More Letters

Today is a wading-through-metaphorical-treacle day. A zero executive function day. A day where I keep finding myself motionless, staring at the items on the supermarket shelves and the world seems distant. 

Only the items on the list are bought, and the ones that left any room for interpretation are left unbought, because I don't have the capacity to make decisions about what to buy. The shopping has been brought into the house, but not yet put away because I just don't have the spoons. Having dealt with the full-change-of-clothes nappy incident at the beginning of the shopping trip, we also had to make another toilet visit before home time to deal with my anxiety digestion. 

It's the end of what I'm affectionately calling Stressy Season - the longest of my calendar-based trauma triggers - which spans six weeks through September and October. This year I finally have a name for all these things that happen to my body and brain when it is reminded of certain past events.

PTSD is not just the curled-in-a-ball-on-the-floor-crying-rocking-unable-to-speak-occasionally-with-screams-coming-out-or-hurting-of-self panic attack after the fire alarm. It's not being able to concentrate on what you're doing, it's dread when you look out of the window, it's feeling irritable at the slightest thing, it's going to lengths to avoid places and things that make you remember, it's feeling sick all the time and wild bowels, and so much more.

Dem autumn leaves are well threatening...

Autistic people are more likely to get PTSD and are less likely to have it identified correctly. We are both more likely to end up in potentially traumatic situations and more likely to be traumatised by experiences not traditionally seen as traumatic. Because of this and our neurological differences we are less likely to see and be understood by professionals who deal with PTSD and thus also less likely to receive helpful support (which again may or may not differ from traditional treatment). I'm thankful that a year after one misdiagnosis I was able to access a second opinion, and that this person understood and was able to explain to me all of these things about autistic processing and so forth, helping me to understand and accept that this is a box that applies to me despite "nothing traumatic having happened" (I did tell the first person nothing traumatic had happened, so I guess it's no wonder they thought nothing traumatic had happened...). I'm not just making a fuss over nothing; my brain is trying hard to do a job.

The lady in the supermarket who commented "Don't worry, I'm amazed how well you're managing it all" when I apologised for forgetting to put the little divider at the end of my shopping on the conveyor belt (another sign my brain is not doing its job) had no idea what "it all" really was. To be honest, a baby in a sling, who was by that point sleeping, is no trouble at all, unless maybe she had clocked the previous blowout scene. I didn't even have Pre-School Peggy with me. "It all" for me this morning was PTSD and the fact that I had to collect my brain repeatedly on my circuit of the shop and coax it into doing enough of its job to get us by. Everybody has an "it all" every day, and maybe that lady realised. 

Be kind, you don't know what "it all" is going on for those annoying people you meet.

My Baby Girl (bonding)

My baby girl. This probably isn't the post you're expecting. It's not about my beautiful, perfect newborn and how besotted I am with her. I wrote those posts after our son was born. My first child, pretty much the best thing that had happened to me and although near-impossible at times and full of difficulty and distress, each day brought the delight in my little bundle that is associated with welcoming a new life. My life felt completed and fulfilled by meeting and caring for this baby. 

Now I watch in confusion and guilt as friends and even strangers coo in admiration of my second child, who is almost indistinguishable in photographs from the first. They are entranced by her cuteness, in awe and wonder at her skin and her nose and her smell and vying for time with her. Now I know borrowing a baby is very different from keeping one, but these people seem to love her more than I do. It's all wrong, that's not how this was meant to be.

Can't deny those toes are cute though...

Not that I hate her or even dislike her (for which I'm hugely grateful), but that connection, that love and delight, it just hasn't come yet. Joy doesn't spring up the moment I pick her up, and my nervous system doesn't suddenly breathe when she flops warmly on me. She's OK, she's not horrible or anything, but she doesn't feel like mine.

I'm thankful I have mental health support in place due to my struggles during pregnancy, and that I'm reassured that actually the magic bond (whatever that is) is rarely instant and that in many or even most cases it takes days, weeks or even months to grow, just as getting to know anybody else in life. There's nothing wrong with me or with her, it doesn't reflect on me as a parent or as a person and it doesn't mean it's how I feel forever.

But just as I can logically know that she is mine yet not feel that truth as my reality, I can know that it won't be like this forever and it's not because I don't love her, while also feeling sad, confused, guilty and worried about it. 

I feel almost as though I have been robbed of our first few weeks together; like I haven't really been there. Perhaps because I had such a negative experience of pregnancy, and distanced myself from it as much as possible so my brain hasn't caught up, or perhaps because the birth was a bit chaotic and I didn't get to feed her for a couple of hours afterwards, or perhaps because of the complicated emotions surrounding having a second child and the monumental and sudden shift in relationship with my first, or even because of our previous miscarriage, I think I've somehow been a bit dissociated from the beginning of our life together.

I care for her, problem-solve about her, interact with her and make sure to smile at her and talk to her and respond to her cues. I do enjoy kissing her on the head and stroking her hair at the back of her head, because they are soft and it feels nice. And as time goes by, the times where her warm weight rests on me in sleepy trust are where the seeds of connection start to germinate. But a lot of it is conscious, deliberate, almost as though I'm watching myself doing it rather than being there doing it, feeling it happen naturally because she's my daughter. 

And that's why I didn't know whether I would post this. What kind of parent feels like this about their child? Who doesn't love their baby; their longed-for rainbow baby? Who has days where they genuinely would not be bothered if somebody said that they were taking the baby away? And what kind of parent would admit it? And what kind of child would be able to hear these things about their early days without being damaged by it? I am the biggest part of her world in these early days; I am all she knows about goodness, and so I feel ashamed that she trusts and loves me implicitly even though I feel like this. Thankfully the strongest of those truths did not last long, and as well as the negatives gradually ebbing, the gaps are starting to fill, little by little. But it turns out, the parent living those truths could be any parent. And IS a lot more parents than you'd know, which is why I will be honest about it. In the midst of those times that was my reality. I didn't know if or when it would change. I was terrified I would love one of my children and not the other, and even more terrified that they would realise or that I'd treat them unfairly.

Bonding happens differently for different people, and can happen differently with each new baby. It can be affected by a whole number of other factors, such as traumatic birth, ill health of parent or baby or another family member, previous mental illness, difficult life circumstances (eg. financial struggles, housing, relationship difficulties, etc). But a lack of bonding, or delayed or difficult bonding is not a lack of love, and it is not hopeless or to be endured in silence, pain and shame. It may feel like you don't love your child, but the love in that time is different. It may not be flowing, emotional, "love you to bits" (unfortunate phrase for the autistic among us...!) love, but the deliberate love of actively caring for your baby and pursuing a bond where it has not sprung naturally, is a dedication to the child you know is yours and want to feel is yours. And there are ways to encourage the emotional bonding, and to water the seeds of connection. If you're as lucky as I have been, there are people trained to help you along the way, but I do know how stretched services are. Many times the seeds will find their own way to grow in their own time. Because it feels scary or bleak or devastating or hopeless does not mean it is so or will always be so. As is the message I am so often trying to give, there is hope. I find it risky, dangerous, to hope, but even just a few weeks on from starting this post I can use experience to tell you just because something is true now, does not mean it will always be. 

And my second message is that there should be no shame or hesitation in talking about these things. I am quite an open person on this blog. I air many of my difficult emotions and experiences here in the hope that they will help others in some way by increasing understanding. Yet it took me two months to write and I really wasn't certain I would post this. Could I admit to people who know me what was going on underneath those first few weeks? I talked about parts of it, feeling different to having my first, and the sadness of missing him now I was spending less quality time with him, but could I reveal the depth and truth of it? Would people judge? Would they not believe me because I looked like I loved her? But there should be no shame. And so I disarm the shame by talking about it. Sometimes things in a brain just don't slot in how we expect them to, and we shouldn't have to carry that burden alone. I'm thankful I don't, and that I have Mr Peggy, close family and friends, and a bunch of professionals who are there for me. I know not everybody does, so if anything here resonates and it might help to share it, please do message me.

The long May nights

Every time I open the window in these sunny early summer days, the birds sing.

Every time, it makes my stomach turn over, my heart pump faster, my breath catch and my muscles tense.

I love the sound of birdsong, the brush of an evening breeze, but my body still doesn't. It's not as bad as it used to be; I don't cry, and most times I can tolerate leaving the window open or staying outside to finish hanging the washing on the line. I don't spend the next few hours or days stuck in inescapable memories and emotions. 

At 4am the village church clock chimes for the thousandth time tonight. The birds are in full morning chorus and I can't help but be transported back four years to those other sleepless nights. 

So different and so distant, and yet so close and familiar. It's not distress that keeps me up now, it's my second child, who's just decided she'll take after her brother after all and drag me into the mire of full on sleep deprivation. I should be thankful, and I am. Thankful that my life looks so different now. Thankful for the undeserved gift of these two precious lives that I didn't dare hope for. Thankful for less distress.

And (not but) I wish I wasn't awake right now, and I wish those memories didn't trigger such emotions and thoughts. 

Both of these things can be true. 

And I wish I could appreciate this second child for all she is, our long-awaited and even longer-hoped-for baby. It might just help me through the long nights and sometimes long days. But I think that's a post for another day. She's gone to bed so I'd better seize the chance for a few minutes' kip.

Tracing

You trace up my torso and down my arm with your fingertips or sleepy closed fist in the circuit of some imaginary vehicle, just as you used to trace the skirting board on the stairs long before we knew it was a road.

When one of your first words was "brrm" we gained a window into your inner landscape and experience of the world so that now in your peaceful dreamy state I have a good idea of the stories that are sending you off to sleep. The sensations that at times have been trying as I wonder how long you will need me here - how long tonight before I am free to make my own sleepy journeys and how many months you will need me to join you on yours - are cherished and stored up in these days, because I know no matter how many they are, they will be limited. You will not always be this small, this close to me. And soon you will have to share me with another little person with their own journey to sleep, and our nights might have to change even if you haven't chosen it.

Each moment is a privilege and a treasure as you grow into your own person. I'm proud to see you need me less as you gain confidence with others and skills of your own. I enjoy sitting back and admiring you being you and not always needing me because you had me when you did need me. But precious boy, I hope nothing more than to always be here if you want to trace a path to the old familiar home.