Image Credit to MeddyGarnet
There’s always this weariness that comes with finding new medical professionals. Since my PTSD was triggered, I have found a way to surround myself with supports that I could grasp when things got bad. Sometimes they got worse than bad, and other times, everything was just fine. But I knew I needed to have the security of that support system in order to cope.
When we moved to Edmonton, I had a deadline to make. My psychiatrist had given me enough medicine to last me three months and we scheduled an appointment just in case I couldn’t find a doctor in that time. I spent sleepless nights searching websites for clinics accepting new patients, ones that didn’t offer laser treatment or botox while I held on the line, and hopefully a female. I became really frustrated because it appeared as though I was in a long line of people looking for a doctor. My parents suggested I try our family doctor from when I was a kid.
I hemmed and hawed. Mostly, because this was the doctor who saw me through my pregnancy with The Kiddo. I had my follow up appointment in their new office, the one that I went to, without The Kiddo, with a smaller but still visible belly, and a fake smile so no one would see the complete pain I was in. She’d asked me four times if I was sure I wasn’t suffering from depression at that visit. Maybe she saw through my fake smile.
Did I want to go back there? She was a great doctor, and I knew my kids would love her.
I already knew that she knew about The Kiddo. Would she remember or would I be forced to explain?
You can’t possibly understand this, until you’ve been there. There is this humiliating moment, as you sit, your feet dangling from the patient bed, the gown wrapped as tightly as it will go, but still not enough, where they ask that question. The one where will you have to explain that you have three children, but only parent two. The one that will cause them to spin around in their chair, look you up and down, and squint their eyes in subtle way, that you don’t see it the first time it happens. There is this second, it feels like an eternity, where you can hear all the questions they want to ask, but usually don’t, kicking around in their heads. Finally, they give you a tight smile, and return to typing on their computer, or writing on their pad. Where they are notating that you are one of those mothers and they have seen one in the flesh. Every time I come in contact with someone new, I dread that moment. The moment of explanation.
Maybe I could avoid it this time.
I made the appointment, although the wait was long. It would have to do, because a familiar face was better than a doctor who might not understand what it is to be me.
It was just a physical, but I wanted to talk about re-creating that support system for my mental health. I needed a therapist, maybe. Definitely a psychiatrist, and possibly access to group therapy. I had to fight for these thing in Lethbridge, and I did, but the energy it took to have to do the legwork that a doctor should be willing to do was exhausting. Demoralizing. Frightening. I pushed through all of that, because, well, I had to. I have to. If I let any of these things fall to the wayside, I fall apart. I come undone.
Only six months into our move, I was beginning to feel the unravelling motion that starts slowly but doesn’t stay that way for too long. The sleepless nights are just the beginning for me. As the appointment crept closer and closer, I felt grateful that I had made the appointment when I did. It seemed to be just in time. The week prior, I had only slept twelve hours in seven days. My moods were becoming erratic, and my depression, oh it was beginning to sink.
Yes, the appointment was right when I needed it.
There I sat, the paper blanket over my legs, my back showing in the way too small gown, my left foot swinging sideways over the end of the table as I waited. I memorized the labels on the cabinets, the posters on the wall, giggled at the poster she had describing a woman’s menstrual cycle in cartoon form with clever phrases. I could tell that she was still very much the doctor I had when I was pregnant with The Kiddo based on the set up of the room, and the leopard print cover on the chair beside the computer.
She came in, her wild hair sticking out, and she smiled kindly at me. We began our discussion about my health, until she asked about my children.
“You have three children, right? The first was surrendered?”
I nodded. Surrendered. I’d never heard a doctor say that before. It sounded so cold, but yet, I liked it so much better than the “you placed for adoption”. It was honest. I had surrendered my parental rights, and given the circumstances, (did she remember them?), surrendered was the perfect word to use. Furthermore, I didn’t have to initiate the conversation, the awkward one that I detest. She remembered. I could relax for the rest of the appointment.
“What caused your PTSD?” she asked later, her fingers clicking away at the keyboard.
“Uh, well, we think it was a variety of things, but it was triggered after the birth of my son….my parented son. I assume based on the nightmares, flashbacks and depression, that it’s linked to the adoption”.
She turned in her seat, her eyes looked straight at me. There was no up or down motion. There was no hint of curiosity. She looked genuinely concerned, so I continued,
“Of course, there is some childhood abuse that I’ve dealt with, but for the most part, I’ve handled that. You know, other than the residual effects. The adoption is a huge place of anxiety and depression for me. So we’ve focused there.”
Her head bobbed up and down, “Yes, yes, that makes sense.”
Then we moved on That was it. She heard me. I knew she heard me. She validated me, and didn’t all at once. It was exactly what I needed. To state my truths, without anyone telling me I’m wrong, or without anyone suggesting I feel differently. She knew I felt how I felt, and seemed to believe it was a reasonable way to feel.
Or maybe she didn’t.
It doesn’t often make sense to people but when you are stripped of your rights to parent your own child, it’s a big deal when someone tries to strip you of your feelings surrounding that incident. Especially if they aren’t the societal expectation.
In this adoption world, you can feel like you are screaming in a room full of people and no one can hear you.
She heard me, and that was just enough for me.
