Relationships

A year ago with Rose

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

A year ago, I planned a trip for my beloved Rose. I took care of all the details and kept a lot of secrets about where we were going and why. I put a lot of thought into making it special, which was especially tricky given that her available weekend kept changing, as did our financial situation. But I was determined, and friends helped out with good advice and suggestions. In the end, it was all rather perfect.

I borrowed a friend’s van with a bed in the back of it. I wore the rainbow skirt she loves. We stopped for lunch at her favourite beach and sat on the shore watching the water as she told me stories about her childhood.

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I took us to a forest. It was beautiful, there were birds, butterflies, kangaroos, foxes. Kookaburra’s serenaded us in the evening.

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On the way there, we stopped at a nursery and bought some plants. They now have pride of place in our garden and the roses are in full bloom at this time of year every year.

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This is one of the roses – Jude, an Austin rose. He is stunning.

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That night I laid out dinner – platters of all Rose’s favourite treats. I carefully dropped a towel on the ground near her chair, and rolled up my sleeves so the words I’d written there earlier would be visible. I found the jewellery box I’d been keeping carefully hidden for weeks.

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I went down on my knees and read her my poem in a trembling voice. Then I opened the ring box to show her her silver and sapphire ring.

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She said yes. We both cried. We read the poem again. We hugged and kissed and ate beautiful food and toasted ourselves.

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And she’s stuck by me, through all kinds of calamities. She shines so brightly in the good times, and she’s so tough in the hard ones. I’m so glad to have her in my life, to reach out in the darkest of nights and feel her there, breathing, or even weeping, in the darkness beside me. She is precious, and I’m deeply glad to be her family.

Trying to get pregnant and breathe

/ Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

Today, I called the SANDS helpline and spoke to a lovely woman. I so needed to hear that the mess I’m in is ‘normal’. It makes sense. Other people who have been here get it, in all the horrible intensity. Trying to get pregnant again after we’ve lost Tam has bowled me over. I had no idea how hard I would find it. After the devastation of losing Tam, on top of the terrible string of losses Rose has endured, by mid year things felt so right and ready. We had a donor again, I had some fantastic opportunities for my business, Rose was working…

I remember that when we first started trying to conceive, I was haunted by a death sense that took me by surprise. Trying again after loss has magnified that to proportions I can hardly fathom. When Rose crashed into severe PTSD and couldn’t work, and my own business hopes were dashed, I went into meltdown. I fought and struggled and tried to find a way through. In the end I’ve had to accept that I can’t stop it happening and just accept it and be patient.

Some days I shift my sense of accomplishment to things like – well today I’m not in hospital. I’m not costing the taxpayer money for a psychiatric bed. (which would be find if I needed it, of course, but hooray that I’m not) I don’t have a string of medicos giving me conflicting advice. I get to choose my own reading materials from the library and I have control of the remote for the tv. Plus, I’ve showered, dressed, hung out with friends, and have all my pets around.

This week has been a lot better. I’ve had a number of good days, and the bad days have reduced me to ‘useless’ but been nowhere near the intensity of 8 hour crying jags or 6 hour panic attacks. I actually felt well enough to call a helpline today – I know that sounds oxymoronic, but it’s really risky for me to reach out when I’m not okay at all, because there’s an even chance of not getting help and then I’m in terrible trouble. Today I could risk it and it helped a lot.

It feels like my life has stopped. Every cycle we aren’t pregnant feels almost like we’ve lost another baby. I’ve never cared a whoot about my own ageing, but I fell apart in the shower the other night suddenly noticing changes to my skin. I’m plagued by nightmares about my friends and family dying. Sometimes when we’re not pregnant I’m heartbroken and relieved in equal measure because at least that’s a baby I won’t miscarry. I can’t breathe properly, all the time. Remember that nightmare ten days between our ‘it doesn’t look good’ scan and the ‘they have died’ scan with Tamlorn? Like my life is on pause. Just trying to catch my breath, all the time, every day. A scream inside that never draws breath. Trying to force myself to be reconciled to something that everything in me simply cannot accept.

I feel crazy. I’ve been vaguely aware of ‘baby mad’ people from outside and never expected to be one myself. I want to be able to have a life while we try to get pregnant, and that feels impossible at the moment. I can’t fathom how that’s the case, but but right now my reality is that most days taking care of myself – eating, drinking, coaxing myself to sleep, staying in touch with my people, and so on, is all I have in me. I can’t tell you how frustrating, humiliating, bewildering, and scary that has been! It is so incredibly hard to maintain any kind of perspective and it’s unbearably vulnerable.

It’s unbearably painful to keep trying, and it would be unbearably painful to stop trying. I chose this and I felt ready and I thought we could ride the roller-coaster and walk into whatever came without regrets but now – I feel trapped. I can’t breathe. I can’t make it happen. I’m out to sea and helpless. We might get pregnant and we might not. We might carry to term and we might not. All the assurances people give us (it’ll happen when it’s time, when you’re ready, when the universe or God decides it’s right etc etc ad nauseam) belong to another world, an illusionary place where there is justice and fairness and a grand plan and some kind of certainty. I don’t live there! I’ve read the stories and talked to the people and I can tell you for absolutely sure that fertility is not fair and there is no certainty. If I knew we would never bring home a live baby I would stop right now and throw no more of my life away on this impossible dream. No more days just trying to breathe, talking myself gently through every hour, every minute. On the other hand, if I knew we were going to conceive this month and carry to term… nothing in the world could stop me. But I don’t know, and I feel powerless. How to live without regret in the face of such unknowns?

I am so frightened. I’m scared that I’ll never feel better, that I’ll have post natal depression, that I’ll be an awful parent, that we’ll never have a child, that all our friends will leave us, that we’ll have another miscarriage, or a stillbirth, or a baby who dies at 2. I’m scared that I’ll lose my mental health, my family, my tribe, my capacity to work, my lovely partner. What am I willing to give up for this? What if it doesn’t work?

Strangely, just being able to ask these questions helps so much. It gives shape and form to pain and darkness. If I can name it, understand it, share it, it’s not so overwhelming. I spoke to a stranger on the phone today and told her how agonising it has been to watch my beloved Rose suffer through PTSD. Night after night of screaming pain, to be holding her hand when she can’t even feel me there. And somewhere in all my rambling I said the thing I haven’t been able to say even to myself – Rose has loved so deeply and lost so many babies, I am afraid that if we never bring home a little one of our own, her heart will be broken beyond repair and I will lose her. I type that with tears running and my face aching with a scream I can’t sound. She hurts so much and I can’t bear it or take it away.

I don’t know how I found myself here, feeling so stuck, feeling that all my world pivots on a single dream I have so little control over. I can’t go forwards, I can’t go back. I can’t breathe. I’m ashamed and embarrassed and confused. I am good at reconciling myself to terrifying things! I’ve supported people I love through suicide attempts, I’ve built a life from homelessness and isolation, I’ve escaped communities in which I was dying and I’ve been able to grieve my losses without going back. I am good at this!

But oh, watching my love in pain. Oh, oh, my heart. Like an addicted gambler, where the stakes are everything I have done with my life until now – each month I roll the dice and hope. I can’t bring the stakes down, can’t end the game, can’t breathe.

Yes, said the woman on the helpline. It makes us feel crazy. It sends us into breakdowns. It isolates us.

Writhing like a worm on a hook. Silent because too many people already think I won’t be a good parent, or that I’ll regret it, or that I’m not up to it. Silent and frightened and embarrassed as my sense of the world falls to pieces and I’m in the biggest free fall through the deepest black pit.

I didn’t have any idea just how hard the last few months were going to be. I wanted to be able to handle them so much better! I’ve tried very, very hard to do so. And I’ve done a lot even in this distraught place that I’m proud of. I’ve helped my love find the support she needs, held her hand and cheered her on as she’s moved into an incredibly fast recovery and return to work. I’ve supported my sister through a tough time. I’ve not leaned too hard on any one person, but I have asked for help and been honest about how not okay I am. And I’m still here, still with Rose, in our lovely home, caring for our pets, gardening, looking after myself, hanging out with friends. I might have flunked college and given up on my business and not been able to write or paint and have no idea what I’m going to do for work – but I’m still here. My life has  not burned down around me. I’ve read a lot of books. I’ve even joined a baseball team, just last night, with Rose and a couple of friends. I still have my life and I’m starting to come out of the deep darkness. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to hear a beautiful talk about supporting trans men at a local pregnancy service a couple of days ago and my heart was so buoyed by it – I love work like this so much! I can’t wait to be well enough to get back to it. Our stunning garden blooms outside my window and it feels like a metaphor on a day like today. All that hard work months and years ago, and today when I have done nothing – not even got dressed, I just sit here and watch it bloom. The effort pays off and carries me through the times I can’t do anything. I rest and it carries me through. I rest and it carries me. For that I’m thankful.

Here I am, sitting in a tin can

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Today has been stupid hard. Took me till past midday to get out of bed and that’s only because I gave up on the idea I’d feel any better at some point, but had at least stopped nearly throwing up.

Now I’m sitting in a pub with my sister listening to Bowie and I feel more normal, more a freak but more sane, than I have in a long time. There’s a bunch of working people letting off steam, singing half the songs and downing cider and craft beers. They’re gorgeous, so much more themselves then they ever are during the working day. We stop being cogs in a machine at night. Sometimes I kind of forget that’s true of other people too. I fall in love with them all, they are human again, shedding roles like dead skin. I wonder if any of them work in mental health and if they’re assholes during the day. By night all is forgiven, there’s a brotherhood here. The more extroverted/soused are dancing by the DJ. I’m drinking a cider chosen for the picture of gumboots on the label.
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The beat thumps in my throat, welcome change from the lump the size of a baseball I’ve been trying to breathe around. I’m wearing eye shadow for f sake, when did I last do that? I’ve spent the last year trying to get pregnant, turning myself into some frighteningly narrow idea of a parent. How can you live for a kid who doesn’t even exist yet? How have I lost my sense of self? Why When’s the last time I did something as myself not as a parent in waiting? What would I want myself anyway, a generic parent starving, or some actual weird-as person being themselves? Easy to answer, hard to do. I’m freefalling without roles and grasping for instructions (someone save me!) yet none of them bring me back to myself like being here tonight. (I promised, no more saviours, still have the scars from the last one) Obedience will make me whole? I f doubt it. Outrageous defiance is a likelier path, love.

I take off my coat just to feel the cold on my skin. I remember there used to be no better protection against the brutal day than black lipstick. Nothing has brought me into line like age, nothing has made me afraid of other people’s opinions like pregnancy and loss. But here? There’s nothing to be afraid of here. We know life is short here, and the world is a mess. Might as well drink. Might as well dance. Might as well sing along in a corner and remember how much I enjoy writing and how comfortable I am wearing the identity of writer like a very worn in coat. ‘Freak’ settles into my soul like a stiff drink. Being alive is such a weird mix of selflessness and self centredness. I have to know what I need and want, have to be able to run from the things that burn and numb. No more making ‘art’ at noon under fluorescent lights. This is better than temazepam.

Like all midnight epiphanies, this will be gone by dawn. I’ll turn back into the broken girl and nothing will make me whole. But I’ve seen something here, some part of my compass that isn’t broken, some sense of self that isn’t ruined. And after the day comes night, always. I’ll find my way again.

In memory of our Tam

/ Sarah K Reece / 6 Comments

Tamlorn was due today.

It seems so much died with them. A fork in the road and a different path forced upon us. I don’t know how that can be but it seems it is. Somewhere out there, in a different universe, two happy ladies are so bouyed by the pregnancy the work stress doesn’t tip one of them into ptsd. We don’t lose our donor, we go to the pregnancy expo full of excitement, we don’t push the business hard and wind up falling down a hole of broken expectations and pressure. Such a little thing and yet our whole year is different. Our whole world.

My sense of faith or meaning about life and death, any possible afterlife, has splintered. Sometimes we comfort each other that if they all still exist somewhere, Leanne and Amanda and Grandma would take excellent care of Tamlorn. I can’t imagine three people with more love and skills and care and humour. And maybe all the others I didn’t know so well would help too; Bethy, Tash, Nana, Bradbury, Pratchett… Somehow every possible answer seems to hurt more than it comforts. This loss makes me need a certainty about death I simply can’t have.

We are still trying to get pregnant, and it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It seems so little, but it’s so consuming! The roller-coaster emotions make me feel crazy and I work hard to hide and suppress them. Rose and I are so gentle with each other, constantly making room for both hope and grief, reminding ourselves life is still wonderful without a child, that whatever the outcome is we have each other, and yet it’s like trying to calm a storm by talking to it. Beyond our power by far! It consumes everything. Our whole world becomes balanced on pinnacles between ecstacy and devastation.

I’m always trying to manage fear. I’m frightened of losing our donor again, frightened Tam was my one and only baby, frightened of getting pregnant and losing another one by miscarriage or stillbirth or leukaemia at 3 years old. Life feels like a lottery and the bland reassurance of those who’ve won and spun it into some kind of ‘just world’ (don’t worry, of course it will work out) is balanced by the raw pain of those who’ve lost and are childless following eleven miscarriages or other patterns of tragedy and loss.

The best feeling in my world is that moment before getting up to do a pregnancy test. Everything glows with possibility. Our bodies fit together, skin warm and soft, and the morning is gauzy with the film of dreams. We promise not to be devastated, that it’s early days only, that it’s okay to grieve, we can do this. We feel strong and settled and ready.

The worst feeling is another negative test. Coming up with all the reasons we might still be pregnant anyway. Trying not to feel that empty pit inside. Patting each other – it’s okay to be disappointed, we’ll be okay, we’ll try again, while inside we’re both dying. Wastelands and ruin and fears that we can’t counter that perhaps all this is futile. It might be. The only thing that would be harder than trying, is stopping trying. What started in joy begins to feel like a trap. We can’t let go of the dream but the dream is all fire and pain. We surface from misery briefly to remind each other that life will still be worth living if we can’t have children of our own.

We claw for balance, serenity, perspective, and it’s a veneer only over so much shameful intensity. We glory in our roles as aunties of others children, come home feeling blessed to be trusted and embraced, remind each other it’s significant and meaningful and worth putting effort into. And cry as quietly as possible when we’re alone, trying not to be ungrateful. We try to protect each other from our anguish and find gulfs open between us that we have to work hard to bridge with something other than raw hurt.

The very worst of it – worse even than platitudes or instructions to worry less or being told it will happen if we’re really meant to be parents – like a divine benediction, like the gods blessing the ascension of kings – the worst of it is feeling so alone and ashamed by how incredibly hard it is, so disinclined to let anyone know because it seems crazy, and if we seem crazy maybe we shouldn’t be parents after all. The pain of longing reinterpreted to prove our lack of worth and fitness. We’re not so far into this that I can’t recall my own bafflement at ‘baby-crazy women’ and wonder why they can’t just live their life and let it happens if it happens. It so seemed like such needless fuss, such obsession, but on this side of the fence it’s the dream that drives you and it burns.

On bad days I’m glad of a negative pregnancy test because at least that means I won’t miscarry again, or break our hearts with a stillbirth, or lose an infant to an accident. I like to take risks where I feel I can survive them not working out and I’m beyond that place at the moment. I can’t bear the thought of another loss and I don’t know how I’ll find any contentment in the moment or belief that things can work out. I read of women who’ve suffered catastrophic losses and their stories leave me gasping for air, completely unable to fathom such grief. I reach out to Rose and she tells me we’ll take this one miscarriage at a time if we must and my throat closes over and I can’t breathe at all.

What helps is sitting in the night with Tamlorn’s ashes or going to stand by their tree. What helps is spending time with other people who have walked this road or walked roads like it and seeing that the trauma and pain and sense of being crazy and need to hide it are nearly universal. They are normal responses, not well understood by those who’ve not been there usually, but very much the norm, especially for those of us with losses, fertility issues, a donor, and a culture that can be harsh about queer parents. Our sense of fear and vulnerability and exposure is strong. Our need for swift blessings to show the benediction of the universe is much higher.

The pressure on us to be highly emotionally invested but at the same look calm, balanced, and even slightly indifferent, is high. We feel crazy counting days and tracking cycles and collecting clothes, and we’re aware we mustn’t look crazy because it’s only recently that queer parents were even allowed to live openly together, to both call ourselves mothers of our children, and that is still being argued in courts of public opinion that talk about deviance and harm to innocents. (homosexuality was only decriminalised 40 years ago in South Australia) We’re still being held accountable for other people bullying our kids because of us. We still get looks of revulsion when we walk hand in hand. And we are some of the luckiest queer women in the world!

We lost so much with Tam, far more than I realised at first. My cycle is still unpredictable, which apparently is common following a miscarriage. We can’t track it accurately at all – on one set of tests I apparently never ovulate or produce any hormone surges, on another I’m about to ovulate constantly – we gave up testing after 9 positive days in a row. My cycle is now a different length each month. We guess the relevant week and scatter insems through it and hope, and try not to think about it. I try to imagine a future where things work out okay, and I stop reading the anguish of the women in my miscarriage support group. Being pregnant was the most wonderful experience. Trying to get pregnant has been a kind of hell. Normally dreams sustain me and only hurt when they fail. This one cuts deep as you hold it, brings life and death unbearably close, gives me joy and takes my breath away with pain.

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White poppy

On Monday this one white poppy bloomed in the sea of red in our garden. Rose found some comfort in taking it as a token of Tam’s nearness. We talk back and forth to our garden, to Tam’s tree. It bloomed with a thousand blossoms, none of which set fruit. Red poppies in memorial, white poppies for peace. Today we’ll take flowers down to the ocean and set them in the water. (we hold hands like widows over graves)

Oh darling Tam. Do we mourn you or ourselves? You were loved every moment of your short life, we tell each other that. At times I think all the ills of the world could be righted if we could but love it and each other the way we loved Tam. In my minds eye I see myself as a bringer of death, my womb as a coffin, a portal through which souls come into the world to die, and there’s a stream of dead babies flowing away from me to the afterlife. My soul is twisted under the weight of knowing I’m not supposed to care this much, think this way, feel these things – and of not wanting to, either. Spare me the burning intensity, the clinging awareness, the cloying emotions. Spare me 3am and nameless dread. The stakes are high, the bets are placed, and each month the dice rattle in the cup like old bones; I wear a scarlet dress to hide the blood.

Darling Tam, who sometimes seems so close, when I close my eyes I can almost see us together in another world. You are nested between our bodies, fat and pink and milk-drunk, with eyelashes soft as moth wings. Our hearts are like ripe grapes on the vine after rain, overfilled and torn open. It’s a sweet pain.

Dearest Tam, tell my people that I love them. Love them fiercely from this side of the valley. Forgive us that we could not keep you here or hold you longer. Help our hearts tear open with love and heal again with the same love, every day. Happy birthday, darling unborn. I hope you are at peace. May we find some too.

Tam’s tree

/ Sarah K Reece / 6 Comments

If I’d been able to put something up here three days ago, I’d have said we were going okay. Rose held my hand through the stall at the Pregnancy Loss walkathon. It was just like old days, her stalwart, me skittish. Not many people were interested in the stalls, but I did sell one print.

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Two days ago I’d have said I think we’ve turned a corner. I let go of all my fears and plans and expectations and found some sense of ground beneath me, the present moment full of light and glory. For a couple of days I could breathe most of the time and coax Rose into doing things that helped us both feel more alive. I so wanted to write that post and share that news. We made each other laugh, even in flashbacks and darkness, and the darkness was less dark, less painful, less total.

Today, I couldn’t sleep for hours. I’d settle then startle awake to some concern, personal or existential. I deeply want to caretake my people and my networks but I’m too heartsick to do it. I can’t get back on my horse. I can’t be inspiring or hold hope or protect or save or make things better. I’m here, in the mud, too injured to climb back on my horse. Here in the mud, knowing that my life is beautiful, my tribe is beautiful, that I’m vomiting pain in a life I’ve worked so hard for and built so painstakingly. I’m peirced through by a sense of failure and loss and my own woundedness. My baby died. My love is hurting. My business runs at a loss. The word ‘recovery’ is like a spear in my side. I want to be riding my horse. I’m just going to lie here and hurt.

I know some of you are in the mud too. Broken dreams and hurting hearts. A memory of strength and energy and courage. And it’s so desolate and desperate. I know I’m not the only one and I’m not alone. Whatever your life looks like on the outside, you can choke on pain. Something inside screaming out for help and nothing you do calms it. Working hard to do things that might help, to shore up the river banks and sand bank the doorways against the sense of self hate and defeat.

The day with my art prints stall was very long. I took some art supplies and started a new oil painting. It’s Tam’s peach tree in bloom.

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Preparing to sell my giclee prints

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

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This was my rehearsal set up today – Rose and I are preparing for a stall at the Pregnancy Loss Australia walkathon tomorrow, where for the very first time I will be offering fine art prints of my work for sale.

I am anxious and would far rather hide home in bed.

We’re both feeling a little raw, pleased to be involved, inspired, but also vulnerable. Holding each other in tears in the kitchen.

Together we are stronger. We’re both working hard to use humour and everything else we know to help stop the bad hours spiralling into awful days.
I actually slept peacefully last night, for the first time in a long time. I dreamed deep dreams the meaning of which was a gift: that what I have to give to the world has never been much in the way of financial support. It’s always been about kindness and helping people feel more alive. And that’s mostly what my household needs at the moment anyway, so let go of the other ideas and focus on that.

I can see the sky again, can breathe again, for moments. The anxiety is still a herd of wild horses running, but I can steer a little, suggest a little, and today that was enough. Today was a pretty good day.

Tomorrow, because Rose believes in me, I’m going to sit in a tent on some grass with my art, and hope that other people will be kind to me too. Wish me luck.

Happy three years to Rose and I

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

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Sometimes you celebrate each other from the tops of mountains, when things are going your way and the whole world glows with possibility. The wells are full to over flowing, the larder is stocked, the roads are wide and smooth, the sun turns the world to gold. Love is easy, forgiveness is easy, kindness is easy. All things are in abundance.

Sometimes the path is narrow, twisted, bewildering, faltering into bogs and falling over cliffs.

I love her because even when I’m scared I’m not scared of her.

I love her because even when she hates herself she’s gentle and tender with me.
I love her because when we have very little, what we have she shares with me.

At night at the moment we both toss in the dark, dream-wracked and afraid. Sleeping in shifts between storms of tears, a broken voice crying out, the shudder of nightmares under skin. We bump along like two boats in black water and a moonless night, kissing hulls to be sure there’s someone still there. Over and over we turn to each other, hands reach like a bridge over the gulf, feet tangle like vines around each other, lips touch shoulders and we murmur soothing sounds or sing snatches of lullabies to each other. Stroking fevered faces, calming the hair back against arms, the arched back to rest again into soft bedding. “Love, love” we croon like doves, the inarticulate language of night; sharp cries like gulls, and the hushing of mothers half sleeping, voices a deep soft purr in the chest.

Adventures are tricky things. Reflected on from comfort, the sharp edges dull a little, the black nights turn pearl grey in memory. Here in the moment it’s stark with presence, bright as a papercut, a piece of glass in the shoe. It’s not called an adventure if everything turns out according to plan, if there’s no dark nights, no fears to conquer, no cost.

In the full glory of a spring day, sunlight on her bronze skin, her mouth open with laughter, her eyes full of light, she is beautiful. In the dark hours of the soul’s midnight, her body painted with pain, eyes closed against the burning memories, lips drawn back hard against teeth, she is beautiful. It’s a different kind of love that grows here, threadbare, harsher, there’s pain woven through it, and bone for strength.

She holds me in the shadows, sings peace to fall like rain down upon us both. I have seen the moon bright and full, and dark and empty. I know her in triumph and tragedy. There’s still love, in each place, the thing and the shadow of the thing. The rainbow and the rock beneath.

Blossom

/ Sarah K Reece / 7 Comments

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Tamlorn’s peach tree bloomed today. We hung the crystal from a stand with a wind chime and in the afternoon, it casts rainbows through the garden and the kitchen.

Today has been hard, flashbacks and anxiety, but full of love from people around us, and animal cuddles. We’ll get through this.

My first gilded prints

/ Sarah K Reece / 8 Comments

The sun is out, the garden is in bloom. Birds are singing and someone is running a bench saw nearby. My lovely lady is rearranging the baby clothes collection. We’ve got up early and arranged for scans and prints of a number of my artworks to display and possibly even sell at the Pregnancy Loss Australia Walkathon next Sunday.

I’m currently working on creating certificates of authenticity for my two beautiful framed, hand embellished giclee print reproductions. I’ve gilded both with 23 karat gold and they look incredibly lovely. This one is going to a new home this month. I’m planning to open an Etsy store and link it to this blog in a few weeks.

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And my love and I are trying to conceive. Adenomyosis is making things very hard for me and will only get worse the longer I’m off hormones – it’s been 9 months now. If circumstances were different we might wait a few months for things to settle here, but they are what they are and we have closing windows of opportunity, and big broken hearts full of love. August is done and left behind us and may September smile more sweetly on us.

Holding hope

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Some days I give hope and some days I gratefully receive it.

Rose and I are having a tough time. Flashbacks, panic attacks and terrible depression are our normal right now. We spent an hour on the couch today weeping over Tamlorn’s ashes.

Kindness and care from our loved ones helps. When I can’t feel hope any more, they hold it for me.

Even on the days when it feels like we have so little to give each other, we are kind at least. It’s not everything, but it’s not nothing. Even on a day as black as today, we have small victories to celebrate.

Etching – Even the cats have graves

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

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I’ve been working on this in my print making class. The image is part of my series of works about miscarriage and grief. It’s linked to a poem, The Roar, I wrote about losing Tamlorn:
Even the cats have graves, even the little injured wild birds that die on the way to the vet.

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There’s been interest from a number of people I’ve reached out to about holding an exhibition of this series. There’s been a lot of things that haven’t gone my way lately, so this is particularly special to me. I’ll be glad to hold a space in the world, however briefly, where this isn’t a taboo.

Courage

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

My beloved is having a rough time and it’s breaking my heart. She’s been home all week with terrible flashbacks. I’m juggling college and everything else around trying to help her feel safe and supported. And I’m sad. I’m terribly sad that I can’t stop them or make it better, that I can’t fix our money stress, that I’m half drowned in anxiety and dislocation myself. I’m sad because small business start-up means facing more disappointments than I feel I have in me, more opportunities lost than my heart can handle. I’m sad because my cycle is really out by an extra couple of weeks and the wait is interminable.

I’ve finished gilding my print, and I’m proud about that. She is truly beautiful. The rest of my week, my appointments, and my to do list scares me. College feels unmanageable. Even catch ups with friends scare me. I feel uneasy about almost everything, unsettled, like I might bite at a hand even if offered to comfort. My buffer between the world and a big well of vulnerability and doubt is very thin.

But I’m here for my Rose, however I can be, and I’m here in my home as best I can be. Today I spent all day in my pyjamas and I soaked up the sunlight in my backyard and watched the rainbows dance from the crystal hanging in Tam’s tree. I cut Rose and my sister’s hair, and sat peacefully dogsitting. I finished The Matrix trilogy and cried. And when Rose needed me to I sat with her and stroked her face and talked softly and got her a drink or a cold flannel for her face. And when I needed her she held my hand while I cried softly. If there’s not much courage or hope left in me for anything else, it was still well spent. Everything and everyone else can wait.

Rose’s Birthday – the Lowlights

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

It’s been a full on week with so much going on I’ve been feeling stuck about sharing here… more than that, detached, disconnected from my online world which is so often my territory and my haven. Heartsick. I kept trying to write about Rose’s birthday party and finding myself feeling like I was writing spin when I only shared the good parts, or that I was omitting the bright things when I shared the tough parts. In the end, Rose suggested I write both as separate posts.

Her party was awesome, and it was tough. It was a super child-friendly space but I didn’t feel comfortable letting my kids come out because a lot of those who came were not multiplicity literate. I did out myself ‘casually’ at one point, heart beating hard. In a year or two they’ll be more ready. I can be patient, I’d rather grow something strong than tip over the boat. So I took refuge in adult roles, feeling how my own sense of agitation dissolved as I sank into something familiar and reassuring and… bounded. I didn’t have to know anything or answer any of the dilemmas that were doing my head in, I could just be, and I could be good at it. There’s something to that, I think. I don’t know what yet. Roles can be dehumanising, and yet the lack of them can be… a kind of exile. Skinless and formless and falling into space.

Rose and I were both busy and the week leading up to the party was stressful with money woes and welfare issues and a lot of work… and this was our first month of trying to get pregnant again since Tamlorn died. It’s been so hard! We both thought we would ride it out okay, we felt ready and excited and ready to pace ourselves and ride out the highs and lows… instead it’s been incredibly tough. It’s brought back the loss of Tamlorn keenly. We’re both having nightmares about babies, feeling grief and loneliness and both feeling that we shouldn’t be feeling much of anything, that we need to hide our sadness and fear. It’s not an easy place to be. My cycle hasn’t returned to normal since the miscarriage either, so we started our ovulation testing and got a ‘high fertility’ result a few days earlier than expected and started doing insems. Usually I get one or at most 2 high fertility days and then I ovulate. This month, I got 8 high fertility test results in a row, and we did 4 insems before giving up. About 2 weeks late, I finally ovulated over the party weekend and was in pretty bad pain on that side for about 20 hours. We’ve noticed that I seem to have a pattern of less reliable cycles and more painful ovulation on one side – good month, bad month, good month… which should mean next month is better. We both know this, yet there’s such sadness at the same time, a kind of quiet despair that sits alongside, or beneath all the other things, all the joys and silliness and hopes. One is not more true than the other, one is not a mask to the other. Both are real.

Many of our friends are vulnerable in some way, and the weekend has been triggering for some of us. Rose had a major flashback that’s left her reeling, vomiting with stress, having nightmares, and needing downtime – pj days to recover. We are pretty good at dealing with these now, and so we’ve been going to sleep clothed and reading Harry Potter to her. One friend became too overwhelmed to make it down, another came but was overloaded in the aftermath. I was doing great until the last night when one of the more distressed members of my system woke to the sounds of a storm and then woke Rose sobbing… we ended up out in the wild wind on the front lawn, wrapped in a blanket and watching the dawn come in because when we were outside we were calm and centred, but indoors we were hysterical and about to vomit. We settled outside, reaching a place of acceptance: that she felt completely out of sync with herself, Rose, and our body – and deeply distressed by that in comparison with how others of us have been feeling lately, our awakening sense of connection and security highlighting her sense of being profoundly lost and in despair.

Out in the wind the pain eased and that part was different, freer somehow, more powerful… recently I was exploring some archetype cards with a friend, and each card has the shadow and light characteristics of each archetype on it… I wondered if we have lost sight of her light qualities, if we only know her in shadow, in trauma and disconnection and pain.

Finding a sense of safety and helping each other feel safe… these are such valuable skills to develop. They are a key part of what Rose and I offer to each other on hard days, of how we try to treat our friends and what we ask from them. Making it okay to be human and okay to take risks and feel pain, to struggle at times, to be wounded and fallible. One of my lovely friends sends me texts when I’m struggling that say “It’s okay to not be okay.” It seems to me these qualities are so often linked to ones that it’s easier to value… those friends I know that are struggling with the darkest depressions have such kind hearts. It’s not easy to have a heart like that in a world like this. But we’re all so used to being treated badly when we’re vulnerable and being made responsible for it – this mad idea people seem to have that we can make ourselves feel other than we do, and that this would be a good thing – that we conceal our soft underbelly and our broken hearts and our bad days, and those who would be gentle or understanding never see that side of us, and we never get to see or feel their kindness.

Sharing is vulnerable but also powerful… seeing and being seen. Learning to create safety for humans, in our relationships, our families, our tribes, within our own minds and hearts. It’s such a challenge and we can’t do it entirely alone. We weave it back and forward between us, in our listening and our not hearing, in our seeing and our willingness to be seen. In the way we step outside of our roles and are human, flawed, and vulnerable and imperfect, full of brilliance and insight and deep feelings. This is what it is to love.

My Artbook: Mourning the Unborn

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I have completed the Artbook I created after my miscarriage earlier this year. Inviting you to send in things to be cremated with Tamlorn was a deeply moving experience for me. Afterwards, it felt to me like the most natural, connected, public artwork imaginable, for such a private and taboo experience. I wanted to capture some of the sense of ritual and connection for others to use as inspiration in mourning their own losses. I’ve been distressed to be part of support groups and hear how isolated and hurting so many people are.

So I wrote and painted this book, hand bound it using coptic stitching, covered it with silk, and illustrated and embroidered it with velvet, silk, and seed pearls. The binding alone took me 8 hours to hand sew. It’s very precious to myself and Rose. Here are a few images from the book:

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The peach silk cover, chosen because of the peach tree we planted to remember Tam by.

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First pages

 

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I’ve gilded the print on the right with gold leaf

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To the left are some of the names of other unborn children people sent to me. On the right, three seed pearls have been sewn to the watercolour vial to represent the glass vial of tears we sent with the box to the crematorium.

 

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On the right, a silk ribbon embroidered rose has been stitched into the book.

Now that we are trying to conceive again, the time feels right to share it. I am currently talking with local services about an exhibition of this book and my other art about pregnancy and grief to raise awareness and help start conversations. I am also reaching out to other communities such as those affected by partner violence to create exhibitions that speak to their experiences also. My next big task is to reproduce it in a colour photo book edition so that I can share it with you.

Update April 2016: I have now completed this project! View my beautiful photobook of this artbook in my Etsy store.

Going gently from miscarriage to trying to conceive

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I’ve been sick and stressed. Going gently…

This means sleeping in. It means Rose taking a morning off work to hold me while I cry, and read me back to sleep, and coax little bits of toast and water into me while I try not to throw up. It means sobbing hysterically into my keyboard. It means my sister brings me cups of tea. It means nightmares about being homeless with a newborn baby. Blinding headaches, and body aches. Sitting on the bed with Rose and a perfectly laid out set of clothes for a 6 month old. Talking about Tam again, daily, feeling their loss keenly.

We’re trying to conceive again and my cycle is weird. Apparently this is common following a miscarriage. I thought we might bypass it – we’ve waited until all my levels are normal again, I’ve lost that little bit of weight on my tummy and feet, my body feels like a pre-pregnancy body. But no, things are still weird. I’m currently on day 8 of testing as being ‘high fertility’, when I’ve only ever had 2 days of that result, at most. I’m spotting, which is really unusual for me, and could mean anything from implanting, to not ovulating, to ovulating, to endo messing around with me. Having a weird cycle is kind of worse than having a normal cycle and just not getting pregnant. Today I’m going for a blood test for progesterone levels to see what they’re doing. It’s like being all geared up to turn a corner or fall over a cliff and having the trip extend just a little and then a little more so you stay in that tensed up state and the bottom doesn’t fall out of your world just yet.

On the plus side, we’re getting a lot better at doing insems quickly and easily. We’ve ditched our original syringe method and moved to the cup method, which is a lot more comfortable and portable.

Death is in the background constantly, again. My friend Leanne is in my mind a lot. I find myself sobbing for friends I know who are struggling, fearing they’ll kill themselves, feeling helpless in the face of loss. I find myself carrying Tamlorn’s name around with me like a scar, like a precious relic, like a secret. I remember you, love, I remember you. Some days it feels so close, the baby feels so near that all we have to do is keep the faith. Some days those dreams feel like mirages that recede as I think I’m nearing them, and all my hoping becomes an empty, gasping, darkness. I fall into it, and the world goes on brightly without me. People mouth platitudes at me and they become knives that fall from their lips and cut right through me. We can’t know anything, and anyone who pretends otherwise is turning their face from that brutal reality. Life is not fair and love is not enough and dreams are essential but often unrewarded. Those of us who choose not to know this walk on paths made of the bones of slaves.

Lastly, there is this peaceful place. Down in the bones of the world, where I can sit at the balance point between life and death. I accept my powerlessness and the risks and wounds of love. In that place I can let be. What will come, will come. I do not rule the world. I am old enough to know that dreams must be abundant, like sperm, like tiny sea turtles, like thistledown on the wind. Because most will die. This is the nature of the world, and it hurts, every time. Here, in this dark place, Rose and I sit and lay out the baby clothes. We weep and laugh and count our blessings and number our dead. We sleep and dream of children. We hold hands and we cry in our sleep. We hope, which makes our hearts and faces shine. We hope, which makes our hearts bleed. Going gently. Breathing in and out, the beauty and the nightmares. Faces pressed to the rich, rank earth, living deeply. Loving greatly and accepting the cost.

Grounding in the garden

/ Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

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I woke up feeling sick and fragile but less swamped by anxiety than I have been. So I took the morning very gently and focused on grounding. I cleaned the bedroom, then the kitchen. Made breakfast, which I ate in the garden. Then gathered a pail of weeds.

I re read some of my own blog posts about crisis mode and recognised the past week in them, my sagging efforts to haul myself out of the deepening pit of misery, dissociation, anxiety, loss of a sense of competence or agency or hope. I stepped back from the crisis and felt the pressure ease. I tuned back in to myself and did admin tasks I most felt like doing and even found pleasure in them. Stepped out of roles and made time to personally connect. Felt like I could breathe.

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College was tough. I feel physically very ill, going hot and cold, getting moments of my heart racing. My face hurts, I think I have a sinus infection settling in. It took me forever to find a close park I could afford that would last the full duration of my class. I arrive late and flattered, only to find we were walking to the art gallery that week.

So I had to find and move my car closer to the gallery because I would not be able to walk all the way back to it in time. This took forever and cost me $11 in parking for one down the road from the gallery. I felt so sick it was hard to stay upright and I don’t think I took much in. I also felt that familiar sense of being heartsick that being around a lot of money and expensive things always gives me. I thought about how much I love art and my very favourite works by my favourite artists and I thought about whether I would save that work for the cost of a meal for a person and I knew I wouldn’t. I might go without for a couple of days, but I simply couldn’t starve someone else to hold onto it. I am often so uncomfortable in galleries. Maybe it’s not the art, so much as capitalism that’s stressing me.

Home again and much more content. My day has gradually improved. Rose is starting to feel better with strong antibiotics on board and we’re both excited to be trying to get pregnant again. We feel close and connected. Our little home is full of light and books and critters and people we love. It’s very lovely.

Lighting candles

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

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My love Rose posted this today:

“We light a candle today in memory of our Tamlorn, and to mark the next part of our family’s journey.
Today we begin this month’s attempt at trying to concieve a little tribeling. If you feel so inspired, please light a candle for Sarah and I, for our angels or for the people you long to hold; be they far away, passed or yet to be. We live in hope.”

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Tonight we celebrated together with soft cheese and salami… hopefully soon I won’t be able to eat them again because I’ll be pregnant.

Everyone in my home is sick, Zoe needs another vet trip, and I’m a long way out of my comfort zone with my business. So things are great and not great at the same time, which is kind of doing my head in and making it hard to communicate! Lovely Rose, who is really very unwell with 2 middle ear infections with pus and drums at risk of bursting as well as tonsillitis and a chest infection came home early from work for a doctors appt and was flipping between feeling very miserable and wanting to curl up on the couch, and feeling like a bit of a fraud and not that ill at all – and guilty for not doing more housework! You are sick love, I told her, you’re just cheerful too because we’re trying to get pregnant again. It’s weird to be feeling such contradictory things together.

Same here. I’m struggling to write on this blog because the lows are intense, the highs are intense, there’s not a lot of sense stringing them together, and I don’t have much perspective. I feel like there’s no word in English for the everything is great, everything is awful mix I’m feeling. Everything feels messy and vulnerable and unfamiliar. Kind of like trying to get pregnant after having a miscarriage, I guess.

Love

/ Sarah K Reece / 5 Comments

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It’s been a long week. I’m very tired and feeling the bite of extra work from the move… and extra tiredness from all the emotional things going on. I’m feeling a bit run down, mouth ulcers and a headache. I’m hanging out in bed this morning with Zoe.

I keep trying to write blog posts but my mind isn’t quite clear enough to get them structured and polished and out in an hour the way I usually can. That’s okay. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.

Last night we had the first meet of the people interested in being part of a community around homelessness in SA. I was excited about it, but got compressed with admin at the end of my day, then had several small emotional shocks, and by the time we’d made dinner and sat down to talk I was feeling very discouraged. So the catch up turned into something very different from what I had planned.

We talked about the challenges of trying to be part of something new, of the disillusionment, the old wounds from every other project we’ve been involved in that went bad, the anxiety that too much would be asked of us, the confusion about how to best meet needs, the need for bigger picture thinking to link our little concern back to huge human rights issues of poverty and so on, the sense of being overwhelmed by a crisis we can’t fix, of a deep discomfort with the usual way of doing these things – board meetings, roles, subcommittees. I cried. We laughed. We shared and connected as people. From the mess, confidence emerged, clarity emerged, a path forwards, a sense of equality and team and closeness. I reflected and captured the themes, the way I’ve just been taught to in the facilitator training, but not detached: with tears on my face. As one of them. My friends are so beautiful.

And I came away that night feeling deeply moved. Humbled. Part of me that observed the growth, the shift from hopelessness to calm hope, was looking at why it came together, as we always do. What are the principles, the values, that underpin it? Why did it work and how can I capture that for other people to learn and experience, for inclusion in my model about services with heart? For the first time I felt a sinking sense of futility. Maybe it’s simply not possible to capture such an experience in a manual or model. Being human is so… messy, unpredictable, beautiful, how can it be fitted or adequately described?

Then a sense of peace came over me, to let it be what it was and drink from it and rest in it and accept that I cannot count the stars. There will be tomorrow night for star gazing, and the night after, and after that. Right now to accept the gift of a group space that was human and safe and healing.

Something beautiful happened after they left. Our researcher part; brilliant, detached, driven, woke up. She sat trembling with Rose and said it was like having a heart put in her chest for the first time. She could feel our young ones inside her, could hear them as a kind of distant chatter. She inhabited the body and found emotions spilling over. She held hands with Rose, feeling every sensation and feeling the joy in it, to be able to feel touch, the yearning for the warmth of another. She has never lived in her body before, never eaten before, never felt a desire for human contact, never felt strong emotions, never been moved to poetry.

She felt like she had woken up. Every sensation was strong and clear but not raw or overwhelming. She felt like the tin man who had been given a heart, or found it rather, inexplicably alive and red and beating in her chest. Rose was a good midwife for what was being born, attentive and attuned. Rose suggested food to a part who never eats, no matter how many days she’s out for. She turned away from chocolate in disgust but accepted a mandarin.

Peeling the leathery skin and smelling the sweet pungent oils on her fingers was magic. It tasted sweet and mild and watery, bursting with juice in her mouth. She ate every segment, slowly, tasting everything. Then she lay her head on Rose’s breast and listened to her heart beating. Rose spoke with her gently.

She asked Rose if she was part of this family too, if this was her home, her body, if she’d done enough to deserve it.
And she listened to Rose’s heart beating, her head going gently up and down with the rhythm of Rose’s breathing. She thought to herself that Rose was a sea and she was a tiny boat bobbing with the waves, and felt delight in thinking this, in feeling a poem.

And then we slept, deeply. Today we’re going to move slowly, listen to soft music, work on our tax admin. Life is good when nothing turns out how you planned or expected, when you’re not in control and start to find that’s actually better, richer, stranger, deeper. There’s a lot of love in my little house, in my world, in my life. Something very beautiful is happening here.

For more information see articles listed on Multiplicity Links, scroll through posts in the category of Multiplicity, or explore my Network The Dissociative Initiative.

Everything is New

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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My beautiful, kind, lovely sister broke up with her partner this week and urgently needed somewhere to stay. Rose and I have welcomed her with us. My family rallied and gathered to pack and move her and we now have three people, four cats, and a dog living in our 2 bedroom semi detached unit! It’s a little cramped but it’s also rather wonderful to have the chance to live together again. We all get along well and Rose and I have put a lot of time into our family culture, it’s healthy and strong and flexible, and probably just what my sister needs to recuperate.

Yesterday we overhauled the sheds, dug out our washing machine, and shifted a lot of my art supplies into drawers in the new shed. We’ve also been doing lots of caring and calming things to settle the nerves, the raw emotional pain of a breakup, and the bad memories that get unsettled. Camp-fires, games nights, online gaming, good home cooked food, music. It’s been beautiful to see in action.

Rose and I were talking about the sudden change in our circumstances and laughing that if we couldn’t deal with suddenly being a three person household we had no business trying to get pregnant, and that if we couldn’t handle sudden plan changes gracefully we were never going to cope with teenagers! 😉

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One of our new residents: this is my sister’s lovely cat. She is so sweet and relaxed and right at home already. Zoe is desperately excited, Tonks is chilled out, Bebe is sulking a bit, and Sarsaparilla hasn’t come far enough into the house to have met her yet. He loves sleeping in the lounge room by the heater in this weather. (it’s freezing in Adelaide)

Her name is Kaylee with an Irish spelling I wouldn’t attempt unless I had it written down! She’s adorable.

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We’re a family! We’re trying to get pregnant again the end of this month! And my business is blossoming! I have my first ever art prints back from the printer and they are so beautiful I cried! I have a buyer for one of my favourite paintings. I have mental health talks booking in. I have safe communities to nestle into – I’ve been getting to know the wonderful people in Community Health Onkaparinga, and I’ve just joined a trans and gender queer social activism group which was… Well it was like being in Bridges, the face to face group for people with dissociation and multiplicity I ran for a couple of years. It was magic, like being home, like being among my own kind, diverse as they are. I felt my heart open up and knew these are the places I need to be. This is where I put my energy.

College starts again today – a class on Installation Art that I’m so excited about I can hardly think straight!

I have overhauled my online home too, not as a finished product but to try and better reflect where I’m at and where things are going… Go and explore the menu, I’ve added new pages and rewritten old ones and nested a lot of my paid work information on this site with great care and caution and I’ll see how it goes. Tell me what you think?

I’m so bursting with excitement I got hardly any sleep last night. I feel like stars are burning so brightly in my chest that there’s almost no room for my heart. Someone wants to cry out with joy, loud! To weep with it. To pour it out of us like a river. My life is unbearably beautiful and I’m drunk on hope.

And someone else wants to be still. To sit and watch the bees in the basil. To sit under the cold winter sun and feel the wind on our skin. There’s children playing up the street, and the wind chimes outside our window singing softly. The breeze tugs a lace curtain into a kind of dance, puffs it up as if it’s a gown over a body so translucent I cannot see her, fae and trembling she stands by my window and drinks the breeze, and dances.

I love my sister very dearly and it’s hurt my heart to watch her struggle in a home where she was not well loved. I feel a fierce, deep joy to have her home, for a little while, to hold her close and cook for her and try to help her taste and feel again – this is what being loved feels like. So she can be nourished, so she has the sense of it alive in her, guiding her. It shouldn’t take such courage or cost such pain to pull back from places where we are not loved well. She, none of us, should have to be that strong. We should be well loved by those around us so the dance we must do around each others broken places is a movement from light to light, from home to home, from warmth to warmth, never fleeing into the night and the darkness, never broken by the cost. Always free. She’ll fly on again but we have a precious time where we’ll make our home together, where I can share the home I’ve been blessed with.

I’m not the only one sharing. I have been overwhelmed with donations the last month, often little amounts that I KNOW are costly to give, are, percentage of your income wise, very big indeed. I am buying resources for the networks, and paying for prints, and husbanding every dollar with care. A Blog reader contacted me recently to offer a regular gift of money over the next nine months. I took to bed and wept, Rose holding me gently. How overwhelming it is to receive such support, to feel such… Connection… Gratitude… Such belief in what I’m doing. You share my dreams! And like my art! And read my blog… And help with my networks.

I had a dream, back when I started this. To be useful in the world, and to express myself creatively. I have come through so much and learned so much in the pursuit of that dream. And Rose changed everything! Suddenly I’m dreaming of family and a baby too, my own tiny community within my much larger community. So I started dreaming a new dream, of being useful in the world, and expressing myself creatively, in an ethical and sustainable way. Transitioning my business and networks from a charity model to one of mutuality. I give and I receive, and together, we thrive, we dream, we bring more kindness and honesty and hope into the world.

Walking with the spirits

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I’ve been missing my friend Leanne lately. Not like I did at first, with the heaving sobs and sense of disbelief. But I wake up and find her name in my heart, like a large rounded river stone. I miss her and I feel like I’ve grown so much since we were friends, and wish she could have seen that. Wish we could have talked again. She’d be so excited about what was happening in my life…

I miss Terry Pratchett too. I’ve never met him, but I find myself reeling over the loss of him, his profound gifts to the world. A finished story now. No more new books. My heart hurts and aches. It spurs me to reach out to my people, reminds me they are all mortal and will not live forever. I must tell them I love them now, must show them they matter.

I miss Tamlorn. In a couple of weeks we’ll be trying again for a baby. I’m excited and almost… Numb. It’s hard to believe it’s happening. It seems unreal and detached. I miss the little one we already had and I’m scared we’ll lose another. I’ve only just dropped the last of the weight I put on with Tam, I fit into my shoes and bras again. It’s strange to be inviting a little living thing back into my body again. Beautiful, wonderful, amazing, but strange.

I was at a wonderful community dinner this week, and as part of the getting to know each other we played a game where we moved around a hall in different groups depending on our answers to different questions. Go up that side if you were born in Adelaide and this side if you were born elsewhere… On of the questions was how many children people had. I stubbornly stood in the group who answered ‘one’, and was relieved when they didn’t ask us any more about our children.

It’s never easy to do, but every time I acknowledge Tam as my child, I feel stronger, and the grief feels… Cleaner. Sweeter somehow. Cold and clear as snow melt. My family feels whole.

The world is a strange and contradictory place, and we are likewise, so full of possibility and confusion and dreams. There’s a whole universe inside every one of us. I find myself simply marvelling at it, wanting to stop and simply be filled with wonder by the people around me. How vulnerable, petty, brilliant, deluded, and beautiful people are. How we get so tangled in the world and lose heart when our dreams die. And yet how resilient we are too, our broken hearts that hope again, almost in spite of us, our tenacity to keep living and keep dreaming and keep learning even when the lessons hurt. I’m proud to be here, glad to be alive, glad to be among people again. Life and death, love and grief, come hand in hand together.

I’m walking down to the edge again, to the sharp place in the dark where a life may be given or taken, where a child may live or die within me. I don’t walk alone. I don’t walk alone in any sense ever, the spirits of my loved ones come with me.

Rose’s Great Adventures

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

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Rose is brilliant at adventures. She’s renowned locally for her ability to find fun, wonderful, cheap things to do with kids (and the young at heart). Her bus adventures around Adelaide are the stuff of legend. I got to hear a bunch of now grown up kids reminiscing about trips they’d taken once and it was beautiful.

Today I’ve done some admin and now we’re off with our neices for a cubby building afternoon at a national forest. It will be muddy and fun and wonderful. I can’t wait. This woman is amazing and I love her to bits!

In other news, we have a donor back on board and will be trying to get pregnant again this cycle. We are both incredibly excited about it! Our family is a wonderful place. 🙂

I don’t know better than you

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I don’t know better than you how to live your life.

I don’t know better than people I sometimes care for when they’re unwell.

I don’t know better than the rest of my own system. I couldn’t be any of my other parts better than they are.

In fact, my conscious or rational mind doesn’t know better than the rest of my mind.

If I tried to take over your life, on the basis that I know better than you how to run it and that I’d do a better job, there are two predictable outcomes – you would fight me every step of the way, overtly or covertly, desperately trying to preserve your own freedom and dignity. You would fight me even if what I trying to make you do WAS good for you, or felt helpful or needed, or would actually make your life better. Because those needs are less important than the need to be in control of your own life. It is a fundamental human need to be autonomous. The freedom to choose, even if our choices are terribly flawed. This is part of the foundation of our sense of dignity. We will be incredibly, instinctively ‘self destructive’ in situations where people are trying to take over our lives, simply to try to restore a sense of control. Rebellion is a common human response to control.

The second predictable outcome to my control would be your submission. Obedience is another common human response to authority. The more authority I have, the more likely you are to obey me. The more other people obey me, the more likely you are to obey me. The more I get you to believe that you are very, very bad at running your own life, and I could do a much better job, the more likely you are to obey me.

People express these conflicting responses – rebellion and submission, in a variety of ways. Some people, usually a minority, will rebell whatever the cost to themselves. I will see this as proof that you are out of control and need my intervention.

Some people will flick between times of rebellion and times of submission, expressing deep ambivalence and conflict about their relationship to this person in authority. I will ethos as proof of your unstable nature and inability to be consistent, proving that you need my direction.

Some people will become highly manipulative and passive aggressive, submitting openly but covertly fighting. I will construe this as you having poor boundaries, behavioural issues, and an inability to engage in normal, warm human relationships, proving the need for my management.

Others will become highly compliant and withdrawn, obeying all control and hoping that submission will stop anything worse happening to them. I will construe this as your passive nature, that you are clearly unable to direct your own life and see it as proof you need ongoing parent type support.

The nature of how we think and process our own experiences makes it challenging for us to hold this conflict in our minds. If I have taken power away from you, but also met your needs at times, you may find it impossible to openly criticise me. If I have a very hostile response to criticism, very defensive, and a lot of power to punish you, you may learn to never criticise me.

I will criticise you however, particularly if you disobey me or manage to try something for yourself which goes badly. Many things you try for yourself will go badly because mistakes is how we learn and the longer I’ve been able to keep you from making mistakes the less chance you’ve had to learn. I may also shame you for criticising, requiring you to constantly express gratitude to me for the very hard work I’ve done in helping you. You’ve been a heavy burden and very hard work at times, trying my patience, terribly ungrateful, rude, passive, and hostile. You will be constantly how inadequate you are and how much you owe me. The biggest things you owe me are gratitude and silence about anything I don’t like to hear.

You may internalise my ideas about my competence to run your life and police and suppress even your own thoughts and feelings – fighting your natural instinct to rebell and hating yourself for feeling that way. Now you have turned against yourself. You distrust your own impulses. You fight to stay in control of your feelings and urges, feeling shame about them. They are the enemy, proof that you are weak, sick, and incompetent. Further proof that I am right to direct your life.

You are also exhibiting signs of chronic disempowerment or institutionalisation. You have trouble making decisions on your own. You feel very anxious when you can’t get clear feedback that I our other authority figures are happy with you. You are incredibly vulnerable to the slightest shift in mood or sign that you are out of favour. You lack motivation and energy. You lack creativity and spark. You feel out of control, depressed, and miserable.

If you have turned against yourself strongly and effectively, you are so dissociated from your own feelings and impulses you would swear you are not unhappy. Your life and health shows the signs of profound unhappiness but you yourself insist that you are fine and that I love you and have your best interests at heart. If you were an animal, we might describe you using words such as tame, docile, or domesticated. Something essential about you has been crushed. You are incredibly uncomfortable around people who are not crushed. You tend to have an authoritative, brutal, detached relationship with anyone you are in power over.

I am exhausted and frustrated by your constant neediness. I am angry about your occasional criticism or rebellion, and your passive aggressiveness infuriates me. I may be desperately looking forward to the day when you start to run your own life and not need me anymore, or I may be dependant upon your gratitude to cope with my sense of emptiness, my chronic emotional starvation from never being real and open and vulnerable and having my own needs met.

I may not have started this process. You may have become afraid or overwhelmed and collapsed in my arms, looking for someone to follow and investing me with both the power and responsibility to direct your life. I may look like the bad guy but actually be suffering terribly, exhausted and totally confused about how to hand control back to you without you just being dead by the end of the week. I may live in terror of your irrationality, your self destructiveness, your bizarre, violent impulsiveness, your lack of self compassion or patience. When I try to leave you may harm yourself, attempt suicide, stalk me, stop eating, or destroy my reputation. Roles act as hooks. If I take over, you are likely to collapse. Equally, if you collapse, I am likely to take over.

I may be your parent, your doctor, your best friend, your partner, your shrink, your kid, your minister, your small group leader, your boss, your carer.

I may be the dominant part in your system, doing my misguided best to help us all function. I may try to take over (or be dumped with) every other role, not sharing any power or responsibly with the rest of you. I am good at some things but very bad at others. I am deeply frustrated that other parts fight me, disobey me, even hate me. I think my good intentions are enough and I don’t understand that being so intrusive is always harmful even when I’m doing it from love. The more desperate and afraid I am, the more control I take away. The more control I take away, the more my system shows the signs of disempowerment and alienation.

I may be you rational mind. Treated by your culture, your family, your shrink as the only bit of your mind that is really ‘you’, the only bit that should be in charge at all times, the only bit that can do what you need to survive and live, put in charge of every other system and function, and called to account for unconscious dreams, fears, desires, for threat systems and triggers from old wounds and pleasures, for fragmented memory structures and hallucinatory sensory input.

I confabulate stories to fill the gaps from when I was not running the show. I deny all other aspects. I claim to be the only self, the only voice, the only reality. I delete other perspectives, fight with them, silence them, and try to take over their roles. I remove instances of loss of my control from our master narrative of self. I pretend I am always aware, always online, always in control and ignore all the times we cycle into other states of awareness.

Sanity, I am assured, rests in my total dominance. Health is me being in control. No more daydreaming. No more idiosyncrasies. No more irrational fears. So I take over instead of being part, and we become less. Silenced voices fight back in rage or wither in isolation. We become less than whole. Instinctive systems are dysregulated because of my intrusive micromanagement; slow to kick in when needed, randomly intruding when not needed. Emotions are frequently ignored as ‘irrational’, cutting me off from the vast knowledge in omy unconscious mind. I have almost no intuitive capacity to understand myself or other people. I am terrified of diversity, difference, altered states, lots of control, dreams, spirituality, mystery, and human vulnerability.

Or I can recognise that I am part of a whole and step back. I can be the reflective process that helps us to learn. I can regulate the empathy that leaves us vulnerable to exploitation. I can gently challenge the irrational and bizarre thoughts and impulses that would lead us down terrifying paths, while recognising they are the flip side of our sensitivity and capacity to look for patterns. I can channel input from the unconscious and give it equal, but not more, weight with what I already think I know.

I can acknowledge the wholeness of self that is more than just me, my illusion of singleness, my illusion of conscious control. I can learn to tune in, learn to listen well.

And we can breathe, can speak in many voices, can recognise each others expertise, can work together. The brain is an argument, says one of my favourite neuroscience books (Into the Silent Land). The brain can also be a conversation, can also be a song.

So can our systems. So can our relationships, our families, our culture.

The Power of Art

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Today I read a beautiful book called Hate that Cat by Sharon Creech. It made me weep, it was so beautiful.

We, the 30 or so of us who make up Sarah, do not share our personal names. Now, we’re pretty relaxed about the whole multiplicity thing. Open and out! But, we never give a fixed number for how many parts there are in my system, because I never assume that our system map is completely accurate and finished, and I’m comfortable with that.

We have never been happy about openly identifying as individuals – on many blogs by multiples there will be a page where you can read about their system members – and I’ve always admired that, but it makes me feel incredibly exposed. Because we are highly co-conscious and switch many times a day, there’s a degree of fluidity, of somewhat ‘integrated’ functioning. In arguments a whole bunch of us may switch through, speak our piece, finish each other’s sentences, drop back inside. There’s a sort of unconscious dance between us, a façade of unity, and a lot of largely unconscious and instinctive effort to prevent anyone from noticing switching or the differences between parts.

Some of us would love to identify ourselves openly and use our real names, but for others this is an unthinkable violation. The degree of exposure stress is intense – far worse than stripping in public, for some of us this is more akin to taking off clothes, then skin and bone, pulling out organs and uncurling brain matter for people to play with. It violates a deeply held need to pretend not to be multiple. Because multiplicity has worked brilliantly for us as a way of navigating horrible situations, but revealed it can actually make you more vulnerable rather than less. Every time someone not incredibly close to me has noticed or had their attention drawn to an obvious switch, very bad things have resulted. People are positively phobic about switching, and scared people do not react well.

For us, our names are also triggers that often cue a switch. Talking about a part and using their truename will frequently bring them out – or at least to the surface to hear what is being said about them!

Names and identifying ourselves individually are highly personal, private, intimate things. Only my lover, my very closest people, at this point are granted that information. I do not even permit my shrinks to know this or know me like this. This may change later, it may not.

Our feelings on this matter are almost certainly informed by our background in sci/fi and fantasy. Anyone who has loved works such as the Chronicles of Morgan, Prince of Hed, or the Earthsea cycle will recognise the idea that names have power, and that truenames are intimate. Does this mean I’ve imagined my multiplicity to fit with wild fantasy ideas? Snort. It means that my experience of my self and the world has been informed in many ways, by many people, and for me writers have often been better guides than shrinks. I’m grateful to have books like these in my life. I’m grateful to be a writer. And it’s not just writers – theatre, songwriters, painters – all the arts. They tell us so much about what it is so be human. They are so real and so raw and so essential to my life. Without Cave, or Bradbury, I would not be here. I would have broken, broken far beyond repair. I needed others who saw the world the way I saw it, who hurt, or hoped, or learned, and shared in such ways that I felt what they felt, lived their lives with them. I have written often about my love of the arts, how much they have given, how they are the foundation of my ‘mental health’.

Before language about multiplicity, there was just the noise inside. Just the kaleidoscope shifting as switching changed everything about the world. We wrote to each other. We wrote hate. We wrote terror. We wrote love poems. We wrote to see ourselves, and re-read what we had written, and slowly learned about ourselves.

Hate that Cat is a book in poems. It reminded me of that process – instinctive, inarticulate, confused, driven, full of pain and bewilderment. Not done as a ‘therapy’ as ‘obedience’ to some grant recovery plan. Done, in fact, in opposition to those who accused me of wallowing. But somehow my lifeline to my self, my mirror of the world. I understand understanding yourself and your world through poems. They are our first language, our first connection, our home. Other people have other first languages.

How blessed I have been in this. We who write ourselves into being at the edge of the night, how fortunate we are. There is so much richness in the works of those I love. They have been my friends, mentors, parents, companions, ghosts. They have held my heart when it was too broken to live in my body any more. They have kept alive a dream that one day I would have a place in the world, a tribe, a sense of connection. That one day there would be love, there would be intimacy, closeness, people who could hear my soul, those who knew how to listen. Or at least – that there had been others like me, even if they were now long dead. I might be the last of my species, ruined and broken and hopeless, but I had a species. Other people also had breakable hearts, had bled in poems. I might be alone but I was not alone through all time and space. Not the only one ever.

That was, and is, deeply precious to me. Isn’t this what we all need? Isn’t being human finding a way to sing the song I’ve sung to Tamlorn, and finding people who will sing it back to us? To be loved that deeply. What does that have to do with art? Everything. What does art have to do with pain, madness, grief, suffering, mental illness? Absolutely everything.