Now that the cute's out of the way, we can get down to the nitty gritty of mental illness. YEY. Now that the nursery is mostly put together, and looks like an ~*ACTUAL ROOM*~ I tend to find myself wandering in there and sitting on the floor looking around. As a child's room, it doesn't look quite right. All the books and toys are stacked neatly away, the sheet is tight on the mattress, the diapers are put away in a tidy pile. It looks like a room prepared for a baby, but not used just yet. And that is, of course, because it is what it is. And so I will go and sit and start dreaming of the happy and frustrating times to come in this room and then my eyes will fall on something. Sometimes it's one of the impossibly tiny dresses hanging smartly in the closet, or the night light sitting on the dresser. That's when I start to wonder and worry - what will I do if March comes and goes, in like a lion and out like a lamb, and the room stays empty? What if something happens and we don't bring home a baby. What happens if the first days of spring herald the funeral of my first child?
Even if having diabetes didn't put me at higher risk for placental problems and therefore higher risk of stillbirth, I think I would still fear it, the same way I'm sure I would have still agonized over birth defects before our anatomy scan even without knowing that diabetes also raises the risk of that. So I worry, and I fret, and my imagination takes me to a reality where the room stays empty until one day someone asks me what I'm going to do with her things if we're not going to be using them, or if Matt suggests that we put the crib and changing table in storage so that we can turn the room into an office.
And then I promptly lose my shit, as one does, and for some length of time there is crying, and wailing, and I usually end up prone on the floor of the nursery, sobbing into the play rug somewhere around the magic castle on the horizon and begging the universe not to let this happen, as if any amount of wishing and pleading were enough to keep bad things at bay.
So this morning I brought this up to my therapist. We talked about it, and she asked me how long these anxiety attacks were lasting and I said I honestly wasn't aware. And we talked about the cognitive behavioral approach in psychology and she said that it might be helpful if I did become more aware of these attacks. She suggested that if I were to schedule time to freak out instead of it happening randomly, I might have more measure of control over the anxiety. So her suggestion was for each day for me to plan an hour to freak out in Lorelai's room, and take a journal and pen in there with me. I can write down anything I want, and keep track of the time. Eventually, she feels that I may not need a full hour, and as we taper down the time I allow myself to feel the anxiety so viciously, it may end up being a cathartic experience that I can come to let go of and no longer get blindsided by.
She pointed out that she wanted me to do this in the nursery rather than another room because she's worried that this might make me start to associate a particular room with anxiety. If I made sure to freak out in the kitchen, it might raise my discomfort being in the kitchen. She feels confident that the nursery is the best place to try this because "the meaning of this room is about to change drastically. When you have your child in your arms, and it is her room and not just her intended room, I don't think you'll have any ties to it with your anxiety attacks." It seems solid enough to me.
Tomorrow is the first day that I plan on doing this, early in the afternoon after Matt's gone to work but before my friend and her children come over for dinner. We will see how this goes, and if it helps.
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