An innocent enough question, but when uttered by your friendly neighbourhood psychiatrist there are no innocent questions.
"Ummm, I’ve not been doing much really." She tells me that most people she sees get in the chair and just go ‘blargh’ all over the place the minute the door closes but that for some reason (if she’s figured that reason out she hasn’t shared it) I tend to be rather quiet and non-responsive and she feels like she has to drag me kicking and screaming into a discussion. Likely this is due to my long established habit of avoiding talking about my problems just … because that’s what I do.
"You’re looking rather tired today, have you had a busy weekend or something?" Okay, she hits paydirt with this one and out comes the story of how Erick the Half a Bee and his wife were down on the weekend to help work on the house and how they bought their little foster baby with them and how much I seriously did not feel like I had the energy to be dealing with babies at the moment… and in particular babies that had been abandoned by their drug fucked mothers who didn’t deserve to be able to have them in the first place.
I found myself telling her about the statement that – ‘Borys would just have to deal with the baby being present if she wants the room finished.’ and how I felt that my cousin-in-law’s attitude was just a little insensitve given that they know all about my horrible IVF history and my five fucked up miscarriages – the whole works and jerks. The Trick-Cyclist says "That’s not just insensitive… that’s cruel… deliberately cruel." I never thought she was being ‘cruel’ and I found myself making excuses for her… "I’m sure she had no malicious intent… and I’m probably just being hypersensitive for no reason… and she’s probably just not really thinking that it might affect me at all…. and in fact I bet she probably thinks she’s actually trying to help me to get over my whole baby aversion/infertility thing… blah blah blah."
But the psych was having none of it. "No, not just insensitive – cruel." she says again. "By saying that you’d ‘just have to deal with it’ she is acknowledging that she is fully aware of the discomfort and stress she is about to place on you by bringing a baby into your house and she has decided to force that upon you anyway. It’s cruel and it’s bullying." Bullying? "No surely not," says I… "I’m sure she just wasn’t thinking. She’s very opinonated and perhaps not as educated and well informed as she’d like to think she is… and sometimes she’s just not very sensitive to the feelings of others… she’s just very forthright and blunt is all."
"Remember when they used to put women who’d had still births or miscarriages into maternity wards along side several other women who were there with their families celebrating the safe arrival of their own babies? (*this happened to my Mum actually) Hospitals very rarely do this anymore as we recognize the enormous psychological impact it has at such a critically difficult time on the mothers who are grieving the loss of their babies. This is a similar thing, she has deliberately put you in a situation in your own home that dredges up all the tears, frustrations and disappointments associated with your infertility, your many IVF treatments and your miscarriages…. and it is absolutely cruel of her to do that to you given that she obviously knows your history."
At which point I stopped defending Erick the Half A Bee’s wife and started to think that the psych might be right (God I hate it when that happens). We spoke about it a little more until I started to ponder aloud about how I truly don’t understand why I am so emotionally wrung out over other people’s babies, and friends being pregnant given that it’s been nearly 4 years since I gave up on the whole IVF thing. She felt that maybe I wouldn’t be feeling this quite so keenly if it weren’t for my current circumstances – those being that I’m told I’m suffering from a Major Depressive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, an Adjustment (to injury and chronic pain) Disorder as well as some sort of Anxiety Disorders… so the odds were high that a baby in my house would be another significant cumulative stressor allowing many feelings to surface that I had thought long burried. Along with trying to handle being in pain all day and the limitations and frustrations that accompany those daily stressors, an additional stressor in the form of a newborn in the house has created an inability and unwillingness to have to ‘deal with it’.
So basically… no. No. I don’t think I’m being hypersensitive anymore. I shouldn’t have to pretend in my own home that all is well with the world when it patently is not. I have been through an awful lot when it comes to IVF and infertility and I should allow myself to acknowledge that as well as the emotional scars that have been left behind. So screw this. I have every right to feel the way I do and I am not going to willingly put myself through any additional unnecessary stress if they bring that baby down next time.
I will be packing a bag for me and the Small Child and going to my Mum’s for the duration.
.