Tag Archives: miscarriage

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Pregnancy tests are just not funny

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April Fool’s Day is a day of elaborate jokes and pranking. Heck, I have participated in my fair share of fairly epic pranks. However, there is one “joke” that gets pulled year after year, and it is never funny. That “joke” in question is a fake pregnancy announcement.

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Photo by Steid for Pixabay

I use “joke” loosely in the above statement because it really is no joke at all. On April Fool’s Day after I had my first miscarriage, one of my Facebook friends, posted a pregnancy test on her wall. I am sure she thought of it as a harmless prank, but it felt like a kick in the gut. Here is this chick basically saying, “Ha Ha. Psyche! I am not really pregnant. Pregnancy is soooo hilarious, you all.” All I kept feeling was how my body failed me, how I was supposed to be a few months away from having my sweet baby, and all I had was an empty womb and a still broken heart.

Women grieve differently. Some women who are struggling with infertility or suffered miscarriages can see this and not be affected. I am not one of them. My back to back losses made me feel like a failure. They ripped my heart apart. I fell apart. I had nightmares. In fact, I still have nightmares sometimes, and it has been over four years since my last loss. For many women, this “joke” acts as a trigger, a reminder of how our bodies have not given us what we wanted, a reminder of what we have lost.

I have written about my losses quite a bit, as well as my journey to my rainbow baby. I have done it because miscarriage is still a somewhat taboo subject, and many people are still insensitive about the subject. My losses spiraled me to a very dark point in my life. The feelings from my losses made me want to rip my heart out to ease the hurt inside me. So I wrote and wrote and wrote…to heal…to share…and to help others understand.

There are plenty of jokes that you can try for April Fool’s Day, but don’t be a jerk. “Jokes” like a fake pregnancy announcement can really hurt someone you love, someone who may be struggling with infertility or someone who may have miscarried. Because these are subjects that are not always shared, you may not even know about their struggles, so find something else. Don’t be insensitive. Be funny. Be creative. Don’t be a jerk on April Fool’s Day.

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My message to those who struggle after miscarriage

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I keep thinking that I shouldn’t write about miscarriage and loss anymore because I have my rainbow baby now…because it was a few years ago…because someone might think I am being an attention seeker. However, writing is my therapy. When I lost my babies, it helped me to be able to write my thoughts if only to get me through that particular day. I told parts of my story in hopes that it would also help someone else struggling as well, which is why I decided that it is time to tell my story as it is now, for those of you somewhere out there that still struggle with the pain, that have been made to feel like you need to keep silent, that bury your feelings so deep inside that the pain has become part of you. This is for you.

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photo by PEXELS for Pixabay

In December, it will be four years since I lost my Luk. We named him Lukasz to keep in the spirit of giving our kids Polish names. We named him because while I only held him in my hand for a few moments after losing him in the bathroom in the middle of the night while my other two children slept on, he had been the child of my heart. He had been a part of our family. All four of us had such big dreams for him, and the most we would ever be able to do would be to give him a name, a name to call my son I would never rock to sleep, a name to give to the brother the kids would never get to play with.

Some months later, when I lost my second baby, we broke the tradition as my husband and I sat in the hospital waiting for my surgery while listening to babies being born in the rooms surrounding us. Each cry felt like a knife stabbing me in the heart. We named that baby Faith. We named that baby Faith because I was afraid of losing mine. My heart was full of anger and pain. I could not understand why a God could be so unfair to take not one, but two babies from me. Two very wanted babies. In the time between my two losses, I felt like I had completely fallen apart. However, if I want to be brutally honest, I was struggling a bit before this all had begun. My problems had started months before I lost that first one.

My husband and I struggled in our marriage for a few years before we decided to go for a third child. We began to work our way through our issues and just decided to go for it once we felt we were at a good place with each other and with our finances, which had begun to turn around for us as well. I didn’t think it would take long. Our homeschool community was full of people that seemed to only look at their spouse  to become pregnant again. For me, I decided that since a lot of my dreams for how I thought my life was going to be were kinda tossed out of the window after my accident years before that maybe I would just simply be a mom. I would raise my kids. I would be fun. When that was done, I would have grandkids. Yup, that was going to be my life. However, as the months went by, I did not get pregnant. I have to say that seeing some of my friends get pregnant during that time was hard because I couldn’t understand why it just wasn’t happening for me.

I threw myself into my business for a bit. I didn’t feel comfortable really talking to people about how depressed I felt, and maybe I should have. I should have probably closed my business right then and there. I had a moment that summer when I was moving locations and getting ready to make it a much grander idea than it was to simply stop. My heart was not in it. I did not feel right about what I was doing. I was stressed. It made me more depressed. I felt lonely. I felt even more afraid to open up for fear of feeling like a failure. And I did feel like a failure. I felt I was failing because I couldn’t get pregnant, because I didn’t want this shop that I was investing in, because I felt alone, because I felt that my worth was only on what I could do, how I could pull my weight, how I could keep up a facade. Some days, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

I still have nightmares about how I lost my first baby, alone in my bathroom and not really knowing what was going on until the last minute. I had two healthy kids. I had gone to my doctor that previous day. He said I was fine. He said he thought I had a bladder infection. I found out after it was all over from another doctor in the practice that my ultrasound showed a deflated sac. I felt like the other doctor did not care about my health or safety. I felt like no one cared about me, which I knew was not true. I had some friends that cared. However, as time went on after losing the baby, I felt that maybe my friends felt I should have moved on. That is the way society sees it though. Miscarriage happens. Move on. Women are supposed to be this strong super human force that must always show strength in all situations or else we will be seen as weak. We don’t have a village supporting us anymore. Social media has made it more so that our village carries pitchforks instead to prod us into not dealing with things properly.

Looking back on everything, there is a good chance that I had PPD (postpartum depression) after losing Luk. However, it is not something often discussed. Why? I have no idea. Our hormones are all over the place. For those of us that wanted our pregnancies, there is this huge sense of loss in which we must deal. It is a perfect storm for mental issues, but yet I feel it is often overlooked. PPD or mental illness in any form is seen as a weakness, something you keep hidden but do not discuss. I do know that I felt very broken. I felt very alone. I felt like I was supposed to be fine, but I was not and because of that some people in my life started to drift away from me. There are times this still angers me. However, I know that deep down not everyone in your life is meant to be there forever. Sometimes, we cannot handle other people’s pain because of pain in our own life. Sometimes, people are just assholes too. That is life. That being said, when you are in so much pain that it is a struggle to get out of bed in the morning, it is better to have a support system at your side. I say this because if I had to go through this all over again, I would not have wanted to push those away who did want to help because of the way those who did not made me feel.

I would like to say that I am fine today, but I am not always fine. I had PPD with my rainbow baby, and it made me feel like hell. I felt like trying to manage postpartum depression while trying to enjoy my colicky rainbow baby was a punishment for something I had done. Even now, I still carry guilt that for many months after having Miss Crankles, I was unable to enjoy her. I felt that it said something about my character as a mother, and only recently have I been able to start realizing that I am actually a damn good mom. I am just human.

I carry all these feelings and memories of the past few years, and I still have a hard time letting go. Some of us deal with things better than others. Some of us heal faster than others. I guess for me that the losses, the depression, the feelings of everything that has happened the past few years has just been a little bit too much for me to process quickly, and I am still trying to heal. There are times that I wish that I could forget about the two that I lost, that I would not have let them in my heart. Then I feel guilty for thinking that. There are times that I wonder what plan God could possibly have for me and my life in breaking my heart to the point that it still hasn’t fully healed. There are times that I wake in the middle of the night and fear that my kids will need therapy because their mom was broken. It sucks. All of this has sucked the life from me. And I am afraid. I am afraid to say too much, to tell people how I think, to tell all of my feelings because I am afraid of people seeing me so open and raw. I am afraid that they will judge me or worse…leave me.

So often, miscarriage is seen like this procedure…as if to say, “Well you were pregnant, and now you aren’t. Next!” No one tells you that this moment will make you see your whole life differently. It may cause discord between your spouse, family, and friends. You will grieve, but you won’t know how you are supposed to grieve because this is still taboo. This may cause you to lose your faith if you are religious. Heck, I am still mad at God and only recently started going to church for real again because for a while I was not sure I could believe in a God that would take my baby away when I could look at the news and see stories of people killing their kids. What you hear is that it is just part of life.

That is why I am sharing this because my grief process didn’t follow the rules for how it was supposed to be…because my heart still hurts and because our society has become this place where mothers are supposed to do it all…but keep our emotions in check. I want us to be more than that. I want to bring villages back. I want mothers to know that it is okay if you are not okay. I want people to know that we do not all feel the same way as someone else in the same situation because we are all different. Most of all, I don’t want others to be like me, to be so broken and alone and not know who or where to go to for help. I do not want someone to get worse instead of better because she pushed her emotions so deep that it only made it worse. I do not want someone to feel like their loss did not matter, because it did. I do not want for someone to feel like she has to be superhuman because we do not have to be.

There are many days that I feel fine and feel like I have been moving forward. Then it just happens…a dream, a show, a song, something someone said…and I am wistful, missing what I could have had and sad for not having it, knowing that I have three beautiful children whom I adore but always feeling like there is someone missing. Mamas, we gotta take care of one another. We gotta bring the village back. We gotta start reaching out more. Also, we need our healthcare providers to deal with pregnancy loss differently. We need to break down the taboos and get the conversation going. And that is why I share my story with you.

 

 

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When it’s unfair…

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Three years ago, around this time, I mourned the fact that my due date had passed from my first baby I had lost. A month before that, I lost my second pregnancy. Somewhere around that time three years ago, I briefly lost my mind too. I actually got to a point that I no longer wanted to be here because the pain in my heart was too great for me to bear. I eventually got through, and I started to live a bit more after that. However, when my missed due date had come and gone and a friend who had the same due date and a sister-in-law who also had the same due date had their babies, I couldn’t help but feel that it was all a little unfair because the babies I carried for a time in my womb would never be in this world for me to enjoy. It wasn’t like I wished ill of my friend or my sister-in-law, it was more of a twinge of jealousy in seeing them with their bundles of joy. All the dreams I had for my babies would never come to pass. The hardest thing about life sometimes is that it is extremely unfair.

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The theme of unfairness came into my life again after Miss Crankles was born. By the time she was two months old, I had postpartum depression. It, and lack of sleep, robbed me of the joy I should have felt when she was so little. It is one of the big reasons that I have decided to continue with extended breastfeeding. It helped me gain back the bonding time I felt I lacked from being distant when PPD was at its worst. I couldn’t help but feel at the time that someone in the universe was laughing at me because it seemed like a cruel joke. I finally got what I wanted, but my body and hormones were seriously out of whack making me not be able to enjoy the little person that I almost lost my sanity trying to get.

When you are struggling with fertility, whether it is your for your first child or in my case third, life can seem very unfair. It is not like you hate the friend whose husband just has to look at them to get pregnant, but you wonder why that can’t happen to you. I used to think that I must be severely flawed. Maybe I was not a good enough mom, and so God didn’t want me to be in charge of another human being. I know it is rubbish since the news is full of stories of people being completely awful excuses for human beings, and those people have babies. However, sometimes, it is easy to go into that dark place and think the fault must lie within you because you feel you need some sort of an explanation. Not to mention, sometimes people are assholes and tell you things like this because it makes them feel better about themselves. Whatever the reason you think negative like this, know it is not your fault. Life is just shitty sometimes.

In my story, I did get my baby in the end, and now we are a family of five. However, if we try again, I don’t know if we would have a happy ending this time. Some people never do. I wish I could be full of inspiration and say, “Keep going Tiger! You will get there.” I feel like the biggest Debbie Downer to say that you might not. Life is never as easy as they make it sound in the story books. Then of course, there are those who say that God has a plan. I really hate that line, like I loathe it. Saying that God has a plan does not make the pain of loss or trying and not having a baby any better. Also, saying that really does not make God sound like a good being. Please people of Earth stop saying this. Period. Remove it from things that come out of your mouth.

I have a friend who has been trying for a long time to have a baby, and it just is not happening. The more I think about it, the more that I just wish I could punch something for her. She is this beautiful soul, the kind that takes you and holds you and tries to make the world less ugly for you when you need it the most. I know that part for a fact because she has done that for me so much in the past. If there is one person deserving beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a mother, it is she. Thinking of my own experiences, I wish there was something I could say to make it any better, and I can’t. So I am not gonna try, and I am not going to try with any of my readers to sugar coat it for you. It sucks. If you want to be angry about it, you can. If you just want to move on, you can. If you find yourself sitting in a park wishfully thinking you had a munchkin running around the play area with the rest of the kids, you can. The only thing I will say is to take care of yourself and to be gentle with yourself. Don’t blame yourself for it is not your fault. Stay busy. Stay active. If you fall apart, carefully put yourself back together again. Infertility and secondary infertility are hard pills to swallow.

My biggest way of coping the last few years from everything that has happened… secondary infertility, multiple loss, pregnancy, ppd, and moving has been writing. I don’t always share everything I write, but sometimes just getting my thoughts on paper helps me to organize my life better. Walking has also been therapeutic too.

You may be wondering why I have even bothered to write any of this since it seems pretty gloom and doom. I write this for one reason, and one reason only: Three years ago, I almost gave up. Do you know what that means? I not only wanted to give up and end it all for myself, but I wanted to not exist for my other two kids and husband who love me very much. I love them too, but the pain was so great. I felt like I was consumed by it. I share all of this because yes, life is unfair, but I don’t want anyone to be consumed by its unfairness like I did. Talk to someone, vent, punch a punching bag, find a hobby…anything just to get focus back. It won’t give you what you want at the time, but it will help you get through the day.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment below or you can always send me a message. I do respond! Take care and remember to be gentle to yourself!

 

 

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I sometimes Imagine

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After two miscarriages in a row, I got my rainbow baby. My older kids, my husband, and I all love her dearly. We dote on her and probably hover a little too much. She knows she is loved. However, sometimes I find myself wondering about the ones that did not get to be born. I wonder if they would have blond hair. I wonder if they would have slept through the night or would they have been like Sweet Pea and not slept at all. Would they be outgoing or would they be shy? What would their favorite lovey be? What would be their favorite food? Would they like frozen waffles like all their siblings? I would like to think so.

This month is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

This month is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

I still sometimes feel like there is an empty spot where they should be. However, I want them to know they are not forgotten. They will forever be loved by all of us. While we will never get to see what kind of personalities they would have had or what they would have grown up to be, we will always remember them and hope that we will someday meet in Heaven. We focus on what we have, like each other and try not to take one another for granted. They will forever be in our hearts.

If you have suffered an infant loss or miscarriage. Please know you are not alone. Please know that while it is hard and while some people may not understand or support you, it is okay to grieve. It is okay to feel however you need to feel and for however long you need to feel it. This is not something that is often talked about. In fact, I didn’t know how many of my friends had miscarriages until I started talking about mine. That is why I have talked about mine so much. I want people to know that it is okay to grieve for the child you didn’t get to know. It is okay to miss that child and wonder what might have been.

If you would like to share your story, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

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Post-Partum Depression is Not a Character Flaw

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About this time four years ago, my husband and I decided that we weren’t done with having kids. At the time, our kids were 5 and 8. We had some things we wanted to work on in regards to our marriage, so we waited about another year to start trying. Two years and two miscarriages later, I finally got pregnant with our youngest, Miss Crankles. When I had her I felt that all of my fears, anxieties, and depression would go away because she was finally here. However, I have found myself dealing with post-partum depression for the last several months. I haven’t discussed it a lot with most people because of the stigma associated with it, but it is because of that stigma that I think it’s time to break the silence so that other women will know they are not alone!

After my miscarriages, I was in a bad place mentally. At the time, I thought it was just grief. However, it could have been the hormonal changes as well. I didn’t get help at the time because I thought I would get over it. I thought if I did get pregnant with my rainbow baby that all those feelings would disappear as soon as I had her. They didn’t though. When Miss Crankles was a newborn, my husband had to leave soon after to work out of state. I was trying to nurse, and she wouldn’t latch. I hardly slept that first month because I was determined to pump milk for her. I didn’t have a lot of help. If I had to do it all over, I think I wouldn’t have worried so much about giving her breastmilk, and I definitely would have sought out a better support system. Even the few times I did have someone come over, I wasn’t even sure what to do. I felt bad for asking, and I felt I needed to play hostess even though I know the person came over to help.

PPD

I know I am not the only one that thinks that we should all be superwomen, but I think that mentality hurts us sometimes. Our houses don’t always have to be cleaned. It’s okay if our meals occasionally come from a box. We need a good support system. We shouldn’t have to do it all on our own.

I knew something was wrong with me about six weeks post-partum. However, I waited another month before I sought therapy. I really thought I could beat it on my own, and I was ashamed. I felt guilty because I went through a long process to have this kid, and I felt that my feelings made me look like I wasn’t thankful for her. Truth is, I love that kid and my other two kids dearly. Even if I could have foreseen the hell that I went through to have her, I would have still done it. I felt like I had done something wrong, that it was my fault, and that I wasn’t good enough. If you have ever felt like that, please know that it’s not your fault. Many women go through post-partum depression. While a lot of women seek help, others do not because they are afraid of being seen as weak or fear that someone will say they are not good enough mothers. If you have depression, you are still good enough. It’s not a flaw on your character. Getting help does not mean you are admitting you are a horrible person. Getting help means that you love yourself and want to get back to having a normal life.

I still have my days where I am not quite myself. However, it’s getting better. It’s a “one day at a time” type of thing. I have opened up to my spouse a lot about how I am feeling, and I find that it helps to have him by my side. I admire his strength to carry me when I feel like I am weak.

If you are having issues with post-partum depression, please know that you are not alone. Also know that you are still a good mother. Make sure you take care of yourself. Go to the doctor. If you need therapy, find a way. If you can’t afford it, try checking out charities that help women or your local church. Just remember that you are still worthy and a good mother!

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Living the Illusion

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You know the saying “Fake it til you make it?” Yeah, I do that sometimes, and I know we all do. Up until recently that was all I was doing. I write advice from time to time but seldom take my own advice, and for the past few months, I haven’t felt like sharing what has really been going on in my life. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want anyone to take what I was going through the wrong way and chastise me for having another child. I just didn’t want to deal with any bit of fall out from sharing. However, over the past few years, I have been very honest about a lot of what has been going on in my life. It has been my therapy, and I have found through writing that I am not alone, and that is what keeps me sharing (and sometimes over sharing). So here it goes.

When I was pregnant, I kept making plans and then making back up plans for if something didn’t work out the way it was supposed to work. I was lucky that my husband was home for Sweet Pea’s birth. It was almost as if Sweet Pea knew and said, “Ok Mama, let’s do this!” I felt that with older kids, it wouldn’t matter that our families don’t live close by or that my husband is gone for weeks at a time. I have friends who offered to help, and I told myself that this time would be different, and I would most certainly take help. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know I encourage mothers of newborns to take advantage of any offerings of help.

However, after her birth, things fell apart really fast. I had postpartum depression with my older daughter. I haven’t really discussed it here because quite honestly, I have always felt such shame about it. I have had some unresolved issues over miscarriages and everything that happened before having Sweet Pea. I probably should have gone to see a therapist and didn’t. I had hoped that once Sweet Pea was in my arms that all my apprehensions would just dissolve away. They didn’t. She wouldn’t latch. She dropped almost a pound in the first two days. I had to supplement her. She had jaundice. The doctor was not very eager to share information with me, and I felt that it was because I had a homebirth. We quickly switched practices. She wouldn’t SLEEP AT ALL. My husband got sent out-of-state soon after her birth. A perfect storm for disaster.

The peacefulness of the sleeping newborn was not meant to last. Picture by Photos by Emilly.

The peacefulness of the sleeping newborn was not meant to last. Picture by Photos by Emilly.

I felt awkward reaching out. I was afraid that even though people offered that I would be seen as weak or a failure. I started having all of these fears about the baby and the kids. I was afraid someone would get sick, and then the baby would get sick. I started pushing everyone away. I came up with excuses why we couldn’t go anywhere. I shut us all away in the house, and there was a part of me that knew it wasn’t good. However, I didn’t know what to do or how to fix it.

I felt a little better after we went away in October, but then it all came creeping back once we came home. It wasn’t until my son spoke up that I knew I needed to do something. He said something about how I was going back to being a hermit, much like I did after I lost the first baby. It was true. I got the kids to their extracurriculars, and that was about it. Heck, my godchildren and their parents live two doors down, and I barely made an effort to see them, which is not like me because next to my own kids, I love my godchildren to the moon and back.

I made an appointment to see a therapist. She was the same one who I worked with when I had PPD with my other daughter. It felt good to just talk. I still didn’t really feel like being around many people, but I didn’t feel as anxious. My husband got us all away from the house again. He did a lot with the older kids, and I spent a lot of time just bonding with the baby and enjoying her. Then he took the baby and let me get some one on one time with the older kids, something I haven’t been able to do. I felt the stress melting away.

I came back feeling like a different person. I know I have more things to work through, but I am actually feeling more like my old self, probably more so than I have in some years. I even enjoyed Christmas this year, which is a feat in itself because I loathe the holidays. Sweet Pea even got her first cold over the holidays, and I haven’t panicked. I have just taken it in stride and used it as a way to get in some extra cuddle time.

What I would like to tell anyone who has ever had PPD is that it’s not your fault. I mean, your body goes through an awful lot when you have a baby, and your hormones are all out of whack. Just be sure to be gentle with yourself and don’t be like me. Take people up on their offers to help and make sure you are getting the help you need. Also, realize you are not alone, and this will all pass. Just take care of yourself.

I know this is a rather personal topic, but if any of you would like to share your experiences, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

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Honestly…

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20141115_131853I will be honest. I forgot just how hard having a newborn really is. Maybe it’s because it was so long ago. Maybe it is because my memories from my other two are fuzzy because my memories for the first few years after my accident were a little spotty. Maybe it’s because I am getting old. At any rate, some days are a struggle.

My life has had a lot of ups and downs. I think I pretty much hit rock bottom a few years ago after my first miscarriage, and it took a really long time to bounce back from that. Yeah, I have two other kids, and I love them so fiercely. However, something snapped that day inside me, and in some ways, I don’t think I have yet fully recovered.

Perhaps I should have seen a therapist when it all first started, and I didn’t. However, I have been writing about it and pretty much leaving my life as an open book to others. I do it because I want others that find themselves in my shoes to know that they aren’t alone. I want them to know that just because society dictates something doesn’t mean that it is right or has to be that way…whether it means how we react to something such as miscarriage to how we create our tribe in taking care of ourselves and our children. I want other women to know that it’s okay to reach out. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to grieve for however long you need to grieve.

I am adding a new one to that list. It’s okay to love. I spent a lot of my pregnancy absolutely terrified. I took pictures and did things so I would have something to look back on because Sweet Pea may very well be my last baby. However, the whole time, I kept thinking I shouldn’t because what would happen if she wasn’t a forever baby either. Some women can get through miscarriage and loss and be very stoic. I have not been one of them. It has been my kryptonite and I sometimes feel my downfall. I was reading an article about how miscarriage changes your outlook on pregnancy, and it was something that I wish I would have seen when I was pregnant because it really hit home for me.

I have tried in the last two years to get to a point where I can outwardly make it look like I am good. However, I have been taking a long hard look lately and seeing all the ways that I have shut down. The obvious ways, as my kids have pointed out to me, is that I have been slowly turning into a recluse. Honestly, I just don’t want to deal with people. I don’t want to try to awkwardly explain what is going on in my head. I don’t want to ask for help. I don’t want to rely on anyone because I don’t want any more disappointments in my life because let’s face it, we all disappoint each other sometimes, whether it is intentional or not. I don’t want to be the Debbie Downer. I don’t want to sit and put a plastic smile on my face when I am having a bad day.

In my heart, I thought that if I could get through this pregnancy that I would have my baby and all those feelings would magically disappear, and I would have my happy ending. However, I can honestly say that it’s not like that. There are still times that I wonder about the babies that might have been. There are times where I wonder if I am a good enough mother. Then there are times where I just want to freeze a moment because it all goes so fast, and I don’t want to miss anything because she might be my last and because I feel like a hormonal ball of emotions still.

At the end of the day, I am still in awe and thankful for my Sweet Pea. I might be tired and worn out. I might wonder if I did a good enough job homeschooling that day or feel bad for bursting into tears on the phone with my husband because right now I really hate his work situation sometimes. I am thankful for the friends and family that check in with me and are patient with me. It means a lot when you know that you have people that haven’t given up on you when you sometimes give up on yourself.

If you are hurting, I want you to know that it is okay to feel however you feel, and you don’t have to act a certain way or be a certain person because that is what society expects of you. Take care of yourself. It’s important and find your voice…whether it is talking to a friend, a therapist, or writing it all down to get it out.

Just know that you aren’t alone.