As a trauma therapist, I spend the majority of my day listening to
stories of absolutely heartbreaking experiences. I see the pain on
my client's faces; see the depth of suffering in their eyes as they
mentally relive the darkest experiences of their lives. This is
absolutely one of the hardest parts of my day. I genuinely like my
clients, they are all such kind, generous, thoughtful people and I
hate thinking of any of them living the horrific scenes that they
describe to me daily. Often these stories are peppered with tears.
Tears that at once comfort and frustrate them because of their
seemingly endless caress. There is something very intimate, very
bonding about being present while someone else is crying. I always
feel that it is such an honor to be present because I am aware of how
fiercely most people protect the time in which they cry. It is
generally saved for private moments or those shared with only the
very closest friends or family. I make an effort to treat those
moments with the respect that I believe they deserve. I am a silent
witness, only validating them in the grief that they feel for the
person they were before a traumatic experience shook them to their
core and altered the very person that they now see when they look in
the mirror.
I have teared up many times in sessions. It is incredibly difficult
to listen to people who you genuinely care about speak so in depth
about their pain and suffering. It is an iron clad therapist rule
however to put up a wall and never cry in a client's session. This
is not to be cold or impersonal, but because it is necessary to do
the job. Early in trauma therapy training you learn a key component
to counseling. A client will never tell you more than they think
that you can handle to hear. If you become a mess, sobbing and
blowing your nose their natural instinct as humans is to try to
protect and comfort you, and their healing just cannot happen that
way. So as a therapist, you put up a wall. It distances you and
allows you to listen to people who you care so much for while they
tell you about their daily struggles. I have a very good wall. So
generally, I manage to keep my own eyes dry and the task of helping
them to heal always in the forefront of my thoughts. What do they
need? That is what I can control. I can't stop the experience from
happening to them, but I can stop the torture that they continue to
feel today. But sometimes, even with my wall, their stories get in.
In those cases, I tuck my head down like I'm typing in their notes
and let my own tears recede back into my eyes, validate their pain
then continue on like nothing ever happened. I have only stumbled
over this once and I have had a second, very close call. Both were
in the same week, and both were near the end of my time trying to
conceive.
My close call was
during a session with a little girl whose mother had abandoned her
for a new boyfriend. The mother had moved out of their home and left
her with a family friend to live her life single and childless. I
adored this little girl. She was smart, charming, funny and
absolutely beautiful. She was everything that anyone could ever want
in a daughter. As is common with my kids, we play games to allow
them to open up and talk more easily. That day, about two years into
my trying to conceive, we were playing Lego’s. All of the sudden
she stopped and looked up at me with a huge, sweet smile on her
little face and asked if I had kids. “Not yet,” I replied,
feeling the familiar sting in my heart. She cheerfully continued.
“I'm going to go home with you and live with you then,” she said.
“You can be my mommy.” I felt the tears come on, felt myself
start to sweat in panic. I cannot burst into tears in front of this
little girl, I reprimanded myself. As is common with tears, the more
you try to hold them in, the more they fight to come out. I avoided
her eye contact, but smiled and thanked her for such a sweet
compliment and told her how very proud I would be to have a daughter
like her. She glowed and I felt like I was dying inside. But I
pulled it together, and to this day I am not sure how. That was an
hour that I just got through and the minute it was over and I was
alone in my office I burst into tears. I cried for myself, I cried
for her, I cried for her stupid mother who didn't even realize how
fortunate she was. I cried for every motherless child and every
childless mother in the world. I cried for all of us that day.
Later that week, I sat in another session, this time
with a man who had been struggling with debilitating anxiety for
years. He was frustrated and tired and at the end of a long list of
medications that he had tried but were never the right mix. He was
feeling lost and hopeless and like the day was never going to come
when he would be able to function like himself again. My heart broke
for him. Anxiety is difficult, but it wasn't even that piece of what
he was saying that resonated with me at that time. It was the
waiting. The endless trying, the feeling that door after door was
being closed and the number of doors remaining open was dwindling to
nothing. It was the desperation in his voice and the pleading in his
eyes that gripped my heart and just twisted it. I heard myself in
his struggle. He was treading water but losing hope of a rescue fast
and I could relate more than he could ever know.
“Sometimes, you just have to keep trying,” I said.
Even as the words came out of my mouth I didn't know if I believed
them. Maybe there wasn't hope for either of us. Maybe this really
was it. Maybe this was all we had to look forward to, more of the
same. “We don't always get to choose when things finally click,”
I said. “Sometimes we have to keep looking until. And we
just have to have faith that until is coming and someday we will
look back and be stronger for the journey.” I was talking to him,
but I was hearing my words in my own heart and at that moment I just
couldn't hold it in any longer. I don't know if it was because I was
the one talking for a change and the waver of my voice gave me away
or if the subject matter just hit way to close to home but with
horror I felt the tears begin to run down my cheeks. I jumped up to
grab a tissue from the box beside my couch and quickly attempted to
pull myself together. As I feared, my client immediately asked if I
was okay, which as a human I appreciated but as a clinician made me
cringe. “I'm fine,” I assured him, trying to sound convincing.
I decided in that moment to cut my losses and attempt to just speak
to him person to person. I let him know that he isn't alone. That
so many things in life are outside of our control and that you just
do your best within that reality. You control the things that you
can, and have faith that the rest will work itself out. But I
reminded him that giving up, while an option only robs us of the
future that we are capable of creating. I promised him that I plan
to never give up on what I want and I encouraged him to fight right
along with me. I believe, well I hope that he appreciated the
honesty and if nothing else could at least feel a little less alone
in that moment, in that struggle.
In the moment I however, was mortified. But I share
this experience with you because I think that often, when navigating
infertility, we try to be so strong. We have to be, there is no
other choice. We have to live our lives regardless. The world
doesn't just stop because you have reproductive issues. But those
moments are going to come when you break. And that's okay too.
You're human and it's incredibly painful to want a child of your own
so badly, and feel this dream slip through your fingers month after
month after month. So forgive yourself when those human moments
happen. And when it passes, and you feel yourself regain your
strength, you pick yourself up and continue on, knowing that someday
all of this pain will be worth it, and that you are never alone.
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