Guilt

Infertility has left me with a mountain of guilt.

I spent several hours at the gallery today greeting visitors and watching as they would either come in and say nothing or spill deeply personal stories into my heart.

Today the most feared thing happened....let me back up a little.

When I was getting closer to the show opening I feared that I would be attacked verbally or that my show would be received in a negative light. I did a lot of preparation mentally to ready myself for just that

....I thought.

Today about an hour before the gallery was to close for the day a woman came in and started looking around. I greeted her as she walked into the gallery and said if she had questions about the show I would be happy to answer them. She seemed to be simply skimming the show and so I thought nothing much of her visit. Then as she turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of one of my miscarriage images and got her glasses out of her pocketbook.

From here she started to ask questions about what the image was of and then starting looking at all the images and began a half hour talk about how I was paying for things I had done in a past life.

She started in with asking very blunt questions:

Are you a stressed person?

Did you try relaxing?

Did you try therapy?

Did you have tests done?

How many pregnancy losses did I have?

What does my husband think of me?

Did I have a trauma as a child?

The she told me that she had two abortions and now has two wonderful children and grandchildren

Then back to my faults...

I should have past life regression done

I should have my history researched

I should have hypnotherapy

I need to take different vitamins

I really must have done something horrible in a past life

Have I done something bad in this life?

As she left, I realized I had put all my walls up...I had been attacked, I could hear myself saying "interesting" to her suggestions.

 Inside I was screaming and wanting to hide,

inside I was drowning in my guilt.

Inside I was lost.

I was shaken to the core....It has taken me several hours to extract myself from her words.

I felt so broken, so bad, so unsettled.

I came home and simply threw myself into my hubby's arms asking him to surround me,

wanting to feel protected and safe once again.

I don't feel brave

I don't feel strong

I simply feel like a really bad person

I can hear The Barreness laughing at me.