The Inescapability of Karma--Maybe (comment)

I really lucked out with therapy -- I called a grief counsellor within a week of Maddy's death, and kept going for almost two years (still trip back if I have some IL to pound out). She was patient, intelligent, supportive without being sticky (especially regarding parenting Bella through my grief), and a wonderful sounding board to everything. I think mostly I had to process shock for about a year, and then I could get into philosophy. We had a few ups/downs -- for a while it was extremely draining and I would often feel worse afterwards. There was one session where she pissed me off because she latched onto a single word I used and I felt it was really "Psych 101" -- and I told her so the next session. But looking back on the whole, it was extremely helpful. I would say extremely helpful *in conjunction with* six months on antidepressants, blogging and finding this community, returning to running, etc.

I used to be an atheist who leaned Buddhist, but then I got clocked with suffering and decided that while I'm not a sunny positive "screw the suffering!", I'm also not big into using it as a life force that shapes me. I also decided the end of the journey does matter, and that these scholars probably didn't know much about being an infertile woman. I found myself getting more cynical so I let it go. I even let go a seven year yoga practice because I couldn't even stand the minimal stuff the instructors would say -- it would just make my skin crawl, and raise my ire and make want to shout "No!" and shake the peace.

I'm also very much in the minority here in that I really had no guilt to begin with, so my personal introspection on my responsibility was extremely minimal and short. For that I'm grateful. I did for a while want to find some "positive," some lesson or something I could take from her death, but I'm kinda over that too: I guess it just reaffirmed that Mother Nature is a cold-hearted bitch sometimes. I don't think there really should be a positive to take from that ugly mess, frankly. I love, I miss, and therapy gave me a toehold from which to do this without spilling over the edge.