A Surprisingly Sane Blog

Did I mention that I’m a saint for putting up with Julie during her attempts to make her much-needed nap time a complete joke?

Denial is a beautiful thing.

With it, life can be just freaking grand.  You may not recognize how bad of a spot you’re in.  Or how neurotic you actually are.  When a counselor at a crisis center asks you if you believe anyone (like the government) is conspiring against you, you can look at her like she just sprouted two heads.

Later, when denial starts to lift its blissful clutches, you realize you answered “no” to that question because you were sure that the people trying to help you just *might* have been conspiring against you.  Trying to find some way to lock you up in their mental hospital to pump you full of exploratory drugs and drain your soul.

But no, you’re not crazy.

I thought I was getting better.  Then I went to that group last night.  And a counseling session with Dee this morning.

The group was horrible.  Like a scene out of a nightmare.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I know I was hoping for it to be more than a bunch of grief-stricken moms sobbing into boxes of sandpaper tissue.  Why is it they can cry but I can’t?  Why don’t I cry over any of this?

I’m the AMAZING UNFEELING SUPERWOMAN!!

The people at the group were suspecting the worst from me.  The leader.  I could tell.  She started telling me that it was normal for women suffering from PPD to be afraid that they might hurt their babies.  As if she was certain that was the reason I wouldn’t say anything.  And she was nodding and smiling kindly, like she understood or something.

But I was the one who understood, not her.  She had already made up her mind about me.  I don’t have feelings of hurting my kids like she was thinking.  I told her that no one else in my family had ever sought help for their mental issues and that I was trying to break that cycle.  A look of relief swept over the group.  All those sympathetic eyes.  It made me angry.  And the leader said, “Well good for you!” while everyone agreed.

Then this morning I went to see Dee by myself.  I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough to tell her to talk for an hour straight, but she is very skilled at leading the conversation to sneak out all kinds of interesting tidbits of skeletal dust from my head.  At least Dee isn’t scary.  She’s really nice.

When I left, though, I didn’t feel any better.

And then about half an hour ago, I started thinking about suicide again.  Not like I HAVE TO DO IT RIGHT NOW.  It just started nagging at me again.  Then I started panicking for a little while that I might do something stupid without realizing it, so I started writing to get my mind off of it.  But of course, the thought came full circle.

I’m sick of being crazy.

Oh. My. God.

I’m sure support groups maybe help the people that go to them.  I’m sure.  I mean, they exist.  And people go to them.  So they must do the regular-goers a lot of good.

…

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um…

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I wasn’t the kind of person they were meant for.

An hour and 45 minutes of sitting in a windowless, colorless, stuffy small room listening to story after story from moms suffering from postpartum whatever while they sniveled and blew their noses into the equally dull, rough hospital-supplied tissue…

yeah.  No.

Then it was my turn.  I was the last one.

I had nothing to say.  I didn’t need any tissue.  I felt like I had tunnel vision really badly and couldn’t hardly breathe.  And this time, James wasn’t on the therapy session to speak for me.

Thank God the session ended right then.  I bolted out of there as fast as I possibly could and didn’t look back.

…

…

It was really bad.

Ive been stuck in a bad place for so long that I’m having trouble deciding where to go next.  I’m starting to feel like I’m waking up from a nightmare.  That spot where you feel disoriented from what sleep was forcing you to endure, yet curiously relieved your eyes are open and you can breathe clearly.

In other words, that fog that I’ve been living in for so long is starting to clear out a little.

I would not say I feel happy.  I certainly don’t feel like jumping for joy or anything, but I’m starting to feel more mellow or something.  Exactly a week ago, I woke up feeling irrationally angry at the world, myself, James.  The smallest annoyances were pushing further me down that dark spiral.  Last Wednesday was the day that I refused to go to my PPD support group because James wasn’t home in time.  He begged me to go, which I refused, and he was pissed.

Without saying a word, I grabbed my keys and purse and left.  I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that before.

Today, though, I’m going to my support group.  It’s an hour and a half long, and I admit I am scared of what I’m going to find there.

My stomach is kind of tightening just thinking about it.  Hi, guts, it’s going to be okay.  They’re not going to force you to digest red meat or anything.

I’m reverting back to my childhood.  It’s the first day of school.  Or the first day of Summer Kidco.  Or Vacation Bible School.

Are they all going to stare at me when I walk in?  What if I’m the craziest one there?  They’re all going to talk about me behind my back, I just know it.  What if they’re all in my face, asking me a bunch of questions?  Am I going to have a bunch of cliquey, eager women nosing around in my personal business?  I just know some weirdo is going to corner me and try to be best buds and I’m going to be too nice to politely tell them to back off.

And the worst thought:

What if they don’t like me?

My logical side tries to reassure my inner child that there’s nothing to worry about, but it doesn’t change the fact that those thoughts keep spinning around in my head.

After Julie was born, I attended a mom/baby group at the birthing center every week.  The one major thing we all had in common (besides the fact that we had our little boogers in tow), was that most of us had at least attempted to do a natural birth.  The other was that pretty much all of us were breastfeeding.

Then there were ways I stood out like a sore thumb.  I didn’t co-sleep (still don’t).  I felt like elimination communication, or infant potty training, was just downright weird (and yeah, I still do… sorry, but I have no desire to have my nose so far up my kid’s butt that I know EXACTLY when they’re going to need to eliminate all the time until they’re old enough to walk to the potty themselves).  I wasn’t into the whole attachment parenting craze.  And I was, by far, the skinniest one there.  Which made me feel a little uncomfortable when we’d be talking about post-baby weight loss and I’d get a couple of sideways glances in my direction.  I was also a lot younger than most of the other moms- well over a decade by many of them. I never knew that 24 was young to be a mom until then.  Not too long ago, I probably would have been the old one.

But then there was the worst difference between them and me:

They were thrilled to be moms, and completely in love with their little bundles of joy.  I, on the other hand, felt like maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mom.  I was depressed.  It took me a good 3 months before I knew I loved my baby.  I felt out of place as a mother.  Even hearing, “Wow, you’re a mom!” didn’t seem right to me.  So I always felt kind of left out.

I guess my whole life I’ve been that way, though.  I’ve never been part of a clique or a group.  I was always the odd one out.

I don’t mind much now, to be honest.  I like that I’m a little off the beaten path.  Being an oddball has its benefits, believe it or not.

But at the same time, I don’t want to stand out in a bad way.  Especially when I have to go to group therapy tonight.

James is the luckiest bastard I know.

Except, of course, for the fact that he’s stuck with me via Catholic wedding vows.  Muah ha ha haaaaa!

I’m not going to disclose why.  Just in case anyone important ever reads this.

But know this.  He truly is the luckiest son-of-a-bitch ever. And this isn’t even about his amazing ability to pull a phenomenal partner EVERY. TIME. HE. COMPETES.

I rest my case.