Understanding Me – Pregnant

I could list and record the many different ways that I have succumbed to releasing the tension, and I could recall the stories of how I didn’t fit in, and the painful comments. The friends that have left me behind, the friends that I have left behind, the co-dependent relationships that have defined me up until now, and the flashbacks that interrupt my sleep. But nothing really stands out more than when I became pregnant.

Absolute shitshow.

Me and my pregnancy

I had no schema to back myself up with. I didn’t have anybody I could reflect from. I didn’t have a blueprint on how I was meant to be, how I was meant to feel in my body, and I just didn’t know how to be. I was uncomfortable, I was more awkward in those months than any other time I can remember. The problem being I couldn’t drink away any of the tension, I couldn’t dance away any of the tension, I could only sit and wallow in my confusion and frustration and overwhelm.

Every parenting book I read, I developed the symptoms that they mentioned. I had so many, it was ridiculous. Oh, everything swelled. My nose swelled. Nobody mentioned anything about a swelling nose prior to that. I’m never reading those books again, that’s for sure. All of my wheels had fallen off, and I really did feel like a stuck turtle on its back, flailing around, begging for someone to notice something that would help me. But it turns out, pregnancy is not the best time to have stress in the body. 

I had an emergency caesarean – a little early, not too early, maybe about a week early – without ever making it into labour, without noticing the signs of stress in my body. Because this is just how my body has always felt. I didn’t feel like there was any difference. I disconnect from my body quite quickly,  it takes a lot for me to notice the point of no return I was definitely disconnected. I had no way of explaining any of this to anyone. I couldn’t tell my partner, I couldn’t tell my family, how confused and overwhelmed and disconnected I was. My jokes weren’t funny, my sarcasm, which was a good old friend of mine, was missing its mark, and my normal self-deprecation became hostile. It was repetitive and awkward – so unbelievably awkward.  Crying and overwhelmed became just the new norm for me. 

My family loves me and I have a consistent, supportive network of close family.

I have been told I am not the easiest person to live with, and travelling with me can be frustrating, to say the least. But I have always felt loved. Not always understood, but I have always felt loved. These people that loved me had no idea how to help me, and I had no idea how to ask, or what to ask, or when to ask. Those first couple of years were a bit of a shitshow. 

Surprisingly, I did not thrive. I became more co-dependent on whomever I thought could help me. I wanted to find that silver bullet solution that made sense and fixed everything. The more I shut down, the worse my son’s behaviour got, the worse he got, the more I shut down. It was a downward spiral of losing myself, and resenting my son. But, thank god for autism. In the journey to my son’s autism diagnosis, I have found myself. I am neuro-divergent, and I consider myself as somebody on the spectrum. I have been diagnosed with dyslexia, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, depression, hormone imbalance, sinusitis, tonsillitis, left-handedness. I have not been assessed for ASD, and I am not going to go through it. But this is where I have found my ease.