How to Lose Faith and Alienate People

A pastor once told me that the difference between joy and happiness is that while happiness is often a result of a happening, joy is something that you have in your heart regardless of what takes place.

How do you find joy when dealing with fertility issues?

Everyone has something they hold on to when they are in turmoil.  For some, it can be work and career.  For others, they surround themselves with family and friends.  Others, turn to their religious beliefs and cling to God. For so many though, it is much easier, when in despair, to instead turn away from all of those things.  Trying to keep yourself happy so that you don’t bring everyone else down becomes a chore that you strongly resent, and one that you wish you didn’t have to endure.  So much so, that soon, you stop going places where you have to take off your sadness at the door.  Pain can condition you to the point where you’re more comfortable in it than out of it, and with a subject like infertility, loneliness and pain go hand in hand.

My bible was once my most coveted possession.  I carried it with me in my book-bag. I carried it in my purse.  I carried it to work.  It was my voice of reason.  I’d like to say that it still is, and that I read it everyday with passion and devour the pages like crackers.  But I’d be lying.  Which is something I said I’d never do on this blog.  To be perfectly honest, if I move my bible and prayer journal from their place on my mantle, there would be a dust outline.  The most scripture I’ve obtained has been through the digital app on my phone that I have vaguely scrolled.  

I miss it.
And you don’t have to be a Christian, to understand why I do.

I miss the peace I found there.  At one time, everything on those pages made perfect sense to me, and seemed written just FOR me.  There was a tremendous amount of hope that I could walk away with, that I could repeat to myself when I was tired, struggling or just overall “goin through”.

And infertility tried to steal those things from me.

I believe the disconnect comes from the fact that when you’re going through something this internal and confusing, there is no one or nothing to blame at first.  There is no real reason that you can stick this problem to.  It just is what it is.  Even with a diagnosis, you can’t quite understand it.  I know that I’m an-ovulatory, but why?  I know that I have PCOS, but why?  And trying to figure that out, leads to your brain becoming cloudy and choppy because now you’re trying to define what is going on.  Who am I now?  What will I do now?  What do we do next?  And when you’re THAT much in your head, there is no way that you can hear God, the Bible, the Quo-ran, the husband, the mama, the ANYTHING.  You can’t hear ANYTHING over the voice in your head that believes it can figure out how to force an egg into the right place.

Then you look up, and everyone is gone.  After dropping out of dinner dates and movie trips for the past few months, they’ve decided that they can pass on you too.  Not answering the phone for these few weeks, has made it so that your phone just doesn’t ring anymore. People who used to send you an email saying that they missed you at church, just don’t look for you.  And then you know what is the irony of all ironies?

YOU GET MAD.

You get mad at the world for not letting you have your tantrum.  Those “friends” can all kick rocks if they don’t understand that you needed some “me” time.  If your husband won’t let you mope in a cluttered house without whining about dishes and laundry, he can take a walk.  And if God, who you have been raised to believe could change ANYTHING He wanted to, is gonna just leave you to be so discouraged without dropping the world to come to your rescue,….

I know the feeling of disparity.  I know how it feels to just want to lay out in the floor and kick your legs.  I have lived through willingly allowing my phone batteries to die so that I wouldn’t have to “lie” to concerned callers.  I’ve gone into seclusion’s where people had to call me at work to know that I was there and alive.  I’ve had my times of giving God the “aw man, we just keep missing each other’s phone calls!” lie.  

I’m not telling you this so that you’ll follow any set method or viewpoint.  I’m not telling you this to wag my finger.
I’m telling you this because I want you to know that if no one else says so, I’M SAYING, “I’ve been there, and I understand”.  

I watched a video yesterday morning of  Joy Bennett-Thomas, author of the book “Infertility Hurts!: You Are Not Alone”.  She spoke candidly about her 10 year marriage and their struggle with infertility that has been caused by a double-diagnosis of Lupus and Sjogren’s Syndrome.  The two autoimmune issues actually caused her immune system to attack and destroy her reproductive system.  When  you hear of infertility, how often are they telling you about treatments and how to fix it?  Now think of what if you couldn’t fix it?

I encourage anyone to watch this video, regardless of religion, because Joy displays a tremendous amount of strength and a pure willingness to believe that even in the midst of a seemingly hopeless diagnosis, somehow she will find the God in it.  
She doesn’t have a lot of happiness on her face, or even in her words, but there is a joy in Joy Bennett-Thomas that is clearly evident in her spirit.

Be encouraged, whomever and wherever you are.
Reclaim your relationships, both physical and spiritual.
And if you need to talk.
I’m here.