Perception as reality

Perception and reality are often viewed to be one. This is because the process of perception is extremely unique. Though there are always five stages of perception, the stages are highly influenced by an array of characteristics such as life experiences, culture, self-concept, judges of attribution, and particularly the basis on consensus, consistency, distinctiveness, and controllability (if you're curious how I know this, it's from a course I took. This is nothing that I made up myself, of course).

Memory and recall (the last two of the five stages) are highly finicky; we choose to remember what we wish to remember, and we do not always remember everything we originally selected to be organized (such as choosing  a stimuli to attend to).

In laymen's terms: If I perceive myself to be happy, perhaps I can will myself to believe such.

In this instance, I am analyzing my perception of what truly happened in the case of our loss, the miscarriage. I find myself to be extremely emotional and feeling like the victim. Woe is me! Why must this happen? Why me? Why not someone else? What did I do to deserve this? I am also very defensive and refuse to discuss this with anybody (with the exception of the grief counselor I will be seeing soon). I can talk about it with Kevin, but that's it. Not my grandmother. Not my mom. Not my close friends. When anybody calls to talk about it with me, I feel extremely...violated. I want to say, "Dude. Back the fuck off. I'll answer my phone when I want to talk to you. Stop taking it personal. I need my space. Go enjoy your life and leave me to wallow in my feelings of worthlessness."

It is my hope that by viewing the stark facts and removing the emotion from the experience, I will be able to see the situation for what it was: a terrible and unfortunate occurrence. A spontaneous act of tragedy. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Facts:
We charted to get pregnant. We planned this.
I was healthy. I lost weight and worked out. I changed my diet. I took daily vitamins.
The pregnancy took.
I continued to eat well and exercise. I gave up caffeine. I bought the best prenatal pills on the market.
My back started to hurt. Sharp, deep pains. I had spotting.
The pregnancy is no longer viable.
I do not know why this happened. I do not know if it something I did.

On paper, it feels like I am not at fault. I did everything I was "supposed" to do. Yet my perception of the situation could not be further away. I cannot untangle myself from the web of emotions and feelings of blame.

I cannot help but feel so violated and angry.

Sigh.

It's going to be a long, messy road in front of me. I am going to get through this, though. I have to. I must do it for Kevin. I have to do this for Emma. Most of all, I must do it for myself because what good am I when I have little to energy and am feeling like I cannot accomplish jack shit?

So I am setting some goals for myself. They are small. Don't laugh.

1) Wake up in the morning and write down three positive things about yesterday. It can be anything.
2) Make an effort to leave my home, even if to check the mail or go to the store for milk.
3) Call one of my friends for coffee (this seems terrifying to me. Oh lord.)
4) Start being productive around home. Do one load of laundry a day. Cook a meal. Mail off a few bills.
5) Make a list of those to Christmas shop for. I have not done ANYTHING in this department.
6) Have more patience. Stop being on edge.
7) Remind myself this is loss. It is nothing personal. Sometimes life sucks and I need a fucking huge ass nerd helmet. Hell, I'll even take head gear if it means I'll feel better.
8) Do something nice for myself. I am not sure what this is yet.
9) Plan something special to do with Kevin and Emma
10)  Find a mantra. Memorize it. Repeat when I feel inadequate or things get pretty dark.


These are much easier written than done. But I am going to try. I need to focus my energy elsewhere. I need to stop wallowing in my own personal pity party. There is too much goodness and beauty around me. It's just covered by an insane amount of shit and fog and anger and devastation.

Why is it easy to recognize what you have, but hard to change the things you don't like about yourself?

Fuck you, Nature. Fuck off.