A few of you have indicated your willingness to share some stories for my book idea. Thank you! This is very exciting! I have spent most of the weekend writing and I think there is no doubt this thing is coming out- in fact, I’m not sure I could stop it if I wanted to.
I have just written to Brene Brown to ask permission to use her shame work. I’m not expecting a response to be quick, but I hope she says yes at some point, because this is what I discovered: Every element of her books (I thought it was just me, but it isn’t; and The gifts of imperfection) speaks directly to the experience of infertility. Somehow, these books have come along and named all of what is going on for me as an infertile person. Each topic, headline, concept, speaks to me in my own context. Through this comes a great sense of clarity and structure for me. Like a scaffold. Something strong, something to support me, and a place to start building from. It’s dissolving my sense of confusion because through these ideas, somehow so much is finally beginning to make sense.
I’m feeling a lot like a hoarder right now. I have collected a lot of emotions and a lot of situations and stories on this topic of infertility over the past seven years. They’ve come in, and I’ve put them down any old where (and a lot of them under the rug, I am sure) and in no particular order. I’ve brought in a bit of other people’s stuff too, where it connected with mine, and done the same with that.
It looks invisible, but actually I am full to bursting with this jumbled collection and now begins the process of sorting through my stuff. Putting it into categories, themes, sequences that make sense. It’s qualitative research and collecting is the easiest bit. After collecting comes collating, and then I need to analyse that material until there are no new themes coming through (saturation point) and then I need to synthesise it and put it into a structure that flows and uses an argument that makes sense. One thing I can be certain of- there wont be a lack of material. One thing I am not certain of- how long this is going to take!
What I do need is a place to store everyone else’s contributions while I get a framework sorted out that will give me an eventual place to put new material directly as it comes to hand. I also want to make sure people are correctly attributed (and if you want a fake name, that’s fine by me, just let me know). I am also really open to ideas about structure.
I’d like a place where we can all go, at any time, and look at the stories and the layout, and be able to make comments. If we are going to throw this open to the whole infertility community (and I’d like to, once I have Brene’s permission to use her work), then the place to go can’t be this blog. I need to create somewhere new, and I don’t know where or what it should look like. Any ideas?
Meanwhile, let’s start the ball rolling. When I think about it, almost anything can trigger some heavy emotional response around infertility. Here’s a few more snippets from me:
- Filling in a census form [like I have to do next week] (when this happens I feel sick in my stomach. Because I know there will be no room for me to mention my unborn children. It’s as though my children are so invisible not even my country wants to acknowledge them. They are of no importance to policy making. How can this be useful information? Well perhaps it isn’t useful, but I feel like I am being made to lie when I check the box that says NO CHILDREN. This is not the truth. Where is the box to check that allows me to speak my truth? I feel smothered, suppressed, silenced, disowned).
- Filling in medical history forms (when this happens I feel like screaming. I have filled in so many of these things. It dredges up the pain and grief all over again, fresh and raw as the day it formed. I know that the information I leave will often attract but a mere glance, or even just be filed away somewhere without being seen. I feel bullied, in a way, coerced. The ‘rules’ say I have to provide these details, and it often hurts me to do it, and then it doesn’t matter enough for anybody to look at it, or respond, acknowledge. I feel angry).
- An appointment with a new medical professional (when this happens I feel dread. Even if I have carefully written my medical history out, in brief note form, so they can be up to date before I enter the room, I know they wont have read it. Even if I hand it over at the beginning of the appointment, they put it aside and say “but I want to hear it in your own words”. If this was a therapy session I would understand the reason behind that. They only want to hear the factual details, not to help me with my emotional responses. So why do they make me go through telling them something that brings me to tears, nay, great heaving sobs with a racing heart rate? Do they get a kick out of reducing me to a blubbering mess? I feel bullied, disrespected. I feel unseen, and exposed at the same time. I feel so incredibly powerless).
- Going to parties, or ANY events with strangers who are likely to ask us if we have children (This is getting my heart racing just typing that. I feel afraid, fearful, anxious. Trepidatious would probably be the precise word. How will I hold my shit together when someone asks me if I have children? (Because they WILL ask me, at some point, someone ALWAYS asks me. Sometimes they don’t even ask IF I have children, but simply HOW MANY, as though it is already a given, because I am a woman of a certain age). What will I do when they want to talk about theirs, endlessly? What will I say about my own situation? Something? Nothing? How will I spend the event?-perpetually maneuvering myself around, trying to find a safe place, a safe conversation. That could be sabotaged at any moment. It feels like I am in a minefield).
- When we take a risk to open up and are dismissed anyway (God, the worst of this was the time a guest at my brother’s wedding asked if I had children, and I took a chance and replied with a brief version of my reproductive history. She said “Oh. Don’t worry, it will happen. Do you want to see pictures of my kids? They are such treasures” and proceeded to pull out pictures of her kids and bang on about them until I just walked away without a word, utterly stunned. I felt like I’d been kicked in the guts. In fact, like I’d been eviscerated).
And oh, there must be hundreds, perhaps even thousands more of these tiny, seemingly insignificant (to other people) moments. I want to capture as many as I can.
A lot of what is happening here is what Brene Brown would call unintentional shame. Here are a few lines from her on the subject:
(I thought it was just me, pp147): We use the concept of ‘otherness’ to insulate ourselves and disconnect…The natural tendency to avoid or reduce the pain created by sharing your own or another’s shame story is often why we start to judge and insulate ourselves using otherness.
(I thought it was just me, pp151): It’s hard. We don’t want to connect with people who are in pain, especially if…their pain is too scary for us…we could be forced to acknowledge that bad things happen to people like us.
(I thought it was just me, pp165): Unintentional shame often happens when people are trying to be helpful but end up giving unsolicited advice, judging, or shutting down the conversation out of their own discomfort.
(I thought it was just me, pp162): It’s important to point out that the motivations behind shame don’t buffer us from the pain. Unintentional shame is still painful.
So here we have a very reasonable explanation for why Aunt Jane can’t help giving us ‘assvice’, and why people ask how many children you have or say “Oh, it will happen for you” and whip out photos of their kids. Insensitive, thoughtless and hurtful comments spew from people who don’t know what to do with their uncomfortable feelings about our situation. Mostly, they ‘mean’ well. That doesn’t stop it hurting. And it doesn’t mean we can’t tell them how their reactions make us feel. Once we’ve picked ourselves up from the floor, stopped shaking, sobbing and become remotely coherent again.
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