Anger and Shame- You Are Not Welcome Here

I've been angry lately. I'm not good a dealing with anger or even recognizing it in myself. I don't like to be angry and have irrational angry thoughts. I am ashamed of my angry irrational thoughts. They make me feel like I'm out of control, and I hate being out of control.

My natural coping mechanism for anger is to ignore it. But I am learning how to recognize it. The first sign is usually that I want to eat everything in sight. Being hungry or not being hungry doesn't matter, I get this voice telling me I need to eat, to graze, to snack. Logically I know that stuffing my face will not help stuff down the anger that is brewing, but most of the time I am unable to stop myself.

This is especially disturbing to me because I am trying desperately to get healthy and lose weight before trying to get pregnant again. I am paying a trainer to work with me once a week to help me get in shape. I have stuck to my exercise plan and am working out 5 days a week. But I just can't control my eating.

I am 15 pounds lighter than when I got pregnant last time but I'm still pretty far from and ideal BMI. I want to get as fit and healthy as I can before any new pregnancy. I know my weight isn't what caused my son to die, but a healthier me is a better me.

So I'm mad at myself for not losing weight, and when I get mad at myself, I eat. It's a vicious cycle. It's the reason I'm not a a slender size 6. I don't know how to fix it.

Once I get angry, any little thing can set me off. Here's what is currently driving me crazy.

• Our house is a total mess. It looks like a bomb went off in here. It was spotless last week on Tuesday and now it looks like a tip. We are total slobs, and I am ashamed of that.
•  I have not been able to control my eating as well as I would like. I haven't gained any weight, but I'm not losing either. I am ashamed of that. How is it possible that the one thing I know will help me get pregnant is the one thing I appear to be incapable of doing? Am I sabotaging myself? Or is there something seriously wrong with me?
• My husband got sick on Saturday so we couldn't have our date night. I was angry and disappointed. Not angry at him for not feeling well. But angry that we couldn't have our fun night out. I sulked silently as I ate my beans on toast for dinner. So not what I had in mind for the night. My husband noticed and felt bad about it. That made me ashamed of myself for sulking over something so silly and making him feel guilty.
• The laundry has piled up over the week. Nothing new but today I woke up angry that my day will be filled with nothing but laundry and cleaning our pig-sty of a house. 
• I'm angry that I didn't shower yesterday, or get out of my pj's for that matter. So I look terrible, my hair is greasy, and I am all kinds of "fragrant." I am ashamed and embarrassed about that.
• I feel like a total slob, kind of like the state of my house right now. We match perfectly. Dirty, smelly, and neglected. So much potential underneath all the mess.

If I were still seeing my therapist I'm sure she would tell me that I'm not really angry about being fat or having a messy house. I'm sure deep down I'm just hitting the anger phase of grief.

I don't really believe in the phases of grief as a rule because I think we each follow our own path. But I'm feeling a lot of anger right now. And none of the things I'm currently angry about are new things. So I have to deduce that it's part of my grieving process.

But the timing sucks! We are just getting to the point where we are ready to try again. We fly to the US this week to meet with the egg donation clinic. I am so excited about this. I really am. So why the anger now??? At the worst possible time? Anger and shame, you are not welcome here!

Please go away!

So I'm All Better Now,,,, Right?? No?? Well At Least My Hair Looks Good.

Today was our last appointment with our therapist and I'm left wondering,,, am I all better now?

My husband's company has a pretty great benefits scheme which includes grief counseling. They found and paid for a certain number of sessions with a psychologist who lives very close to us. It's not a benefit either of us knew about, but the fabulous folks at the HR department set it all up for us. All we had to do was show up.

Now I have my Bachelors degree in Psychology but up until now I've never actually done any kind of therapy. So even though I have knowledge of what psychologists do, I was still pretty unsure of what to expect during our sessions. I know my husband didn't know what to expect because after the first session he said he didn't think our therapist was any good because she didn't tell what to do, all she did was sit and listen to us talk. I got a pretty big giggle out of that one. You gotta appreciate how men just want to cut to the chase and get the answers fast. So I explained that therapy is a process where we work through our feelings with the guidance of the psychologist and then he got it.

I think that our sessions have really helped us. They allowed us a safe place to talk about our son and how much it hurts that he is not with us. Therapy has also facilitated a lot of talks at home. We have done a pretty good job of sharing our feelings with each other, both in and out of our sessions. I think we both have a better understanding of how each other is coping with our loss and what we can do to support each other. We have a long road ahead of us and we're taking each step together. And we're both open to future sessions if we think we need them at any point going forward.

After the appointment I went to the hair salon for much needed color and highlights. I'm not normally one who lets these kinds of things go as I've got a bit of a vain streak running through me. Roots and straggly ends are not my friends. But the holidays really took it out of me this year and for the first time in memory, I let myself slide on the grooming front. I'm still a bikini wax and a pedicure away from my usual self, but the hair was a great start to my transformation. I love the feeling of walking out of the salon with shiny bouncy hair. It's like being a kid on the first day of school with your new school shoes on. As I walked home I felt like a new woman. A happy one.

So am I all better now? Not even close. But at least my hair looks good!