Identities

 I'm doing an e-course with Susannah Conway on how you see yourself and your world by looking at different aspects of it - you, how the world sees you, the people around you etc. I've done a few e-courses on different themes and they've been fun, but I haven't done one for ages. I haven't felt like it, I haven't felt like having the commitment of an assignment to complete, however arty or insignificant it might have been. 

This one quietly appealed to me. Susannah Conway lost her partner and began to move in new direction professionally and personally and found a source of comfort and acceptance in what she was doing. People who have suffered interest me these days; I want to know how they deal with it, how they overcome it without denying it, what sort of lives they lead, how it has changed them and how they cope with that.

It feels like I am so defined by my infertility and loss. A friend talks about a party he organised for H and me and I sit there silently, wanting him to stop, because it was the first weekend I was pregnant with my son and I don't want to remember the hope and happiness of that time and how it is all gone now. We go out to dinner and a friend is pregnant and I almost stare rudely at her stomach, remembering scans and visits and wondering why the hell I couldn't make it to full term. I see photos and I place them according to what pregnancy followed or preceeded the photo. 

I have to create a new identity. I have to learn how to see myself without immediately seeing the situation in terms of infertility and lost children. I need to learn how to accept my life and somehow mold it into a life I can be proud of, in which I am doing things I have dreamt of. It's easy to say, easy to plan, harder to put into action but this course is part of the plan. At least it will occupy my mind and keep me off the Oh-I-have-suffered-so-much tracks I slip onto so effortlessly. 

Comments

[Lyrehca]

I think recognizing you want to (have to) create a new identity for yourself is a sign that you are ready to move past all that you have dealt with with infertility and loss.

Have you read the blog Coming2Terms? Your post reminds me of her blog. She is angry in her early posts, but she writes about accepting infertility and about self-identity. It might be a good resource to check out.

[sharah]

I read Susannah's old blog years ago, and THANK YOU for re-introducing me to her. It's amazing how people drift in and out of bloggy circles.

Changing your mindset about who and what you are and is hard, and I hope that working with her helps you achieve that goal.