Becoming Defensive

The thing is with hopelessness, is that it causes you to become defense. Well, that's what I have been finding, anyway.

Since learning that I am not able to have any kind of treatment to help me conceive, there's been a sense of denial within me. Not that I would ever verbalise what I think, but I can't help but become defensive. Like when someone said to me a few weeks ago, "You'd make a great mum", my thoughts were like, "No I wouldn't, I'd be terrible - I'm too selfish and hate mornings. No wonder I haven't been able to conceive." Or like when I was holding a friend's new born, and her step-dad said, "suits you", I was thinking, "Only because I can give her back, I couldn't do this all the time." Or when I see the stories on Jeremy Kyle where there are mothers who put themselves first, and don't like to make sacrifices for their children, I start to think, "I'd probably be exactly the same, which is why I've not been allowed to have a baby yet." Or when I'm out with friends who have to curtail their outing to get back to pick up the kids from school/relieve the babysitter/look after a poorly child, I start to think, "I'm so glad I haven't got to do that, I can just relax, maybe get another coffee. My life is at my pace, no one else's".

Maybe I'm the only one who thinks like this. Maybe I'm not.
I'm just gonna be real about how I feel! And as I've said before, this is not an easy journey.

Deep down, I know that none of the above is true, but it seems that my emotions have taken on this tack in order to try and make some sense of the situation. Or lack of a situation. Having studied Psychology up to a degree level, I know that these thoughts and reactions are actually just defense mechanisms my psyche has kicked in.

I don't like it, really.

But it's harder to go around pretending everything is OK when it isn't, and masking over my emotions altogether.

I don't want to beat myself up, or dismiss some of the kind things people say, but then I also can't linger in sadness and depression at the unfairness of this journey either! It's hard to know how to handle things, like the guy who said "suits you". He has no idea of the journey I'm on, so his remark to him was just a throw away comment, but in the past, when that has been said to me, it has caused me to break down and run to the toilet sobbing. I can understand, therefore, why my brain has worked out this defense mechanism in order to handle things like that.

I don't know if it's 'right' in God's eyes. I'm not sure what these thoughts 'say' to God, or how they affect my level of faith in this journey. I honestly don't. But can I beat myself up about that too?? For now, this is what has been decided on a subconscious level, and I hope that somehow, through it all, the Holy Spirit will move into the defensive thinking, and pour out His oil of comfort on the hurt and sadness I know has been building up inside over the last couple of years. If the defense system is destroying TRUE FAITH, then I pray that God will teach me a new way of handling things, from the subconscious level out.