Hide Your Crazy-A Blog by Cassie

Hide your Crazy

So the deep down, icky, painful days still can come I have learned. Just as I was getting back to work, making progress and feeling really confident in that new normal I was talking about, it all came crashing down. These days do not come often, but I always can sense a harder day when I wake up. This one began on Tuesday, go figure. I pushed all of the feelings I had aside and prayed for strength during my whole morning routine. I was able to get myself all ready for work, my kids ready and dropped off at daycare and school, but then it flooded me. My heart raced, my mind wandered and I felt no control over my emotions. Long story short I went home fought off a panic attack climbed in my bed fully clothed and cried myself to sleep for 3 hours. When you wake up after an episode like that I can promise you that you are embarrassed. I not only continue to be emotional for the days following, but all of these extra feelings come up that I don't spend much time dwelling on daily. My therapist says that if I were to be hit by a bus tomorrow and in the hospital I would have wounds all over my body to show the pain. The hard part about this pain is that you cannot see it. It's hard for me to understand it let alone anyone else. When I cry it is coming from a place so deep I didn't even know it existed. It makes me sore for days to come. All I can call it is the pain, because I can't explain it any other way. It's not because I'm dwelling on the accident or that I can't get a picture from my head or that I am thinking about this or that. It literally has no picture or description it is just deep pain I guess. What is interesting about this is that my old self was not a person who cried, maybe once or twice a year. When a person who is not used to crying has a freak out episode like that, and you can't see the wounds or explain the pain, you feel like the craziest person on the planet. It feels like you have lost all control. So I don't make it to work for a couple of days but I still have to pull it together to be a mom. Which in many ways is the harder job. I try so hard to keep my tears away from my kids and put on a happy face for them. They have been through enough with "new mom" that I really want things to be as normal as possible. I am sure they notice I am different. I am not even sure in the days to weeks following the accident if I was really the one taking care of them, but I am guessing I was not. There is medication that I do take, but in these instances it is not even noticeable. So who else feels the same feelings that I feel with the grief and the guilt? Everyone has their own grief and grieves differently of course. I learned early on from my therapist that my grief will always be different than Brynn’s, and that I cannot take on her grief just as she cannot take on mine. But who has been in my exact situation where they can validate what I feel? If I were to google "I ran over my dear friend's baby daughter and killed her" would anything come up? That is an awful google search and I wouldn't wish the situation on anyone ever. I know that there is no right way to feel or wrong way to feel and of course who cares what anyone else thinks about how you feel. But I do find myself feeling alone at times and totally lost. Can anyone identify with the pain I carry and the life I am living? I recently found a support group online for people involved in accidental deaths. After reading many of their stories, though different than mine, they harbor a lot of the same feelings and thoughts that I have. My hope is that through Raise for Rowyn if someone ever in the future finds themselves in a similar situation they will have me to contact for help. So here I am on the Friday following my episode and I have a mind that has been running nonstop for the last 24 hours thinking about all of the things that I was supposed to be doing or paying attention to this week, that I just mentally could not. I had duties for Raise for Rowyn to do that I did not get to. I had conversations with people that I missed key pieces and did not connect the dots. I had cases needing worked on at work, phone calls I never returned and I found myself apologizing to everyone in my life for feeling so absent. Now I'm feeling guilty for more things? Crazy? As a favorite of mine and Brynn, Miranda Lambert says "run an hide your crazy and start actin' like a lady" I'm really trying to hide this crazy I have inside of me. "Gotta keep it together even when you fall apart", otherwise I may look as crazy as I feel. :)