The hits just keep comin'

11.18.13

      Monday morning I headed out to a suburb of Dallas where I hadn't been to the accounts yet. I was excited because I was going to get to work with some new docs, but then I also dreaded it because some of the docs who knew me pregnant would also be there.
      I walked into the lab that morning and the first question came from Doc 1. He said, "Hey! You have a baby now, right?" To which I replied, "No, she didn't make it." And then I got the pity look. About 15 minutes later, Doc 2 who happens to be partners with Doc 1 came up and said, "Hey! Didn't you have a baby?!" to which I replied, "Yes sir, but she didn't make it." Again with the pity look.
       I was working with my territory manager that day, and she pulled me out in the hallway to make sure I was ok. Kate had told me that if I got in a conversation that was too much to just look at the person and say, "I am so sorry but I have an appointment I completely forgot about." and go to my car and cry. Kate said, "Its not technically a lie. You just had an appointment with yourself in the car." Oh that clever counselor.
      Anyways, my manager asked me if I needed to go have an appointment and I told her it was okay because I had gotten myself hyped up a little to go into this account. A few hours later, I saw one of my favorite doctors who works up in the boondocks. We had bonded pretty quickly after we met because he was serving in Iraq when I first moved to Dallas and once you have that military bond with people they tend to stay in your life. He rubbed on my upper arm and said, "I was completely heartbroken when I heard what happened." That almost got me. I felt the tears well up and I started to sniff a little bit to try to keep them from rolling down my face. "Let me know if I can do anything, and you and Alex need to come over one night for dinner." It was the sweetest thing ever and I appreciated him for being so genuinely caring.
     That afternoon I went and talked to Kate. For the first time in a while, the first thing I did when I sat down on her couch was break down crying. I told her that today had just been a bad day. I can do okay in the moment, but after I get to a safe place I pretty much just break down and cry because it is so hard not to cry every minute. It stinks. I told her that I was proud of myself for not breaking down right then and there, and she asked me why I thought that not breaking down was such a good thing. Its mostly because I have never been allowed to break down and cry at my job. It is seen as a weakness, and then people start treating you with kid gloves. Even through both of Alex's deployments, I only cried at work twice before this and it had nothing to do with my personal life. Being so transparent and vulnerable is foreign to me and I don't quite know how to cope with it.
     I told Kate some stories about other people and how their reactions to what had happened mattered to me. I told her about caring how other people were dealing with the pain, and I would somewhat check on people to make sure that they were doing ok. At this point, Kate asked me point blank, "Have you ever heard the term codependency?" Excuse me, Kate? What? "Codependency has many faces, and one of them is being so outwardly focused that you don't take time to feel what you need to feel." I beg your pardon.  I am little miss independent. I don't need anyone else to help me grieve.
     Or did I? Her words resonated with me over the next week. I hadn't been aware of it before, but I started to realize that I had been checking on everyone else and not really slowing down enough to feel what was happening. The world was moving on, but I was trying to drag everyone else back and make sure they were really ok. I mean, how could they be? This is a huge loss to everyone, not just me, right?
      Maybe. Or maybe I was trying to substitute my own grief with the maternal instinct to look after everyone else. If I was so busy checking on everyone, this wouldn't be real. I could essentially suspend time just a little bit longer to make the time I had with Kaitlyn seem not so distant. I could get people to talk to me about what they were going through instead of actually dealing with what I was going through. And I hated it that she was right about it.