How to proceed forward

The last week or two has been very challenging. Over a month ago, I sat down and wrote a letter to my parents telling them how I had been feeling and how I would like for things to change. To sum it up, they replied telling me I was oversensitive and then turned everything else around on me, name calling included.

Since last week my mom has been calling me, texting me, emailing me all in an attempt to get me to go back to the way things were. She has been very disrespectful of me and my family, written judgmental things about me on Facebook for everyone to see, shown up at my house unannounced and even stooped so far as dragging my son's soccer coach into this mess by asking him to email her information about the soccer games!

After receiving an email from her today, again placing blame on me and then ending with "but I love you", I am sitting here trying to figure out where to go from here.

The bible verse for this weeks No Regrets Challenge at church is:

Proverbs 3:5-10

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don't try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he's the one who will keep you on track.

Don't assume that you know it all.
Run to God! Run from evil!
Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!

Honor God with everything you own;
give him the first and the bets.
Your barns will burst,
your wine vats will brim over.

Just when I was sitting here thinking, "What am I going to do? How to I proceed from here?" My mind went to this weeks Bible verse. I need to seek Him in how to proceed. I need to keep myself focused on Him at all times and even though this is a big huge mess right now, I know that He will bring me through as long as I let him have control.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our lives, trying to figure everything out on our own that we forget to stop and seek his guidance and let him lead us at all times.

Facing My Giants - - Part 2 - - So there is a name for it

I mentioned in Part 1 that I always thought my mother was bipolar. She’s never been diagnosed with any mental disorders formally but I always knew there was something wrong. In the last few years I have become friends with an amazing group of women online. It is amazing the bond you can have with women you have never met in real life and how you can relate to each other and help each other through all areas of life. During the last few months I have had some difficulty dealing with my parents, obviously, and when I vented to these women one particular woman came forward with a link for me to read. I opened the page and kind of glanced at it but didn’t take the time to read it right away.

Another week or so had gone by and things were getting more difficult with my mom and I just had this gnawing feeling that I needed to go look at that link, I needed to sit down and really read it. So I did and I finally not only found a name for what my mom has but I was given the answers to what has been happening to me all my life.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder - - this is what has been abusing me for the past 32 years. I am a daughter of a mother with narcissistic personality disorder. Wow, there it is. It’s been a month since I read that link and I am still on an emotional roller coaster over this new finding.

One of the pages describes the characteristics of narcissistic mothers and it was like someone had been watching my life and taking notes. It was so surreal and even now it is surreal to me. All these years I had thought there was something wrong and to finally have a name for it was uplifting yet discouraging at the same time.

This is the page describing the characteristics of narcissistic mothers. I would love to list them here but this website goes into great detail and I don’t believe I am allowed to just copy and paste it here, so I will link it.

http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers.html


NPD doesn’t just affect the person with the disorder, it affects the whole family. In my family’s case my father is an enabler, as are most husbands with wives with NPD. He enables my mother and feeds into her NPD. In the last few years I have found that not only does he enable her but he has become more and more like her to the point that I don’t even recognize him anymore. To the point that you can almost see the joy on his face when he is using his words to abuse me. Then there is the aspect of the children (me and my brother). As in a classic case of NPD, my brother is the “golden child”, in this case no matter what he does wrong (because let’s face it, he’s pretty screwed up) he is never actually wrong and I am the “scapegoat”, no matter what I do, I am wrong, and no matter what happens, it is my fault.

As some of you read, you may think “Great, you have a name for what is going on. Now your family can get help.” Unfortunately, it is not as easy as that. There is no medication to help with this disorder like there is if she were bipolar, so the only hope would be counseling. However, people with NPD almost never admit they have a problem therefore they will never seek help. Since I am the scapegoat, if I ever confronted her with this my mother would say that I am the one with the problem, if only I would do things her way everything would be fine. As my father so nicely put it in a letter to me recently, I am just oversensitive.

What I have learned over the last month is that there are 3 options when it comes to NPD. The first is to continue on with the way things are and continue to be abused, the second is to limit the contact and the third is to stop all contact.

I’ve definitely spent a lot of time going back and forth between wanting limited contact and no contact. The main reason is my kids. My oldest son loves my parents dearly and I hate to take them away from him. However, I also don’t want my children to see their mother abused because I don’t feel that is healthy for them either. I kept thinking maybe there was some way to limit contact but still give my kids their grandparents. So in a futile attempt to try to mend and change things with my parents, I recently sent an email to my dad explaining how I was feeling and how I would like things to change. I knew that writing my feelings down was the only way I would have any hope of them actually hearing what I was saying.

Unfortunately, but as expected, the letter was not well received. They took the letter and tore it to shreds with their words. They turned everything around on me, blamed me for everything, came up with some pretty delusional scenarios, and never once acknowledged my feelings. The intent of their reply was to squash my feelings, make me feel inadequate, put me back in “my place” and have our relationship continue the way it has always been. That was the point that I decided no contact was the path I would like to pursue right now.

As I have learned this week, no contact is not quite as easy as it sounds. My parents are resisting my new stance. They have absolutely no respect for me or my family and, at this point, I am unsure how this will all play out. The anxiety over all of this is affecting me physically and that really worries me and makes me mad at the same time. I’m mad that their lack of respect and their need to abuse me is affecting me to the point of physical illness. I have children that I truly love and I want to be around for them and I know that this anxiety and my symptoms of anxiety are not good for my health at all. I just pray that this anxiety will lift soon.

The title to Casting Crowns’ song “I will praise you in this storm” keeps coming to my mind lately. Today while I was writing the 1st part of my blog entries I put some praise and worship music on and just praised the Lord because I can only get through this with God by my side. I am also thankful to the people God has placed in my life to help get me through this.



This is also another great song by Casting Crowns.

Facing My Giants- - Part 1 - - Realizing I need to break free

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - - His good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2 (NIV)

This past Sunday at church, our pastor started a new series called “No Regrets”. His first sermon was on facing your giants. We all have giants in our lives at some point that hold us back from God’s will. As I sat there in church there was something weighing heavily on my mind as it had been for the last month or so. I knew that God was speaking to me through this sermon and that there is a giant in my life that has been holding me back for a long time.

Unfortunately, the giant is my life is my family. It has come to a point in my life where I can no longer conform to their idea of me and I need to step away. I need to heal emotionally and mentally from years of emotional and mental abuse and move forward, move towards God’s will for my life. I’m not even sure where I want to start but I need to start somewhere, which is where this blog comes into play. Hopefully I don’t go around in circles too many times.

Growing up I always felt “different”. I could never put my finger on it but I always felt like the black sheep of the family. In the English language, black sheep is a term used to describe someone who is odd or disreputable from the norm. Now for those of you who know me, you know that I don’t fit into that stereotypical “black sheep” definition, quite the opposite really, yet that is how I have always felt in my family. I always had a hard time understanding why I felt that way until recently.

On the outside looking in, we looked like a normal average middle class American family but being on the inside was such a different story. I really wish I would have journaled through those years growing up because so many of my memories have been blocked or forgotten so I didn’t have to deal with the realty of my family life.

Most of my life has been spent walking on eggshells around my mother. What was I going to do or say that would make her mad and set off her vengeance against me? For years I thought she was bipolar because of the way her mood could change from good to bad at the drop of a pin. You never knew what was going to set her off because she went off on things that most rational sane people wouldn’t. I can’t even recall examples of what set her off from my childhood, I just remember the rage. I do remember recent incidents in the last few years where she got into a fit of rage over throwing away spoiled ham from her refrigerator or because everyone finished dinner before her and we didn’t sit around the table waiting for her to finish before getting up.

It is kind of like that old game Minesweeper. No matter how careful you are, you think you are making all the right moves and the next step… BOOM! Not only do I have to worry about the blow up but then I have to figure out to fix everything and make her happy again. It is a very exhausting cycle and it is not normal at all to have to live like that.

It has taken me 15 years of life filled with anxiety and panic attacks to realize that she is the reason for my anxiety. Not only my childhood but my adulthood, thus far, has been spent in constant worry. This constant state of worry makes everyday tasks seem almost impossible because of this there are many things I have started but never finished and I am learning that this is all too common among people that have been treated like I have. I’ve lost so much of my life because of this anxiety and just the pure fear of the anxiety. You can’t live a normal life when you fear your own mother’s irrational rage because it spreads into every aspect of your life. The last few days as I find myself in the midst of a storm trying to face my giant, I keep reading Romans 12:2 and especially the first few words “Do not conform any longer”.

We are taught to love, obey, respect our parents but no one ever talks about what to do when you are not loved or respected in return. Sure, when it is a clear cut case of physical abuse it is probably generally acceptable in our society to stop contact with your parents. However, in cases like mine where the abuse was never physical but mental and emotional, you not only get judged by your family for trying to break free of the abuse but by society because they cannot see the pain that has been inflicted upon you over and over. Even though I know deep down that I deserve so much better, the guilt that has been instilled in me over the years makes it so hard to break away. However, now that I have a family of my own, I can no longer conform to society’s expectation of a relationship between myself and my family, nor can I conform to the person my family has tried to tell me I am all these years.

All my life I have been told “that’s good but you could have done better”, “That A- should have been an A+”, “Why did you do it that way? You should do it this way.” and etc. It never matter what I did or how I succeeded at it, it was never good enough. I’m very thankful for my relationship with the Lord, if it were not for my faith I don’t know what I would have become. As a teen, I thought so many times of rebelling against my parents but never did because I respected myself more than that. I wanted to be proud of myself even if I knew I could never please them. I am proud of who I am and who I am becoming but it is time to step away and become all that God wants me to be and all that I know I can be when not being suppressed by my family.

Part 2 coming soon!

One Month After and Christmas

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been trying to keep myself as busy as possible, running from the grief and pain. I'm not doing too great of a job of it and I think it is slowly starting to catch up to me.

The start of the miscarriage was 5 weeks ago today, that pregnancy and loss feels like an eternity ago but the pain feels like it was just yesterday. For a while everyday seemed to get better but now the closer we get to Christmas the harder it is for me.

I keep thinking of how if I wouldn't have had the first loss that I would have a 2 month old for Christmas and thinking of what it would be like to have a newborn right now. While I know these thoughts do me no good, it's still hard not to think about what might have been. Then those thoughts and feelings lead me to the most recent loss and how devastated it made me feel. Then all those painful feelings and memories come rushing back to me.

Which then brings me to the present, the feelings associated with how we're starting back at square one and how it's been almost a year since we started on this journey to try to conceive a 2nd living child and we still don't have a 2nd living child or a viable pregnancy to show for it. I guess on some level it makes me feel like a failure, even though I know I have done everything right and haven't caused this to happen to myself. Then there are the feelings of being scared to try again with the unknown of what will happen when I get pregnant again.

It just seems like way too much for a person to deal with, it's so overwhelming at times. Some moments I just want to cry but then I feel foolish for crying, it's so hard to describe. In the grand scheme of things, I just want to be able to move past this all and be happy and not be in pain anymore.

I'm really hoping and praying that 2011 will be a much better year filled with God's bountiful blessing upon our family.

Butterflies and the after life

I tried to Google information on butterflies and death but I wasn't really finding a ton of information. I used to work with a woman whose son was murdered several years prior to me working there and I remember her mentioning butterflies and how everytime she went to the grave site she would see a butterfly. I've heard of this before but can't find any good websites on it. Basically, though, some people believe that butterflies are a form of after death communication.

As I think back on the weeks leading up to finding out about the impending miscarriage, there are two very specific situations that stick out in my head. Two "symbols" of death, so to say.

First was a black bird staring me down in my front yard, it's not uncommon for us to have these crows around our neighborhood but the way the bird was acting was definitely unusual. I remember thinking to myself, "This better not be a sign!" Black birds are usually associated with death. This was about 2 weeks or so before I found out about the miscarriage, the baby would have already passed on at that point though.

The second was the weekend before I found out. I had just left my house and was pulling up to the first stop sign when this butterfly was almost attacking my car! I thought it was strange and of course thought of ADC (after death communication) but then just shrugged it off as some random occurrence, although I don't really ever recall seeing butterflies around here (even in the Spring) and definitely have never had one attack my car!

Then this weekend I saw another butterfly fly over my car in the middle of traffic, just a very odd place for a butterfly to be, and in the middle of November no less!

It's definitely a beautiful reminder and kind of neat to think that the baby could be coming around me with butterflies. I don't know if I truly believe in ADC but everytime I see a butterfly now, I will definitely smile and try to think lovingly of the baby we lost.

Where was God through all of this?

Obviously, I've been doing a lot of thinking in the last week and even though I have many questions for God, I've been wondering to myself "Why am I not mad at God?" It's a common feeling to have and maybe I'll be mad at him later, but my feelings are really peaceful when it comes to God.

As I think back on the last year, I can't help but wonder and believe if this miscarriage has been a part of God's plan for my life all along. I obviously have the question of "Why was it part of the plan for my life?" However, I can see God's finger prints all over my life in the last year as he moved me into position for this to happen.

In February/March, when I was going through the 1st very early miscarriage, I was very displeased with my then doctor's office. In April, I had an ovarian cyst that sent me to the hospital because I was in so much pain. My then doctor refused to answer her pages from the hospital, even though she was on call that day. It took over 2 hours for her to call back and she only called back after *I* called the answering service to have them send a message from me.

During that same time period, I had met a woman on an online message board that happened to be an RN at Tomball Hospital. When the incident happened at the ER with my then doctor, she told me that from everything she had seen and heard working at Tomball Hospital, she highly recommended Dr. Davidson, a new Ob/gyn in Tomball. I immediately switched to Dr. Davidson's practice the week after the ER incident.

I wonder, had I not changed doctors, would I have gotten such great care when I went to the ER during the miscarriage? I would have been at a different hospital, one in which the recovery nurse from the D&C said that they had made her sit in the waiting room for a long period of time while she was miscarrying, even though she WORKED at that hospital at the time! I would have had a different doctor, whom may or may not have answered her pages from the hospital had she been on call that weekend. What would the outcome have been in that scenario?

During the pregnancy, when I was making my appointment for my 10 week appointment, they had asked to set it up for a Friday, because my son is in Mother's Day Out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I always try to set my appointments on those days. So I had them set it up for a Thursday instead. I believe God gave me this last appointment to see the baby alive, had I went on that Friday, it is quite likely we wouldn't have seen the baby alive that one last time.

Sure, if I would have known then, I would already be 3-4 weeks into recovery but I wouldn't have that one last memory. Also, since the doctors in Tomball rotate whose on-call at the hospital, my doctor wouldn't have been on call that weekend following my 10 week appointment and would I have gotten such great care with a different doctor had I started to miscarry on my own like I did this past weekend?

These are just things I've been pondering on all week. How can I be mad at God when I really feel God was with me, not just during this miscarriage but this whole year? Even though he didn't do what I would have wanted him to do, he WAS with me. I see that and I love that.

Today when I was walking at the YMCA and listening to Pandora on my phone, Casting Crown's "Praise you in this storm" came on and it just hit me in the heart. I've always loved this song but it's never meant so much to me as it does now. I'll end this post with a video of this amazing song.

The Beginning of my Journey through Grief

The past week has been one of the most difficult weeks in my life to date. I've decided to share my experience through my blog, therefore sharing my experience with people who have no idea of what I'm going through right now and allowing those that do know a little more insight into how I am feeling.

FOREWARNING: This blog entry contains very sensitive subject matter, here is your chance to turn away and stop reading now. If you choose to continue, you may need tissues. This will also be a very long post.

On Friday, September 3, 2010, I took a home pregnancy test and it came up positive. I was very excited, although I was very cautious too. I had been in this same place on February 14, 2010, only to realize I was starting to miscarry a week later. That pregnancy in February was possibly a chemical pregnancy, the pregnancy never progressed at all, multiple ultrasounds showed no pregnancy/growth/changes in my uterus.

On Friday, September 24th, at 6 weeks, I had an ultrasound and when my husband and I saw the baby with a heartbeat on the ultrasound screen and heard the heart beating, we started to slowly and cautiously let ourselves feel some relief and start to get excited about the pregnancy, there was actually a baby growing inside me, this was great news!

Four weeks later, on October 21st, I had another ultrasound, the pregnancy was now 10 weeks along. Again, we saw the baby growing accordingly with a heartbeat and no indication of any complications. We were still keeping the pregnancy secret and not really letting it be public knowledge that I was pregnant. I had a first trimester screening ultrasound scheduled for 13 weeks and our thoughts were after that ultrasound we would go "Facebook" with the pregnancy.

Thursday, November 11, 2010 - - The day my world fell apart
This was the day of, what is called, the NT scan. My husband was out of town working 7 hours away in Louisiana, so I asked my mom to come with me to the scan. The scan was being done at a special lab. We were hoping to be able to find out a guess on the gender of the baby. I was so anxious and excited for the ultrasound. When I got on the table the ultrasound technician was rambling on about how much water I had drank before I got there and other nonsense about my bladder, when all I was thinking was "let's just look at the baby".

While she was looking at the size of my bladder, I was focused on the part of the screen that had the baby on it. My heart started to sink, I knew automatically something was wrong. There was no movement on the screen, no flicker of the heart, it looked like the baby was just slumped over in my uterus...lifeless.

The ultrasound tech started asking me when was the last time I had an ultrasound and if I was having any complications like spotting. I asked her what was wrong and she was just silent. At that point panic really started to set in, tears started to come to the surface and my mom came to my side and held my hand. I again attempted to talk to the tech and asked if there was no heartbeat and she said no. I really broke down at that point. It literally felt like my world just crashed all around me. The room felt like it was closing in on me and there was no way to escape. I kept saying "This can't be real. This is not real. Why is this happening to me? GOD, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? This is NOT supposed to be happening to me!"

Suddenly it felt like I was in a nightmare and couldn't wake up. If I could just wake up this wouldn't be happening and everything would be fine, but it wasn't a dream, this was now my reality. This is a reality that no woman should ever have to go through. I would not wish this on my worst enemy.

I spent a while crying in that office suite, lost and confused, heartbroken and devastated. Amazingly enough I found the ability to text a prayer request to a few friends because I knew I wasn't going to make it through the rest of that day without lots of prayers and support. Then, it hit me, the realization that my husband was 7 hours away. It hit me almost as hard as the devastating news I had just found out. HOW was I going to tell my husband that the baby we had been so happily anticipating had died and we were not going to be taking home a precious baby next May?

On the way home, I sent him a "warning" text message that said: I need you to come home now. Please call me. When he called me back, I told him the news. There was no way to sugar coat it or break it to him easily, I had to just come out and tell him. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, I hated the idea of him having to drive 7 hours, all by himself, with this aching news on his mind and in his heart. Every time I talked to him, on his way home that day, I made sure to tell him to drive carefully and not to speed home, I was so worried about him.

Back to the ultrasound results
As it turns out the baby had stopped growing at 10 weeks. Meaning that the baby died within 24 hours of the last ultrasound I had. To add salt to the wound, the baby most likely died on what would have been my estimated due date for the pregnancy I lost in March, October 22, 2010.

I felt so foolish to have trusted my body, I had been thinking everything was okay for a full 3 weeks, thinking my baby was growing and alive. I was so excited and hopeful and waiting to be in the second trimester so I could breathe a sigh of relief and share with everyone the great news. I couldn't believe that my body never gave me a clue that something was wrong.

I went to my doctor's office that afternoon and she said that the measurements she had from the ultrasound 3 weeks ago and the measurements from the ultrasound that had been done that morning were only 2 or 3 cm different and she didn't want to put me through another ultrasound to confirm because the measurements were confirmation enough. I'm glad she felt that way because I couldn't handle looking at another ultrasound again.

My doctor, who was so loving and caring during the whole appointment, gave me three options: 1) Wait to miscarry on my own, 2) Take medication to induce the miscarriage, 0r 3) a D&C at the hospital. Before I went into that appointment, I knew I wanted a D&C and so that was the option I took. Because it was already Thursday afternoon, they weren't able to schedule the surgery until Tuesday afternoon. She told me she didn't think my body would start to miscarry over the weekend, since it hadn't started anything in the last 3 weeks, but if I started bleeding or having heavy cramping, I could go to the ER because she was the OB on call that weekend.

The mind is very powerful
For 3 weeks my body did nothing to let me know there was something wrong with the pregnancy. Within 24 hours of finding out the bad news, I started to lightly bleed. My husband noted how the mind is very powerful, it seems as soon as I knew I was going to miscarry, my body started to do what it was supposed to do, what it should have started doing weeks ago.

Saturday night when I went to bed, I was starting to feel menstrual like cramping but I tried to sleep it off. By 2:30 am, it was getting worse and I kept tossing and turning in bed trying to find a comfortable position to get some sleep, this went on for 2 hours. At 4:30 am, I couldn't take the pain anymore and I woke up my husband to tell him we needed to go to the ER NOW!

We were so blessed that my in-laws came in from Dallas on Thursday night and stayed through the weekend. If they wouldn't have been here, we would have had to call my mom and wait for her to come and watch our son. I did not have that much time to wait.

I'm going to leave out some of the details, but I will say that Saturday evening I was reading online about miscarriages trying to guesstimate how long after starting light bleeding do women normally miscarry. I'm glad I read several women's stories because it totally prepared me for what my body was doing early Sunday morning.

The ER
I walked into the ER, told the nurse behind the desk what was going on, she quickly checked me into the computer system and then immediately led me to a room. After I changed into a hospital gown, 2 nurses started hooking me up to machines, putting an IV in my arm, and taking samples of my blood.

Within 10 minutes of arriving at the hospital, I started to feel like the room was closing in around me, I was dizzy, nauseated, light head, and felt like the room was extremely hot. I told my husband to hand me the nurse call button NOW! Turns out my blood pressure went from about 140/80 to 70/40! I have never felt that horrible in my life, I felt like I was dying. At that moment, I was so happy that we went to the ER when we did. If that had happened at home, I would have passed out and needed an ambulance. This is where the in-laws staying at our house was a huge help, I probably would have passed out waiting for my mom even though she only lives a few miles away.

After that fiasco the ER doctor came and did an examination and then told me he was going to call my doctor and find out what she wanted to do. A few minutes later the nurse came in and told me my doctor wanted to do the D&C NOW and they were calling in the surgery team. It probably wasn't even 20 minutes later the surgery nurse was taking me to the surgery center. My doctor met us there and talked with us for a few minutes. Then I was taken into the operating room.

I was home by 8:00 am and resting the rest of the day. The physical recovery was very easy. I am still so impressed by my treatment in the ER and how quickly they got everything done. I was in and out of the hospital, including having surgery and being completely put under by anesthesia within 3 hours!

Although I may not understand where God was when my baby died, I do know that he made everything work so incredibly smoothly this past weekend. He was definitely with me and watching over me the last several days. I'm amazingly not mad at God, although, I do have a lot of "Why" questions for him.

Moving On
It's been 2 days since the D&C and now that the physical part is over, I am truly moving into the grieving process. I've never been through this and I don't know what to expect but I know I have to go through this process so I can come out a stronger person on the other end. Blogging my grief, fears and feelings is going to be a part of that process. I don't want to hide my grief and pain.

I had a good friend ask me today if I was ok and I said "No, I'm not". She was understanding and knew the answer before I said it.

I've had several reminders over the last several days that in society today we are taught to hide the pain, put on a fake smile for the world and say everything is great when that cashier or bank teller asks you how you are doing out of courtesy. I just can't do that, I'm not going to hide or be fake. I'm going to work through this pain so that I can one day smile and say everything is great and not be faking it.

If you took the time to read all of this, thank you. I will be trying to update my progress/feelings through this journey on a regular basis.

I want to thank all my family, friends, and my church family for all their love, support and prayers. I am truly blessed by all the people God has placed in my life.