Live & Learn Thursday Link-Up Launch and GIVEAWAY!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Make sure to check out my LESSON that I posted below the link-up and giveaway widget. The giveaway starts at midnight tonight! Pictures of the giveaway prize are pictured within my post.
The Crafty Practitioner





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Since this is the very first week of Live & Learn Thursdays I feel like I need to keep my lesson on the serious side, I tend to be lighthearted on my blog these days as much as possible but I feel that this is an opportunity to "open up".

The lesson that I learned is one that really took some time, almost 5 years it has taken me. I still have not mastered this skill but it something that I know to be true and that I am working on.
It is ok to NOT BE OK.
Did you know that? There is something built way down deep inside of me that has always made me afraid to really show people when I am not ok. Some sort of fear of showing weakness because it may change the way that someone views me. But why do I care how someone views me? Wouldn't I rather just be me and let me "take it or leave it".... yes and no.

Im one of those people who hates awkward moments, I live for laughter and smiles, I cling to happy people, I want to be happy and positive. But what is that person to do when they have nothing left to smile about, nothing to laugh about and they aren't happy?

Break down.

I have been battling infertility for almost 5 years now. Nothing in my life, no amount of parenting, school, life lessons, books, or therapy...... nothing could have prepared me for the emotional and physical hardship that I undertook. I went to my darkest place I had ever been and then sunk 10 feet deeper. I went somewhere that I can't really even put into writing or words, just trust me when I say that you don't want to go there {and if you have been there or are there I am so incredibly sorry}.

I tried to survive in this place without support, without really depending on anyone other than my husband or opening up to anyone else. I tried to put on my happy-pants and face with world with a smile when it was all a lie. What happened was a continuous build of hurt and destruction.

Then one day I hit rock bottom, now you are probably thinking rock bottom was the day my first IVF failed..... wrong. That day was horrid, one of the worst days of my life, by far, but that wasn't rock bottom. Rock bottom was a little over a month later when all of that frustration came flooding out {in public}.... I ended up sobbing for almost 2 hours on the sidewalk outside of a halloween party... and then screaming I was crying so hard in a friend's car the whole way home {with her new fiancé driving}... trust me, the mess continues.

My point in that embarrassing story is that you cannot simply pretend to be ok forever. It is ok to be weak, we all have moments of weakness and I guarantee, if you are someone like me, the thing you are torn up over might just kill a normal person. Everyone needs a support system, one person {read: man} is not sufficient to provide the kind of support for a life crisis.

No matter how strong you are it is OK TO NOT BE OK.
  1. You are SO right.. it is OK to not be OK! While I haven't been through IVF (but we have tried to conceive for 9 months, only to get pregnant and miscarry at 5 weeks), I can only imagine how hard that struggle must be-- I have been so low in my life before where I felt there was absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel and if someone tried to convince me there was, I did my damnedest to tell them it was the biggest train ever! Some of the things I have struggled with in life (like you) would probably kill a normal person.. being tortured all throughout childhood and adolescence for being morbidly obsese (into my 20's as well).. being judged and labeled as that fat chick that does nothing by lay around and eat cupcakes when I never even eat sweets, to losing my first child at full term due to Placenta Abruption. But like you, we fought long and hard and we made it through.. living to tell our stories and in that, we are here to offer help to others and that, my friend, is pretty damned noteworthy! XOXO ::hugs::

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  2. Sorry to hear that you are having fertility troubles, and I agree that it is okay not to be okay and that everyone needs a support system. Best wishes.

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  3. This is SUCH an important lesson, and one that I really need to keep in mind myself. In my real life and also in blogging I tend to sugarcoat things because it's easier, or I don't want to show my vulnerability, or whatever. But I think it's really important to be okay with not being okay, as you said. Thank you so much for sharing and yay for our first link up!

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  4. Wow, this really hits home for me. As you know, I'm battling infertility too and some days it feels like every other woman in the world just has to look at a man to get pregnant, and it cuts like a great big knife. My husband is an amazing tower of strength and support, but there are times when even he can't give me the understanding I need. Only women who have experienced it can have any idea of how it feels. You are so right that it is OK to have a bad hour/day/week, and it is OK to let other people know it and hold you up sometimes. That's what friends are for.

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