On my own in a really deep way

Things are getting intense in my life right now. I just found out that I have to have surgery soon because I have cervical dysplasia. If you don't know what that is, you have to look it up because I just can't describe it any more. Thank Goddess for google. It's related to my cervix, obviously, which is about as female as you can get. It's the entryway to, and the exit from, the womb. The first bad case of dysplasia I had was healed when I gave birth naturally to my daughter. Earlier this year, I had a procedure called a LEEP, and now the dysplasia is back and my gynecologist is recommending a cervical biopsy. This requires going under anesthesia, a process that freaks me out. When I was young, I had an out of body experience with anesthesia. 

All this comes on top of a full course load in my final quarter of my masters program, an intense client load at the clinic, being a mother, and I could go on. 

As if this isn't stressful enough, I don't have health insurance, so my husband and I are paying for everything out of pocket. 

And if that isn't stressful enough, the reason I was "abandoned" at eleven months was because my mother had a hysterectomy and was on bed rest. I was sent to live with another family for two weeks or a month, no one seems to know for sure. My mother doesn't even remember the name of the family. Sweet, sweet denial! I didn't think this was such a big deal until I had an eleven month old of my own and then I was like, oh shit. That's fucked up. 

It's really fucked up.

At the same time, it is illuminating. My overwhelming fear of abandonment, my inability to trust anyone, and a number of other things about myself, finally make sense. 

Last night I woke up at 4 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I felt totally alone. Today I called an old friend whose heart has been tried and tested in some of the same ways mine has. In ten minutes, she helped me to get grounded, and then she sent me this gem of an email:

"You probably already figured this out but--

 

I think one of the things that is making you so unhinged right now

is the connection between your childhood abandonment because of your mother's surgery

and your own impending surgery--the sense that these things mean you will be on your own in a really deep way.

And so of course you don't feel like you can count on [your husband] right now--you're becoming your child self--about to be abandonded by your adult self and

he's the dad--and as we all know the 'dad' cannot be counted on.

 

These are feelings that need to get felt and understood with your whole brain.

 

Things are going to be okay."

It feels really vulnerable to share all this but it felt inauthentic not to, especially when this is the very essence of inner work--facing what you'd rather not be facing. And this also shows the power and necessity of doing inner work together. We need each other's eyes and ears. Just saying what we see in each other can be a lifeline.