Coming Out of the Fog and Making Choices

That first year man. It really gets you. I think that there were a few times I thought "okay, I'm doing this. I've got it figured out" and then boom- nope. Something happened and I would take like forty steps back.

This time though, I really do feel like "this is it. I have two choices feel like this forever, or get it together and feel better." I've been in therapy for over a year now and truly I feel like I have processed Tacoma's death enough that I am truly just talking it until I am blue in the face. I am honestly now at a point in therapy where I've started to really uncover the underneath of why Tacoma's death rocked me so hard... woof- childhood trauma and attachment style.

But anyways back to the topic... coming out of the fog. This last year has been blurry, dark, sad, irritating, and truly the longest. I feel like I have had to search and search for who I am again, and something that I have come to realize lately is... I have let a whole year pass by right in front of me. I was talking with a friend yesterday and finally was able to say that I am at a point where I want to and know that I deserve to enjoy life. I also have a toddler and soon to be newborn coming and yes, while Tacoma dying is so sad and I wish he were here... I want to enjoy my girls and family I have in front of me and I know that I deserve to. So I have get there, I want to get there, I am going to get there.

So now lets ping pong back to the childhood trauma and attachment style. Ya ever heard of attachment styles? Truly... they suck. ha Especially if you have an attachment style that is anything other than secure. Which BINGO, you guessed it. That's me.

Like I said previously I have been in therapy for the last year and went solely to process the death of Tacoma but in doing that it also brought up a lot of things that happened in my childhood that I thought I had worked through, but guess what? I didn't. I just covered them up. One of those things being the attachment style that I formed as a kid. Which maybe I didn't really cover up, it just shifted with pregnancy and truly mothering wounds that I have. Then you add the stillbirth and trauama and grief and what a f*cking receipe for disaster.

So if you haven't heard of attachement styles it's basically the way that you form relationships based on your very first ones, the ones from infancy that you receive from your primary caregivers, aka your parents. These relationships help your neuropathways to develop and then you learn what a safe environment is like, how to rely/depend on others, and how to form relationships later in life. There are essentially four different attachment styles, secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized. My whole life I thought I had an anxious attachment, and maybe I did, because they can ebb and flow, and change but recently I took a test and realized... ya girl is disorganzied and boy does it make sense but also SUCK! I would go into a lot of detail about it but just know, it's the reason I have caused so much chaos in my life lately and it's the reason I've been such a mess. A disorganizied attachement has a real hard time trusting, a real hard time with abandonment, and a real hard time believing they are worthy. So without going into too much detail when Tacoma died, my abandonment, rocked to the core. As if he truly had a choice in not coming to our family earthside. My trust? Nonexistent. In myself, in the world, in believing just about anything. Worthiness of good things in life? Gone. If I couldn't keep my son safe, if I couldn't trust myself, then what was I worthy of? Definitely not this life I had worked hard to create.

At least those were all of my thoughts. The negative thougths that really consumed me and truly made me so mad because at the core, I know and I knew that none of that was true. Yes, my childhood was not always great, that's just reality. There were things that happened that caused this attachment style, there were beliefs instilled in me and things that happened that obviously created these core beliefs but I also worked really dang hard to be resilient and overcome those throughout my adult life. So to have these beliefs come back and really f*ck me up, has not been fun. For me or for anyone around me. It's been hell.

So now, I have some choices right? Figure it out. Work really hard, even when I'm tired, even when I'm not feeling it and truly ACCEPT that this the reality I have and overcome it or continue to let it sit and suffocate me. Which see here's the thing, I have a REALLY HARD TIME with radical acceptance. There are things I don't understand and I'm not sure I ever will and that is really challenging for me. A whole other story for another time.

But to stay on this topic, the answer is I am going to do this because I deserve it and my family deserves it. I have put Cortney through IT ALL. I cannot say that enough. I have not been a great wife, I have not been a present, supportive, kind, loving, and stable wife. I been a tornado. She doesn't deserve that and neither does our family. I have not been a present mother to Tulsa all of the time and I have really struggled to remain consistent. The truth is, I have worked hard to get here. I want to be here, I deserve to be here and if I want Tulsa and Topper to have secure attachment I have to be the start of that.

Your attachment style doesn't have to stay in one area. It can change. It's hard work and exhausting and takes a whole lot of effort but if you're finding yourself in a position like me, please know that you deserve security, too. You deserve the life you want and picture. You didn't choose your attachment style, you were a child who was brought to this earth but you do get to choose the future you have for yourself- and that is something I have to continue to remember that I am choosing me and my family. The one that I deserve, the one that I have hoped for, the one that I have worked so damn hard to contribute to creating.

I can do this.

XOXO,

Sammy