Rock Bottom is a Pile of Crap

May 15, 2011 by ·

Who came up with the concept of “rock bottom” anyway? And why does everyone want to suggest that someone might be there and that this is a good thing because there’s only one way to go. As in UP.

Up? Really?

Wanting to down a bottle of sedatives, something serious and quite out of character – regardless of whether you expect it will kill you or just knock you out for a while – would seem like rock bottom, no?

No. Apparently that’s not rock bottom.

Then you start to think that you really can’t do this – that as much as you love your child and would choose to stay married to your husband, you can’t do this. Can’t be here. Can’t be a mom and it really was a mistake.

That seemed like rock bottom, but the rocks were loose and they slipped again.

When someone offers to take your son so you can both have a break, you’d think that would be a good thing, right? The break is good, up until the hour or so before he’s due to come home, anyway. Then the major anxiety attack hits and those rocks at the bottom feel a little bigger, a little closer.

I’m off work, and need to be. Work isn’t the problem, and yet when I drove past my office the other night after everyone would have gone home, I had a major panic attack. Explain that, please.

Maybe rock bottom is being off work, which I need to be, but feeling like I can’t be at home either. Maybe it’s feeling like I don’t know who I am and don’t know where I’m supposed to be and seeing no clear path toward the answer for either.

I’ve collected rocks all my life – it’s a genetic thing – but right now what I’ve got is a pile of crap. I sincerely hope the current state of things is rock bottom, because I’m a little sick of bouncing.

This rant was brought to you by an over-active toddler and a state of limbo, the suspected cause of which is medication that’s not doing its job. Back to regularly-scheduled (slightly less buzz-killing) posting tomorrow.

 

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: ,

Run and Hide

May 5, 2011 by ·

The first time I ran away from home I was 36 years old. This is what happened two weeks ago.

***

The inside of my head is screaming. I can’t be here. I already had one escape and it was 24 hours of sanity in the midst of a mad merry-go-round with a cackling clown taking up all the space in my brain and preventing me from finding an exit. That escape helped, but not enough. Mostly just made me realize how much I need some space to think.

Being on leave from work to deal with postpartum depression is good. Having a toddler around the house who is my trigger is bad, hence the inside-the-head screaming.

My husband understands that I need to be away for a bit and we talk about options. They’re all possible, and yet not what I need.

I feel trapped. I’m back to imagining what it would be like to live in a condo by myself. Finally, I decide to ignore my credit card balance and spend the money for another night in a hotel.

And then it comes. A message from a friend, one who doesn’t know how much I’m dying to run away but who happens to appear at exactly the right moment.

I’m going to be away for a bit, she says. You’re welcome to use my apartment if you want a break.

I come very close to crying with relief.

She drops off keys on her way out of town. I still hesitate. Can I leave my husband to be on toddler duty alone for however long I decide to escape?

Yes, he says. Really, you can.

What if I leave and decide I don’t want to come back? I worry about this.

I hope you don’t, but if you do we’ll deal with it. He has faith when I don’t.

So I leave.

***

I walked into my friend’s apartment feeling like I was intruding, but all that was there was peace. It was everything my toddler-dominated house is not. Clean. Quiet. Decorated the way I’ve always imagined my home would be if I lived by myself.

Luxurious white bedding suggested hours of uninterrupted, guilt-free sleep.

A couch with a soft blanket provided a space to sit or write or watch TV.

The kitchen made it clear I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and that no one else would be there to ask for a snack and then not eat it.

I walked into the bathroom to set my cosmetic case down and hung on the wall was something that made it clear I was in the right place:

I spent one night there and felt much more my keep-calm-and-carry-on self. I came home over Easter weekend when my siblings showed up from out of town. When they left, I went back to my friend’s place and didn’t know when I’d be home.

That stay turned out to be for three full days. I left for an appointment and then came back and spent a full 48 hours holed up there, blinds drawn, hiding. I finally emerged to get some groceries – across the street and back again, filled with anxiety until the door closed behind me.

I spent the time writing. I read – a lot. I took deep breaths. I cried it out. I bought fruit and forced myself to eat it. I allowed myself to eat ice cream.

I stayed up late, when the world was quiet and dark. Then I took my sleepy time pills and crashed for 12 hours at a time.

By the third day, I knew I needed to leave. I had realized I could stay there forever – not in that apartment, but in that dark place where I stay in my pajamas all day and shower at 9 p.m. Where I avoid going to sleep because I’m not ready to do all this again another day. Where every night I take a pill that knocks me out for so long that I don’t have to.

Coming home, I was ready to deal with whatever the toddler threw at me – literally or figuratively. I knew it would be challenging and I was prepared to deal with it. Or at least I thought it was.

He was practically manic from my return and we had a bedtime battle that dumped me right back into the depths of anger and despair. Turns out those triggers are deeply embedded in me and it’s going to take a lot more than three days of self-reflection to put a damper on my response to them.

But I rediscovered a part of myself in that apartment – a part I knew was there but couldn’t coax into the light. My friend thought she was just giving me keys, but what she actually gave me was a path out of the darkness.

Love you, M. You saved me during a time I really needed it and I’ll never be able to adequately express how grateful I am for that.


Mama’s Losin’ It

Prompt 2: That time you ran away from home.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , , ,

Making It

April 19, 2011 by ·

Sometimes I think I’m imagining it. That the tears and the over-reactions and the oh-my-god-I-can’t-breathe moments are all part of… something else.

Sometimes I read others’ stories, stories of sick children, lost children, unimaginable things happening to children and their families. Things that no one should have to go through. Things I probably couldn’t bear.

So I wonder – am I making this up? Something feels…desperately wrong not quite right, so do I blow things out of proportion to justify my feelings?

In moments of calm, I feel mostly okay. Okay but anxious – anxious about how this will be resolved. When it will be resolved.

When the waves come I can’t imagine that this will ever be better. I can’t see what I need to do. I worry that my husband will say, “Enough.”

I know I’ve got to make it work.

When I feel like staying in bed I force myself to get up and do something.

When I feel like I’m about to drown I tell someone and they throw me a rope.

When I feel like running away I question whether that would really help anything.

So far I’m making it. Even if it feels like I’m making it up as I go along.

Reach Toward Light by Damien Share

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: ,

Four Weeks

April 18, 2011 by ·

Two weeks and three days ago, I started a week of vacation. Just a random little break after a busy few months.

Two weeks and two days ago – a Saturday – I had a breakdown. A day that was finally – truly finally, in the etymologic sense, i.e. in a final manner; conclusively or decisively – enough. Enough. I was staring at what might have been the end and I’d had enough.

One week and six days ago, I asked my boss for a leave of absence. It has taken me this long – nearly two weeks – to admit this here. Emotionally it feels like admitting defeat, even though intellectually I know it doesn’t and I haven’t. My fingers have hovered over these keys, waiting for the words to admit to this as one of the latest pieces of my story. The other admission will follow when it’s ready, but for now I need to get this out.

I am taking time off work because my PPD is not under control and I’ve had enough and I need to fix this. There. I said it.

I asked my boss for some time off and he said yes, which I knew he would because that’s the sort of person he is. He’s always been supportive, and especially so since a little over a year ago when, after hiding it for a long time, I tearfully told him I was cracking up. When I finally admitted to my struggle with postpartum depression, he understood and has let me do what I need to do.

Despite that support, asking for time off was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to ask for from a boss. Thank God for instant messaging, because I cried through the whole conversation.

A couple of days later I went to see him to do a hand-off of some of my work. He kindly agreed to let our team know I was going to be away. He even gave me the words when trying to figure out what to tell people made it feel like I couldn’t breathe. I chose the cowardly approach and he told them I was spending time with my family.

I suspect everyone knows it’s a crock. I’ve had several “I hope you are well” messages and I honestly don’t know how to respond. I am less well than I have ever been in my whole life.

In writing about my experience with PPD I have embraced honesty. I have told friends and family. I have been a guest on a radio show to talk about it. But I cannot bring myself to tell my colleagues – 10 or so of whom report to me – why I am not at work. Yet.

I know it shouldn’t matter, but it does. It weighs on me. I want it to be okay to admit that I’m struggling with depression – the postpartum sort or the capital D sort or whatever. I want it to be okay for those on my team to know that sometimes things other than work matter and we need to set work aside.

I also dread returning to work and facing the “how are you” questions from people who are very well meaning and genuinely caring but who don’t know if I’m dealing with cancer or a mental health issue or carpal tunnel syndrome.

Credit: szczel on Flickr

For now, however, I have let it be. I will deal with the why at the right time, whenever that is. When I saw my doctor and told her what had happened and how I was feeling, she asked how much time I thought I needed. A month, I said. Four weeks.

She paused and looked at me. Then she ticked the 1-2 months box on the doctor’s certificate and told me to come back in two weeks.

“We’ll see,” she said.

We’ll see.

 

I’m linking this post up with Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can’t Say because, for some reason, it makes me feel better about saying it.

Update: Yes, it was longer than four weeks.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , ,

A Glimmer of Hot Pink and Hope

April 17, 2011 by ·

She was dressed all in black, by coincidence more than intent, but it seemed to make a statement.

The black tank – the one she’d slept in – stood out against her pale shoulders. The dark-as-ink yoga pants, plucked off the drying rack, were at least clean.

A quick look in the mirror confirmed her suspicion: it was obvious she hadn’t showered, but a black ball cap quickly fixed that. Where she was going, the rest – the lack of make-up, the unruly eyebrows – didn’t matter.

As she walked, the trail was peaceful and the sunshine bright. The sun had brought her out while the head-to-toe black allowed her to feel hidden.

Her canine companion paused. Looking back over her shoulder as she waited for him to catch up, she caught a glimpse of hot pink. Just a glimmer, but it was significant. A sign that underneath the darkness there is light, and life, and colour.

 

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Notes:

  1. I’m not sure what the point of this post is, but this silly fact filtered through to my anxiety-ridden brain today. It seemed only fair to pay it proper attention by posting about it.
  2. With thanks to Jessica from It’s My Life for the “glimmer” concept. I read it in her post from Friday, Choosing Happiness, and it stuck with me.
Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , ,
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