I might be prone to exaggeration, but only about the number 7,452, not about the fact that writing has saved me on numerous occasions.
I was a lonely kid who got yelled at a lot, and who spent most of her time in her bedroom listening to angsty music, writing angsty poems, painting my fingernails angsty colors, and reading angsty books. The writing , from as early as elementary school, felt like a middle finger to everyone who told me to shut up--which was nearly everyone, and nearly all the time. In school, my writing was often praised, so writing also felt like the one thing I could do well. Writing got me through adolescence and childhood emotional and psychological abuse. It still gets me through those things, because I'm still going through those things.
Writing also got me through self-mutilation and the dangerous flirting with anorexia I did in high school. It got me through the therapy I did to treat those issues. It got me through the first-love breakup, then the second one, then the third one, and the fourth most painful one...
Writing got me through--is getting me through--a split with my bio mom.
Writing got me through domestic violence.
Writing got me through the traumatic 25-week birth of my son.
Yesterday, Facebook Memories showed me a link to a CaringBridge online journal I started right after Jax was born at 1 lb. 13 oz. Have you heard of these sites? They are for people going through medical crises or long-term illnesses, to post updates so that friends and family can check in there instead of bombarding the patient or patient's caregivers with inquiries every day. Those inquires are well-intentioned, sure, but lemme tell you, when you have a baby at the beginning of your third trimester, everyone in your world wants to know everything, and they want to know now. It's exhausting to repeat all that information dozens of times a day, especially when you're just trying to get THROUGH the day.
Jax's NICU nurses knew this, of course, so they recommended I start a CaringBridge journal and get our tribe to subscribe to receive the updates by email. Facebook Memories has been showing me links to these entries. Five years ago today was Jax's one-month birthday.
I never revisited any of those links because I literally don't remember writing the entries. I remember setting up the journal, but nothing after that. When I would see the links in my FB Memories, I wasn't curious. I didn't think I wrote much of substance at that time, especially since I didn't remember updating it. I thought oh, I probably dashed off some quick updates assuring everyone that things were fine. I remember the big stuff.
For some reason yesterday, I felt compelled to click one of those links and my whole world blew open.
I started the journal two days after Jax was born, on Halloween 2012. From that point forward, I wrote one entry at least every other day, if not every day, for the entire 87 days he was in NICU. My last entry was the day he was discharged. Everything is there: the smallest weight gains to the day he gained a full 2.4 oz overnight. The day he went off the ventilator. The day he went back on it. The results of the brain scan. The first time we did kangaroo care. His phototherapy, which we called his tanning sessions, and the little felt sunglasses one of his nurses cut out for him to wear to protect his barely-open eyes--I had completely forgotten all about phototherapy!
And the photo gallery. Oh my heart. Not just because I'm a mama who cherishes photos of her baby, even scary photos of her baby hooked up to monitors and feeding tubes and wearing hospital-issued onesies (once he could actually wear onesies--preemie skin is super sensitive), but because I have precious few photos of Jax's time in the hospital. I had started a scrapbook that I had to leave behind when I escaped the domestic violence situation I was in with Jax's father. Jax's hospital bracelet, a tiny preemie diaper, his first beanie hat, the decorations his nurses put on his isolette...I knew I would never get those things back from my ex. The photos on the CaringBridge site are a priceless score.
Here is one I'm willing to share, of the second time I ever held my son:
The historical and clinical accuracy of my posts is a gift because, well, I'm writing a book. But more than that, it has been emotional to revisit this stuff and realize 1) wow, I blocked a lot out. I really was on autopilot. My trauma is real. and 2) I turned to writing to get me through it, as I've always always always done, and it was so automatic and automated that I don't even remember doing it.
The next thing I'll be writing is a five-year Jax update to send to his amazing medical team. I had forgotten most of their names, but luckily, I found where I wrote them all down.