The Night Before...

This time two years ago, I was laying on my eldest son's fire engine bed. Hyperventilating. Scream-crying.  I don't know how I got to laying there. I just have this vivid memory of lying there.

"Just check my left breast!" I wailed to my husband.

I felt tingling, almost pain sensations in my left breast. I was convinced I had breast cancer.

The panic sent electrical pulses through my body.
My heart started to gallop harder, faster.
A metallic taste built in my mouth.. the taste of fear.

"I don't want to die", I pleaded with my husband.

"You are not going to die Yeran".
The look in his eyes was of confusion. Confused by what he was seeing in his wife...
And I was confused too. Why was I feeling like this? Why wasn't I thinking about the real issue at hand?

I should've been scream-crying about what was to happen the next day.

I should've been panicking about whether it would all go smoothly.

I should've been freaking out at the idea that my little baby boy was about to have his chest bone broken open, have his heart stopped, let big hands pry into his chest and cut away at heart muscle and patch up a large hole, all the while on a bypass machine.

I should've shed tears for all those things.

But instead my mind and my body had other ideas... a strange form of self preservation I gather. Instead of focussing on the actual matter at hand I was creating drama and fear somewhere completely different. Somewhere so unexpected. And I felt worse because the focus was on myself and my well-being. How selfish of a mother was I? I had never imagined that this is how I would feel or react.

I was inconsolable.
I had some good friends offer me valium.
They offered me an artificial zen. A zoned out calm.
I didn't take it.
I rode this horrendous wave.

And I woke up in the morning with no more tears. I was oddly refreshed. I was calm. I was a little nervous, but it was like the previous night's episode had cleansed me. It had literally scrubbed at my mind, at my insides and at my soul.
I was prepared for anything and I was wearing my WonderWoman t-shirt to prove it.

Here is my 'video' of that day and the following week.

I don't know whether anyone else has ever reacted like I did in a similar situation.
But then again, anxiety, grief, trauma, all affect people in different ways. I guess there is no right and wrong in reactions... although having said that, there is society's unspoken laws on how to behave or react to situations. I try my hardest not to judge people on how they deal with situations. It is an entirely individual thing. As long as it doesn't harm anyone, I don't see why it should be deemed as wrong.

I would be interested to know how people have reacted/dealt/behaved in traumatic situations. And whether anybody has done the same as me....