A Surprisingly Sane Blog

A week or two ago, one of my cyber friends posted pictures of her beautiful 1-month-old baby along with a caption that read how she couldn’t believe how fast the time had gone and that it’d been the best month of her life.

It was a lovely post, and I felt like someone punched me in the gut when I saw it. Yeah, you saw that right. It wasn’t her fault at all, it just happened to be the wrong post for me to see at the wrong time. It took me a second to figure out why I had that reaction. I mean, I smiled when I saw it and thought, Awww… that is so sweet, and at the same time, I had inner turmoil bubbling to the surface.

I had to look away from the post. It started hurting to much.

I was never that mom. I wanted to be so badly. I’d aways dreamed of holding a new baby in my arms and relishing in the love and attachment that comes with new motherhood.

But I never got that.

Instead, I got too-big babies that damaged my body to the point where I couldn’t take a shit because my rectum was so prolapsed it was falling out of my vag. I started shaking when my babies would cry because I hated the sound and just wanted it to go away. I had dreams that I was harming my beautiful babies and woke myself gasping for breath and checking on them to make sure it wasn’t real. Instead of holding my new bundles of joy proudly and lovingly nursing them, I experienced anxiety attacks while they were feeding off my boobs like leeches in my mind. Instead of fond memories of those first months, I have a near blank-spot in my normally extremely excellent memory of April’s first year. Instead of spending my days at home thinking it was the best time of my life, I was sitting on the bathroom floor at night, half-naked, rocking on the floor with my skin clammy and a knife in my hand while my husband threatened to call and have them come take me away.

My memories of being at the mental health crisis center, how terrified I was, the Safe Zone sticker on the wall, and the diagnosis of Postpartum Depression, Anxiety, and OCD… and being borderline psychosis… those are my “fond” memories of new motherhood. The drugs, the therapy, the God-awful experience with the support group. Finishing breastfeeding and being thrown for a whole other loop when the hormones changes and my need for different drugs were necessary. The horrific suicidal moments when I ingested prescribed drugs that were toxic to my system.

And in the midst of this, making stupid decisions, writing stupid blogs, and learning that people that I thought were friends were stabbing me in the back and painting me as a villain. All when it was out of my control. It’s taken me to this point to forgive myself and understand that I wasn’t in a position of rational thinking, nor could I see the severity of choices that I made.

Yes, those were my “happy” new mom moments.

I never had that chance, and I never will.

Current Mood: Sad

I wish…

… everyone could experience true depression and true mania at least once in their lives so I wouldn’t have to hear the words, “Wow, I’ve never been depressed before, so I can’t relate,” EVER AGAIN. Yes, I feel bitter.

… sunlight didn’t induce dysphoric mania for me. It’d make summer days so much more bearable.

… I had more time to study for the LSAT that involved silence.

… plane tickets to Hawaii were a heck of a lot cheaper.

… I had endless funds to spend on shoes and house decorations.

… figuring out what I want to do with my life would have happened a hell of a lot sooner.

… time alone with my husband wasn’t a rarity.

… family lived nearby.

… cars belonging to shitheads miraculously flew off cliffs without harming a soul other than the assinine owner.

… learning to listen to your own wants and needs without thinking you’re selfish and ungrateful was an easy task.

… medications just magically worked without all the pill-swapping-and-popping-psychotic effects until finding the right med and dose.

… I could just feel happy and stable at the same time.

… Months of depression didn’t always follow a several-month manic phase for me.

I know that one of these days the sadness and subdued emotions and lifeless smile will lift.

I just wish I was back in the crazy mania that makes me feel on top of the world. I’d choose that over this any day, even if it is a much more unstable state of being for me. Wish I had an alternative, but it always seems to be either one or the other. The Lithium makes both states easier to handle, but I highly doubt it will ever actually “fix” me.

Current Mood: Sad

One of my five house guests told me some rather sad news a couple days ago.

A mutual friend of ours was recently diagnosed as HIV positive.

I’m not a crier, but the initial shock of the news made my heart drop for our friend. I suppose it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise, considering my friend’s lifestyle, but it was nevertheless difficult to digest. This friend has always been the poster child of youth. Fun-loving, tons of great energy, one of those people who can look at their situation and shrug their shoulders. Hearing that the treatment has been rigorous and exhausting for my friend breaks my heart. I don’t like imagining them that way.

I know it’s not a death sentence like it once was. Medicine has come a long way, and my friend will probably live a full and relatively healthy life.

It still sucks.

Current Mood: Sad

A comment left by a reader a couple days ago jumped out at me for more reasons than one, and I’ve spent the last day or so digesting it.

You live a perplexing life viewed through your blog entries and the one consistent theme is that happiness is just around the corner – as soon as you are freed from an oppressive Church, parents or parents in law, move to the Pacific N.W., get a new home, get a dream home, get a new job and so on.

I highlighted the part that really smacked me upside the head.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the rest of the readers’ comment (and was a bit rightfully offended when I read it… but that’s a different story), I can certainly respect his (her?) opinion and take something from it. Seeing the consistent theme that “happiness is just around the corner” is something that I can see in my own blog as I scroll through the archives, and it’s a topic that I really want to delve into a little more.

Happiness is a different state for a depressed person than to that of a person who does not struggle with severe clinical depression. If you or someone you are close to fights a similar battle to the one I’ve dealt with, you know that “happiness” isn’t necessarily defined as this state of feeling great that puts a smile on one’s face.

Depression is something I have dealt with my entire life. Something that I noticed long before a child should ever realize there’s something “wrong” with them. I remember feelings of severe inadequacy and anxiety hitting me on the playground at the ripe old age of seven years old. My diary from that time, which I remember so clearly writing in my then-childish handwriting, expresses the sadness I felt that I was who I am and how I wish I could be somebody else. I never felt like I “fit in”, the other kids made fun of me horribly, and spending time at other kids’ houses made me feel “less than” them and shabby in comparison.

Those are feelings that no child should every have to experience.

Then there was junior high. I was a year younger than the other students in my grade, thanks so the fact that I was a year ahead in school for academic reasons. I was “smart”, sure. But I was emotionally and physically immature in comparison. Puberty was a nightmare those years when all the other girls were sprouting breasts, wearing deodorant, and becoming young women. I was the tall, gangly-looking thing with braces, zits, and a flat chest. Being a late bloomer was humiliating, but imagine adding an extra year behind everyone else. Yeah, poor me. I feel bad for that dorky young teen who truly believed that high school and the end of Catholic school would bring happiness. I was wrong.

And like that reader said… happiness does always seem to be “just around the corner”. You see, I have to have *something* optimistic to believe in. I am constantly trying to improve myself and my life. I am always looking forward to the next thing that I’m working toward. I always have a positive goal in mind.

Without those things, what the hell else do I have to live for? I am clearly not a very happy person. “Happiness” is a small dose of fairy dust that makes its way into my life once in a while and for short periods of time. Even on the right dose of the correct anti-depressant, most days I just focus on trying to stay “stable”. Stable for a depressed person? It’s being able to get up, get through the day without suicidal thoughts and feelings of hopelessness and hating oneself. It’s the ability to work out, take a shower, eat healthy meals and snacks all day long, and do things that are positive for oneself.

Happiness and feeling on top of things are not the common occurrences for a depressed person that they are for a “normal” person.

Everyone has moments where they feel down, sad, and wish they could be somewhere else. Imagine that being your life every day with small spurts of “hey, that was kind of fun” on an irregular basis. That’s sort of what depression is like. If you’ve never experienced it, it’s easy to judge- there is no way to understand.

So yes, I do believe that happiness is “just around the corner”. I have to, and I’ve learned that it really *is* just around the corner. I look forward to those moments where I look in the mirror and think, “Hey, that’s a pretty special person looking back at me”. It’s not something I get to experience all the time, and I always strive to work towards being able to see that amazing person in myself.

It’s not easy. Depression is a mean, nasty bitch in a bad way.

But you know what? It’s not nearly as awful as the judgement that ignorant people pass on those of us that they can’t understand. It’s easy to look at the flaws someone admits to and have an opinion that they are somehow a bad person or an unfit parent. It’s simple to look through a pair of lenses that block out everything that we don’t like and pretend that what we see is the only “right” way to do things.

It’s a whole other thing to open your eyes and realize that one’s way of life may be something that we can’t understand unless we’ve been there ourselves. And Depression? Think of it as someone’s mean, ugly pet that will never die and is attached by a death-gripping choke chain. You’re never going to understand what kind of pain the Depression’s owner has to go through even though you can see the actions they take to keep that damn pet from biting too hard, and the affects that having that beast chained to them produce.

Just don’t be too quick to judge. You never know if you’re going to be that fucking pet’s next lucky owner.

Current Mood: Alarmed

I haven’t been doing well for awhile, if you haven’t noticed.

I know you probably read my blog because normally I’m Mary Fuckin’ Sunshine and all, so this probably isn’t a huge change from the usual… however, I really have been having a rough time.

The deterioration of my mental health over the last couple weeks is probably directly related to the fact that I tried *once again* to wean back my Prozac dosage a smidgen. We’re talking 5mg, under the guidance of a doctor and adding a buttload of amino acids and Vitamin D to my diet.

This time, there was no horrific crazy crash like I had in December, but I am realizing that my attempts to lessen the medication dose (that I wish wasn’t necessary) are doing nothing but making it difficult for me to convince myself to shower in the morning and depleting my body of all energy. All that’s left is that big ball of shadow I’ve been living under. Adding two little girls, my husband, and all my other responsibilities to the equation equals nothing positive.

Depression.

So, since I’m figuring this out now, I’m going to have to call my doctor to get my dosage upped again. It sucks, but at least I realize that it’s necessary.

I wish, wish, wish so much that my neurons and shit didn’t misfire so badly. It sucks. Depression is just a freaking crappy part of my life. I will always struggle with it. I always have, and I know I always will.

I know I’m a survivor, but today I feel like I lost that never-ending battle.

Current Mood: Sad