Why I share my innermost thoughts on the Internet

I’m not necessarily a super public person.  I don’t share all the details of my personal life with everyone and sometimes even close friends have accused me of not sharing very much.

So it might seem odd that I get on my very-public blog and share things that are incredibly personal.

But I don’t see it as odd and I intend to share more about our struggle with infertility and another pretty personal topic in the near future: my 30-year-long battle with depression.

So why do I share things like this with the whole world?  That’s an easy answer.  Those 2 situations are 2 of the times in my life where I felt completely alone.  I would be surrounded by people, yet feel completely isolated.  Now that I am a few years older (*cough* almost 40 *cough*) and have, in some ways, made it to the other side (although I use that term loosely, because there really is no “other side”), I have a passion to help others going through what I have, so they know that they are not alone.

I’ll share more about this in the future, but when we were going through fertility treatments and actively trying to have a baby, I didn’t want to talk about it - with anyone.  The few people who knew what was going on quickly discovered only to talk about it when I brought it up.  Because I think the thing that scared me most about going through fertility treatments was not the physical struggle, and it wasn’t even the fear of “what if we never have a baby.”  No, instead I was terrified of what endless years of trying to conceive would do to me mentally.  I was so scared of becoming all-consumed with trying to have a baby that I ran the other way.  Most of the time I actively avoided the subject, even with Chris, and shoved it down so I didn’t think about it.

The result was pretty horrific.  Chris and I barely communicated about where we were in trying to have kids for years, and I shoved it so far down that when I finally started to let it out, it was incredibly traumatic and I spent years in therapy trying to embrace all those feelings that I had been so scared of.

Just an example: Chris and I lived in Durham and for many years, we only had 1 car.  I would drop him off at work (in Durham) and then would drive to Raleigh for work.  The fertility clinic we went to at first was in Raleigh.  So it didn’t make sense for him to come with me to most of the appointments.  He came with me to the big ones, but I went by myself to most of them, which made sense in my mind.  There was a rational reason for us to do it that way.  

But during our 1 and only cycle of IVF, I had tons of appointments.  And for almost all of them, I was alone.  I was alone when I thought we were about to start our cycle and found out I had a cyst so we would have to wait at least another month.  I was alone when, after we started our cycle, I was told that my body wasn’t responding to the meds and I needed to double the injection I was giving myself.  And I was alone at each of the following ultrasounds when I would get the same answer: “you’re not responding like we would like to see.  Go ahead and double again (then triple, then quadruple) your meds.”  In a 2-week span, I had about 8 visits to the clinic for ultrasounds and went from one vial of meds a day to something like 16 vials a day (this was a long time ago now and my memory is fuzzy on the number, so don’t hold me to that).

After each of those appointments, I would go back out to the car and sit there and cry.  I would try to pull myself together, and then I would call Chris and tell him what they said (which was easy, because it was always the same thing).  We would talk for a minute, and then I would actively push any and all emotions I was feeling down and go to work and try not to think about it for the rest of the day.

Those weeks were some of the darkest of my life, and I had never felt more alone.  Chris took his cues from me and didn’t push me when I said I didn’t want to talk about it.  And I didn’t.  I didn’t want anyone to ask me how I was doing or how I was feeling.  I wanted to forget about it and keep that part of my life completely separate.  So isolation became a kind of company in and of itself.  I didn’t feel like anyone else in the world understood what I was going through, and I had no desire to be the one to fill anyone in.

If there is one thing I can do now - now that we are done with fertility treatments and have begun a new chapter of - it’s to try to help others going through similar situations know that they aren’t alone.  That others have walked similar dark roads before them, and can try to bring some lightness.

So that’s why I share.  It’s not easy.  I feel vulnerable and sometimes it seems that I’m just poking an old wound and am keeping it from healing.  But I know that talking about it is good for me.  Getting it out and not being ashamed or secretive about these experiences is not only how I continue to grow and heal, but it also, hopefully, raises awareness about these situations and helps others feel a little less alone.

And if nothing else, I don’t always cry when thinking about those dark weeks anymore.  And that in itself is something to be happy about.