Day 10 of 100 Day of Grief

"God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly.  First the blow; hours afterwards, the bruise."

-Walter de la Mare

Today's prompt is about allowing for numbness.  I remember after coming home from the doctor and talking with the children I couldn't sleep.  Nick fell asleep and I went in the front room and sat in the chair.  I remember just sitting there.  Tears were streaming down my face but I felt so numb.  Just unable to understand what was going on.  That numbness continued the next day until I had to face what I had do next.  

The weeks after I alternated between numbness and falling apart.  I remember people wanting to talk about it and there were times where I felt so callous because I'd tell them my story and I was completely straight faced.  No tears.  Like I was reciting a story from someone else's life.  Then there were times when I couldn't even start thinking about it without breaking into heart wrenching sobs.  I really felt crazy.  How could I tell someone about my baby and not feel anything?  

In the book it says "Traumatic loss often results in more than what we consider 'normal' shock.  In fact, you may experience what is called 'psychic numbing' - the deadening or shutting off of emotions."  That is exactly what I felt like.  There were just no feelings.  It felt almost out of body like.  I was just moving through the motions and wasn't capable of feeling anything.  I was just a body.  

As I'm getting further away from my miscarriage I wonder if I'm numb or have been dealing with the emotions in a healthy way to where I can look at it and not lose control.  I talk about my miscarriage to my husband and friends pretty openly now and it doesn't feel like I'm drowning anymore.  I do often feel like it never happened to me though.  I often wonder did this really happen?  Did I really go through all of that?  During these times I often find myself sitting on my bed looking through my "box of Hope".  

It's confusing because there are times where I crave the numbness just to be able to get through the day but at other times I find I'm purposefully trying to find things to make me feel.  I sit with the box or I look through texts during that time.  I've also found myself finding songs that make me feel sad.  I've recently asked friends to help me find books that really make you feel and have a lot of emotion.  It's almost like I want to feel the pain as a reminder that I had Hope.  

Today's prompt is this: If you're feeling numb, cancel any commitments that require concentration and decision-making.  Allow yourself time to regroup.

I wish I had read this book earlier on in my grieving process.  I know each person grieves differently and may not find value in this book but whenever I hear people talk about friends they know that are going through a miscarriage or infant loss I always wish I could just give them a copy of this book.  It would have saved me so much heartache if I had known about and read this earlier.  

I didn't cancel my commitments.  I was trying to jump right in as soon as I could because of feeling like I had been taken care of long enough and I need to move on and stop being a burden on everyone around me.  Within the first couple weeks I was trying to meet with people to do finances.  I sat with a friend for 3 hours trying to focus on finances.  After I fell apart.  Finances are hard for me on good days and trying to sit for 3 hours and do them after a loss was overwhelming and just not the right thing for me to do at the time.  

I tried jumping into my church calling as soon as I could because I wanted to be happy and the girls brought me joy but looking back I know I shouldn't have.  I wasn't able to regulate my emotions and coming back from the activity was draining and harder than I was expecting.  

I wish someone had sat down and told me just what the prompt did.  Don't make any decisions.  Let someone else take that for you.  Don't try and concentrate on things.  It isn't going to work and it will bring frustration and anger.  But then at the same time I felt like sitting in the grief was agony too.  I wanted distractions. 

I really loved the quote today.  I'm still trying to work through my feelings about God and what has happened but I still feel like God is good and kind and merciful.  More than that I think He mourns with me and tries to help me as much as He can.  I like the thought that God created our minds to be able to handle traumatic events in small doses.  He made it so we have the numbness so we don't drown in our feelings.  He gives our minds time to process everything in small doses.  I think it's just further proof that He is merciful, kind and compassionate.