May 8, 2021
Miscarriage, Mental Wellness, and the Meaning of Bill C7 -Part 1
***Trigger warnings: miscarriage, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, self-harm***
***Disclaimer: if you happen to recognize yourself in one of these accounts, please realize they are written to emulate the perspective of when I was extremely sick. You are loved, by no means resented, and certainly not responsible for any of my own actions!***
I’ve known for a while that this story would end up on my blog, I simply needed some inspiration to get words flowing onto the page. In the emotion which enveloped today’s significance, I descended the basement stairs and pulled a shoe box out our storage area. I brought the box back upstairs and here I sit, the lid laying open. and a little pink and white bunny rabbit onesie beside me on the couch. The label on the box reads “rainbow baby”.
See, if there were no brokenness, suffering or loss in the world, Dennet and I would have spent our day celebrating the first birthday of our child. Instead I spent the day watching someone else’s children, and on the way home I stopped by the little plot of land where we buried our Miracle, carrying a small handful of dandelions. I didn’t need a marker to find the hidden spot under the tree. From where I was, I could see my mom’s grave only a few feet away.
“Mother’s day is only two days away. I wonder what it’s like to have a mom on Mother’s day… I wonder what it’s like to be a Mom on Mother’s day.” I thought to myself rather matter-of-factly. Three years ago a member of my church with whom I had a somewhat difficult relationship, approached me and quietly handed me a yellow tulip on Mother’s Day. I had come straight to this cemetery with it in my hand. Never had I forgotten how meaningful that gesture had been to me.
Closing my eyes for a moment, I let my mind wander to what it would be like for my baby to be there as I lay in the grass, her soft cheek against mine, and fiery orange curls sprouting around her head. As tears slipped through my closed eyelids, a song I’ve been playing on loop the past couple of weeks floated through my head.
“All my life you have been faithful,
All my life you have been so, so good.
With every breath that I am able,
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.”
***Disclaimer: I do not endorse BSSM. I simply have an affinity towards this song***
The melody was a sigh of relief, and as I whispered happy birthday” to Miracle, and blew a kiss to Mom as I got in my car, I couldn’t help but realize how far this past year has brought me out of the thick inky blackness that used to weigh down on me daily. The days of living as if the devil’s hand was pressing on my mind and turning it around and around around had slowly dissipated, until they now came only as brief moments of darkness which served as a reminder of what had once been a daily suffering.
This suffering had brought me to the point where, about a month after we lost our child, I’d tried to take my own life.
Oh, it wasn’t the first time I had thought about it whatsoever. My thigh still has the fading etches of the word “held” engraved. I had started to cut “help”…but changed the lettering at the last second, figuring that I may as well tattoo a reminder for years to come, so my scars would remind me that I’m not alone.
I had stared at handfuls of pills, knives, and even discussed applying for a gun license with Dennet but decided against it because I knew that having that temptation around our home could end in disaster. Before Dennet and I were married, there were times when he would carry my Thyroid medication for me “just in case.” For the last four years, I have only ever purchased a month’s supply of medication at a time unless absolutely necessary. Every time I came close, one thought would cross my mind:
“I know it feels like to lose someone like this, and I never want to put anybody through what I’ve been through.”
But this time, it happened too fast. I was angry, my friendships were falling part, I felt rejected by my Church, unsatisfactory to my family, a failure in my marriage, and a failure as a Mother I might never really become. In that moment, it didn’t matter if anyone cared or not. I was in so much pain. I just wanted it to be over.
In one overwhelming moment suddenly I was sitting, an all-too-familiar panic attack setting in as I stared at the once-full bottle in front of me. Only this time the panic wasn’t because my auto-immune condition was going into overdrive again. This time I really did have something to panic about.
I drank raw eggs, forcing myself to throw up again and again. Dennet was on the phone with poison control Quebec, and then again with poison control Nova Scotia.
The Quebec helpline didn’t even bother to ask if it had been intentional. At least Nova Scotia had the frame of mind to suggest we call an ambulance if I was unstable.
We didn’t.
Instead I lay on the couch terrified that I would die, and yet part of me still hoping that I would. I felt like I was dying, but…given the situation most people probably would feel that way. Poison control had said I would be alright, so I saved myself the shame of an ambulance ride and a horror story, and pleaded both silently and out loud for God to help me. Whatever that meant.
A few hours later, a couple who had wanted to come over and make sure we were okay, arrived at our door as planned. I got up off the couch shortly before they arrived, and we all sat and chatted and laughed, and we said “yes it’s been a really hard month, but God will work it out and we’re going to be okay.” Then they left, and we went to bed wondering what they would have said if we’d told them.
Why didn’t I?
Partially because I knew that in comparison to many people’s stories, my suicide attempt felt pretty “lame” and “half-a**ed.”
Partially because the story doesn’t start there. Mental illness had been my battlefront since graduating year.
About six years ago, while it was still very fresh, I told a very close person about what I was dealing with. Their response was something along the lines of;
“Hmm, yeah I don’t really think so. [This other individual] is depressed and you can totally see all the signs, but you really don’t act or seem that way. You don’t want to put labels on yourself when you’re actually fine.”
Eight months or so before the attempt at taking my own life, I finally shared my struggles with a friend. Marriage was hard. I was no longer just confused in my faith, I was so badly lost I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. For a brief period of time, I had made the conscious decision to stop talking to God throughout the day because I didn’t believe he was there. I had stopped calling myself a Christian. I was uncontrollable thoughts of death invade my mind. She listened intently, and then promptly moved on. For months I rarely, if ever, heard from her except perhaps the occasional “how can I pray for you” text.
This same couple who had come over had been asked me earlier in the year about this apparent deconstruction process of my belief system. Upon my rather feeble explanation, they had deemed it “not that bad”. That evening I came home and Dennet held me- again- as I cried. He has been through so much for me.
But what these two didn’t know of the ‘not that bad” situation, was the intensity of the mid-daymares that would invade my mind. I called them “Spiritual attacks”, and Dennet would hold me as I shook uncontrollably begging for it to go away in the name of Jesus. I would see the face of Death during these panic attacks, and when I slept at night, Death would sometimes visit my dreams. I would see him doing strange things like playing chess, or would see the people I loved literally become his image. Once Dennet saw a demon standing over me laughing.
When I visited the doctor the week we lost our baby, I sat, catatonic, in the cold plastic chair next to his desk. In a rare occurrence for me, I didn’t even try to smile. Finally, as I was walking out the door, he asked
“Do you need to see a school psychologist?”
I shrugged as if I didn’t care. My entire insides were screaming “YES, GET ME OUT OF THIS HE**!”
I took the slip to the next floor up, and walked into the office, hesitantly placing it on the counter.
“Um, I’d like to see a counselor please. I was recommended downstairs.”
“Sure, I guess we can put you on the list but it will be at least a few weeks- maybe even months.”
“Oh. Nevermind, I’ll go somewhere else then.” I mumbled. As I walked away, I wondered…hoped…maybe even prayed that someone would yell after me,
“Hey! You look terrible! Please come back and we’ll find you an opening!”
But no one did.
A couple weeks later, I walked down to the floor of the church, holding back my breaking heart and asked one of the people there to pray for me because we had lost our child. After they did, they said,
“I’m so sorry. Let’s talk more about this later.”
We didn’t. In fact, as per a later conversation, he had forgotten the occurrence entirely.
One late night, I called Alana in desperation.
“I need to go to the Douglas (psychiatric hospital in Montreal). I don’t want to go alone, and I won’t ever go if I don’t go right now. Can you please come with me?”
Within a few minutes, she had left the gym in the middle of her workout, and was sitting in the passenger seat of my car. When we got to the Emergency room, I realized I would have to pay for parking. So far this didn’t seem very welcoming. When I walked in the entrance, the security guard looked at me with confusion.
“Hi…um…I’m here to go to the Emergency Room” I said hesitantly. My usual confidence had long ago faded into the background of my jumbled rubble of a mind.
“Oh, are you, like, here??” He asked
I was confused. He was confused. We were all very confused.
A medical personnel passed by and the guard called
“hey, is this girl admitted here?”
“No” we both said. “no..” I clarified, “I mean, I’m uh…admitting myself I guess.”
“Oh man, we are really, really busy!” the guy said. “If it’s not that urgent you should come back in the morning, or even another day. Will that be okay?”
Being someone who hates to put people “out”, I cheerfully said
“oh yeah, I’ll be okay! No problem.”
I dropped off Alana, after thanking her profusely (seriously I am grateful for her over and over again. #shoutout), and then drove home through a static vortex, fuming out both ears at our social care system. I was not fine. But I was kind of fine, because, sure, I didn’t feel like I about to kill myself right this second. However someone else in my situation might not have been!
After all of this, I found myself lying on a couch in our apartment, wondering what people would think of me when they inevitably began reading through my journals after I died.
In my pain, I felt totally abandoned. My best friend had failed me, the Church had failed me, my family had failed me, and the health and social services had failed me. If there was a God, He certainly had failed me, because the only thing I could see was darkness, and supposedly He was the light of the world. At the time it didn’t matter whatsoever if, or to what extent, any of these statements were true. They had become agonizingly real.
(To Be Continued…click the link below for Part2)
