Archives for January 2011

When I started this blog almost three weeks ago, the idea was that I would be able to talk about what I’ve done to get past postpartum depression, both to reflect on that experience and to help others. I was feeling pretty good – had that new-year/new-attitude/new-motivation thing going on. I envisioned plastering something like this up here:

Turns out my badge looks more like this:

I had a rough week last week. A little bit of a roller-coaster with some ups and some downs. It’s made me think a lot this week about where I am on this journey. No, not think. Wonder. If “wonder” can be read as “desperately looking for meaning in all this.”

One of my problems is that it feels as though what I call my coping skills, though I’m sure there’s a more clinical term, have disappeared through all this. I’m able to do some of the right things – exercise, eat well (mostly), try to get sleep when I need it, sometimes ask for help. I’m just not able to think the right things.

My mom has a piece about attitude on her fridge. I gave it to her 13 (14?) years ago. I thought it was insightful but, to her, it’s become almost like a compass, a way to ensure you’re going in the right direction. That same piece of paper has been on her fridge all this time, and she has frequently quoted it back to me when talking about situations where she thinks someone has lost that resource – their attitude. It came up the other day and a little part of my brain turned off the conversation and thought about my attitude. Realized I have chosen not to choose my attitude about this experience. That same part of my brain also, in a fit of spite, whispered, “I don’t care. I can’t do it.”

I’ve been waiting, for so long, for this problem to just go away.

This idea that I have to take control of my attitude, my perception, the language I use to describe my experience and my reactions to it has been darting in and out of my consciousness lately. It’s always there, but I haven’t been willing to acknowledge it.

“Go away,” I think. “I’m waiting for an easier solution.”

But it didn’t go away.

This morning I read Lauren’s post about giving thanks for things no one would normally be thankful for – accidents, addiction, postpartum depression, unemployment, grief. Her thankfulness is founded on faith – gratitude to God for what He has given her. That faith is not my particular foundation, but I can appreciate how powerful that is, and how genuine are the thanks that result. I totally get it.

I’m a fatalist by nature. Not in a we-have-no-control-everything-is-predestined kind of way, just in that I think everything happens for a reason.

I’ve lived a pretty blessed life. I’ve had a lot of stability and many wonderful opportunities. I have people to love, and who love me back. I really can’t complain. And yet, in some ways, that’s what makes this whole thing harder. I don’t understand why this happened. I don’t understand how I got here.

That whole “you’re not given what you can’t handle” thing never really rung true for me and it feels laughable to me now, because I can’t say I feel like I’ve handled the last 2 1/2 years very well.

What I do believe is that everything happens for a reason, and there’s a lesson in everything. My Type A personality doesn’t really like it when I can’t figure out the lesson (and trust me, there are times when I’ve analyzed something to death to figure out what I’m supposed to learn from it). I don’t know what the lesson in this experience is, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to specifically identify it.

Maybe it’s more of an opportunity than a lesson. A chance to discover I can get through it and am strong enough to be open to sharing my experience in order to help others. I’m already doing that, but to keep doing it – in a way that allows me to move forward instead of this becoming a woe-is-me blog – I have to be willing to spin it the right way in my own head. And while I can’t yet say “I survived” I’m coming around to the idea that it’s okay for this blog to be more about the here and now, and the ups and downs. For it to be about how I’m surviving.

I will survive. And you can too.

On a different Sunday, on a different day in the past, this day probably would have eaten me alive.

According to our alternating-weekend-sleep-in-days schedule, today was my day to get up with Connor. I did get to sleep a little later than normal – 7:15 instead of 6:nothing a.m., thanks to my benevolent husband who took the early riser into bed and managed to get him to sleep for another hour-and-a-bit – so there’s that to be thankful for. But as soon as the little voice said “mama” and the weird dream about work faded away I realized something. I forgot to take my medication last night.

I haven’t done that before (at least when I realized it at the time), so upon realizing it this morning I wasn’t sure what to do. Wasn’t keen to take one in the morning and then take my usual dose at bedtime, so I decided to just skip it.

By about 1:30 I started to think perhaps that hadn’t been the best decision.

Sundays are my day to tackle Connor on my own while my husband works as a freelance graphic designer. You have to realize: I don’t do this well. I know there are mothers all over the world who do this on their own, day in and day out, with more kids, more challenging kids, and just, well, more challenges all around. Maybe it’s partly that I work full time so I’m not used to it. Maybe it’s partly what I call Post Traumatic Connor Syndrome after being at home with him for a year on mat leave when some of those days darn near killed me. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it. Regardless, a tiny part of me dreads Sundays.

I try to tackle this fear with a plan. Today I had it all worked out: groceries and shopping for a last-minute baby shower gift in the morning, lunch, nap for C, baby shower, home to make dinner.

It didn’t happen.

First, Connor refused to go out this morning. “I’m too sick,” said the kid who’s not sick (that I am aware). After about three attempts I decided not to fight it, figuring I’d find a way to get a baby shower gift on the way there.

Then he refused to nap.

My husband, who hadn’t started working at that point, tried to put him down so I could grab a shower and dash out to get a gift. Came home to a kid who was clearly not sleeping. I took over so my husband could work, but nope. “I’m feeling better,” said Connor (which, contrary to what you might think, has nothing to do with the earlier “I’m sick” declaration. It’s just his way of telling us a nap is not in the cards).

To keep my sanity, the nap refusal is one battle I choose not to fight with him. You don’t want to sleep? Fine, don’t sleep. We’ll all just be miserable instead.

Instead I got him dressed, wrapped the baby shower present, wrote on the card, went to check the invitation for the address.

The shower is next weekend.

By that point he was cranky but refusing to sleep, hungry but refusing to eat, and it was only 1:30. I looked at the clock and thought, “What the hell am I going to do for four hours?!”

I’ve had many a Sunday like this before, where things just don’t go well. Typically he cries, I cry, the dog hides and I think, “I CAN’T DO THIS!!” Beat myself up for not being able to handle one slightly challenging but generally fabulous two-year-old ONE day a week. But some days I just can’t. And today I had a little voice at the back of my brain saying, “You forgot your meds last night.” Meaning: It’s Sunday, he’s not eating, sleeping or cooperating with the things you need to get done today. Good luck with that!

This is where my mask comes in handy. If I allow myself to think I can’t do this, I can’t. I can’t think rationally, or creatively, or do any of the things you need to do when your two-year-old is having one of those days. I slapped down that part of me that wanted to go upstairs to where my husband was working and tell him I was stuck. I ignored that itty bitty feeling of panic that threatened to take over and told it to bugger off while I rejigged the order of the day and went out to the grocery store. Maneuvered the speed bump when we got there and my kid, who loves the child-size carts, didn’t understand that today wasn’t a day mummy was prepared to deal with him running loose all over the store bashing in to little old ladies’ ankles. When his response was to have a fit inside the door in front of the Sunday grocery crowd my mask slipped for a split second and I found myself saying to him, “I need you to help me.” (Funnily enough, he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for that.)

I let him sit in the main part of the cart instead until another mother with a similarly-aged (very well-behaved) child sitting in the child seat gave me a dirty look.

A fruit snack bribe and the grocery shopping was done smoothly (mostly). A tired kid asleep in the car meant a bit of peace and a chance to let the dog out at the park to have a run. Another small buffer in the form of some TV when we got home. (I love you Dora, I really do.)

Despite the forgotten meds, the willful child and the plans gone awry, we made it through. Managed to cook dinner AND make my lunch for tomorrow. Even played a bit and then managed to get the living room cleaned up a bit before dinner.

All those other Sundays? That was then. And this is now.

I’m going to take a risk here. Say something controversial. I feel really nervous saying this – even though those who know me know controversy is nothing new for me – largely because I’m afraid of what others in the PPD community would say.

I don’t consider myself to have a mental illness.

Okay, it’s out there. Here’s where this is coming from.

There’s discussion going on about perceptions of mental illness following what happened in Arizona last weekend. People who have dealt with issues like PPD (see? I can’t even call it a regular old illness) are making the very good point that people need to be more understanding of mental illness.

Heather Armstrong wrote about it on Dooce. Kimberly wrote what I consider a very brave and beautiful post about it on her blog All Work and No Play Makes Mommy Go Something Something. (Great blog title, incidentally.)

But it was Lauren Hale who started me thinking about this with her post on My Postpartum Voice. I saw her question on Twitter: “How did postpartum change your view of mental illness?” My immediate thought: “It didn’t.” I’ve been thinking about this for days now, and it still doesn’t. Not really, anyway.

I’m not sure why that is. Is it because I’m not willing to admit it? Is it because there’s such a stigma attached to that term – mental illness – that I’m not even going to let my brain go there? It took me a really long time to accept that I had a problem and ask for help. It took me even longer to broach the subject of medication. And even longer to actually ask for a prescription.

I had a conversation with some friends at work yesterday about parenting. I admitted that before I had a child I always thought I would manage to be some sort of perfect human being in order to raise him in some sort of perfect way. (Yeah, I know, I have issues. And denial is only the tip of the iceberg.) And then I had a child and, postpartum depression aside, I realized I’m only human and some days I’m less perfect than others and that’s okay. Or, it should be okay. (Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it.) But the point of the conversation was that it seems, for many people, your crazy doesn’t come out until you have kids.

And I’m willing to joke about it in that way. “Oh yeah, my crazy definitely came out after I had a baby.” But it’s only partly a joke. I do accept it as such. I consider it my crazy, without implying judgment in the use of the word the way many people do – and are, after last weekend’s events.

So why don’t I define that as mental illness? I honestly don’t know.

Does it matter? I honestly don’t know.

Are there parts of this I need to accept in order to get better? Maybe. For now I’m just willing to listen to others’ perspectives and allow my thoughts around this to evolve.