When you hit the bottom...

My dear bloggie friend Maddy has a great post today.  She got some really, really crappy news earlier this week about her cycle, and her post today talks about how she is actually feeling pretty ok, moreso than she might have expected. 

I am relieved, as I have developed quite an attachment to all of my bloggie sisters.  I have mental images of all of you, and I have to admit that Maddy wears cute little white stockings and a short blue dress all the time in my head.  :)  (and cohorts with rabbits, for whom I have a special affection for right now, see my earlier post)

But to get back to my thought that I wanted to share...

It is an interesting phenomenon that even though we all have bad freak-outs at unexpected times (when it seems like the smallest thing trips us up), that the really bad IF crap doesn't evoke a commensurate response.  You'd think that the horrible set-backs would evoke the mother of all freak-outs, and yet the pattern I'm seeing for all of us is that they don't. 

(This is probably a lot of what freaks out the people around us though -- the unpredictability of the emotional reaction.  Oh well.)

I wonder if this is something that happens in all aspects of our lives.  When faced with the really bad, your brain (deep down) knows that it doesn't have as much latitude for freaking out, that a complete melt down is actually counter productive.  And so, those melt downs happen when you are in a safe enough place to do it (i.e., the reminders of the bad and not the actual bad).

Hopefully this is making some sense.  And if it is, I wonder if you find a little bit of solace in this as I do.  I am starting to think that this means we, and more personally, that I have a lot more strength than I realize.  That if/when I get the ultimate BFN that I will make it through a lot easier than I think I will (although it will be really hard).  It won't kill me.  It won't be the end of me.  I will make it through.  It may not even be as bad as some of the other emotional bottoms I've been through on this IF journey.

I had one crazy freaking week.  I have had some bad crap done to me over the years, colleagues who were really unfair and just mean, and this really hurt my mojo.  But this week I had an event happen beyond my control that wasn't directed at me, but rather a really bad mistake made by someone I am responsible for.  This means that I was responsible for the mistake, ultimately.  This was a totally different kind of bad compared to the things I've faced professionally in the past.  And you know what?  I lost A LOT of sleep one night but I think I handled it really well.  I did all that I could to make sure the immediate problem was set safe, and I then took very quick and strong action to prohibit this from ever happening again (at least this very specific thing -- I can't control everyone's every move, unfortunately). 

And then when I finally was able to sit down and get back to the non-emergency stuff, I got some of the BEST news of my professional life -- a really big grant was funded! 

Crazy, absolutely crazy week.  I've even left out a couple of other really big work fiascos...  my poor little head.

I am so looking forward to the next two weeks.  My goal is to zen into the IVF stuff starting today.  Welcome to my calm after the crazy...