Playing the Odds and Hope Phobia

Yesterday I finally made it back in for a session with Paul. It was REALLY needed. We talked a lot about Molly (if I write it all up it will be a separate post) and the discoveries made this past week. We also spoke about how I'm dealing with the memories that are hitting hard as her birthday gets closer. He always make me feel more normal, which I need.

He pointed out that my body's reactions to the memories will most likely follow classic PTSD the next few months. As the weather gets colder, it triggers memories. Each holiday, certain smells, certain songs, even certain clothes are triggering memories. And most of them are NOT pleasant. I wasn't able to process anything as it happened last year, so as my body is reminded, I'm processing them now.

The thing is, I really don't WANT to dwell on most of the memories. Yes, they happened. Yes, they changed the course of my life forever. But the panic, anxiety and tears are not things I want to relive in any way. The problem is that when everything was happening, I didn't really understand what was going on. Now, I get it. I understand completely just how close we came to losing Molly, and just how dangerous some of the mistakes were, and just how life altering the repercussions are.

When I asked Paul how am I supposed to let myself process things without dwelling on it, his answer comforted me. He reminded me that there are no guarantees with Molly. When people try to give comfort and start saying things like "well, she's going to be just fine" and "you don't need to worry anymore", it actually increases my anxiety because it's reminding me that there's NO WAY that is guaranteed. So the best thing to do is 'play the odds'. Meaning, yes, I know there are no guarantees, but CHANCES ARE she's not going to be that bad again. And the ODDS are very slim that she will be in that condition this holiday season. By looking at it from a statistical point of view, it's actually much more calming. Yes, there's always a chance she'll get sick again, but that's not what's likely to happen at this point.

While discussing the recent developments (short story-brain damage was more extensive than we hoped for), we talked about something I was thinking about on my drive over. When I think of the difficulties Molly might face as she grows up, my heart literally feels like it's breaking. All I want to do is take every embarrassment, illness, misunderstanding, EVERYTHING and feel it for myself to protect her. I thought I understood what it mean to be a mother/parent before, but Molly has shown me the true depths of a mother's love and compassion for her children. As I think of how much I want to protect her, I think of what Heavenly Father must have felt watching His Only Begotten. I truly think our bodies are not physically capable of understanding that level of love and compassion. We can appreciate it, but we will are incapable of empathizing.

Another topic we talked about was something I've thought about for a while now-my inability to finish things. The last couple of weeks of the weight loss competition I found myself sabotaging my efforts. There was this idea of 'I'm done with this, It's lasted too long and I should just quit'. I had to keep forcing myself to focus and stay on target. I realized afterwards that I do that to myself with pretty much everything. How many thousands of projects/trips/surprises, etc. have I thought about or started but never finished????

When I asked him about it he said the best description he has for it is called 'Hope Phobia'. The best example is vacations. You think about wanting to go, then you start planning it. You get really excited about all the amazing things you're going to do. Then you think about the letdown of coming home, and decide to just bag the whole trip because you don't want to feel the disappointment of coming home. The fear of letting yourself experience the full range of emotion keeps you from doing anything that would swing emotions too far one way or the other. In trying to keep yourself from feeling the negative, you end up losing all the good in the process and just feel neutral all the time.

For me, that makes so much sense and is really true. In my fear of looking uneducated or embarrassed, I just give up instead. We talked about how to get out of the cycle of that. He said the best way to do it is by letting the implicit become the explicit. With the competition, I had to write things down. It kept me grounded when I wanted to give up. Paul also said that we have to give ourselves permission to feel ALL emotions, good and bad. Even if it's something small, find ways to celebrate life and find joy. And don't be afraid to feel the bad when it comes either-just don't dwell on it.

Along the same lines, I asked him how I prevent my kids from doing the same thing (as I see it in them to a degree already). His answer??? By modeling the behavior and pacing them. He also said to look for specific behaviors to encourage and be sure to acknowledge them when I see them.

So I'm taking his advice. Paige asked me if we could run a 5k together on the 29th, just her and me. Normally I'm completely against paying to run. But then I thought about how Paige is finding something great right now. I really want her to learn to love being active. And if that's a way the two of us can bond, how awesome is that??? (and way better than a tradition of food) So, I signed us up. It might take her forever to actually finish, but we'll be wearing costumes so at least it'll be funny. I'm finding myself getting really excited about it now.

If you're in the neighborhood, you should come join us!!!