Therapist: Tell me how
you think things are going.
me: I don't know.
Therapist: Why do you think that is?
me: I don't know.
Therapist: Sam, what's going through your head right now?
me: I'm so finished. I've decided not to have any more tragedies or deaths or crises or odd twists of fate for the next four months.
Therapist: You've definitely had your share this year.
me: More than my share.
Therapist: Tell me how you're feeling about the miscarriage.
me: It's over. I'm better. The end.
Therapist: Would you rather not talk about it?
me: I don't know. Maybe.
Therapist: We can talk about it next month, if you'd rather.
me: Let's talk about that "next month" thing. How about this: I'll work on no more deaths, tragedies, crises, and odd twists of fate for the rest of the year and we can meet again in April 2010.
Therapist: Sam, this is always your call. And if you need a break from therapy, that's also your call. I'll probably still check in with you during the times I'm not seeing you, if that's okay. But I think you have some things that are bugging you right now, and I also think you might be able to ease some stress if you talk about them.
me: I'm getting tired of talking.
Therapist: That doesn't sound like you.
me: Or maybe I'm just tired.
Therapist: Yes.
me: Okay. The miscarriage: I started out dealing with it badly--as in, I didn't want to talk about it or even acknowledge it, which turned out to be impossible because the physical evidence cannot be ignored. So I told a few people, starting with Darrin.
Therapist: What was his reaction?
me: He thought I should back up and take thirty seconds to tell him I was pregnant before I let him know I was miscarrying.
Therapist: You hadn't told him you were pregnant?
me: No.
Therapist: How advanced was the pregnancy?
me: At that point we were clearing the 10-week mark.
Therapist: I can understand his need to back up a bit. That's a lot to deal with all at once.
me: It's just news. Try dealing with the reality.
Therapist: Well, I don't mean that this was more difficult for him than for you, just that it's sort of enormous when you find out your wife is pregnant--and more enormous when you learn that she won't be in about a week.
me: Yeah. Anyway, I told more people. And most of them were busy and didn't want to talk about it. Although, in fairness, there were some who said I could call and talk with them. But they were women, and I'm lame and worry that if I try to talk to a woman, she'll want to talk instead. It's the curse of my upbringing. I don't think my mother has ever heard what I was saying because she was too absorbed in thinking of what she would say next. And there's always the risk that the woman I'm talking to has had a miscarriage, as well, and mistakes our conversation as an opportunity to "help" me by telling me of her own experience, in which I am neither interested, nor emotionally equipped to deal with. And actually, it's not that I'm not interested--it's just that the timing for that is wrong. I was sort of self-absorbed at the time, of necessity. I didn't really want to feel I needed to be empathetic to someone who had experienced something similar. I know, this makes no sense, because I should be grateful that a) someone would be willing to let me talk with them, and b) I can learn from the things that person has already experienced. Add ungrateful to self-absorbed.
Therapist: Sam, it makes complete sense that you need to sort through your own experience before hearing of someone
elses. It's not self-absorbed nor ungrateful. It's you recognizing the potential of a seemingly helpful situation which might end up not being helpful. Although, had you given it a chance, you might also have encountered a good listener who simply wanted to allow you to talk.
me: I probably would have. But I was sort of mixed up and afraid. I've never had a miscarriage before. And most women probably go through it and understand what's happening and mourn and get help and all that--but for me, it was scary.
Therapist: Two things--first, no, they don't. It's not easy for anyone and every woman I've spoken to (and because of my therapy specialty, I've actually spoken with many) has had difficulty making it through the emotional upheaval which happens with miscarriage--even when they were planning to place the baby through adoption. Second, I don't believe other women don't feel some fear with their first miscarriage. It's new and stressful. But I'd like to know where you think the fear came from.
me: Well, okay, but it's sort of graphic, and you can tell me to stop if you want.
Therapist: Sam, I'm the therapist. You're not supposed to be trying to protect me from your words.
me: Oh yeah.
Therapist: You keep forgetting.
me: Yeah. Bad habit.
Therapist: So--what made it scary?
me: Well, there was a lot more blood than I'm used to in a regular
menstrual period.
Therapist: But this wasn't a menstrual
period. It was a miscarriage.
me: I know. But somehow I had it in my head that it would just be like a period and then be over. And I was supposed to watch for the fetus to pass--which seems sort of stupid because I don't really care what caused the miscarriage since I'm not planning to get pregnant again and it would have been about an inch long and fully formed and I didn't want to see it anyway.
Therapist: That makes a lot of sense.
me: Besides, if I saw it, then I couldn't pretend it was just a period anymore, which is also dumb because I couldn't anyway.
Therapist: Sam, it's an overwhelming
occurrence. Most people would try to link it to a common-place, similar
occurrence to help manage the stress.
me: I'm not most people. I look at things the way they are and I try to deal with them in reality. Except that's a lie.
Therapist: No. I think, when difficulties present themselves in your life, you do exactly what you just said. However, you've had difficulties in the past year which have caused you to go on emotional overload. The way you tried to cope with a new and frightening situation is healthy and normal. You looked to your experience base to find something similar, then tried to fit the new experience into that framework. It was a good, healthy idea and prepared you, initially, for what would happen. When the new experience would no longer fit into that framework, you became stressed and frightened. That's a completely understandable and logical reaction.
me: Well, I did see the fetus pass. Sort of. It was in a mass of other tissue, and I didn't look very closely. And it didn't look real anyway. And probably most grown women wouldn't panic, and feel sick, and shake uncontrollably, but I did and I didn't keep it. I flushed it.
Therapist: Sam, are you feeling guilty about this.
me: Sort of.
Therapist: Because you didn't keep the fetus?
me: Because I flushed it. I wanted it to go away. And anyway, they were just going to dissect it and incinerate it and I didn't want them to.
Therapist: No wonder you've been feeling stressed--and like you couldn't talk about it.
me: I'm not really a monster, you know. I just didn't think flushing it was more yucky than incinerating it--only it probably is. I don't know.
Therapist: Sam, it was not a
viable fetus, not a human being. Chances are, if you hadn't been watching for it, you would have flushed it unknowingly anyway. Your brain is wired to look at it as your baby--but that inch of tissue was simply the possibility of a baby, just as the unfertilized egg that gets flushed or thrown away during a menstrual period is a possibility. The difference is that your pregnancy activated all those hormones which prepare you to grow and nurture a child, so you're having difficulty looking at it clinically.
me: I know. It was just sort of horrible.
Therapist: I can imagine so.
me: And I wanted to talk about it. I wanted someone to say it was okay. But I was afraid they would say I was awful.
Therapist: Well, you never know what people will say. So it would be risky to tell them. But I can understand the need to talk about it.
me: You don't think I'm monstrous?
Therapist: No Sam, you're not monstrous.
me: Even though I just wanted it to go away, so I flushed it?
Therapist: It was the remains of a pregnancy that was unable to continue. It's okay, Sam.
me: I still think, if I talk about it, people will look at me like I'm inhuman.
Therapist: What will Darrin's reaction be?
me: He'll probably say that it sounds like a logical move, since I didn't want to pay for testing or disposal.
Therapist: Will he think you're inhuman?
me: No.
Therapist: I don't think you need to worry about other people's reactions.
me: Well, maybe I don't need to talk about it, either.
Therapist: That's something you'll figure out over the next few weeks.
me: Okay.