My Laundry List

Beside my bed are two laundry baskets and another two-laundry bag full of clean laundry that I haven’t put away since washing them over a month ago. Mia likes to climb inside them in the mornings when I try to sleep in. She likes to pretend she’s taking a bath. Reminds me of when I used to climb into my parent’s closet and sit on top of their laundry basket filled with shoes. Laundry baskets are truly a children’s playground.

Next to the the clean laundry is another set of laundry baskets full of yarn, fabric, and other craft supplies along with other assorted piles of paperwork, books, and the occasional snack. I have to think really skinny thoughts to get into my closet and reach really far hoping I don’t fall on top of my piles and ruin my organized chaos.

I remember sharing a picture of the same side of my bed, just a different but familiar mess, a year ago. I was passionate to inform people what depression actually looked like. I'm still annoyed by the ad that inspired that post. I wish I could just tell adsense to just send me all the ads for yarn, fabric, and craft supplies, but that’s an issue for another day.

I’ve spent more time in bed this year than out of it. Being in bed means I have a love hate relationship with the objects that occupy the space around it. I love them for their constant presence, but I also hate them because they’re reminders that my body is weak. I use my energy to feed my kids in the morning, to change their diapers, to get them dressed, and after that my body protests and demands to lie down someplace where I won’t get jostled or jumped on.

My bed is so comfy. Warm blankets and my pillows that smell like my shampoo and Richard’s body wash. It’s safe. It’s my space. It's where I like to crochet and knit when I need me time. But I’ve had more than enough “me” time. While I don’t like the screaming or the jostling, I love that Mia, determined ninja that she is, scales my tall bed to tell me to get dressed in the mornings. It’s even sweeter when she climbs under the blankets to put her tiny popsicle toes against me, because she wants cuddles. More often than not, if either of my kids are frustrated with me, they often tell me to “go back a bed” or “go your room, mommy.” They associate me with my bedroom because lately, I’m rarely out of it.

Some days I think “I can totally be in the living room today. I can eat some breakfast like a normal human and be a decent parent for once.” I use up my energy to do the necessities (feed, change, and clothe the kids) and then I try to push through the discomfort of my guts feeling the weight of gravity. Then I try to beat back the nausea from my uncomfortable guts. And then I try to eat something and my body is like “abort! Abort! Abort!” while I tell it “we need energy, silly meat bag.”

My meat bag is very tired. My brain likes to also go into reflective mode when my body’s tired. I think about how gross I feel, and how I wish there was easier, cheaper options to test for food allergies than one insurance wont cover or a complete change of diet. I think about how grateful I am for doctors who do their best to treat my many ailments over the years with some preventative care. But I also have been told often “you’re so young to have this type of problem.” Considering the fact that several different doctors, across multiple specialties have told me this, my hypochondria is acting up again.

I’m educated enough to know there are risks with multiple tests. I’m educated enough to know that all the tests in the world won’t cure or solve everything. I’m educated enough to know that while modern medicine is incredible, there’s a lot of things doctors, scientists, and people just don’t know. When my bladder get’s another UTI, or my kidneys get an infection from the rouge UTI, I’m scared that my kidneys will fail like my dad’s did. When my guts act up, I just don’t want to eat anything for fear of living in the bathroom. And this is just the physical fears.

I feel like the laziest mom ever because my kids watch a lot of TV and I can barely interact with them. On days when I’m not curled up in a ball I regularly ask for hugs and kisses, of which only Corbin is usually interested. I feel like Richard carries me and all the primary parenting duties on his shoulders, which also makes me feel like the laziest wife ever.

I seek audio books and very talkative YouTube channels for some sense of human interaction, because when I spend all day in bed, I get very lonely. Richard is responsible and goes to work and then spends a lot of time with the kids, making them snacks and dinner, reading to them, helping them clean up their toys, and checking in on me every once in a while. He’s so tired by the end of the day that there’s some talking but not much, and I don’t want him to lose more sleep.

I try to knit or crochet or sew to beat away the boredom. I often try to get homework done when my brain has enough energy to do a lot of analysis. But often I’m playing games to do something that gives me a hint of feeling somewhat in control of my life- and kill digital spiders. They need to die.

            

            I am grateful for a very understanding husband. He went through a similar physical experience and his compassion makes me feel like I have a life raft to cling to in this whirlpool of suck.

I just wish I had the energy to put my laundry away.

Parenting with a Mental Illness

When my kids frustrate me and I lose my temper, I often have thoughts like “I hate you so much right now. I wish you were someone else’s problem.” Some weeks I want as little to do with my kids as possible. I don’t want to look at them. I don’t want to listen to them. I don’t even want to hear about what charming little things they did.

To put it bluntly, I don’t want to be a mom. I admit, some days aren’t so bad. But raising my own kids feels like a punishment rather than an adventure. I feel like Sisyphus – I wake up, do my best, only to make a mistake and watch all my progress roll back down the metaphorical hill, right to where I started.

To be fair, I’ve only really experienced parenthood from depressed and anxious mental state. I hated being pregnant from week 6 onward. I cried whenever the nurses left me alone with my son right after he was born. I have struggled with finding lasting peace and acceptance of this change in my life- and I now have two kids and my son is almost 4. I don’t think any parent would be enchanted by or happy about parenting when the outcome has led to lasting damage.

I had serious postpartum depression after my son was born and I spent a few weeks in the hospital being treated for suicidal ideation, because I couldn’t see a reason to keep living. Right after my daughter was born, for a small fraction of a moment, I kind of understood why people wanted more than one kid. But then my symptoms came back. My premenstrual dysphoric disorder reared its ugly head, and I have to battle this along with being a parent.

 PMDD has no cure. There are band-aids like medication, therapy, and exercise, but none of them stop my brain from feeling suicidal every month.

For all my fellow parents out there- you know the struggle of having to put an energetic child back in bed for the 50^th time. What it’s like to clean up vomit out of the carpet because they missed their bucket. The giant messes. The tantrums. The backtalk. These things alone are draining.  

I’m one of the several thousands of women who get the added bonus of feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde every month. My own mind is working against me and I have to hold it together and be a decent parent. I feel like a concert pianist with my hands tied behind my back and I can only play with my nose, but I’m still expected to play Chopin perfectly.

Crying “life isn’t fair” will get me a Captain Obvious award. But I don’t know what else there is to say. I could go into a whole historical rant where expectations of modern mothers far exceed any expectations of historical mothers when it comes to childrearing. But none of that is going to stop the fact that this is my reality.

My reality is that I’m so frustrated with trying to keep myself together. I’m frustrated that I wake up some mornings with “I should die today” as my constant thought and still have to get out of bed and feed the kids and deal with tantrums like nothing’s wrong. I’m frustrated that toddlers are destructive and full of energy and I like a semblance of order and I have little to no energy. I’m frustrated by people sharing their “look how perfect my baby is. I love them so much. They’re my whole world. There’s nothing better than being a parent.” Not because they’re wrong, but because I have never seen parenthood that way, but feel expected to react that way when talking about my kids. I’m frustrated because my own capabilities are so limited, and so instead of hating myself- I end up hating my kids.

I know myself well enough to know that when I’m sad, I try to be productive through anger. Anger will make me clean up a mess. Sadness will make me stare at it and cry. Anger will make me save a crying child while sadness will make me let them scream. Anger moves me, sadness roots me. I have told myself and even got to a point where I legitimately believed that I hate my children. But the truth is, I hate myself. And that self-loathing has been a constant companion throughout my whole life.  I just projected it onto my kids because they are mine and I taught them to talk like me, act like me- and I hate what I see. But I know it is not them. It’s all me.

My biggest struggle is staying sane every month when it’s easier to yell and scream, and cry, and the only solution I find in this state of mind to fixing this stupid mess of my own self-sabotage is death. Because if I was dead, I wouldn’t be scarring my children for life. My husband wouldn’t have to wonder if today was a safe day to leave me home alone. Because the future looks so bleak, especially when I know that I’m going to deal with this for a vast majority of my adult life. Every month I turn into a monster, and every month I have to rebuild my relationship with my husband and kids and sometimes my extended family and friends. Every month I feel suicidal- sometimes it’s a passing thought, and other days, like today, I just want this torture to end.

Being a parent while feeling like a walking time bomb just sucks. I wonder what I did to deserve this situation. Emotional experience chalks it up to me being a terrible child. I made my parents hate me, so this is what I get. I know logically that doesn’t make sense- but emotionally it feels like the only answer that makes sense. Because bad things happen to bad people right?

But that’s not true. Things happen to people regardless of their “goodness” or “badness”. People get sick. People lose their jobs. Accidents happen. Attributing a punishment/reward mentality to life does nothing but make things more confusing.

Nobody “deserves” a mental illness.

I wanted kids when I talked about marriage with my husband when we were dating. I wanted kids after we were married. But once I had them, my own negative childhood experiences and my physical and mental state have painted parenthood as bleak and soul sucking. It’s nothing against my kids. This is just my burden to bear. I’m sure there are plenty of other parents out there who have felt something similar.

For those parents who too feel inadequate, guilty, or otherwise just plain awful because of what cards were dealt to them, I’ll gladly be the first to tell you it’s okay to not like parenting. It’s okay that your kids aren’t the center of your universe. It’s okay that you don’t feel as in love with being a parent as you “should” be. You don’t need to have an incredible bond with your child in order for you to be a “good” parent.

I admitted to my doctor that I wished that I could have taken motherhood off my plate. He didn’t berate me. He knew that my feelings were a legitimate concern and we had a good talk.  If you have similar feelings- share them with your doctor, therapist, trusted friend, or on a hotline if needed. You aren’t an awful person because of those feelings. Your feelings are a symptom, not a cause.

It’s scary to admit things like this out loud. Some people won’t take it well. Breathe. Keep trying until you find the person who listens, who understands. There may not be a magic cure to make it all go away, but it’s easier to find hope when you have an ally, than when you’re all alone.  

What living with PMDD feels like.

If periods make you queasy, then the TL;DR version is: I feel like Dr. Jekyll half the time and Mr.Hyde the other.

I've talked about Depression, Pregnancy, Social Anxiety, and childhood trauma here on my blog. But I haven't paid much attention to my PMDD.

Pre Menstural Dysphoric Disorder is basically my brain going on the fritz when I'm menstruating. It's not typical PMS. I still get regular period symptoms, like the bleeding,the cramping, the bloating, the irritableness. But on top of that I experience extreme depression, lack of concentration, low motivation, and often deal with thoughts of suicide or homicide.

Now the last bit might sound scary. I'm not going to sugar coat it- it is scary. Because on any given month, one day could have been great and the next morning I wake up to thoughts of "wouldn't things be better if I was dead?"

Night and day. That's what it's like. I go from friendly, invite everyone over for games and food, Daria to think thoughts like "if my children squeal one more time I'm going to smother them." I go from churning out projects like a machine to barely touching anything that isn't junk food or my phone. One moment I'm happy mom eager to sing silly songs to scary mom who shoves the children in their room and let them wrestle eachother to death.

And to be completely honest- it's terrifying. Somedays it's like that Studio C sketch- the "boys brain" and every aspect of the boy's mind is in charge but rational thought.

I like to think of my brain ala inside out, but with only two people in charge- Rational Thought and Emotional Thought. Emotional thought during my mebstural cycle liked to put herself on loudspeaker and shout at the top of her lungs whatever she is feeling in that moment. She has control of the panels and she does whatever feels right. Crying, screaming, hiding, stress eating, scroll through Facebook for hours, etc.

Rational is shoved aside and is the one mumbling in the background about how irrational my behavior is- "of course we don't want to be dead. Death doesn't actually solve any of these problems!"

Or when I yell - "Oh yeah. Great parenting right there. Did you really need to shout? Does it really make you feel that great?"

Or when I curl up in my bed and hide all day - "well, that was a productive day."

I know I'm overreacting to small problems. I know I didn't need to yell, or hide, or get into arguments. But I can't turn my emotions off. So I just ride the waves as best I can. I try to be rational, I really really do.

But my energy level is so low- because it was drained by moping, and fighting to get out of bed and get dressed. Or it was drained by having to deal with a toddler who refuses to stay in bed and finding the means to stay calm in the face of chaos. And this drainage happens. Every. Single. Month.

For half of the month, I'm my normal self. Human, but capable of handling life. The other half I turn into my evil twin.

It's rough. And it's scary. And I HATE it when I try to explain what's going on and it's just laughed off as silly PMS. Like I'm over exaggerating. Like my diagnosis is a no brainer.

I was in the hospital twice for suicidal ideation. A month apart. On my freaking period. I was okay after being released and then my cycle started again and I was not okay. I have evidence to prove that this is not all in my head. I am not faking or pretending things are worse to get attention.

So why tell all of this. Because I'm scared. Because I yell, and scream, and am purposefully mean because my first priority when I feel like this is "make whatever is causing me stress stop"- and my biggest stressors are my kids.

I tell this because I feel so alone. Because I have no idea what I need on bad days. Because I don't feel in control of myself at all. I feel like a monster. I feel unworthy of love and help because of how uncharacteristically cruel and short I can be. And it lasts two weeks and then it's over. I can be myself again for a little bit.

But then the process repeats.

In case you are saying to yourself "But Daria, what about birth controll?"

I am on birth control. It is a hormone. It has helped with my long lasting heavy flows, but it has not stopped the cycle of happy Dasha to Dasha Hyde.

"What about pregnancy?" If you haven't ready any of my blog posts about my pregnancies- pregnancy is a special living hell for me.

"What about medication?" Meds are important. They are. But they don't solve everything. They don't prevent the fight or flight response in cases of stress. They don't make every period cycle a smooth transition. Oh and they make my body hate me for a while- very very unhappy guts.

I feel like two different people. Happy Daria makes plans that Dasha Hyde is incapable of following through. It's like trying to keep a schedule with your worst enemy- you both hate eachother and wish the other would just shut up and do what I want already.

I wish this wasn't the demon I had to face. But here I am. My personal demon is the face I see in the mirror. It is terrifying. It is scary. And I really, really hate this. 

Sometimes I'm a Bad Friend

I’ve haven’t been treating my friends very well lately. Which is really, really unlike me. Because I care. I hate scaring people. I hate inconveniencing people. I strive to be the kind of person who is ready to be there for you whenever the need arises.

Because I didn’t have that growing up.

I didn’t have a person who stood in my corner when I was attacked. I didn’t have a people react well to being bothered when they were busy. I didn’t have a person who called out bad behavior. I didn’t have a person who protected me from the scariest person in the world.

I became that person, because I knew no one else was going to stand up for my siblings or my mother. I had to be the brave one. The strong one. The one who fought back. I claimed the role of Momma Bear, Mother Hen, the Protector, because nobody else would take on the mantle.  I never wanted anyone to ever feel the way I did.

The flip side of being the protective one, is that you gather a lot of people who rely on you. You gather people who look to you for comfort, love, advice, inspiration, etc. But they aren’t the kind of people whose first instinct is to catch you as you fall. They expect you to continue to stay strong no matter what.

So, when I say I haven’t been a very good friend lately- I should clarify. To me, my “bad” behavior looks like ignoring text messages, ending phone calls instead of answering, avoiding my friends.

Why am I doing that?

The short answer is “I’m tired.”

The full answer is a little bit more nuanced.

I have depression. Some days are really, really bad. Bad in this context means I’m struggling.

Struggling with feeling emotionally drained- like those times you have when you’ve been dealing with conflict with loved ones or when one bad thing after another keeps happening- and finding the “happy” is not the first thing on your mind. My struggles include sensitivity to noises, like screaming, crying, loud or repetitive sounds- they make me clench my teeth and flinch. Motivation is low- because things don’t hold much interest, or their demand of my attention feels draining.

So I did what I normally do on a particularly bad day- I reached out the best way I can when I feel drained- by sharing a Facebook post letting people know I’m not okay.

But I always have impeccable timing- because on my really bad days, everyone else is having an incredibly busy or rough day too. Normally I just give up on the fact that anyone will be able to help me at that moment and just lay on my bed and distract myself until hubby gets home.

However recently, with the amount of reoccurring “bad day, I let people know, nobody comes to help” instances, it’s beginning to feel like I’m not worth it. People read my “I’m having a bad day” and think I just woke up on the side of the bed. When my reality is my brain is telling me to jump in front of a bus, my kids are being typical destructive screaming toddlers, and I can’t stop crying.

On those days I feel like the worst parent in the world because I yell, because I want my noise to be heard. On those days I feel like a waste of space. The epitome of human garbage. My attempts of reaching out for someone, anyone to just come and sit in my house while I cry on their shoulder, or shower, or just have a quiet house for fifteen minutes and is met with nothing but “I’m sorry” and “love you” makes me want to scream.

I scroll on the internet, waiting to just feel numb so I can attempt to tune out the “I’m garbage” echoes in my head. And when friends see my post and text or call, all asking me to do something- let them know if there’s anything they can do, do I want to go out, do I need anything- I was angry.

Angry that I had to continue to explain how I felt. Angry that my call for help was interpreted as a “I’m being a good friend if I ask you how you’re doing ” instead of the one thing I actually needed.

All that anger brought up other memories, memories of me reaching out the best way I knew how – asking to live with friends because I couldn’t stand living at home anymore and being told no. Trying to explain how bad things were and being brushed off with, "everyone get’s mad sometimes." There were more times than I can remember- and no one believed me, or were too busy to do anything.

I relied on isolation then, to protect myself. And I have reverted back to isolation now to cope with my feelings of rejection and dismissal. I feel angry even now, even though the recent occurrence was a week ago. Because it’s easier to be angry and lash out, then it is to sit in isolation and feel truly, and undeniably alone.

Rationally, I know I’m not being fair to the people who have worried about me for days. I know it’s not fair to judge them for their lives being busy, having obligations, or having their own bad days.

Emotionally I wish they never made the promise “call me if you need anything” because it feels like a lie. A lie that they tell to feel good about themselves, but one they never intend to act upon. Which is unfair, because friends do come help, family does reach out and watch the kids. I don’t expect people to revolve around my life, nor would I want them to. I just wish that people understood the depth and true severity of the situations when I make my “It’s a bad day” posts. Because on days like that, I don’t need your words of concern or affirmation. I need a hug. I need a babysitter. I need someone else to actually be the strong one while I lose it.

I’m sure some of my good friends reading this are like, you told us you wanted us to check in, and now you don’t? Why do you keep changing what you need?

Because I’m human. Because on bad days, words of affirmation feel like lies. They don’t sink in. “I love you!” from far away is as good as “I ate a sandwich”. It’s just words. There’s no, “I love you enough to drive over. I love you enough to watch your kids. I love you enough to hold you while you cry. I love you enough to listen. “ That’s the difference. And I’m going to admit that when it’s a really bad day, like last week, I still might not respond well. I’ll still isolate myself, I still won’t believe anything you say, I will still be emotionally distant. Because I’m struggling, and the words “I’m garbage”, “Why am I not good enough?” will be the soundtrack in my brain. And all that any of us can do is wait it out.

I guess the thing I hope you take away from me sharing these occurrences is to check in before your friends post they’re having a bad day. If they are having a bad day, and you are able to- take them food, a good movie or game, give them a hug, clean their house, put them in the shower - anything to let them know that you care both in words and in deed.

The other thing that I think is incredibly important to understand about people with mental health issues is explaining everything that’s going on in their head can be complicated, extremely frustrating to condense, or just plain exhausting. It really can be a struggle to have to tell people over and over and over again why you feel sad- when maybe the only reason is the chemical imbalance and the medication isn’t adapting. You are not entitled to the inner working’s of their mind. It’s not wrong to ask them what’s wrong. Just let them know that they don’t have to talk about it or explain everything. Let them know that you are there to be supportive presence, and not another drain upon their energy.

I really do have good friends, whom I love and I know love me. Right now I'm working on forgiving the ones in the past and the ones in the present for not saving me when I wanted to be saved.

Adventures with a New Therapist

I went to see a new therapist today. It was not a good therapy day. Not because of the paperwork, that’s just a necessary evil. No. Today was difficult because I had to answer questions that even I don’t ask myself anymore.

Trying to explain to a complete stranger why you answered “I feel the dread of impending doom” on a questionnaire is no easy feat. Because trying to take your thoughts and translate them into comprehensible English is hard enough. Add crying to the mix just makes it that much more difficult.

To answer the question- things just…

Bad things happen to everyone. But it often feels like the universe likes to be particularly cruel with its distribution of “sucky-ness” when it comes to me and my family. It’s hard to be excited for the future when you know that getting your hopes up for good things is just asking for heartbreak. Example, getting kicked out of your house not long after Christmas. Finding out your parent has a disease and watching them being hooked up to a machine daily in order to live. Watching another parent go through an already sucky pregnancy and then miscarrying.  Sibling getting injured right after a parent loses a job.

And from the stories from one parent’s childhood- let me just say, that they’ve been dealt a whole load of suck their entire life, and it just only goes down hill from there.

So I find it extremely hard to find things to be excited about in the “future”. If I want to function like a slightly normal person, I don’t allow myself to think that far ahead. Because the future only holds chaos, pain, and day to day suck fests.

I still cling to the immature belief that good things should happen to good people and life proves me wrong every step of the way. I just want things to lighten up. I want the world to just freeze and be okay for five freaking minutes. But life doesn’t work like that.

Everyone has tragedies, crises, failures, and letdowns. Everyone also has good things happen to.

But back to therapy.

I know people mean well when they bring up the good things. Like my little family. But again, this stranger doesn’t know me yet. They don’t know that I originally sought out therapy because I believed that my son “stole the sun”. I believed that my pregnancy with him screwed me up. On the really bad days sometimes I still believe that. But I’m seeking therapy now to try and heal from my miserable, awful childhood.

It was hard answering question after question about why I answered the way I did, only to start crying all over again and have to take five minutes just to be able to speak. Again, crying isn’t weakness- I’m just annoyed because it’s a barrier to explaining my thoughts.

After our session, I wanted to call up my previous therapist. I wanted therapy for going to therapy. Haha.

I feel raw. I feel drained. I feel all the emotions of digging up the past- anger, pain, vulnerable, protective. I am again emotionally paralyzed and I can’t do anything remotely productive when it comes to work. My hands and my brain aren’t responding. Because all I want to do is curl up in my bed and listen to lives other than my own- be they on the internet or in an audiobook until I don’t feel anymore. 

A Difficult Day

Sometimes things dont get done. The pile of laundry in the corner of my bedroom is as tall as me, my kitchen hasn't been mopped in months, and I cant even see the floor of my children's bedroom.

I think the last time I truly deep cleaned one room was literally December. It's now May. There are dirty dishes that have sat by my sink for literal months, always getting glanced over for more pressing dishes, like sippy cups and spoons.

Sometimes I feel insane- seeing things where others dont, making mountains out of molehills. I wonder if anyone else feels the weight of the chaos pressing in on them, trying to swallow them into the black void that is MESS.

I reach to make a real dinner from scratch, not from a box, and things are squishy that shouldn't be.

The children are screaming. And when there's silence I turn around to see more mess- fabric pieces thrown everywhere like confetti. But I cant rush to put it away because I have chicken on high heat, and it's almost done. One minute is the difference between cooked and burnt.

They're hitting eachother. Screaming at eachother. Nothing I'm doing is helping. I know that my children won't even eat what I made. Why am I even doing this to myself?

They brought toys into the kitchen. Every step must be thought out carefully if I don't want to stick to the floor. Or worse, slip and pour everything on top of myself.

There's some kind of loud rattling coming from outside, like someone decided to make themselves a nuts and bolts smoothie. I can't get the clamor of screaming kids, the kitchen timer, and this unknown noise from pressing in.

It's a different noisy now. After husband finally woke up from his nap. After fleeing the house. The birds are singing. There's the swooshing of cars as they drive past. But my mind can only help me type as my heart continues to pound. My teeth ache, I forgot I've been clenching my jaw.

I wonder how other mothers do it. If they too shove their children in their bedroom and pray that they just come out alive in a half hour. If they contemplate just letting their children wander outside by themselves and become some other poor soul's problem.

A familiar yet hated cage, this stay at home mom situation. I feel guilty for sitting by myself and working alone for a few hours everyday. I feel guilty for wanting to leave. To plan time outside of the house, because it becomes harder and harder to find available and willing babysitters.

I crave freedom. I crave being outside, but I hate leaving my home. Because people are scary. They will see me and know that I'm a terrible mother. They will see my children and hate them because they aren't clean enough, nice enough, smart enough. They will hate me and wish that I didnt exist, they will see me and my spawnlings as a burden. And all the effort and work I do is for nothing.

Today is a hard day, harder when my spouse is already tired, already done with the few hours he spent with the kids. And it's my turn again to pull the chaos into some kind of familiar order.

It's exhausting, this life of work never being done. And it won't ever be enough. Hindsight will plague me with would's and should's. Because experience hasn't proved to me otherwise.

This isn't the worst day ever. It's not even a bad day compared to most. Despite that, here I am typing my thoughts in a cemetery not wanting to go home.

Usually I'm good with tying in some kind of lesson I want people to learn. Perhaps today is that the ordinary can be unbearable. 

My Thoughts on Abortion

I am but one voice among the many. Since it's not my state that passed the abortion law, my opinion shouldn't hold that much weight.

But I have this feeling, that somebody out there is wondering where I sit with all this. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's family, or former coworkers. I don't know who needs to hear me of all people but I'll state my case anyway.

I grew up like many other Christian people did, believing abortion was evil. I even said something along those lines to a girl when I was 12. She had told me that her mother had one, long before she was born. I don't remember her exact response, but I do remember the hurt in her eyes and the lesson I learned. Which was that her mother was human, and it wasn't my place to judge this girl's mother, let alone call her evil.

When I got home that day, I told my mother about the experience. And you know what she told me?

 Abortion is between you and God.

Sometimes things happen to a woman that are scary, and terrible, like rape. God wouldn't force her to live through that experience. It's not our place to judge her for her decision. Because in the end, it's between her and her creator.

I have thought long and hard about that conversation over the years.

Now, I have gone into detail about the unpleasant experiences I had growing up in a different post. If you want a clearer picture you can read my Unpacking Baggage post. Here, I will simply say that I often wondered why my parents had so many kids. Why my dad kept me, if he hated me and my siblings so much. I don't wish my childhood on anyone. I often wondered why I was even born if he obviously didn't want me.

I am well aware that there are so many kids out there living in abusive homes, being neglected, bouncing from foster home to foster home, and living in orphanages, or subject to slave trafficking. The adults of this world are not kind to children. Sometimes children are treated as trophies- beautiful in public but never treated with love or affection at home. And worse, the women subject to terrible circumstances, and then being handed the responsibility of taking care of themselves while pregnant. My heart mourns along with these mothers and children in their current state.

My opinion? I believe in God. I practice my religion. I believe that abortion should only be practiced in cases of threat to a mother's health, or in cases of rape and incest. And I believe that *I* should follow that belief.

Others? They didn't have my upbringing. Those young teen moms, the mothers with cancer, the women dealing with addiction and mental illness. And the women who wan't an abortion because they can't take care of a child, or another one. Women who suffer from the fear of being pregnant. Pregnancy is awful. I know. I've been through it twice and for me it is literal Hell. I wouldn't wish that Hell on anyone that wasn't fully willilng to undergo it, keeping the baby or no.

That is why, I personally, fully support a woman's choice and access to abortion. I'm not being forced to get an abortion and neither is anyone else. I believe that
women need to have a safe place to go, without resorting to deadlier methods to get rid of a child they clearly do not want.

Because I am a firm believer that children shouldn't grow up believing that they are the reason for their parent's suffering. They shouldn't grow up questioning why they even exist. They shouldn't be praying to a God they have a hard time believing in why they were born. Or worse, praying to God to let them die, because they weren't wanted in the first place.

I dont feel like adoption is a part of this argument. Because for me, adoption isn't just putting a child into a system of care. It's adults picking and choosing a child. Children don't get to pick their parents, whether they are adopted or not.

I do have further feelings on the subject of adoption, but they are not needed for this post.

I don't need to argue about the NY law, because it's not my state. My opinion is nothing to those lawmakers or citizens.

I don't need to argue with you, my reader, either. Because like my mother so eloquently said, "it's between you and God." You don't have to agree with me. I understand your point of view, whether you call every abortion murder or not.

I just want the women who have contemplated, or undergone an abortion, to know that I love them. Your reasons are your own. Your fears, dreams, hopes, and struggles are your own. I will stand with you while others spread their hate and scorn. Because I too have been there.

I sat there staring at a positive pregnancy test two weeks after getting out of the hospital for suicidal ideation, wondering if my meds and therapy were going to be enough to keep me and my little family safe from myself. I did survive pregnancy a second time, but I had an amazing support system.

You might not have a support system. I understand why you wouldn't, couldn't, keep a baby.

Again. "It's between you and God." I am here to simply love you.

Daily Fears

I am afraid of a lot of things.

I am terrified of heights, because I am terrified that whatever I'm standing on will collapse underneath me and I'll fall to my death.

I am afraid of not having a clear walkway to my bedroom, because I am terrified of slipping and falling in the dark.

I am afraid of calling people on the phone, because I am afraid that everything that I say won't make sense and I will have to repeat myself. I am afraid my inability to communicate will make the person on the other end of the line more frustrated until I get yelled at over the phone.

I am afraid of telling strangers I need help, because I am afraid they will see me as incompetent, and thus untrustworthy.

I am afraid that people review everything I said to them over and over, and will hate me for my uninformed opinions and ideas.

I am afraid to walk into unfamiliar places by myself. I am afraid I will get lost and look like an idiot.

I am afraid of stating my opinion to people smarter than me, especially professors. Because there is nothing worse than seeing someone you admire and respect, lose their respect for you.

I am afraid to tell people everytime I have a bad day, because I'm afraid that they will complain that I had a bad day recently. That there's a rule out there that states how many bad days you can have in a row before you have to have a good day.

I am afraid of being anything other than put together around strangers, because I'm terrified that they will see me for the failure that I am. That they will purposefully point out my flaws and turn more people to hate me.

I am afraid that I am replaceable. That anybody else could take my place and do a much better job. That my children and husband would be happier without me. That my friends would be happier with someone else that didnt hide or was so afraid. That nobody around me would miss me.

I am afraid that my mental illness is permanent. That I will have to fight just to get out of bed. Everyday. For the rest of my life.

My biggest fear is that the lies my brain tell me- that I dont matter, that no one will miss me, that people only put up with me out of pity- are all true.

Unpacking the Past- Case 1

Sometimes the past haunts you more than you expect it to. Part of me wishes that somehow, magically when I turned 18 everything that made childhood hurt would be wiped clean and I could forget all the hurt, and words, and the messy negative feelings of my adolescence. But as we all know, we don’t get an emotional memory wipe when we become legal adults. We have to carry around our emotional and psychological baggage just like everyone else and unpack it and sort through it if we ever want to take care of it.

So today I am taking that step of unpacking my baggage. There are going to probably be several posts that deal with me processing my past, all in an attempt for me to heal. This is me showing my metaphorical injuries that have been festering and, currently, infecting my current day to day life. And I refuse to let the infection continue to spread. So it’s time to metaphorically cut out the bad tissue, let myself be vulnerable and exposed, and let my tribe of friends and family support me while I heal. 

So today's surgery is delving into some things that I have kept hidden for years. 

I was verbally abused all growing up. 

I’m not talking about the occasional yelling by a parent who has lost all patience.

I’m talking about being called a piece of crap and trash for every wrong doing. I’m talking about being shouted at until I cried because I broke a toy or spilled something. I’m talking about hour long lectures about how I was a terrible child because I didn’t stop my siblings from hitting each other, or not cleaning up their toys, or if they ruined a nice thing.

I’m talking about feeling like you weren’t allowed to eat, because if you ate too much bread, or used up the last of the peanut butter, or went through the packages of ramen "too fast", then you got a lecture about how expensive food was. If you opened another package of something when another bag was already open, then you could expect a yelling match and being sent to your room for the rest of the day, with my dad possibly hiding it later. If you touched one of his favorite foods, or something he planned on using for a meal a week down the road, another lecture. If I was cooking and I wasn’t doing it exactly how he did it, I would get shoved aside and told exactly how I did everything wrong.

Nobody could do anything right, in my house. And for almost half my life, I believed that I deserved it. The yelling, the threats to drop kick us, slap us silly, lock us in our rooms for weeks, the complaining about how we never listened or did anything right, that as soon as we were 18 he’d kick us to the curb… I believed that my siblings and I were the most unruly children to ever grace God’s green earth. I honestly thought that we must have been terrible burdens not only to my parents, but to everyone around us, if we needed to be yelled at and threatened so much.

I was responsible for my siblings… that philosophy was drilled into me so much that it is now an essential part of my character- I am responsible for everyone around me. But most importantly, I was their protector from my dad. When I finally realized that this behavior was not just awful but abnormal- normal dads don’t make their children cry for opening a bag of cheese, I started to talk back. Yes I was a moody teenager. And oh boy did I have a beef with my dad. So I called him out on it. Often. I asked him hard questions… like “if we’re so awful, why did you have six of us?” and “why do you live with us if you hate us so much?”

Of course, a 13, 15, 17 year old didn’t deserve an answer. I was a moody, disrespectful teenager. Who was I to question his authority? And I would often be told after an argument like that… that I was just like my mom. And no, I never took that as a compliment. Not when he complained about my mother to my aunts and uncles for getting distracted by reading. Not when he condemned my mother for being a terrible mom because she played video games – the same video games he played right along side her. Not when he belittled her in front of me and my siblings. Telling me that I was like my mother only drove in the mentality that I was an annoying burden in his life.

I would like to say that I treated my siblings with kindness and love, and sometimes I did. But often I was just as angry and yelled at them too- because in my mind I was far less scary and mean than my dad. That really was the scariest thing; saying “Do I need to go get dad?” because getting dad meant a shouting match that would make you cry, a prison sentence in your room, and a possible physical punishment as well- usually spanking.

But you know what the hardest part about the abuse was? The fact that my dad could be so kind to complete strangers. The fact that he could be charming, and funny, and sweet to everyone but us- his own flesh and blood- made me feel like I WAS the complete garbage I had been called all my life. I can recall a good friend of mine and a coworker of my dad that said: “He must be so fun to be around at home.”

Boy did I want to correct her and tell her everything… but I couldn’t. Why make people think less of my dad when he hadn’t done anything mean to them. They wouldn’t believe me. They’d think it was the complaining of some angsty teenager. Nobody would believe that my sweet, charming, kind dad was a raging man who belittled and verbally tore his family to shreds.

So when we got kicked out of our house right after Christmas my senior year, I moved out. My dad may have been “joking” every time he had threatened to kick me out as soon as I was 18, but I didn’t want to find out. So I beat him to the punch. I lived with friends for a few months, and then with my Uncle. And boy did I learn… learn that I really couldn’t have cared less about finishing high school, or musicals, or anything else. Because no matter what happened, I was stupid and a burden to everyone around me. A lot of my social anxiety comes from these years of abuse. Because if I was a burden and inconvenience then, it still must be true now.

Thankfully, my friends and family did help me. I learned a lot of self confidence and I learned that I didn’t have to be around people who made me feel small or worthless. It took me 17 years of listening to that kind of talk to believe those lies and it might take me another 17 to unlearn it.

So why am I writing today? Why share all this, today of all days?

Because I am angry.  Angry, that the man who called me garbage for a majority of my life, wants everyone to forgive and FORGET the pain he inflicted for 24 years. He wants people to be happy that he’s making positive changes and pretend that the past never happened- that the hurt will just magically disappear. And that makes me angry, because deep down, it makes me cry. Because the apologies I received growing up- still made his anger my fault. There was never “I’m sorry, what I did was wrong.” It was always- “I’m sorry, but what you did was wrong and I was right to yell at you.” I can count on one hand the times my dad has attempted to apologize.

The only real apology he gave me was at the beginning of June this year. And this was the first time that he had asked for my forgiveness.

Now I am a believer in change. People can change. The person I was, the yelling 13 year old big sister, is not the woman I am today. And I did forgive him. I forgave the man that was sitting on my couch that asked for forgiveness- because I knew he was trying. And I really do forgive the man who is working on becoming a better person. However, I did not forgive the man I think of when I hear the word “Dad”. I did not forgive 17 years worth of abuse in that moment, because I am still working on letting it go.

In order for me to let it go… I need to write it out. I need to let my tribe know what I’ve gone through. I am done letting the dad of my past hide behind his charming exterior, because I no longer feel a debt to him anymore. I no longer feel like I need to please him, because I’m never going to receive his praise or approval- so why should I need it now? My pain is just that- mine. Hiding my pain for the sake of his reputation will only continue to hurt me.

So this is step one in my process of healing. And this is the hardest thing I have ever felt compelled to write.  

This Is Not A Fad

I’m going to come right out and say it- I am butt hurt about the people who call the rise of women telling their sexual harassment/abuse stories as a “trend” or a “fad”. That implies that it started out of the blue, and will disappear just as quickly. Sure, the hashtag #MeToo may stop being shared or used, but that doesn’t mean that the events that happened in women’s lives just disappeared and the world is going to go back to the place where men’s behavior is rarely questioned, and women are always seen as liars and attention seekers.

I didn’t choose to share my stories with the hasthag because at the time, I was never physically assaulted. But oh boy, do I have stories about harassment and just outright sexism. And it’s not just in my teen years. So let’s take a walk down memory lane and I’ll show you how these stories have impacted me- because these instances didn’t happen in a vacuum. Some of these stories still impact my daily life.

Elementary School

My first encounter that I can recall of sexism I was sitting in my new small town 5^th grade class. I am one of three girls in a class of twelve. Not only that, I am the new kid, so I throw all these kids for a loop. 

We’re doing our U.S. History and Government unit and discussing rights. The example of equal pay comes up and I kid you not, my male classmates turned to me and said, “Women don’t need to be paid the same as men, right?”

The group of four guys didn’t like my outright “Heck yes they do!” response. It boggled my mind that they thought I would just sit there and agree with them.

Another instance, 6^th grade at the same school. I’m sitting on a bench during recess with a friend. Up walks two boys from the other sixth grade class. One proceeds to get down on one knee, and says in the sweetest voice, “Daria, I just wanted to let you know,” making sure he has my full attention before he jumps up to his feet and getting right in my face to shout, “I f&$king hate your guts.” He and his friend then burst into laughter and walk off as though telling me this was by far the best joke ever told. I remember just sitting on that bench with my friend. Both of us speechless. I don’t remember doing anything in particular to either of these boys, let alone doing anything that would warrant an excuse to be told that. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a complete angel in 6^th grade, but when was the last time a stranger walked up to you and told you that they hated you?

6^th grade really was just full of crap from boys. Letters telling me I was the ugliest person on the planet, that I should go die in a hole. All of which  were signed with a loving “from your ugly butt.” Because preteen boys are so creative at their insults. 

I had snowballs with rocks in them thrown at me. I was tripped into a huge puddle of mud by a boy I knew didn’t particularly like me. 

One guy thought it would be funny to follow me around and terrorize both me, my sister (who was in 3^rd grade) and her friends. 

During a dance I had a handful of guys come up and tell me that “Victor” wanted to dance with me, but I just couldn’t believe them at this point- because I knew that I was going to be the butt of yet another joke. 

I remember being dragged to school because I hated going to school- because as much as I had good friends, it was still a nice little slice of hell. I even got to sit in front of the Principal and was asked by him why I didn’t want to be at school. But I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I told him. He was there at a school bowling activity when I slipped and sprained my ankle and thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke- because every kid wants to skip school and then sit there while everyone else has fun.

Would you want to go to school where you felt singled out by a male population that was 3 boys for every girl?

Middle School

Oh boy middle school.  My 7^th grade locker neighbors were boys that thought it was funny to spray my stuff with their Axe body spray and close my locker while I was still rummaging through it. My good guy friend was friends with a guy who constantly told sexist jokes, and was just generally menacing. Greatest feature of this guy was him telling me every day on the walk home from school that my boobs needed to be bigger- because my young teenage body was there for him to appreciate, obviously.

High School  

Thankfully my later teenage years were much better, at least at school. But I will never forget the summer before my Senior Year. 

I was talking a rather long walk home from a Church Carnival. I’m about halfway home when this white car slows down and seems to try to keep pace with me. I glace at the car to see if it’s someone I know, maybe if they were a friend messing with me. But I don’t recognize these guys. Both are skinny, wearing white wife beaters and staring at me like I am the juiciest steak they’ve ever seen. I quickly look forward and keep walking. Somehow that ticked them off so they speed up, and go around the block- and I’m hoping that they will be going off to where ever they were heading.

I cross the street and I see something white out of the corner of my eye, and it’s the white car again. The guys roll down their windows and are just staring at me. One starts talking but I am so terrified I’m having a hard time catching what he’s saying. I just shake my head and pick up my pace, terrified because at any moment, the one in the passenger seat could reach out and grab me. I was terrified of reaching the end of the block because they could have turned and blocked me from crossing the street toward home. But I guess they got frustrated with me and sped off, swearing loudly at me and calling me very unpleasant names.

But I didn’t know if they were going to circle around again, they’d done it once already. So before I waited for them to drive around I back tracked and took the longest and most complex route home that I knew- making the average 30 minute walk an hour. Every single white car that passed me terrified me. I remember getting home and telling my parents why I got home so late. And only my mother was sympathetic. My dad asked me why I didn’t do “this or that?” And my sister just younger than me laughed and thought I was making a mountain out of a mole hill.

While working at a theme park and riding the bus home, I remember guys giving me those similar “you are a big juicy steak” look following me off the bus.

Conclusion

So what does all this mean?

It means that I am still uncomfortable walking by myself and a white car slows down.

It means that during high school I wore pajamas and baggy shirts so nobody could see my body because if nobody could see it, then they couldn't comment on it.

It means that I grew up thinking that the only men that would ever want to marry me were either crazy or extreme perverts. Luckily that is not the case… well he’s a little crazy but not in a negative way.

It means that I rarely trusted the men around me because they either hated me for simply existing, or only saw something they wanted to play with- I wasn’t a person.

That messes with you! And it’s taken years to get over this. But I still feel like I must ask my husband whether he hates me for doing/not doing x, y, or z.

Now that I’m a mother, with both a daughter and son, I don’t want that to be the world they grow up with. I don’t want my children to think it’s acceptable to tell people how they should look, or shout rude comments to complete strangers (in person or on the web). I don’t want either of my children to think that no one will believe her when she’s facing bullying or he’s being harassed. 

My hope is that I teach my children that respect means treating every person they meet with kindness and civility.

Dear readers, I don’t tell you these stories to make you feel pity or to demonize men. (If I thought all men were evil I would NOT have gotten married, let alone had children). My point is to tell you that the women who are putting their reputations on the line and their hurt out in the open to spread awareness- that’s not a fad. That’s not a trend. That’s a cry to be heard and validated that they are humans with experiences that affected their lives. Whether or not you agree with how they handled things, doesn’t matter- they aren’t asking your opinion. They are asking you to say “I see you. I see that your experience was real.” You can have whatever opinion you want, I can’t control your mind. But I ask that you show more kindness, both to the men and women who have taken the brave step to speak out. We've all been vulnerable once, remember how you wanted to be treated.  

In the words of a good friend of mine, "Be excellent to each other." 

Mazes and Whirlpools

Living with anxiety and depression. Perhaps those who have never experienced it first or second hand know what its like. You may picture a person sitting in the same clothes for two weeks straight, laying in bed, staring at a phone or into space, with a hollow look in their eyes and are in serious need of a shower and some real food. That’s a very decent description of what it looks like on the outside. Symptoms people can easily see and respond too. But that isn’t depression- that’s how an individual reacts to their depression.

When I say that I have anxiety and depression I am trying to let you see how I interpret the world around me, and why I say or respond to situations. Let’s start with anxiety.

I have social anxiety. For me, that means I have a really hard time processing social cues, and the larger the group the more intimidated and self conscious I feel.  

Example: When in a small group of people I don’t know, I usually babble and chatter. I become extra outgoing. To others I appear to be the extrovert and comfortable in awkward situations. To me, I am babbling to prevent the people in the group from saying anything that might intimidate me, criticize me, or outright tell me I don’t belong. I want people to like me. I want people to think I’m funny. I want people to think well of me. Because my anxiety likes to tell me that I am boring, that I have nothing important to say, that I am a waste of space and everyone else wishes I just disappeared.

When the encounter is all over, I will go home and think about everything I said. I will analyze every single reaction everyone had to everything I said. And no matter how well I acted, I will be convinced that all those people will still think I’m boring, everything I said was unimportant, and probably “will this girl ever shut up?”

But that’s just one scenario. Every day feels like I’m in a maze- but I wasn’t told when I entered the maze if it was a haunted maze like the ones at Halloween or not. So I not only feel lost, I am extremely cautious about every choice I make because I don’t know if that choice will lead me into the face of some hideous monster, or just a dead end. Which makes me hyper vigilant.

I must make sure that I rehearse everything I’m going to say before I call someone I’m not well acquainted with.

If I’m not sure about which entrance we go through at an event, I make my husband go first.

If we go out to eat, I make sure to memorize everything I’m going to say so I don’t have to repeat myself or come across as a difficult customer.

If I feel like something I am doing is annoying, inconvenient, or rude, I have to triple and quadruple check that the person is okay with it.

I apologize for everything- from stating my opinion, to going off on tangents, to little things that only I would notice but bother me nonetheless.

Little things can set off my anxiety- and I am just on edge and it’s hard to relax until I am at home, sitting down and watching a familiar show.

For those with good sleuthing skills, you may have noticed some things that also resemble depression- the negative self talk for one.

My metaphor for depression is called “The Whirlpool of Suck”.  You don’t always realize just how caught up you are at first. But you start to notice that you’re going in a circle- because depression is a self feeding cycle. You find yourself not eating, not sleeping very well, avoiding social situations- which in turn makes you feel physically and emotionally awful. Which then makes you continue not to eat well, sleep well, and being around people just sounds like too much work. See how it works?

So as you withdraw more and more into yourself, that’s when those pesky negative thoughts arise “what am I doing?” “I am a waste of space” “Life just sucks”. Which feeds into the already unpleasant physical symptoms. The more I feel like this, the more it feels like I’m getting dragged underwater and can barely keep afloat.

With the Whirlpool of suck, it is easy to grab a life line and get pulled out of the circular current. Friends drop by and make you eat, take you out, remind you of things you like to do. You find a video of cute animals that brighten your day. Not every day is spent in the whirlpool. Sometimes, you really are just happy and content. And sometimes one negative thought or encounter can pull you quickly into the current and you get close to the center where you feel stuck and about to go under at any second. That’s where the suicidal thoughts arise. That’s where self harm arises. That’s where finding any outlet be it mindlessly playing video games, watching television or drug and alcohol abuse take place. Because it’s that thin barrier between wanting to escape the pain permanently or temporarily. That’s when the depressed individual stares into the abyss and fights with themselves, debating on whether or not to prepare for the inevitable or keep trying to stay alive, even if it destroys them.

I am living with depression and anxiety- sometimes I’m in the maze. Sometimes I’m in the whirlpool. Sometimes the maze leads me into the whirlpool or vice versa. And on some blessed days I am a normal person who can handle what the world throws at me, who easily tells the negative thoughts to go to the hell where they belong, and can smile and truly enjoy each and every happy moment.

Everyone’s battle with mental illness is unique to their own struggles, but the symptoms are the same. 

Every day is not spent in the Whirlpool of Suck or the Maze of Anxiety. That’s why when the people 

you know are having a good day, celebrate it with them. That’s why if the next day they are having a crummy day, give them love and support- because they enjoy being in their maze or whirlpool as much as you enjoy seeing them there.

I don’t know if these metaphors improved your understanding of what life is like living with mental illnesses, but I hope that you can show more compassion to those that struggle. We are doing the best we can even when we look like the very picture of depression or a Norman Rockwell cartoon. We are all human after all, and struggles are what makes life, life.  

The Truth about Baking

Generally, you can tell I am avoiding something when I am baking simply for the sake of baking. Sounds silly I know. But Let me explain. Baking bread weekly (because I like sandwiches and having toast for breakfast), whipping up cakes for birthdays, or making soft pretzels for the holidays, or I want homemade tortilla chips to go with my homemade salsa, or fresh naan bread to go with curry night- those are all normal reasons to be turning up the oven and rolling my hands in dough. It’s the days when out of the blue I am making big complicated recipes like cinnamon rolls, or starting three different types of cookies in the middle of the day that people should be addressing me with “Put down the spoon, and tell me what’s wrong.”

Honestly, I didn’t know that baking was my warning bell, air raid sirens blaring, red flag waving tell that I was avoiding something until my very first semester of college. Every time there was an exam I didn’t feel ready for, a deadline for a paper, or simply just a lot of homework all due at the same time- you’d find me baking banana bars with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, cinnamon rolls, or snickerdoodles (I have a thing for cinnamon). After I realized that I used up all of my studying time to take goodies to all of the neighbors that I liked in the dorm, it hit me that as nice as I was being to others I was avoiding studying.

For the past two weeks, all I’ve wanted to do is bake. Not just bread, not just the occasional brownie because I’m craving it. I mean I’m scouring pinterest for specialty dessert breads, scones, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, pies, cakes- if it goes in the oven it is now on my baking board.

“But Daria,” you are probably asking, “you’re not in school right now, what could you possibly be avoiding?”

Vague and evasive me would first say “the inevitable.” But honest and blunt me will just say “motherhood.”

Now I know that there are plenty of questions that arise with “How can you avoid being a mother? You talk about your toddler and your pregnancy all the time.”

Well, I’ve wanted to write up a piece about the struggles of having depression while pregnant, but every time I started my thoughts weren’t cohesive enough to be anything worth reading. But today I feel a balance with my emotional rational and my logical rational that I think I can put my thoughts into place.

The beginning is when I wanted to end. For the second time I had just gotten out of the Behavioral Health Unit- or as I lovingly call it, the loony bin. I had learned a lot of coping mechanisms and received med changes so that I could step back into my life without wanting to run away from it. I didn’t care that I had missed Christmas with my family. I was just happy to be holding onto my husband and I was filled with hope and determination to face my post-partum depression, social anxiety, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder head on. Instead of getting the opportunity to see myself overcome the monthly mental challenges, I instead got the wonderful news that I was pregnant for the second time.

Calling your mental health doctor who you talked to only a couple weeks ago about putting off having kids and informing him that you’re pregnant is not pleasant. Nor is the excited congratulations from his secretary. That week, when I was informing people who needed to know that I was on medications and figuring out what was safe for me and the tiny little fetus that decided to take up residence, I wanted to scream at people “this is not something to be happy about! What is wrong with you people?” 

Pregnancy, for me, sucks. I hate it. It is my literal Hell. Now true, on average, I haven’t been nearly as aggressive or snide, but I’ve also had more low periods that are hard to get out of. But the dread of another bout of months of sleepless nights, trying to take care of a tiny dictator who will never say thank you (not that my toddler, who can speak, says thank you either) on top of caring for my other tiny dictator and myself- well wouldn’t any sane person want to avoid that? Wouldn’t any sane person want to avoid feeling like a slave to two unforgiving, unrelenting, selfish tyrants? But apparently I’m the crazy one and I should be excited for having two “miracles” in my life.

Now I admit, growing up I wanted kids. But I never wanted to be a stay at home mom. I need social interactions. I need to feel like I am contributing to society and making the world a better place. That’s why I want to teach. Depression and feeling like I can barely take care of myself, let alone keep two tiny humans alive, doesn’t exactly make me feel like I am accomplishing much of anything.

That’s why I’m jealous my husband gets to go to work and do something that has absolutely nothing to do with repeating “We don’t throw hard things,” or “I will give you more once you’ve finished what’s on your tray” all day long. That’s why I’m jealous that even though we’re both parents- he’s the one with the degree. He has all the doors open to him- grad school, job opportunities, etc. While I feel chained to a job I didn’t want, but can’t leave.

To put it simply, to me, everyone is a demigod on their heroic epic journey filled with monsters and triumphs- and I am the cursed titan Sisyphus who gets to roll a giant rock up the hill, only for it to fall back to the base again for all eternity.  

Right now, I’m miserable enough with this pregnancy but I’m not looking forward to having a newborn, so my first instinct is to just avoid thinking about it at all and thus bake until all the flour and sugar is gone. But baking doesn’t remove the baby from my uterus, or whisk away the monotony of caring for a toddler. Baking, though satisfying, sadly, does not do anything more than having something for me to snack on while I sit here and panic and desperately wish to run away and start life somewhere else. A life where I can be free, without kids and without the expectations to just “suck it up” and face the consequences of being a female with efficient reproductive organs.

I’ve been living with the guilt of not having better birth control since I took the pregnancy test. I live with the guilt of bringing my first tiny human into the world only for me and him to be burden because my mind decided that it doesn’t know how to cope anymore. I am ashamed that I don’t have the energy or the will to be the kind of mom I wanted to be and instead am a mom who does the bare minimum because that’s all I can do.

But sadly, I can’t run away. One, I’d stick out because I am still unabashedly pregnant. And two, I know that leaving isn’t the answer, no matter what my emotional logic says. As a wise baboon once said, “yes the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.” I will be completely honest and tell you I have no idea what good I’ve learned from two miserable pregnancies and facing the realities of depression. My first thoughts are all along the lines of “Don’t have kids, ever”, “set aside money for a really great nanny if the first lesson didn’t stick”, and “be prepared for isolation unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.”

I don’t really have a positive note to end on, mostly because I don’t know how this chapter in my story ends. I don’t know if having a baby will switch my hormones and what's wrong will be fixed. I don’t know if I’ll sink lower and have another stay in the loony bin. I don’t know if I’ll find joy or if all of my fears will come true. Whatever happens, I’m still doing my best to avoid it because I still can’t shake this gut instinct to bake every single recipe on my Pinterest board. I guess the one positive is that baking isn't usually a cause of concern for those with mental health issues.  

When Suicide Makes Sense

Where is that light at the end of the tunnel that everyone talks about?

I don’t believe it exists.

Every day I wake up wondering why I’m even here. 

I know people love me. I know people care.

 But the fact is that I don’t care.

I don’t see a hope in the years or even months to come- what is there?  I mean people ask what they can do to help. But what does helping do, really? It just prolongs the torture of living another day, just filling it with distractions- but they don’t turn off the thoughts in my head. I can’t sleep unless I stare at a screen until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

So I ask- why is it at all worth it?

….

I wrote that on November 28th, in an attempt to write a blog post all about when suicide makes sense to someone with a mental illness. However, I found that writing these words were too scary for me to share with the world. I didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t want to try because I felt overwhelmed, isolated, and I couldn’t see any light or any hope of a future where there wasn’t anything but unbearable pain.

I told Richard this. I cried when I told him I had started looking up ways to end my life. I told him about how tempting it was to jump off the nearest bridge or step in front of a speeding bus. Anything that would be quick and fast, and, hopefully, painless because I was already drowning in indescribable mental pain.

I was sleeping during the day. I would go to bed at 4 am and woke up around 4 pm only to sit and play the same four phone games over and over again, distracting myself from feeling anything. If I did something like made dinner, or bake, it was a rare and mostly out of obligation because I said I would. I hardly interacted with my son and for a while I didn’t want him to feel the pain I did and felt that taking him out of this miserable existence that’s called life would be far kinder than letting him live with a broken mother.

This, my friends, is all emotional logic. When someone is in this state, they really are a danger to themselves, and in my case, a danger to others. I was too tired of trying and yet I was spending all of what little energy I had to find a way end my life. No, suicide isn’t rationally logical. It appears selfish, cruel, throwing all the love and support that our friends and family give us back in their face. 

 Because we are so stuck in our own heads and hurt so much that all we can see is the shadows of pain.

I did talk to my psychiatrist and I did agree that the best thing for me was to go to the emergency room.

So the next morning I went. I didn’t actually make it to the behavioral health unit until late afternoon, but I was there. The first group therapy meeting was all about optimism. And oh my gosh was that hard. Everything he was saying about staying optimistic, just letting things slide off you, find the happy. And it all just sounded so stupid. I didn’t want to listen, and yet a part of me really wanted to believe that what he was saying was true. I knew I was sitting on the emotional fence of do I give into the depression, or do I fight it. I admit it, I cried. Full on sobs, trying not to look at anyone in the eyes as I balled my eyes out. Of course I made the therapist in charge of the group think that he offended me in some way. He didn’t of course, it was just the conversation in my head of admitting whether or not I wanted to be stuck in a place where my hair matched the teal hospital scrubs they gave me.

I was anxious and scared and it was hard to fall asleep. I did sleep, for a little bit, maybe an hour or so, before I was wide awake all over again.

As I sat there, I realized I had no phone to distract me from the pain and the feelings I usually shove away and hide until they overwhelm me. I didn’t have a computer or a television or ipad to offer me an alternate universe where I could just hide. So I stared wide awake at my dim lights on my hospital ceiling and thought about why I was even there.

And then I felt it. Just a small tiny flicker of hope. Hope that I could get better. Hope that I wasn’t completely forgotten by my Heavenly Father, or what others may call the force of the universe. And I felt overwhelmed, but this time it was overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude that there was a safe place for me to go. Gratitude that I live in a time where mental illness is treated with understanding and respect by doctors, and not like an act of demonic possession. I was grateful for my husband and his understanding, support, and strength as he held my hand and brought me books to read while I worked on the icky that has been plaguing me for so long.

I now dub it my 3 AM epiphany. It was that moment in time where it felt like the weight of the world finally slipped off my shoulders and I could breathe light again. I could see that even though I was a mom who struggled with blaming my son for my mental condition (logically untrue, but still felt totally emotionally true), even though I tried to spend as little time as possible with him, he still smiled. He still made eye contact and crawled and pulls himself up and explores. He is a healthy and happy child despite my lack of being a “good” mother.

The phrase, “make your own definition of success” came to my mind and I thought about how the definition of perfect is always changing. But as a linguist and history major in training I remembered that in Hebrew the word perfect means complete. A complete person doesn’t have to look or talk, walk, dress, think, or act like another person. A complete person does the best they can, the best way they know how, and when they make mistakes they learn from them. That night I took the teeny tiny pencils they allowed us to have and wrote in big capital letters- FAIL and made this small sign that was proudly displayed in my room for the rest of my stay.

Fresh

Attempt

In

Learning

It was then I could finally go back to sleep. For the rest of the days I was in there we talked about the hard things, I made friends with everyone in the unit- nurses, techs, therapists, psychiatrists, and most of all my fellow patients. I just wanted to hug them all and tell them that they were loved and important- but it was hard to tell that and accept that myself.

To be honest, I filled most of my time with coloring, reading, therapy, and making paper cranes. I gave them to everyone reminding them that the crane was a symbol of good luck and made the analogy that sometimes we feel like a beat up piece of paper. We get folded and bent into awkward shapes, and sometimes pressed really hard, but then we find out that all those folds and presses were what made us into a beautiful crane.

I pray for those lovely people every day. I wish that I could heal the scars on their arms, still their anxious bodies so they can sleep, help them see the strength and power that they have to pull themselves out of their horrible living conditions. But I don’t have the mental health wand, sadly. So instead I told jokes, complimented them, and asked them to tell me stories- especially when I knew it brought out their brightest smiles.

Like one of the therapists said, “It’s kind of ironic for a person like me to be in there.”  But it’s not. Sometimes the people who are really good at making others feel good, don’t feel like they have a person like themselves that will help carry their burdens, help make them laugh, help them when they don’t believe that there is even a light in this stupid dark tunnel. So I got to read “The Gift of Imperfection” by Brene Brown.

So I happily did all my paperwork, ate my meals, socialized, went to all the group therapy sessions, and took my meds and four days later I came home.

But that’s not where the story ends.

See, day one of being back, I was good. I got a lot done. I made lunch and dinner. I took care of Corbin. I went and talked about my experience at the BHU and told him all about my 3 AM epiphany. I told him all of the things I was going to do to help keep me out of the rut I got stuck in.

But it’s now been a week since I’ve got home. Things have not gone according to plan. I still try 

every day, I find a whole lot more joy in things than I did two weeks ago, but oh man it is hard admitting that I’m still human.

I wanted to be fixed. I wanted to go back to my pre marriage life where I was in perfect condition for finishing school and going on to doing important things like teaching students, as well as being a good mom and wife. Yet as the week went on I found that though I have hope, I don’t know what I have hope in.

I didn’t answer these questions: “How will I feel like a successful person (not just a mom)?” “What am I supposed to do when I’m home alone with my son while Richard finds a job and finishes school?” “What is it exactly that I look forward to when I wake up every morning?”

In the BHU it’s easy to answer those questions because I saw it as a personal vacation to really reflect and recharge. So how will I feel like a success? My psychiatrist will tell me when it’s time to go home. What am I going to do when I get home? Love my son and husband. What do I look forward to every morning? Seeing my husband during visiting hours.

See? Easy.

But now that I am home and dealing with the reality that I felt way too overconfident in my capabilities of calling someone every day, doing chores around the house, taking care of my son, or address the icky yucky feelings and anxiety that weren’t really resolved.

So I sit. And I write. And I try to think through how I’m feeling and working on allowing myself to feel the icky without it needing to stick to me forever because other icky things might come by and be even ickier.

I would apologize that I didn’t have a happier note to end on. I wish that I could say that because of my 3 AM epiphany I finally was able to feel healed and move on. But that’s not how things work, at least not for me. It’s still taking life one day at a time, and some moments one hour at a time. 

Parenting and Depression

When you blame your child for your mental state, it’s really hard to talk about parenthood.

I know that my son is not at fault for the change in my hormones, my lack of interest in anything, my inability to concentrate, my lack of appetite, or my feelings of worthlessness. Those are all just symptoms of a much bigger issue that was triggered by pregnancy, not by the human that was created.

However, that still doesn’t stop the demons in my head telling me that if I had never been pregnant or had a baby, then I wouldn’t be so messed up.  It doesn’t stop me from hating myself for getting pregnant in the first place and hating my body for being so functionally feminine.

But you know what it does, it makes it really hard for me to really bond with my son. Sure, I play with him, feed him, sing him silly songs, read him stories- but I’d do that with any child. It’s the lack of concern I feel when I’m far away from him. It’s the frustration that I am just “the bringer of food” (since I don’t breastfeed anymore) to him. It’s the thought that if I had the option to just leave him and all his stuff on someone’s doorstep without any consequences, I totally would.

When I was asked by my doctor if I could take something off my plate, what would it be?

My answer was Motherhood.

I am not the individual that at the end of the day just knows without a doubt that they love their child/children. I am not the woman who thinks that my child “is my whole world” and “couldn’t think of what I’d ever do without him”. Trust me. I can totally think of all the things I would be doing without my son. And I am still convinced that I would be a lot healthier and happier if he didn’t exist.

And so I sit here. And I be the “best” parent I can be with the way my brain allows me to function right now. I take it one day at a time and lately one hour at a time. Because it wouldn’t be socially acceptable for me to leave him on a doorstep and just walk away. Because my family would probably hate me if one day my son was no longer there for them to coo at and play with. Because the world keeps reminding me that my son is supposed to be my “calling”, “blessing”, or “greatest joy that life can bring” (I hate all of those “inspirational” posts. They just make me angry). I won’t even go into the expectations of giving my son siblings (which if you’re going to poke your nose, the answer is: I didn’t know my sex life was any of your business.)

 So what is parenthood like when you can’t bring yourself to love your child? The demons in my head tell me that loving my child is admitting that I like being miserable. By loving my child I accept that my only role in life is being a successful statistic of female reproduction.

What parenthood looks like on the outside is just doing the basics- feed, change, put down for a nap, and repeat. On good days, there may be some songs and reading time. But on average he gets the basics and plays in his walker because I haven’t had the energy to baby proof the apartment. Perhaps one day we’ll have a good relationship. Until then, I do what I can so we both survive.

The hardest part is asking for help, because someone may have offered on a good mental day for me, but on the bad days, I just feel guilty- because the weight of responsibility is on my shoulders and I should be better than this. It’s hard asking for help because I don’t want to be so dependent on others that they feel like I take advantage of them. It’s hard because I don’t need people judging how bad of a mom I am, because I am already well aware of that, thank you. It’s so much easier to just let my son sit and scream in the other room (when he’s inconsolable after a changing, feeding, cuddling, and pain meds if he’s teething) while I blast my favorite music on headphones.

Perhaps one day we’ll have a good relationship. Until then, I do what I can so we both survive.