The Story of Griffin Hawkins

Chapter Thirty-Four- Amelia & Robin's Stories

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Unedited, first draft

Chapter Thirty-Four

Week Ten

Thursday

Griffin and I walked into group therapy together. Today, it was Amelia's story.

Amelia was an older woman, probably early thirties. She had curly, brown hair with beautiful amber eyes. She was tall and thin. She was Vietnamese, but born in the United States.

"I will not talk for long as I have a severe social anxiety disorder and being here is quite difficult." She took a shaky breath. "Because of my disorder, I have a hard time creating and maintaining friendships, which has led to my major depression diagnosis. This group is to help with my social anxiety. I feel dizzy now and will stop."

Doctor Harris smiled, "That was very good Amelia. You did a great job. Robin, would you like to speak today?"

She coughed and as she started to talk, I noticed she had a hoarse voice. It was low and harsh. She was an older Caucasian woman in her 60s with short, highlighted blonde hair. She was taller than Amelia, but just as thin. Every time she smiled, you could see the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She had a nice, white smile.

"I married young." She started.

It was 1969 when I married my husband. I was only twenty. We wanted to quickly start a family, which was what was expected at that time after you married. Well, the first time I found out I was pregnant, we were elated. Truly over the moon with happiness. I couldn't wait to meet the little bundle of joy.

I started a nursery, picking out paint colors and baby clothes, and all kinds of things. It was only a month after I found out that I was pregnant that I woke up early one morning to abdominal cramping. I knew something was wrong the moment I felt a wetness between my legs.

I turned on that bedside light and whipped the covers off to see a pool of blood. I won't go into graphic details, but I had suffered my first miscarriage.

Oh how my heart broke. That little growing baby inside of me was gone. I was destroyed. How could this happen? I hated myself from that day on. Everyone told me I was not to blame, but how could I not blame myself?

My husband was caring and understanding, although I knew he was disappointed. He wanted children like I did. I didn't want to disappoint him.

After grieving for some time, we tried again. And again, I miscarried. This happened several times. To the point where I started to become angry with myself. Why couldn't I carry a child? What was so wrong with me that I couldn't bring a baby into this world?

I had tunnel-visioned hard on becoming a mother and it began to affect my relationship with my husband. I started to blame him for my miscarriage. The fighting became bad, toxic. It was a terrible environment for a time. We divorced a few years later.

I tried an alternative method to having children. Adoption. However, I couldn't financially support a child, and by that point my drug and alcohol use was high, and the adoption agency deemed me not to be a good fit to adopt children.

I never had children and couldn't even adopt. I can't get children out of my mind. I want children so badly. I've done some bad things to try to have children. Because of those bad things, I have spiraled into drugs and alcohol addition. So, while dealing with my addiction, I am dealing with my depression issues for not having children. That's my story and I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Robin wiped away her tears and left the group.