A Surprisingly Sane Blog

I used to be an outdoorsy kind of girl.

I grew up hiking, camping, and spending time in the mountains like I was one with the wilderness. I remember sleeping under the stars high above the world in the Huachuca Mountains, and listening to the Eagles on my portable CD player overlooking a mountain canyon dreaming of that guy Sean, who would never return my high-school crush. There was a middle-of-the-night encounter with a bear during which a black bear ripped out our car window, terrorized each of the campers in the campsite, and left us bolting out of the Chircahuas faster than you can scream “BEAR ATTACK.” We dealt with skunks, a baby bear encounter, and getting lost without water on a 10-mile-hike that included a search-and-rescue team ready to look for us had we not returned just in time. My brother and sister and I grew up knowing all the mountains in the surrounding Tucson, AZ area and quite a few beyond our neck of the woods. Camping was simply something we did all all the time.

My last camping trip was actually a backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon. We were there for something like five days, and on the first night down in the Canyon, James proposed to me under the full moon. That must have been eight years ago.

I guess I thought our marriage would include an outdoorsy life, considering we’d paid our rock climbing dues, gone repelling, did a massive backpacking trip, etc. I was kind of surprised when I learned that James did not, in fact, grow up doing the outdoors life like I had, and though somewhat interested in it, he wasn’t really sure how to go about roughing it out in the wilderness.

Well, now that our girls are old enough to follow directions and wear panties most of the time, we are attempting our first camping trip as a family this weekend. Major problem: we had NO equipment, so I went on a little shopping spree at Amazon.com. Did I ever mention I’m in love with Amazon? Yup. I can shop until I drop and NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE. It’s the epitome of laziness! I shop in my pajamas, braless, wearing my new dorky glasses, and I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing me that way!

Oops, nevermind that part about never being seen.

Ah HEM. Anyway. This week has been like Christmas… packages containing a lantern and a tent and sleeping bags and Thermarests- you know, those small self-inflating cushion things for old people- and a camping stove and a couple other essentials have been knocking on my doorstep ready to be massacred by my children and dog. Good times.

However, the absolute BEST part of our purchases (and the only frivolous one, I might add) came today, and this was a gift from my husband who knows that his wife will actually MORPH INTO A RABID GRIZZLY BEAR if she does not, in fact, get her fresh-brewed coffee. Behold, the caffeine addict’s outdoorsy lifesaver, the Personal Java Press by GSI:

It’s an actual French Press that only requires boiling water, coffee grounds, and your hands. Imagine that. In a world where I just have to add water and grounds to a machine and press “On”, making coffee by hand is a TRUE PHENOMENON.

You can buy one here if you wanna be super cool and dorkalicious like me.

So, think of me this weekend and send warm wishes for a lack of downpour, good coffee, zero potty accidents (by my husband, of course, because that would be embarrassing), and no backaches while I rough it Seattle Style with my French Press in tow on our little camping trip. We will be staying somewhere near Sol Duc Hot Springs in the Olympic National Forest on the peninsula, then head off to a lodge south of there to spend some time on a lake.

I’m looking forward to some downtime. Wish I had a hammock. At least I’ll have coffee, right? And my camera, of course.

Current Mood: Cool

Yes, in the early morning I am packing up my kids, three suitcases, a stroller, two carseats, a husband, two grumpy kids, and a partridge in a pear tree and leaving for the lovely island of Maui.

I need a vacation. It is time.

Be jealous.

Current Mood: Cool

My little too-big-for-her-britches-and-smart-as-a-whip booger graduated from preschool last week. It’s officially “summer vacation” around here.

And you wanna know what I found this kid doing this morning as I made a lazy exit from my soft bed in my upstairs bedroom? I walked downstairs into the kitchen to find her and her little sister celebrating her new educational freedom by scooping ICE CREAM into bowls. And popsicle wrappers winked at me from the table. They both stared at me with HUGE eyes when they got caught red-handed.

I am the amazing, negligent mother. What makes the whole scenario even better is that after I almost died laughing, I finished scooping a small amount of ice cream into the-half-finished bowl and let them eat it for breakfast while asking Julie not to do it again.

To think that my postpartum depression with these girls was crippling, varying from unbearable all the way to flat-out paranoia and suicidal psychosis, is inconceivable now that I am past it. I have never been the girl who suffers from PMS or hormonal-related mood swings. I’ve always just quite level-headed. I get to play with my dear co-pilot, Bipolar Disorder instead. But at the time, it wasn’t diagnosed, and I had never experienced what role postpartum hormones can possibly play in an unstable mind. I found out, and I suddenly understood why mental hospitals are packed with people wandering the halls with vacant eyes or sitting in the corner batting at imaginary bugs.

I breastfed both my girls because I knew that it was, beyond a doubt, far healthier than shoving a bottle of formula in their mouths. Hindsight is 20/20. I should probably have risked the slight possibility that their IQs might drop, you know, a whole point on the scale if I let a cow or soybean feed them instead. Because what I later learned made so much sense that I probably could have avoided the whole trip to the psycho hospital had I just listened to my body in the first place.

I HATED breastfeeding. HATED. In fact, there was one solitary moment where I kind of enjoyed it- and that was when I nursed my friend’s foster son, a newborn drug baby who had just been weaned from meth. I babysat for him one day, and it broke my heart seeing a baby so listless and pathetic. I scooped him up, shoved his mouth on my boob, and that baby didn’t want to let go. After that, his eyes were open, he looked at me, and my friend was thrilled to see a new baby when she came to pick him up. That moment was so special, so amazing, because I knew that for whatever reason, my boob was a comfort for a baby who needed it most.

That was the one time that the horrible hormonal manic rush didn’t shoot through my body when I nursed. Most women like, even love, the way it feels. I couldn’t stand it. It tickled my nipple to the point where I wanted to scream or cry or throw my shoe through the wall. Once the let-down happens and milk starts to gush, I’ve seen dozens of moms get this sleepy, smily, dreamy, relaxed look in their eyes due to the release of prolactin, a supposedly awesome hormone that makes moms fall madly in love with their baby and forget the fact that they haven’t slept more than 2 hours at a time in the last 6 days.

That whole prolactin thing? Yeah, that was a myth for me. Instead of relaxing, I felt like I could hardly breathe while electricity shot its way up my spine. Night time feedings always forced my mind and thoughts to run a marathon, and I became the amazing, unsleeping insomniac. I’d get a burst of negative, manic energy, and I’d stare at the clock, sometimes shaking, wondering how long that freaking baby at my breast was going to feed off of me like a leech. See, that’s not a normal reaction. I didn’t think of my girls like that when they were off the boob, just on it.

Later, during all my treatment, I learned that for women struggling with a postpartum mood disorder who have that kind of reaction to nursing frequently have prolonged and more severe difficulty with depression, anxiety, and psychosis. My uncomfortable mental and physical reaction to breastfeeding? That was most likely my body’s way of trying to tell me, “This isn’t healthy for you… your kids will be just fine sucking off a bottle. Give it up and stop being such a stubborn brat.”

In other words, if I hadn’t breastfed, I probably would have gotten away with a minor version of the extreme postpartum mood disorder that I experienced. Almost three years after my little stinker was born, though, I can hardly remember what I was actually going through during that time. My mind was a black hole.

But see, that was then, and this is today. That picture above is me, truly proud and happy to have just watched my 5-year-old walk across the stage and accept her preschool diploma. Somehow, I survived those miserable postpartum crazy hormones, and now I’m just as happy- if not more so since I know what it’s like to be on the other side- than the “other moms” to be a mother.

Yay me! I’ve really gotten somewhere!

And as a side note, I love that color blue on myself. Normally I tear myself to shreds when I have to look at a picture of myself… but this time, I just see a happy mom with two amazing girls wearing a lovely blue top.

Current Mood: Happy

I’d like to give a shout-out to a website called “Masters in Psychology” by Michelle Parsons. She recently published an article, “Top 50 Blogs About Depression” in which my train wreck life and blog, Suprisingly Sane, is featured.

How she found me, I’m unsure, but I am touched to have been included in this awesome mix of blogs. There is a wealth of information regarding mental health, depression, bipolar, and other mental illnesses by professionals and those who experience mental health fragility like I unfortunately do. This site is a fabulous resource for those who are interested in psychology, and also for those looking for other blogs about personal experiences like my own.

Thank you, Michelle!

Now, go check out her article!

Current Mood: Cool

I struggle with depression all the time. Sometimes I’m okay, sometimes I’m hardly motivated to crack a smile unless I’m teaching, which always just seems to bring sunshine to my gloomy mood. But one thing I realized? It’s not a result of new motherhood, or breastfeeding hormones, and it’s certainly not because I am stuck taking care of a toddler and a screaming baby with a voice that rivals Cher’s powerful vocal boom.

In fact, I daresay that while babies, newborns especially, just flat-out freak me out and make me shudder, I absolutely, positively adore two-year-olds, young kids, older kids, and teens. Yes, you saw that right. While the rest of the motherly world coos and gushes over newborn toes and spit-up, I prefer everything beyond baby, included those “dreaded” teenage years. I love when bitter moms tell me, “Oh just you wait...”. Well, darling, trust me, I’ve paid my dues. I know it’s hard to believe, but yes, I enjoy teens. I always have. I love listening to their troubles and broken hearts, I enjoy hearing and watching them shape their own believes and argue for what they feel is right. I have no false impressions about the difficulty of being a parent of teens, but fact is, I enjoy that age. They’re smart, amazing, and they can take care of their basic needs with little guidance. And I’m a firm believer that if I do my job well while they’re younger, my girls will sprout into some pretty amazing peeps during their older years at home as well. Yeah, I know, shit happens, but I’m not going to dwell on that because I do have faith that I’m not going to change my mind regarding my thoughts on teens.

But until those years, I’d like to say that today in the here and now, I feel so far beyond my postpartum depression era that I can actually enjoy watching my kids run around like rugrats. Why they’re dubbed the “terrible twos” is beyond me… I love age two! I have with both of my kids. And five? Holy cow- my child is truly becoming an individual and it’s just so stinking cool to watch.

So finally, finally I can feel a bit smug when other parents are complaining about their 2-year-olds and wishing they were babies again. Not me! I am so glad my kids are finally beyond those years. Yes, kids are difficult in general, and yes, I have days where I want to step in front of a speeding bus… but 90% of the time, I’m having a great time with them. They’re just amazing little people, and I wasn’t well enough to enjoy them they way they deserve until they got beyond those infant years.

And yes, I’m smiling. Who wouldn’t with a beautiful daughter like Julie?

And, of course, my little spitfire and entertainer, with dimples for days- my darling April:

It’s nice to be well, to be beyond the bitter days of postpartum depression and days of psychosis. I’m not sure when it all faded away into the past, but I realize that here I am in the now, and it’s no longer haunting me. No more anxiety welling up when the dreaded blackened mood would start to rip up the “I think I might be okay again” moments. No more being a trapped prisoner in the labyrinth of psychosis, where I could see the buildings of sanity crumble and crash, but the voice inside of me was too paralyzed to say, “Help me, I can feel it happening, and I can’t stop it.”

‘Course, I’ve got bipolar to grapple with… but that’s a different story. And today, the sun is shining and having a mental illness is pretty far from my mind.

Thank God.

Current Mood: Happy