Can you be more stupid?

An incident happened at work last week that I am still trying to wrap my head around.

It was your typical Wednesday morning in that some staff called in sick; I was busy trying to open the branch and was extremely stressed out. I had 30 minutes to organize my entire day as well as most of my staff’s day. There I was in the back trying to sort out the internal mail and see what was urgent and what could wait for later when M came around the corner and said something to me. Now I am sure that if I had been anyone else nothing would have happened, but I am not anyone else. I am a woman dealing with infertility that has gone through a very life changing event in the summer. And so by saying one sentence to me; she shattered my entire day. I am still not sure why my reaction was and is still so strong.

She simply came around the corner clutching her abdomen and said “I think I'm having a miscarriage.”

Like I said my reaction was sudden and intense.

And I think that the main reason for my reaction was the way she said this. She didn’t say it with any concern in her eyes, she didn’t look like she was in pain and she didn’t look like her entire world was shattering. She said it as one would say they thought they were getting a headache, or that maybe they would have a salami sandwich for lunch.

And when I stopped what I was doing and said “What”, it wasn’t a concerned “What?” it was an “Oh no you DID NOT” “What!”.

She responded with a sorry excuse of “Ya, my period this month is really painful. I think this is what a miscarriage would feel like. I mean, I’ve never had one... but man this hurts.”

And at that point I had to walk away.

I couldn’t believe how pissed off I was. And how much I wanted to cry. For the rest of the entire day I wavered between wanting to go into her office and scream at her, and wanting to go into the bathroom and bawl my eyes out.

I am still not sure why I was so floored by this. Besides the obvious fact that she has no clue what she is talking about. But part of me felt the need to vindicate (is this the right word to use? Not sure but it feels right) myself. To have her understand just what I have gone through; that it isn’t something to trivialize. But she doesn’t know anything at all about the last 3 years of my life.

So why should I care about her being ignorant?

James thinks it's because I still have not come to terms with our miscarriage. Or the infertility.

I think he may be on to something.