Searching for a meaning
Why can’t it just be
Or maybe I appreciate
What others can’t see
A dream attached
Warming from within
A pulse a glow
Tingling on my skin
The knowing of these pleasures
A sadness when they’re gone
The waiting for a time
When darkness turns to dawn
Searching for a meaning
Why can’t it just be
Or maybe I am grieving for
What others can’t see
Is this a time to be brave or safe? Given this choice, my brain screams safe every time. Years of hypervigilance locked down my alarm system, bypassing bravery whenever possible.
I started therapy two weeks before the world shut down, but I had been steadily shutting down long before COVID. The noise grew louder until I couldn’t hear anything else. Imagine that feeling just before you begin to cry, that involuntary quivering that says, “here it comes!” My mind lived on that edge, constant mental quivers that threatened to drown me if I let go.
The noise increased as I trained for the 2019 NYC marathon. My long runs, usually a shining exercise in focus, became a breeding ground for self-loathing—my mind, a petri dish for shame. My composure hung by a thread as I pushed myself close to collapse. On several occasions, panic forced me to stop mid-run when I began to cry and hyperventilated as I continued. My wife pleaded with me to get help. I promised that I would look into it after the marathon. I had come back from injury and trained in the pool for months when I could not run; I needed to cross that finish. After the race, I wondered if removing the physical and mental grind of training would help the quivers subside. I gave myself a few weeks off from anything more than walking. A few weeks turned into a couple of months, and no improvement.
As my energy stores depleted, I put all I had into remaining functional. Peeling myself from bed each morning required extreme convincing. I slogged through my morning routine like wading through waist-deep water. After dropping my daughter at school, I was already exhausted. When I returned to the quiet of the house, the noise grew to fill the space. Logically, I could see that I had all I needed and wanted, but I remained trapped at an arm’s length, unable to experience it. The slide continued until after the new year, when my wife reminded me of my post-marathon promise.
On March 5th, 2020, she brought me to my first appointment. “Just be honest,” she said as I left her in the waiting room. The session was daunting. How do I begin to describe something that continues to strangle me when I try to speak? Where do I begin to address something that feels as vast as it does hopeless? So, I kept it as simple as possible: “I want a break from myself. The noise in my head is deafening, and it never stops. I don’t need to feel good; I just want to feel okay. But I can’t feel okay when I am with me.” Here we began our journey as patient and therapist. And then, we entered a pandemic.
I agreed to try telehealth since in-person was not an option. COVID piled on fresh trauma before I could begin to address what brought me to therapy in the first place. My insides felt raw like someone had scoured them with steel wool, and COVID poured salt. My jaw ached from clenching in my sleep. Sometimes, I’d wake up from the pain to find blood in my mouth with my tongue caught between my teeth. I carried so much tension in my neck that I gave myself whiplash while doing my hair. The physical pain rivaled the mental until I started to unravel.
I had no intention of starting medication. I told my therapist from day one that the idea scared me. I tried once before and didn’t make it through the first week of side effects. But as I deteriorated at an unprecedented rate, the decline scared me more than the idea of medication. One afternoon during my session, I sobbed as I listed the never-ending what-ifs that crowded my mind and stole my life. My hands trembled as I said, “I think I need help. More help than therapy alone.”
I met with a psychiatric NP in mid-May. I shared honestly, telling her that I would pick up the prescription, but I could not promise to take it. One step at a time; this was all I could handle. I told my wife, “I want someone to promise me it will be worth it. That my quality of life will change for the better if I can just swallow the pill until it becomes routine.” But there were no guarantees. I had to choose for myself.
My wife acted as a coach for the first several pills. Putting the tablet in my mouth and swallowing felt like high diving, and I am terrified of heights. With each swallow, it got a little easier. By the end of week one, I was on my own, but my wife kept a journal to track my progress. I experienced mild side effects, which dissolved after ten days. When I finished the first bottle, we celebrated like I had crossed the finish line of a marathon. Thirty doses in, and I was emerging from my air pocket.
For years, fear prevented me from trying medication. I worried that I would lose myself to the side effects. I guess it took a pandemic to bring me to try again. But I like to think that I would have gotten here regardless because it is disquieting to reflect on what I’d miss without it.
This struggle is part of my story–unique to me and in no way meant to compare or pass judgment on others. However, if you find yourself at the same crossroads, confronted by fear, maybe you can benefit from my perspective. If I could go back in time, here is what I would tell myself about the benefits of medication:
You will feel okay again.
You will be more available for your family and feel present.
You will hear the birds chirp and feel pleasure.
You will smell the lavender in your garden and feel at peace.
You will notice the sun on your skin and feel content.
You will listen to your daughter talk about anything and feel thankful.
You will look into your wife’s eyes and feel hopeful.
You will make progress in therapy and feel proud.
You will start grieving for what you have lost and feel supported.
You will recover from swings of depression and anxiety and feel resilience.
Therapy is tiring. Recovery takes commitment. There is no magic pill, but medication keeps my hypervigilant alarm system from overriding my bravery most of the time. No longer at an arm’s length, I am holding on to what matters and learning to trust that hold. Today, this is right for me. Put enough today’s together, and you have a lifetime.
Since I received the bloodwork results, each day is a torturous exercise of waiting for my body to finish the job. After 12 months of trying, we finally had a second conception, only to be met by the same stigmatizing stamp – unviable. My hCG levels are rising, but at an abnormally slow rate. The doctor says another miscarriage is likely.
Keeping the news of this pregnancy within my immediate family circle has proved both a blessing and a curse. While I will not have to endure the endless retelling of another failure or dodge the pitiful glances, holding this close to the vest makes my loss feel insignificant and stifles bereavement. It’s as if I am grieving alone.
The annual 4th of July cookout offers the temptation of distraction. And I naively decide to attend. We turn onto my Aunt’s block to find cars lining both sides of her otherwise quiet neighborhood street, forcing us to park only halfway up the hill. My husband engages the emergency brake, removes the key from the engine, and turns his gaze to meet mine, sunglasses shielding his reticent concern. For a moment, we remain in the air-conditioned solace of the car, silently considering the same why. He respects my choice and follows my lead.
The car door opens to a rush of mugginess and a moment of reprieve, a drop of dopamine triggered by memories of many family BBQs in this space. Sizzles, splashes, and voices sharpen as we approach the house. I push the wooden gate, and its squeaky torque opens to reveal a setting as familiar as the back of my hand.
An inground pool surrounded by rough cement tile covers the majority of the yard. Any grassy or shady real estate fills in with beach towels and mismatched folding chairs placed by visiting uncles, aunts, and cousins. I see my parents and rush to set our chairs nearby. While my extended family is unaware that I am pregnant, I feel awkward and anxious, thereby adopting my parents as a security blanket for today’s social interactions.
Changes begin within an hour of our arrival. I am fatigued. The summer air is thick with humidity. My body feels exceedingly heavy. This visit has proved more taxing than I had hoped, and the chore of conversation begins to grate on my nerves. Could this be regret? Is it the heat? In search of an empty chair, I sense a mild cramping and an intense rush of dread. With tunnel vision, I move to the bathroom.
A smell of grilled meat and chlorine wafts through the open window as I sit on the toilet, understanding the inevitable result of these cramps. Tears slip through my thighs and disappear on the ceramic tiles below, echoing my wish to vanish. Still, there is no escape from the familiar and unwelcome wrenching of my defective reproductive organs.
Each pinch escalates in crescendo with the conversation and laughter coming from the yard, a carefree soundtrack at odds with my reality. My world is coming to an end, trapped in this 8X8 foot prison. Less than a foot of sheetrock and shingles separates my raw ugliness from the family festivities. The mental anguish radiating from within me seems powerful enough to penetrate walls and suck all available oxygen from the air, yet someone just cannonballed into the pool. Anchored to the toilet seat, I lean my upper body to the side and sandwich head to forearm on the vanity’s Formica countertop. My eyes trace the filmy patterns and frosted glass textures on the shower doors. I am miscarrying, and there is nothing I can do to change the setting.
Why did I come here today? I feel my gut twist with anger, thinking, how could I be so shortsighted? I knew that this could happen at any time in the coming days. The rush of resentment is so intense that I bite my cheek to prevent myself from screaming.
Contractions continue, and my head spins with the impossible task of reconciling the present with the unknown. What if this miscarriage is different from the last? Will the pain be worse? Could I pass out? How long until this is over? While I know the heartbeat has ceased, I bargain with my body, clench my Kegels, and will my cervix closed to contain the remains until I am home. These efforts in vain, my awareness moves to the slippery release from my vaginal opening, a tiny sack that looks like a large, opaque clot.
And just like that, I am no longer carrying my child.
Instead, I am thrust further into a black hole where opposite forces compete to tear me apart. Assaults of intimacy and exposure, love and loathing, pain and numbness overwhelm my nervous system. While the physical pressure relents, emotional pain continues to crush me. Dead inside, my heart goes on beating. It could stop right now; I am not afraid to die. Either there is a Heaven where my angels wait, or there is nothing, and I will not know the difference. Undoubtedly, Hell is here and now, on Earth, and I want out.
Upon standing, there is a surge of panic that comes with realizing that my baby is in the toilet. Privacy buffered my first miscarriage. I stayed in bed until the cramps insisted I move to the bathroom, where I hovered over my toilet, and the embryo fell into my hands.
I missed the catch this time. I can’t flush!
Having lost all track of time, I am not sure how long I have been in here. There are only two bathrooms. Surely, there’s a line of people just outside the door. Still, I refuse to consider flushing my baby like a dead goldfish. Peering out the window, I search the yard for a lifeline. My mom is sitting within earshot. I call to her, mustering composure and courage while convincing myself that for all anyone knows, I need a tampon.
She arrives with a knock, and I open the door just enough to allow her to slide sideways into my Hell. With the door closed, she surveys the scene. There is a potent mix of urgency and fear behind her eyes. “I just lost the baby!” I sob. Eager to stop my ache and in search of a salve, she asks, “What can I do?” I explain that I did not catch it this time; the embryo is in the toilet.
Without hesitation, my mom plunges her bare hand into the toilet. She is in rescue mode. She scoops out the sac and cradles it in her hand. “Is this it?” she asks with innocent desperation. She doesn’t know what to expect, having never miscarried. Still, I can’t help but worry if she is thinking, “This is it.” – a slight twist on the words with an unsettling consequence born in my paranoid fear that she is judging me for being attached to a glob. “Yes,” I quiver and lean on the sink, identifying the amorphous mass as my unborn child. I feel weak and useless as she wraps what should have been my baby in a cotton quilt of toilet paper.
My mother sees my exposure and blankets me with fierce protection. She receives my vulnerability with unconditional love and preserves my dignity. Her clarity affords a continuance, the chance of goodbye away from here, in a safer space. All I want is to fold into my mother like the embryo folded in the tissue she holds in her hands.
We spend the next minutes making a plan for how I will transition back to the outside world. I imagine scenarios over platters of burgers and macaroni salad. “Hey, Dawn. It’s so good to see you. What’s new?” I reply, “All is well, besides the fact that I had a miscarriage about five minutes ago in Auntie Linda’s bathroom. Would you please pass the mustard?”
Inner tantrums continue to erupt, and I force them into hiding, like an inhumane game of whack-a-mole. Despite my burning wish to be invisible, the mirror tells me otherwise. I splash cold water on my blotchy, swollen face to regain composure. Eventually, my longing to make an inconspicuous exit wins out over my tantrums, and I wonder, how has this bathroom gone from prison to sanctuary?
My mom leaves first and takes the toilet paper cradle with her when she goes. Shutting the door, I push the lock button and realize that I will fall apart again if I linger too long. I blow my nose, stuff some tissues into my pocket, and take one last look in the mirror, whispering to myself, “It is what it is now. You are as composed as you are going to get.” After a few deep breaths, I reach for the worn brass knob, and the lock disengages with a jarring pop, as loud as a starting gun, that signals my exit. I cross the threshold to the hallway with a nod to the tectonic shift that has occurred within me: physical, mental, and emotional terrains reshaped.
The creak of the screen door seems louder now, heralding my reentry to the yard. Scanning for my husband, I try to look confident despite a weighted cloak of shame. I approach with one last hard swallow and prepare my brief. “It just happened,” I tell him. No other words are needed. No other words are possible. Mentally and physically posturing for control over the threatening quivers, I assert, “Let me be for a while.”
As we prepare to leave, my mom signals to her purse in reply to the question behind my eyes. My heart, torn from my body, now rests in the faux leather bag sitting on her lap. The juxtaposition of that toilet paper cradle set atop her make-up and wallet seems ludicrous yet somehow comforting. Steadfast in her role as my shield, she will bring the remains home. Together, we will bury my second baby with the first.
Any other day a goodbye would be just that, punctuation at the end of a visit with a hug and some pleasant talk of next time. Today, the process of leaving muddles with the recognition that this place will never be the same for me. The reel of fond childhood memories flickers in my head while I gather my belongings: a red split level home, the musty smell of the wood-paneled basement, countless sleepovers, my cousins’ staple diet of cheese and mustard sandwiches, festive family get-togethers where all that mattered in the world was endless play and popsicles. It was here that I found my courage to swim in the deep end and jump from a diving board for the first time.
These memories slip between my hands with the latch on the gate as I exit the yard, estranged by trauma.
I expect sadness. I accept sadness. I embrace sadness. I want to let go of The Other.
In therapy and writing my memoir, I dive into the cold, dark, and choppy waters of disenfranchised grief. A vast ocean where the ugliest swells rise from a potent mix of emotions other than sadness: Anger. Resentment. Self-loathing. Betrayal.
The Other is unpredictable, yet it has been with me for decades. I hate it, yet I can’t let it go. It is behind me, yet I can’t close the door.
The Other approaches with a heady sting.
I find the air pocket.
So many years spent plugging holes,
that’s not why I am here.
I am here to swim in it,
soak in it,
feel it from head to toe,
face the fear.
I have support.
Fully submerged, I trust I can recover.
It hurts.
Part of my intention for this blog is to invite readers to follow the progress of my memoir. The following is an excerpt from my rough draft. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read a piece of my story.
Two pink lines. Naturally, I am excited to share the news with my one and only mom friend. I want to hear all about what it feels like to be pregnant, and she is thrilled to share. Her joy is palpable. After dinner, Jen and I move to the couch to continue our conversation. I feel a tiny cramp. I have been so hyperattentive to my body that I am convinced that this is just gas, and I ignore the physical sensation. A few minutes later, I feel it again, like a pulse, a sharp but faint sensation that I am unwilling to label as pain. It is likely my bladder, I decide, and I excuse myself to the bathroom.
What is that on the toilet paper? I tell myself that it must be a fiber pressed into the tissue while simultaneously feeling an ominous wash. I bring the soiled toilet paper closer to my face and examine the speck. It is minuscule, but the contrast of the brownish-red to the white beckons my fear. I gather and flatten a new sheet of toilet paper and dab my vaginal opening. The tissue is clean, no speck of worry. My concern moves to the depths of my consciousness with a hard swallow.
The fear follows me to the couch, where I intend to ignore its company. Unfortunately, my mind is not on board with this plan, especially given the real experience of my friend who sits beside me, ready to share, as good friends do, in whatever way I need.
Jen’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. I am not exactly sure how far along she was at the time, but I remember her sadness. My schema was limited. I did not understand the trauma of pregnancy loss. It seemed more medical than psychological in my naïve and unfortunate perspective. Hence, the intense loneliness understood by many women who live through this experience.
Tonight was supposed to be filled with conversation that connected us through the expected joy of a 9-month journey. Now, I begin to contemplate the possibility that we may become connected by the unexpected trauma of miscarriage. Still, I can’t come out with it, the words will make it real, and I want to believe that this worry is another side effect of my neurotic personality or obsessive thinking. Instead, I gently sprinkle a question or two in hopes of easing my elevated stress level. “When did you first think that there might be something up with your first pregnancy?” I ask with my heart in my throat. It’s a risky move, letting my anxiety lead this train to another station. Jen raises her eyes to meet mine, but I realize she won’t ask me why. She is compassionate and open, a true friend who knows when a question needs a simple, direct answer without follow up. She is letting me know that she is there to support me without pressure. “I felt some strange cramping sensations, and then there was a little spotting.”
A squeeze in my heart follows with a pulse that radiates from my chest and into my arms. I am sitting solidly on the same couch, yet it feels like a roller coaster drop. I contain my reaction and try to maintain a calm exterior. Anything else will open the flood gates and sweep my thoughts into negative swirls. Worry is familiar. My mind has been overwhelmed with fear since childhood. I categorize this fixation as an irrational, compulsive thought pattern. It was a fiber; there was no spotting on the second wipe. You are fine.
Bathrooms are for torture. In these tiny spaces, often the smallest room in a home, I have lost my sense of self. Showers are for sobbing, ugly sobs that shake my body while the steam attempts to unblock my swollen sinuses. Medicine cabinets are for pills, vials, tests, and chemicals to assist my failing body. Red plastic sharps containers live next to a wastebasket filled with negative tests and discarded tampons. Mirrors reflect my naked body, perfectly intact and unremarkable on the outside, vacant and inconceivable on the inside. Toilets are for urinating onto sticks and catching my unborn. Bathrooms are pressure-filled spaces tiled in clots, fluids, blood, tissue, and confusion.
This is the day that infertility transformed the bathroom, the day I became an unprepared and unwilling character, attached to this forced revision of my reproductive story.
The next morning, I wake to immediate dread. What will I see when I wipe? I want to relieve myself of this negative swirl, and the only way to do that is to confirm with a clean toilet paper wipe. Urinate, dab, and check. There it is again. I can no longer call it a fiber. This morning it is most definitely a spot.
I am peri-menopausal. For most, this seals the reproductive door; only my door was boarded up long ago, marked uninhabitable.
Despite my infertility, I have always had a consistent, predictable menstrual cycle—another reason behind the shock of it all. I have come to consider my period a cruel reminder. Why should I have to suffer through the physical and mental cycles when I never got to reap the benefits?
My body continues in an unremarkable nature to herald the change, as I will soon turn 45. My periods are changing, and my hormones are in flux. It is like puberty all over again, as expected. However, the approach of menopause brings one surprising side effect: a return of my pregnancy dreams.
I am nine months pregnant, due any day now, but I look down to find no visible pregnancy signs. No skin stretched tight around an extended middle. No swollen breasts, preparing to nourish. No movement from within to remind me of a human life umbilically connected. Pleasure and panic meld into a singular emotion while I try to convince myself that everything is just fine. Suddenly, I am in my bed, gripping sweaty sheets as I wake to the vacancy in my uterus. Struck by an urgency to hold onto hope, I transition from dream to reality. My arms move through the nothingness and collapse to my chest. Much like trying to hug a gust of wind, hope disappears. I wring myself tightly, attempting to maintain the presence in my core and will myself back into the dream where, despite the confusion, there is assurance and comfort in my denial. I don’t want to be awake, present in a life where I cannot deny my emptiness.
This recurring dream-wake cycle began in the weeks following my first miscarriage. It continued for six-and-a-half years until I adopted my daughter. In my sleep, I relived the losses countless times. Some dreams replayed the tragedies of my two miscarriages. Other more insidious dreams teased me with storylines where I was healthy and pregnant, at full term, or even caring for my newborn child. These were the dreams that threatened to swallow my will to live. The dreams that made me never want to wake or coaxed me back to sleep in hopes of returning to that alternate reality.
The substance of my current pregnancy dreams is similar. Only this time, the ache has shifted. Today, I am a parent. I am grateful for my incredible daughter. What I have come to understand is that these are separate, parenting, and giving birth. I can do one without the other. I can be awestruck and thankful while feeling dumbstruck and bitter. I can be overjoyed when my daughter calls me “Mama” and overwhelmed when I realize that I will die without giving birth.
It has taken me 44 years to stare this diagnosis square in the face. Not by choice. Not because I thought I might still get pregnant, but because I never processed the grief.
Female infertility, unspecified. I will die without giving birth. Menopause is a billboard on a long, desolate road.
Now entering: Time’s Up, Period.
Population: Irrelevant— you will always feel alone.
My grief is complicated, fed by years of shame. While I grieve two miscarriages, I also grieve for a piece of myself. Pregnancy and motherhood were central to my identity and my life. I never had questions about whether or not I would give birth, but certainty in the essence of my female body. As a child, I sat with my aunt as she breastfed her baby. I mimicked her actions, cradling my Cabbage Patch Doll to my undeveloped chest, and imagined the inevitability of my own milk swollen breasts. I was robbed—the Cabbage Patch doll ripped from my girlish chest. Who gets charged with this aggressive invasion of my womb?
And so, became my life, in contrast, post-miscarriage and living with unexplained infertility, fractured by a deep sense of self-loathing and an intense longing to embrace myself and say, “It is not your fault. You still matter.”
I haven’t yet forgiven my body for this betrayal. But I am finally receiving treatment. Today, I am in therapy and have consistent access to proper mental health care. While I still have ups and downs, progress means gentle undulations instead of steep climbs and slides. As feelings surface, I am better equipped to process the experience. And when I am overwhelmed, I have resources.
Miscarriage and infertility affect everyone differently, but there is ample evidence to validate the inextricable link between mental and physical health. Comprehensive treatment should prioritize a timely, whole-person approach. Anything less is negligent.
To those facing pregnancy loss and infertility: you are not alone. Keep breathing.
To those supporting friends and family experiencing pregnancy loss and infertility: no two people will need the same support, but all will need to feel supported. Keep showing up.
To those treating patients experiencing pregnancy loss and infertility: how are you treating the whole person? Keep improving.
Mental quivers magnify
the nothingness
empty-handed I enter
over and over
spaces filled with action conversation intention
but I am a ghost
floating through life
of hollow purpose
my paltry presence stirs shame
reinforcing my desire to remain unseen
except
wisdom espies some place inside
where I keep showing up
crossing that threshold
a weary but resolute warrior
An old journal entry inspired this poetry. Infertility is a constant battle between the will to give up and the will to go on, in every sense. Mental health matters. I came into this experience with a history of anxiety and OCD that followed me from childhood. Still, I have come to learn that even healthy women who experience miscarriage or infertility are at significant risk for developing mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. One study found that 25% of women satisfied the criteria for PTSD in the months immediately following early pregnancy loss. Left untreated, such conditions negatively impact overall health and quality of life. Another alarming correlation: anxiety and depression may decrease the effectiveness of assistive reproductive technology. Given research highlighting the link in both directions, mental health should be an absolute priority in ongoing and aftercare. In sharing my story, I hope to campaign for others.
I was seven years old when first charged with the responsibility of protecting my family from impending doom. My petite frame bore the continual weight of preventing our three-bedroom cape from burning to the ground. Crouched on the floor, nightly, I stretched my torso to reach my hands toward the electric baseboard heaters, moving under, behind, and between furniture, scraping at the rug to gather lint and any other particulate that would surely ignite into flames while we slept, if not removed.
I carefully scanned for tiny, troublesome specs with my body in a twisted child’s pose and face pressed against the carpet’s short pile fibers. Then, making my way through the house, I followed the perimeter of each room to inspect other baseboard heaters for possible danger. More than a bedtime routine, this was my duty to keep us safe. At times, I’d forget to check the heaters. Upon realization, and I always realized my mistake at some point in the night, I would shoot from bed in a panic. My heart beat so hard and fast that the cotton nightgown bounced on my chest. With a surge of fear, I launched myself downstairs through a haze of frustrated exhaustion to check the perimeter of any accessible room.
This was not my first obsessive thought or compulsion. Although, I cannot recall precisely when the safety latch disengaged, flooding my amygdala with alarm. What I remember is a desperate struggle to cope with uncertainty. From my perspective, the world was unsafe, and my family was at risk. I experienced life on overdrive in a constant state of fight or flight. As a result, I did what I could to fix the outcomes and maintain a sense of control.
My parents and siblings watched me engage in such routines, and while I didn’t try to hide my actions, I felt the absence of their reactions. I understood my behavior as necessary; they perceived it as voluntary. I felt hostage to the urge; they thought I would grow out of it. I could not ask for help; they didn’t know I needed it.
Always a fearful child, I was scared of sirens, my nana’s junky car, strangers, raccoons, and needles. This ever-growing list still appeared within developmental norms. At some point, the pitch of my anxiety changed, laced with heightened intensity and frequency. I worried that the tub would overflow, and the water would reach the ceiling causing me to drown. My bed was no longer a place of rest. Each night, I battled incessant morbid thoughts of being buried alive and suffocating in a coffin.
Shame prevented me from sharing my thoughts. Instead, I reported these to my parents as stomach aches. With a kiss on the forehead, I was promptly sent back to bed, where I waited for sleep to rescue me from my overactive mind.
The earliest ritual stemmed from a prevailing ominous feeling. My mind convinced me that something terrible would happen if I don’t do this. To which I refused to get out of the tub without dipping my bottom successively, three taps, into the water. At the time, my mom saw this as peculiar but not worth denying, so this ritual met my compulsive needs without interference.
In my climb through adolescence, the if-then contingency grew specific to suggest, someone I love might be hurt, sickened, or die if I don’t do this. And a new ritual emerged to manage this worry. Every time I tore paper towels or toilet paper from a perforated edge, the corners had to be perfectly square. If the corners did not meet this criterion, I would continue to tear pieces until I met the self-prescribed measure. Occasionally, I was relieved when it happened on the first or second try. Other times, I frantically tore through an entire roll of toilet paper for this cause.
Over time, I became increasingly overwhelmed, trapped by my private, rule-bound grasp for control. While I recognized these routines as irrational, I continued to feel a tremendous burden and responsibility to follow through.
As an adult, I sought therapy and developed coping techniques that allowed me to reduce the multitude of rituals. Finally, only a solo act remained–a prayer-based ritual.
Growing up as practicing Catholics, we attended church every Sunday, a dreaded chore. Still, I found some comfort in considering messages of love and protection. From here, I developed my longest ongoing compulsion in a self-authored prayer. It protected anyone I named. I used it prolifically to assert control whenever separated from a loved one, even on short trips to the grocery store. In these words, I called upon God and St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel. To this day, I won’t wholly reveal this routine, as I still use it at times, and exposure may revoke its power to diminish my anxiety.
Despite therapy and success with reducing compulsive behavior, my obsessive thoughts and anxiety were not budging. I had spent my entire life worrying about what might happen. My mind, a perpetual choose your adventure novel, only I always had to opt for the lesser of two evils.
Given my propensity for drafting the worst-case scenario, it is shocking that I never considered myself at risk of pregnancy loss or infertility. Somehow, my original reproductive story remained intact. The certainty of growing a life inside of me, untouched by “what ifs.” Actuality disoriented me such that I could not trust anyone or anything, least myself.
There were no real conversations about this trauma’s depth, no mental health counselor on my medical team. Just bereavement stunted by a recurring theme often prefaced with two words that I have come to despise: AT LEAST. “At least it was early in your first trimester. At least you know you can get pregnant. At least you have good health insurance. At least you didn’t need a D & C. At least you’re still young.” Comparison has no place in the grieving process.
Left with that one ritual, I clung to God in prayer, my earlier journal entries fraught with pleas to heaven. But no ritual is powerful enough to bear the weight of the layered losses of miscarriage and infertility. Eventually, I found that no amount of repetition would protect me from the darkness, isolation, and echoes in the resulting chasm.
I could not ask for help; they didn’t know I needed it.
I spent my entire life worrying about what might happen, using thoughts and rituals as a form of protection and control. If I worry about it, I can prevent it from happening.
All the while, I neglected to worry about the consequence that would be most profound in carving my world’s internal and external landscapes. A landscape that I am still learning to navigate, even after adopting my daughter.
Trapped in an Air Pocket 