My husband bought me a window breaker

(TW loss and grief)

I am going to candidly share about something that I deeply struggle with, but as I lay in bed having nursed my baby girl until she is now safely asleep on my chest, and with my dear husband pressed against the wall (sure to leave plenty of space in the middle of the bed for our daughter) already asleep 5 minutes after we turn the lights out, I just need to write out my gratitude.

To give the.. I guess fast track version of why what happened today matters.. I live with the grief of multiple losses. In January of 2015 when we were only 18 years old, my very best friend (who my mom mostly raised since we were 12, so I usually just call her my sister) was killed in a car accident. It absolutely flipped everything about my reality upside down. In February of 2018, my mom who was 9 months pregnant with my baby sister was also killed in a sudden car accident. My sister who was due to be born in just two weeks also did not survive. Mom left behind me and my 6 other siblings (my beautiful large family) including my baby brother who was only 5 years old at the time.

My sadness is ever present and bittersweet in every joy I experience because there is no part of living with grief that doesn’t remind you you’re living. Living all these good things while someone(s) is missing. But because my losses have all been car related— I have a mostly quiet kept trauma with cars. It’s gotten better than it was at first in some ways. I can drive again. I don’t have complete mental breakdowns at the slightest instant of feeling lost— full panic attacks brought on by even a hint of not having control behind the wheel. My night terrors have slowed since having my baby girl (she’s 7 months old) and my sleep paralysis where I would just hear honking cars and crushing metal hasn’t happened in months. But my anxiety presents in other ways still and when it gets bad, it can truly feel obsessive. Borderline delusional. I’ve had to stop my car more times that I could count because I could NOT shake the feeling that someone was in my back seat (even when I could clearly see that there was not) and I was too TERRIFIED to keep driving. Sirens make me violently light headed. I’ve checked my mirrors every five seconds while driving at literally any speed because I don’t want to be near other cars. Again, a lot of the time now I can drive just fine. But recently the thought I absolutely could not get rid of was the fear of driving into water. I can’t tell you what planted that thought exactly. But for about two months now I’ve been obsessed. I’ve stayed up literally all night reading how to escape. What order to do the methods in, and I’ve rehearsed it over and over again in my head. While watching tv, while grocery shopping, while taking my dogs out in the morning: ok it’s roll window down before the water pressure is too much, undo seatbelt... wait was it the other way around? I will literally play the scene in my head over and over and over. Redoing small steps until I get it right. But I never get it right. Because in my mind what I am tortured over the most is that I cannot reconcile the fact that I can’t imagine myself being fast enough to save my daughter. The internet says put children out the window of the car before yourself but how could I do that?? I would lose her in the water!? And then I start over. My mind plays it again. In my head I see the moment we go off a bridge or over and embankment again and again. I’ll do it all night long. Window. Seatbelts. Again. Get to the back seat. Undo River’s car seat. Have we sank too quickly to beat the water pressure. Again. How will I make her hold her breath. I wasn’t quick enough. Again.

Recently I tried to go for a swim and found myself, before I even knew what I was doing, trying to do laps with one arm. Holding the other up above my chin. Could I do it? How long could I tread water with one arm? Could I do that while holding my twenty pound baby? I was in the pool alone. It was supposed to be a peaceful morning swim and I was completely in a panic. I realized what I was doing and I began to cry and cry. I don’t know what to do when these... I don’t know what to call them. These fears take over like this. Make me feel crazy.

So I text my husband. I text him and told him I felt scared. That I couldn’t focus anymore. That this fear was really really consuming me and I didn’t feel right. He told me it was a valid fear and looked up a reassuring article for me to read. He asked me if there was something he could do to help. I went about my day.

For a few weeks now it truly has calmed down. Sometimes the extremity of the anxiety just fades for a while or I get distracted by something else or whatever. Sometimes these fears come back. But today we got an amazon package. Not unusual. I actually text my husband calling him an “Amazon addict” and asked what it was. But he said it was actually for me. And inside was this. A floatation device and a window breaker.

Now maybe that’s not the gesture most people would assume to make when their wife tells them she’s having a delusional anxiety episode. But here’s what I get from this: I am so beyond loved. This man loves me so much. I tell him I feel crazy. And he finds this tangible way to try to make me feel safe.

The way I am loved cannot undo the accidents that have given me this trauma. There isn’t a tool or a device I can hold onto that will give me back my best friend. Or my mom. Or my sister. But I can hold on to this. I can lay in this bed tonight and cry not because I am overcome by my fear that I cannot protect those that I love, but because I am so deeply loved by them that my fears cannot keep them from me. Tonight I am sad that my daughter will someday likely see her mommy fall into some of the pits of her trauma from all the loss we carry. But I am more grateful that she will get to see how her daddy displays the intentional and profound ways in which to love someone truly through whatever may come. My husband had only been my boyfriend for about a month the night my best friend died, and everything about who I was completely changed. He loved me. He loves me. We had just gotten married 4 months before I lost my mom and my baby sister— every single thing about my world changed again, we were suddenly caring for all my younger siblings and my grief presented in such ugly, hopeless ways. I drank. I screamed in the night. I gained and lost weight rapidly. I pushed him away. He finally helped me get help because I truly thought I couldn’t live any more. He loved me. He loves me.

I am so grateful for a partner who sees me. Who knows he cannot undo my grief but has learned the ways to love me in it and to remind me I’m ok. Today love looks like a floatation device. I am so grateful. I know my mom is so grateful for me to have someone here to help keep my head above my fears. I am so grateful for this love.