Behind the Mask

March 8, 2011 by ·

At some point, many months ago, I put on a mask. I’m not sure exactly when I put it on. I don’t even know where I got it, and for a really long time I didn’t realize I was wearing it.

This mask covered up everything I had become and tried to turn me back into what I’d been before, even though I wasn’t that person anymore.

This mask, through some cosmic power I didn’t know I had, is invisible. It manifests in a hundred different ways, all of which hide what’s actually beneath it.

The mask is a smile when the person behind it wants to shut her door and cry.

It’s my outward I-can-do-that-attitude when the reality is that there have been days when the logistics of getting from my house to my office seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

It’s a calm demeanor that hides the tightness in my chest that’s been there so long sometimes I don’t even notice I’m not breathing properly.

It’s the cheerful mama voice – that one that can multitask with the best of them – trying to redirect a frustrated toddler while at the same time calculating how long it is until bedtime and wondering how she got to this place.

I’m a wife and a mother, a daughter and a sister. I’m an employee and a supervisor, a colleague and a friend. The mask pretends this space is hidden, that these words are just for me. It makes me wonder, every day, what those people I know, those people I see every day, will think when they read these words. If they read these words. Because here I am not hiding. Here I can set my mask aside.

Outside this space I haven’t quite managed to take it off. Recently I experimented with taking it off – putting myself out there in a place more people I know might find me – but for the most part I still wear it. It reappeared in full force this week, covering up a wave of reality I didn’t see coming.

For a long time, this mask has defined me. I have to have faith one day that won’t be the case anymore.

 

This post is linked up with The Red Dress Club’s memoir prompts.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With:

Friday

March 7, 2011 by ·

Monday morning. At work.

“How was Friday?” asked my friend and colleague.

Friday…Friday…

“I can’t remember Friday.”

“You had an appointment in the afternoon.”

Oh. Right. Friday.

How could I have forgotten Friday?

It was supposed to be a normal enough day. Meetings and work to do in the morning, time to eat lunch, zip out to my doctor’s office to talk about weaning off meds. Then something significant happened at work, meetings got interrupted and I barely had time to eat lunch before hightailing it to my doctor’s office, where, after getting stuck in traffic, I arrived 10 minutes late – a fact that was curtly pointed out by the receptionist before she stuck me in a room and left me to wait another 10 for the doctor who was apparently not so anxious to get her last appointment finished after all.

Friday was supposed to be about how I can do this. How I’m feeling all right and I’m ready and I’m going to break up with those stupid green pills. Except I’m not. And I knew that would be the case even before I got there.

When I booked the appointment – after procrastinating for over a week to make the call – I wanted the advice to be along these lines: “Yep, sure! Here’s how you do it and here’s what you can expect. Now go next door to the friendly pharmacist – the one who told you, when you went to pick it up the first time, that this medication can cause sexual side effects, isn’t he helpful? – and get a lower dose. Taper slowly and you’ll be fine!”

That’s not what she said, of course. She asked all kinds of questions about how I’m doing and what I’ve done to address my issues and what kind of support I have and all the usual things that constitute proper care. And then she suggested it’s probably too early.

It’s a question of math, apparently. However long you had symptoms is how long you should be on meds before trying to wean, and it hasn’t been that long for me. It actually doesn’t matter, because I’m not ready to come off and I know it.

I didn’t actually tell her that – I was determined to get through one appointment with a health professional without breaking down in floods of tears (and I did! Gee, I’m so proud.). Instead, after a long discussion about timing and considerations and implications, we decided it might be wise for me to come back in April and have the discussion again and start weaning at that time.

I appreciated the support, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen. Between a family issue and a couple of other life issues last week, my view of the world is starting to feel a little bit like this:

It’s a lovely view, but that cliff is feeling awfully close and I have no idea what’s around that corner.

On Saturday, all I could see was that cliff. And I thought I was going to fall off of it.

On Sunday, I spent the day totally mad at myself for finding myself back in this place after thinking I was out of it.

Today, at work, I spent the morning trying not to hyperventilate. I looked at my office door and wanted so badly to close it, but I knew if I did I would sit in front of my computer and cry and the road would crumble and the cliff would be real.

Now, after some time spent thinking about other things and a few deep breaths and a tiny little voice at the back of my head saying, “You don’t have to let this happen,” I’m feeling…okay. Just okay. (Scared shitless, actually, but same difference.)

But that’s okay. I don’t know where I am on the path, but I’m still on the path. The cliff is there, but this time it’s not the only thing I can see.

And, at least for right now, I’m still packin’ Prozac. And it’s going to be that way for a while, so I may as well enjoy the view.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , ,

Wordless Wednesday: Imperfectly Perfect

March 2, 2011 by ·

Okay, so I just cannot actually make these wordless. It still has a picture!

Have a look at Lauren’s blog, My Postpartum Voice, for the explanation on today’s post. And please feel free to join in!

This is my living room, aka the room people first see when they walk in our front door. It’s turned into Connor’s play room, which sort of drives me crazy, but it’s better than having stuff all over the family room that’s adjacent to our kitchen, which we spend more time in.

We heart clutter

We heart clutter

Yes, that’s a bookcase overflowing with stuff (mostly mine). Yes, that plant has some dead leaves. They’ve probably been there since before Connor could walk. Yes, that’s a pile of toys that don’t really have their own home so end up stuffed in the corner. (Hey, it’s better than someone breaking a leg.)

What’s your point?

Anyone else imperfectly perfect?

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: ,

Me vs. Prozac

March 1, 2011 by ·

Dear Prozac,

This is a hard letter to write – you’ve been good to me and I owe you a lot. I mean, I could do without the extra 20 pounds you brought with you, but I figured it would disappear when you left.

We need to talk.

I think I’m done with you. No, don’t get upset. You’ve known this was coming. We’ve talked about it before. But now it’s official. I’ve booked an appointment with my doctor to talk about leaving you.

But you can’t just let me go, can you? I think you took advantage of me. Weren’t totally honest with me.

You see, my therapist suggested I look into typical approaches to coming off Prozac and possible side effects. So I did – did a search, read some stuff, scanned some links.

And then this one jumped out at me.

“Stopped Prozac – how long before weight comes off/metabolism,” it said. Oh good! I thought.

But what did I find? Account after account after account of people who were on Prozac and came off, only to discover that the weight holds on.

I really didn’t need to read that, Prozac. There was nothing in our relationship agreement that hinted that this would be an issue. Hell, it didn’t even hint that gaining the weight would be an issue in the first place. But I certainly didn’t sign up for this for the long term.

You always knew this would be a temporary relationship. I was clear about that from the very beginning, and at this point I’m just sincerely hoping that I can fulfill my end of that bargain. I need to quit you.

I’m even more determined to leave you – all of you – behind now that I know you’re trying to screw me over when all I did was turn to you for help.

Goodbye, Prozac. I’ll always be grateful to you for getting me through the toughest time in my life, but we’re done. Please take your bags with you when you leave.

Robin

PS Is this superficial? Yes. I don’t care, Prozac. I’m still upset with you.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With:

Blessed

February 28, 2011 by ·

Years ago, as we walked down the street after a meeting, the woman who was then my boss asked me a question.

“Do you feel blessed?” she asked – suddenly, and with no indication of what had prompted the thought.

I can’t recall many of the specifics about the conversation that followed, but I remember my response: Yes. Absolutely. I seem to remember that she expressed a similar feeling. That she, too, felt blessed. (Which is interesting to me now because she split up with her husband a while later. Looking back, I wonder if it was her way of saying, “Yes, I am blessed. I have the freedom to choose the life I want and I choose something different.”)

I’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter. In that moment, for whatever reason, she made the question about me.

On the surface, I live a fairly average life. In many ways, I am simply as blessed as many. In some ways, I am less so. In some ways, much more. I am blessed.

Blessed.

There is so much meaning in that word for me. It’s not one single, specific thing. It’s not even the sum of a list of things. It’s not a person or a quality or a memory or an experience. It’s a feeling.

The dictionary defines “blessed” as “blissfully happy or contented” but it’s so much more than that to me. It’s a big feeling, a physical feeling, one centred in my chest somewhere near my sternum. It bursts with gratitude. It’s something that knows and sees all I have been given and is stronger for appreciating it. It’s something that, if I don’t appreciate it, will go away. It exists because I know it exists.

This feeling was lost to me for a while. PPD took it away. It wasn’t even replaced with “why me?” It just simply wasn’t. I didn’t miss it, because I couldn’t see it. I didn’t remember that it had ever been there. But now it’s back. And, in case I might choose not to see it, it’s come back in tangible form.

I recently wrote about participating in the Planting Love giveaway. I participated – donated – because I couldn’t not donate to this cause. Lots of others felt the same way and in doing so have blessed Amy and her family, raising over $1000 for their medical bills. And, while it wasn’t my motivation, I won something. I won this, donated by Alely from her ohsweetleeme Etsy shop [update: now closed]:

Like I said, I’m blessed.

I say this not to chase away those of you who don’t feel blessed, who can’t find that feeling, who don’t know where it went or who don’t remember whether they ever felt that way in the first place. Because I, not so long ago, felt all of those things.

I say this not to sound snotty or to make you feel bad about how you feel. (And I certainly don’t say it to put you off reading my blog.)

I’m not saying, “Be grateful for what you have because you are blessed, whether you can see it or not” because I know some of you can’t see it.

I say it on this particular day because today I’m mindful of it again. Today was one of those days where a whole bunch of people acknowledged something I had done and thanked me for it, turning what was otherwise a fairly normal day into one where I felt hugely, wonderfully, beautifully blessed.

I say it because I think it’s important to acknowledge these things, because I’ve spent way too much time in the last couple of years focusing on what was wrong instead of what was right.

I say it because to say it is gratitude, and that’s something, recently discovered, that was missing in my life.

I say it because to say it is to hold on to it, and I don’t want this feeling to be taken away again.

I am blessed.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: ,
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