Being a Burden

As you can see, I have a blog. It's something I'm trying out to see if it helps. Partly because nothing else has, partly because I write about this stuff to myself anyway so why not share and maybe find/give some added support in doing so, but mostly because I feel like a burden to everyone around me with all my anger and crying.

I'm pretty sure if I asked them, none of them would ever say I'm a burden. I'm even pretty comfortable saying that if I was a fly on the wall in one of their conversations about me, I'd never HEAR that I'm a burden. I might hear that they worry about me, I might hear that I should relax, I might even hear that I'm pretty angry and might need to talk to someone, but I don't actually think I'd hear that I'm a burden. But I can't shake feeling like one anyway.

And maybe this is where everyone gets in their infertility adventure (I'm calling it an adventure cuz it sounds like more fun that way doesn't it?), but sometimes I feel like it's taking it's toll on me mostly because I'm used to being independent, to being the one OTHER people lean on, to not needing anyone, including my husband, which early in our relationship was a really good thing in helping us establish who we'd be together AND apart.

But how, after this long, do you not struggle with the added loss of who you used to be? How do you not feel like a burden to everyone around you? How do you not get to the point of hiding things just to avoid feeling like a burden and to allow yourself those moments of pretending you are who you used to be? Because that's where I'm at and I don't know what to do with it. When I share I feel like they're thinking, 'oh god, here she goes again', and when I don't share I feel like I'm not being a good friend or good wife, because pre-infertility, I shared everything. I probably shared too much, but it didn't matter because I've always run my life where pretty much everything is open game and if people don't like it, they can say so, and we can skip to the next topic - no big deal.

Yet now, everything's a big deal. When I talk about it I get tired of hearing myself talk and saying the same pathetic things over and over, and when I don't talk about it I get tired of feeling like there's this thing hanging out there that we're all avoiding, because everyone's afraid to bring it up. They're afraid because it might upset me - I'm now the friend who can cry at the drop of a hat so it's a legitimate fear. And I'm afraid because they might say something that makes me feel like I have yet another burden - the burden of explaining it. Because I know that pre-infertility I thought the same things the ones who haven't gone through it are thinking of me. So if I talk about it, I risk not not just being a burden to deal with, but adding the burden of the explanation that they'll probably never understand anyway.