misguidance: (Bored)
misguidance ([personal profile] misguidance) wrote2015-03-15 01:26 am

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to everybody out there who is a mother, or who has a mother.  So... between those two... I expect that's pretty much everybody!

Now for the depressing part, so I imagine a lot of you will want to stop here and I'll put the rest under a cut just to be sure. 

Mother's Day is hard for me.  It's hard for a lot of people, I know, and I certainly don't have a monopoly on Mother's Day angst.   This year, though, it's hit me a lot harder than it has done in the past.  I was supposed to be going out today with two friends, just for a walk and maybe a lunch somewhere, but I had to cancel after having the biggest panic attack that I think I've had in the last 4 years or so.  I actually ended up taking one of the sedatives that my GP gave me for emergencies, and even with that on board I can't sleep and am feeling tense. -__-.  I contacted the other two to let them know why I wouldn't be coming (the idea of leaving the house is making me physically shake, and the sedatives make me slur something awful.  Even if I wanted to go, I won't be in a fit state for it.)  In reply, one of the others sent me a snarky message telling me that Mother's Day is hard for lots of people, and that was the point of the trip.  She then cancelled too, refusing to go out with the other person if I wasn't there, which is both nonsensical (they were friends long before I met either of them) and cruel.  She's basically putting the blame for this on me, even though she knows I have just had a massive anxiety-based incident.  I am not impressed by this. 

I have refrained from saying anything to her.  I could say a LOT to her, since every time any of us see her we spend all our time (and I'm not exaggerating here- I do mean LITERALLY all our time) listening to her talk about her foster sons, both of whom are currently in prison.  Normally I don't mind, and I'm sure their being away is what's getting to her this year, but she never gives anything back.  She doesn't seem to get that sometimes other people have stuff going on too, and could use some sympathy.  Now is clearly not the time to tell her this, because I would like to keep her as a friend.  However, if I see her again soon and she brings this up, the way I'm feeling now I will probably lay into her big time about it, because her behaviour is not kind.  Passive aggressively telling somebody recovering from a panic attack that they are the reason an event has fallen through?  Just.  Not.  Kind.

And here's the thing: this attack has been a long time coming.  Many years ago, before I transitioned, I actually WAS a mother.  I had a little boy, and he lived for just 23mins before I lost him.   And every time at Mother's Day, I think about everything that my mother did for me, and it hurts because I never got to do those things for him.  And these last few years its hurt even more, because Mum hasn't been here either and I feel completely cut adrift.  And then just a few days ago, I was called on to care for a woman in labour carrying a non-viable baby with the exact same condition that killed my little boy, and that's been hanging over me too, which has been very hard.  All the time I was caring for her, I was feeling this deep, empty pain, like my body still remembers that there was something precious in me, and is still waiting for it to grow and become a person.  And that comes with a lot of guilt, because I never wanted a child.  I still don't want to carry a baby in me- but I had one, and he was part of me, and I would quite literally give anything in the whole damn world to have him back again, even for a few minutes.  There is still a very irrational part of me that feels that if I had wanted him, then maybe he would have lived.   I can't even begin to describe how that feels.

My parents never knew I was pregnant, so while I can talk to Dad and my brother about Mum, I can't tell them about this extra weight that I'm carrying at this time of year.  And at work I'm not officially 'out' (even though people do know I'm trans), so I don't talk about it much and there's nobody I feel close enough to to confide in.  And I don't talk about it with my friends, either, because it hurts, and a lot of my friends have their own issues to cope with and I don't like burdening people.

Today, though, all I needed was a bit of sympathy and maybe a note saying that I'd still be welcome if I felt better in the morning.  Something like that.  But instead I got passive-aggressive fuck-wittery from somebody who is so wrapped up in themselves that it never occurred to them to engage their brain before opening their (online) mouth.   Even though they don't know my history (although I did say that the attack was because I missed my mother, which is 50% of the truth), you'd think that a massive panic attack was indicative of something significant, wouldn't you?

I'm really hoping she doesn't mention it again.  She may not be everybody's idea of a good friend, but I don't want to alienate her and I have a feeling that being told that she's a self-centred, self-absorbed moron might just do that, no matter how carefully I word it.  

Oh, and another friend in the group who witnessed the exchange messaged me to ask me if I'm ok and to apologise for this woman's behaviour (as we Brits tend to- always apologising for stuff we have no control over!), which actually took me by surprise a bit, because I was worried that maybe I was reading too much into her message.  But no, apparently not.  Mixed feelings on that, because on some level I would rather be overracting and it be nothing, than think that somebody I think of as a friend would be so hurtful.