Just call me "Fort Knox"

It has been so long since I've written that I feel almost like I have forgotten how. I obviously know how to write, but what I mean is that I, in a way, feel like I can't remember how to feel anymore. It has been nine months since my mom died and over a year since Aunt Polly died. Since that time, I have finished my internship, completed my graduate classes, finished my thesis, graduated, gotten married, and two weeks after I graduated, I was lucky enough to get a full-time job as a clinical dietitian at a very challenging and busy facility. I am now learning that although I am blessed to be married, to have achieved a Master's, to have finished my thesis, and most importantly, to have been granted a full-time job, I have buried everything so far that I can now barely bring it to the surface to deal with it. And because of this, I am back in counseling, by my own wishes and clarity. I do not want to feel this way anymore. And really, I have only been feeling this way for about three weeks and yet I can barely stand myself.

I can say, wholeheartedly and honestly, that I am more sad and missing my mom more than I ever have. I tried so hard to be brave and so hard to be strong for everyone else around me that I forgot to let myself accept the fact that she is gone. Now that I am finally done with the pressure of school and a thesis and finding a job and settling in to a routine, a storm of missing and wanting have hit me. Hard. I have never felt like this before. And it scares me.

Several weekends ago I had an episode of panic that struck so badly I had to pull over...I was driving on the highway. It hit me how lonely and how sad I was for my family and how I missed the way things used to be with us--I wanted things to be back to normal. It all started with hearing my mom scream my name in the ICU. I understand that I have post-traumatic stress and that this type of thing will happen from time to time, and I usually deal with it so much better. Not this time. I immediately felt hot and sweaty and started to breathe hard and heavy. I got lightheaded. I scratched at myself and pulled at my hair, I would have done anything to make her screaming stop. I called at least ten people in my phone. No one answered. I sat on the side of the highway for a while and I was able to get a hold of myself. I was so scared of myself and yet didn't understand what was happening to me or who I even was. That wasn't me. It was like an out-of-body experience where I knew it was me but couldn't do anything to control it, or more importantly, stop it. This was a Saturday. I called my psychologist on Monday to make an appointment for the first available. It had been nearly seven months since I had seen her.

I thought I was fine.

When I told her what had happened, she explained to me that because I have been so "busy" and so "focused" on my life and "getting past this" that I haven't actually dealt with it at all. I suppose this wasn't surprising for me to hear and yet it was something that never had occurred to me on my own. I can honestly say that after nine months of my mom being gone, I thought I had dealt with it. At least it felt that way.

She told me that I am hard on myself, that I never let myself feel pain, that I am not good company for myself to be around. That I haven't dealt with any of this and how incredibly bad my heart and my life are hurting. She's totally right. So here comes the whammy: What are we going to do about this?

"You are so structured," she explains, "that the only way for you to let yourself feel how sad you are is to schedule it. Yep. Schedule an hour a day to just let yourself feel bad. Let yourself cry. Let yourself be mad. If you don't, you will be pulled over on the side of the highway, not being able to breathe, not being able to cope, ever other weekend."

I nodded.

For those of you who know me well, you know I'm a good student. I took what she had to say, and I took the plan, and I really worked hard at it. I tried so hard to let myself remember her screaming, remember her yellow eyes, remember the blood in her catheter, and to remember her choking against the tube down her throat. I tried. I imagined and remembered the most painful things I could think of, and how sad I felt for her that she was going through it and not me. I wanted it to be me. I wanted to save her, and I couldn't. I tried so hard. My tears would come, and no sooner would I realize and then force them aside.

"No. Don't do this," I would think to myself. I am thinking that now. I try so hard to be strong. I have had to be so strong for everyone for so long, and I feel like mostly, I have had to be strong for me mom, while she was alive but more so after she died.

I don't want to let her down and let her know that I am hurt because she is gone.

How could I cry during my Aunt Polly's eulogy? How could I cry during my mom's? I would have never been able to get through them if I had let myself be upset. I wouldn't have been able to honor them in the way they deserved.

How can I walk into my new workplace with red cheeks and mascara smeared all over my face? I can't. I'm a professional, and I'm not at work to take care of myself...I'm there for all of the patients that need taken care of. How would I be able to do my job? I wouldn't. I don't want to be upset at work.

The only time I feel like I can be upset is on my way home from work. I have been trying so hard to focus on these things on the drive home. Nothing. Not a single tear.

I am the worst griever ever.

When I went back to my psychologist this week, she asked how many times I cried since I had last seen her. I was disappointed in myself as I reported, "Not at all." I then added, "But I tried," in hopes that she wouldn't be disappointed in me too. She then began to say things that I am pretty convinced she was trying to make me crack and sob all over the place. I didn't. I choked back tears but didn't let them go in front of her. "I know you're fighting it back. If you can't do it in front of me, how will you ever move on from this? You may not want to lose it at work or in front of your husband, but you can't even do it with me."

"Why are you here?" she asked me.

Now come on. We both know, and so many others probably know, why I am here. Why I am here, in this spot in my life. Why I am stuck. Why I can't get out. The question is...how can I fix it? That's why I see her. I need help getting out and I can't do it myself.

I do not understand why I force myself to be so strong. After my mom's eulogy, my cousin came up to me, shaking his head. "I don't know how you just did that. You are a rock." Yep, that's it. A rock. I can't break for anything. I'm scared of what will happen if I break. And in front of whom I break. I wish I could break, sometimes. I know that would be best, and I know that's what I need but as soon as the emotion and the hurt and the anger and the loneliness build into that lump in my throat, I immediately swallow it. I am a rock. I am a rock. I am a rock. It's three times before we really believe it, right?

But paper beats rock. Being a rock is not always the best. I know this. Why can't I let myself crumble? I wish I would crumble, so I can begin to build myself back up again.