down he's there to hold me, but it's different then every other day. There's an intensity, there's strength I've never felt before, sort of like he's holding me together when I cant do it for myself.

Last week, I had my IUD put in. I dont know how I feel about this. I'm still a mother, a mother with empty arms. A mother with no child present but a mother none the less. That part of me thinks on a daily basis that I should be going to the clinic and having it removed. I want a baby. I want a family. I know Cary does too.

On the other hand, the broken hearted mother, the mother with no child present who feels an unbareable amount of guilt thinks maybe, maybe it's Lily I want. Not another baby. That part of me thinks having the IUD put in was a smart move and until I can come to terms with the loss of Lily and have the strength and love to welcome another child into the world and not long for it to be Lily, the IUD stays.

Faces

I've been having a pretty hard time lately, inside. On the outside, well lets just say I put on a pretty good charade. Things with Cary and I are on the rocks which makes things much worse for me. Besides that, I'm so upset there are barely any support groups here & nothing linking winnipeg to iamtheface.com. I want to change that. I'm nothing special and why the hell would anyone listen to me, but I need to try. I found a template on iamtheface.com for a letter to the press and I'm revamping it as we speak.

I've spent so long in the dark, crying, blogging, but never doing anything. Maybe, there are more women who are going threw the same thing here, maybe someone just down the street, maybe not but I have no idea! No idea, but if IM 1 in 4 - there has to be more of us around here.

Thank you

Thank you. Thank you to all ladies who've reached out to me in my time of need. You know how I feel and you've showed me that I will be okay. <3 When I tried to push my feelings away, you showed me it's okay to let them out. We're connected in a way most people will never understand - we share grief, pain, strength and most of all love. I can never express fully how greatful I am for what I've learned from all of you.