A Surprisingly Sane Blog

We’re talking atrocious.

This weekend I looked at April (in a moment of clarity within my depression haze) and suddenly asked James, “When was the last time she got a bath?”

He had the typical guy answer, “I don’t know,” with a casual shrug.  As if BATHING YOUR KIDS IS OPTIONAL OR SOMETHING AND IT DOESN’T MATTER IF THEY ARE DIRTY.

Because, you know, guys ONLY bathe because it is socially unacceptable to women to NOT bathe.  In fact, I explicitly remember a time when James wore his pajamas three days in a row and never bothered to do so much as look in the damn mirror.  For crying out loud!  You have an odor emanating from your body so potent that you have a swarm of flies building religious statues of you out of their poop.  Take a damn shower!

Don’t worry, he’s matured a little since his gross college dorm days.  You know, the ones where he rolled out of bed, stuck his big finger-toes into a pair of flip-flops, and walked into class still yawning.  I mean, half the people in college wear their pajamas to class, so it wasn’t that weird.

Julie gets a bath darn well near every day.  She’s almost three, so she attracts dirt and sticky food and marker all over her little body the second she steps out of the tub.  It helps that she’s always asking, “Mommy?  Can I take a bath?”  Bless that child.

And I’m the weirdo who took a shower the morning after April was born and have done so every single day since her birth simply because I can’t STAND being greasy-feeling.

But April?  I mean, come on, she’s 5.5 months old.  And she looks cute all the freaking time.  And she always smells good, too.  So of course, I was thinking, surely, this kid must have had a bath sometime in the last few days.

Sometimes, James will give her a bath while I’m out of the house for a short time.  So clearly, that must have happened sometime in the last few days.

Right, James? You gave her a bath while I was at my exercise class or something, right?

**Crickets chirping**

Oh my gosh, I skipped Thursday’s exercise class to go shopping for birthday presents for him.

So I smelled her, checked between her little fingers and toes, her fat folds, chins, behind her ears, etc., and discovered that not only did she have that sweet little yummy breastfed baby smell, but that she wasn’t hiding anything disgusting in her pockets, either.

Okay, so that brings us to today.  When all of a sudden I REMEMBERED that I had this conversation with James.  And it dawned on me that I know for a FACT that she didn’t get a bath after that discussion.

Oh. My. Gosh.

So first thing after she snarfed down her booby breakfast, I stuck her little tush in the bathtub.  She was really happy to get a bath.

Holy cow, how long has it been since April had a bath?

I’m going to win a “Worst Mom of the Year” award, I just know it.  Sorry world, I haven’t bathed my kid in three years.  I suck.

She’s clean now.

Current Mood: Alarmed

While I normally have quite a few complaints to report from the weekend, I am thrilled to announce that I actually had a wonderful few days with James and the girls.  The Period From Hell aside, of course.

I know, my cynical bitching is so much more interesting to hear about than my happy days, but get over it and just be glad that I had a good weekend for a change.

There were so many times when that dark spiral of depression could have consumed me again.  There was the dreaded period that tried to ruin my feeble attempts of a romantic Valentine’s Day.  Lunch with my (ugh) mother-in-law (MIL) yesterday.  My irritation when the MIL didn’t even call James to wish him a happy birthday on Friday.  I had a terrible time trying to sleep the last few days.  And then there was the fact that Julie was a complete grump the whole weekend.

Usually things like this, even though they sound so trivial, leave me a vegetable-like idiot.  I can’t deal with sleep deprivation or the MIL, or the months when my period becomes The Period From Hell.  Or Julie breaking down and whining, “Noooooo, I don’t waaaaannnna gooooo!” every time we attempt to get in the car, or out of the car, or even to just the other room in the house.

But this weekend, despite the few setbacks, I was better than usual.  I didn’t lose it.  I didn’t fall back into that dark abyss of nothingness.

What was different?

There have been a lot of positive changes in me, James, and our relationship since I started all the therapy last month.  The Prozac has truly taken me by surprise.  I no longer feel like I’m in a constant dream, unable to walk through the hazy goo called My Life.  I feel present, like I actually want to be here.

The counseling with Dee has been more helpful than I ever imagined, and the physical therapy for my prolapse with Dina has been incredibly therapeutic in so many ways.

And James.  He is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of his own undiagnosed-until-recently depression.  He realized how weak and unsupportive he has been of me during our marriage, and he has gone out of his way to be himself again, the James that I married.  But that is a whole other story I’ll have to save for another time.

I never wanted to admit that the depression was an actual chemical imbalance that I had zero control over.  I felt disgusted with myself, weak that I could not seem to get my life on track.  A healthy diet, daily exercise, the lethal amounts of Omega-3 Fatty Acids, the B Vitamin supplements… none of them were doing the trick.

I am no longer in denial that depression and anxiety and the OCD are very true and scary illnesses that I live with.  They sneak up on me and manifest in ways that I never imagined they could.  Left untreated, they consume my life and I am left nothing but an empty shell of frustration and anger.

I know that now, and I am no longer afraid to face them and tackle them with medication and therapy.  All my life I have fought the very things that are responsible for the reason I am still alive right now.

Feeling like I have control and power over my mental illnesses gives me hope that I can do this.  While I know that every day I have to make the choice to fight the depression, I finally have the desire to stand up to it.

And I am slowly overcoming my shame of this.  Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to admit to the people who don’t read my blog that I’ve been dealing with a severe and crippling illness.  It is a million times easier for me to write my experiences down than it is for me to verbalize it.

I feel like, for the first time, that I’m actually climbing out of this.  And even though it is just one step at a time, I’m grateful for each chance I have to pick up my leg and take another one.

Current Mood: Cool