Rotten Zucchini & Depression

I’ve been MIA for a little while - over 2 months to be exact… and if you’ve followed my story, you may know what this means for me, and if your new here – hiii, welcome… sometimes I post regularly and sometimes depression kicks my ass.

I’ve been struggling.

I went on an awesome vacation with my husband in Hawaii, had the BEST time of my life, refreshed my soul and my marriage and came home with the really cliché expectation that this experience would in some way make me new and give me the motivating fuel I’d been searching for.

But, I came home, and depression reared its ugly head, raised its spears and yelled “we attack at dawn!”

I spent a week on MY time, doing whatever I wanted, forgetting all the responsibility of home and then was *shocked* to come home to see the responsibility hadn’t diminished in my absence, if anything it had multiplied.

For about a week or so I just blamed it on “post vacation blues” … but deep down I knew this was more than that. I’ve delt with this cyclical depression in postpartum for 2 years now, I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I cope, and I have learned that my first big red depression flag is dinner. Or really, the lack thereof.

Undepressed Tiffy plans family dinners at least 5 days a week, meticulously grocery shopping, prepping meals so they are easy to cook after Ridge is home from school…Undepressed Tiffy doesn’t let the fresh fruit/veggies/raw chicken spoil or go to waste. Not that Tiffy – she has it figured out…

It starts slow, ordering take out or going out to eat a few times a week… Maybe I’m just a little depressed… and then before I know it, we are eating chicken nuggets or mac n cheese for the third time this week, there is rotten zucchini at the bottom of the fridge accompanied by chicken with a sell by date of at least a week ago…. Red flag, Tiffy… I think this is full fledge depression.

I WANT to feed my kid healthy meals. I ENJOY making meals for my family and I take pride in making just a little bit extra so my Husband can have something lunch the next day.

The reality of depression for me is that just living becomes so exhausting that the things I enjoy stop being joyful and start feeling like burdens. The crave to do them exists, it’s the will to do them that becomes harder and harder to find.

I could blame this episode on a lot of things. My workload stacked up. I’ve been really stressed. The world got scary. My 2 year old needed surgery. The weather was bad. After 8 months of trying to conceive (TTC), I got yet ~another~ negative pregnancy test followed by a period (that gets harder on us every month). I haven’t been sleeping well… I could go on… But I don’t think any one of those things caused me to sink into a depression. The culmination of those things was unhelpful, sure.

I’ve spent so much energy the past couple of years trying to point fingers and source each bout of depression with the hope that one of these days I would be able to somehow stop it before it took me out. Time and time again, I end up losing. Turns out, its mostly out of my control. As I look back at the past few weeks, I’m not sure there’s something I could have done differently that would have magically unspiraled my mental health. I can only control how I react.

So how did I react?? well – so far, I am not proud of my attempts to nip depression in the bud. It started with plan A…

Plan A: Alcohol.

I started drinking, more than usual... like ashamedly A LOT more than usual. To be honest, it did help, temporarily, at least. A few drinks deep and the weight of existence would lift itself off my shoulders. Until the next morning, I’d wake up and be *shocked* again to realize that this did not bring me the peace I was longing for. This worsened over a couple of weeks before I finally succumb to the fact that finding a short-term solution for a long-term problem just intensifies the problem. So, on to the next plan.

Plan B: find serotonin via drastic change in appearance. That’ll undepress me.

I cut about 7 inches off my hair… Plot twist – my hair stylist gave me some “texture” during this cut that is hard to style, and it turns out I don’t really like it…NEXT.

Plan C: Lean in.

Let the depression take its course. Get away for a few days, do something I love but leave time for me to do nothing at all… that’s right friends, it’s time for another - Mommy Weekend.

This weekend I am getting away from the house, checking into a hotel and working on my mental health. I need a break. I need a reset.

I know what your thinking – Tiffy didn’t you JUST go to Hawaii… isn’t a “break” what set this whole thing off??… and you’d be exactly right.

This is somehow different. Hawaii was for vacation, for my marriage, for the experiences and memories.

Mommy weekend is just for me. For my mental health. For re-centering, finding what brings me joy and exploring my coping mechanisms.

And let’s be honest, it could totally not work. That’s also a possibility. But there is no shame in my Plan D.

Plan D: Talk with my psychiatrist.

The beautiful perfect hawaii trip that started my mental downfall

10 Years

Lets talk about the #10yearschallenge.

10 years. That’s a long time. 10 years ago I was 16.

Here’s what I remember about being 16.

I filled my spare time with softball and volleyball. When I wasn’t at school or at practice, I was babysitting. I was obsessed with my dog, Luke. I think I wanted to be an author or a lawyer, but only because I was really good at arguing with my mom, and fluent in Latin. I pursued modeling for exactly 1 week before deciding that was absolutely not for me. I wanted to go to The University of Colorado, I don’t even remember why.

I don’t think I was sure about much when I was 16, but I very vividly remember, dreaming about being a mom.

Its been 10 years….

I didn’t make anything of my sports career – but my best friends from softball and volleyball are still my best friends today.

My dog Luke will be 12 this year.

I didn’t become a lawyer – but I have a masters in Tax Law, which is nerdy in its own right.

I didn’t go to Colorado, but had the best time at OU.

My dream of becoming mom – that one did come true. It is everything I could have ever hoped for. I could have never imagined the journey to get here would have been as hard as it was - but I made it and I think 16 year old me would be so excited about that.

Instead of making this about the past 10 years (because its boring, we get it, I became an adult I don’t need to recap my early 20’s…it was messy… lets move on), I want to look forward. Lets be cheesy, lets ask the question… “where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

I have never thought this through, or wrote this out, but I want to, and I’m excited to. I feel like there has been a huge shift in energy, and we are preparing for something big. I just have this feeling that the next 10 years are going to be my PRIME (this is coming from the girl that adamantly believed she peaked in 8th grade until about 6 months ago).

Here is what I am manifesting in my next 10 years.

At 36, –

• I am approaching my 13th wedding anniversary with the absolute love of my life.

• I am mom to more than 1 kid, but hopefully less than 5. (still a point of contention in my marriage, but I feel pretty confident the answer is more than 2 and less than 5, sorry reese!)

• My family is fully invested in following my kids passions. On the weekends, if we aren’t at tournaments or showing animals at a county fair, we are camping, traveling and exploring.

• I am an independent, successful business owner. (more to come on this dream in the coming months, hopefully)

• I’ve built a business so successful that it’s allowed my husband to make his hobby business a full time gig, we both get make our own schedules.

• I am an author; I have finally pursued my lifelong dream of writing a book.

• I have a hobby. Something I do just for me. (I’m working on figuring out what this one is)

• After years of creating humans and sustaining life, my body belongs to me again. I have a positive, healthy relationship with it.

• My funny farm is thriving. My brahma heifer, Doof, loves to be ridden like a horse (if you don’t know what a brahma is – it’s God’s most favored centaur – except instead of part goat its part hunchback of Notre Dame, part cow, part bunny)

• My dog, Luke, will be turning 22, he is in exceptional health, the Guinness book of world records sends him a cake. (these are my manifestations, get your negativity out of here)

So there it is, my top 10 goals for the next 10 years. Imperfect, a little vague, surely with struggles of their own… but they are mine, and I am ready.

 It felt good to write it out, therapeutic and encouraging, try it out.. (and … for the record- cheaper than therapy so its worth a shot)

Me at 16

Me at 26

TTC

For a few months now my husband and I have been trying to conceive (TTC). While I am overjoyed at the thought of becoming a mom again, I can’t help but be anxious about all the other things TTC brings for me.

Emotionally, this journey so far has been exhausting. We never really “tried” with my last two pregnancies, they were effortless and exciting in their own way. This one is different. Every month I pin down my “fertile” days and follow them closely, monitoring my body carefully for signs of ovulation. Then 2 weeks later I have the excitement of peeing on a stick and trying not to get my hopes up. Each negative test is more devastating than the last. Then my period comes, my heart sinks, my dream of another baby feels further and further away….and then we start the process over again. It’s a discouraging rollercoaster.

TTC – 1, Tiffy – 0.

Then there’s controlling what I can control… and that comes with another hard battle for me: breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding hormones can act as a natural birth control, making it more difficult to get pregnant. For the past few months, I avoided research and wrote this off as a myth, telling myself I could do both. However, TTC has become so devastating that I finally have to face the facts. It’s time for us to end our breastfeeding journey. On top of TTC, I always told myself “When he can ask for it, he’s too old for it” … well, just this week he started saying “booby” when he was ready for milk. That solidified this decision for me, it’s time to quit.

I am so proud of how far we’ve come. For 2 years my body has been able to provide nutrition and comfort for my baby. Breastfeeding created a bond with my son that carried me through my darkest moments. I may not have survived my fight against depression and suicide, I quite literally owe my life to breastfeeding. I can’t help but mourn the end of this journey and all that it has done for me.

TTC – 2, Tiffy – 0.

On to the things I can’t control. The “what ifs”.

This one is big. This one is scary.

Its no secret I have struggled A LOT in postpartum. Am I ready to start it all over again? What if its better? What if its worse? Can I handle hallucinations again? Depression? Suicidal thoughts? Am I being selfish by risking Ridge’s ‘healthy’ and ‘stable’ mother for another child? I am so quick to let my thoughts spiral and create a sinking feeling in my gut.

TTC – 3, Tiffy – 0.  

These are questions in conversations I’ve had many times with my husband, my therapist and my psychiatrist.

All those conversations have led me to one conclusion. The answer to every single one of those questions is “I don’t know”. BUT! And this is a big BUT!

BUT – I have already done the dirty work; I have built my foundation of resources. I know the signs of struggle, I have grown to be more self-aware, I have my support team at the ready.

TTC – 3, Tiffy – 1.

Since the very beginning, I have been so meticulous and intentional about medication. I have been breastfeeding through this journey, therefore, every medication I have been prescribed has had to have been safe for nursing. However, I also made sure my medication routine would be safe for pregnancy as well – I have gotten it cleared with both my psychiatrist and OB-GYN. I won’t have to go through the process of weaning or be weary of potentially hurting my child. I feel safe. I feel prepared.

TTC – 3, Tiffy – 2.

While the score may portray a losing game now, the final score is determined just like quidditch. The snitch is worth 150 points. One of these days, whether it be next month or 18 months from now, I’ll catch my snitch, the test will be positive, and I will get to spend 9 months absolutely thrilled to be throwing up every day (that’s how my last pregnancy went anyway).  

To my future baby – Hi. I prayed for you for so long. I’ve loved you long before you were even conceived. I can’t freaking wait to meet you.  

Life After Psychosis

I want to preface this with 2 things.

1. I think I am doing good, great, even. I am as stable as I could ask for, my medication routine is working for me, I haven’t had a hallucination in nearly 4 months and my depression is, for now, controlled. I am thriving. I am in a place that even 6-8 months ago I thought I would absolutely never see, and I am so proud of myself for getting here.

2. This is just my experience. I don’t speak on behalf of every person who has experienced psychosis, but for me - this is what life after psychosis has looked like.

Ok, now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let me tell you why postpartum psychosis continues to ruin my life, even 4 months removed from my last “episode”.

That’s half a joke, and half only funny because its true.

Before psychosis, I struggled with PTSD from an accident I had in college. The accident caused damage to my lungs, and after that every time I felt even a little bit out of breath – my brain would go into fight or flight and start to go into “panic” mode about not being able to breathe. These anxiety attacks were infrequent, and in the grand scheme of things – not that bad.

Fast forward to now. I’d kill for a panic attack that minor again. But oh no no no, not this new Tiffy. New Tiffy, post-postpartum psychosis Tiffy, PTSD controls so much of her life now.

For a solid year and a half, my brain tricked me about once a week… So, somewhere around 78 times my brain convinced me of something that was not real.

Imagine finding out your spouse lied to you 78 times. SEVENTY-EIGHT lies, from little white lies about your cooking, to really big lies about their loyalty or faithfulness. That would lead most people to divorce, or at least into extensive couple’s therapy. Would you be able to just ~*trust*~ them right away? Absolutely not, they have lost that right and not earned a dime of it back.

This is the relationship I have with my brain now. I just don’t trust it. When I feel the most untrusting of my brain, I start to panic about my perception of reality.

I hate the word “triggered” but I am about to use it a lot, so -  here we go.

There are certain situations I know will trigger me to question my reality, and I struggle with these almost daily.

• Noises I can’t identify (also, loud noises) -  Thumps, whispers, creaking, people on the other side of a wall talking on the phone, people wearing masks and having a conversation. Can’t handle it.

• Large gatherings - People gathered into a space where multiple conversations are being had simultaneously. Can’t handle it.

The most triggering place for me is my office. There is a lot of both of those things happening at the office. I used to be so panicked about the office that I was throwing up, daily, at just the anticipation of having to go. I have worked through a lot of that anxiety that its not “throw-up-panic-attack” bad anymore. But its bad enough that I only go into the office 2x a week, and the thought of doing more than that does still make me want to throw up. When the construction began in the office above mine, the thumps and drilling noises made me spiral so badly I was nearly in tears when my boss told me to just go home. The spiral doesn’t end when I leave the office, either. It puts me in a headspace that follows me home, has me questioning my house as it creaks or the oven as it ticks… for the rest of the day my body stays in *panic* mode until I am so drained I fall asleep by, or before, 8 pm.

The other most triggering thing for me lately has been family gatherings. I’ve got a big, loud, crazy family that I love more than anything in the world, BUT yikes has it been hard to be a part of it lately.

Last month we had my favorite yearly family get together. It’s the guaranteed one time of year we are all going to be in one place, have a good time, play charades, and just hang out. This year, we even had limited the number of people so instead of a normal 75-100 people there was only about 25 of us… it was so physically and emotionally draining for me to be there, I had to excuse myself before my favorite part, the charades, even started. It was just too overwhelming to be in a conversation and be hearing 3 other conversations, then I start to panic about whether or not those are actual conversations or if I am just hearing voices on top of my own conversation… the whole thing is a mess in my head but it all leads to the same place – panic. Panic, for me, is usually followed by a full-body shut down. I get so overstimulated, I quite literally run out of battery power, and can not function without just going to sleep. I left the party early, went straight to sleep, and slept through the peak of the party. That was the second time in a week I had to leave a family function early.

It’s pretty defeating to be the person who just *can’t handle* daily office work or simple family functions. It’s pretty disparaging to be controlled by small, meaningless sounds. I’ve put so much work into returning to “normalcy” and it can all feel wasted after just a single “thump”.

I think I am making progress though, and that’s what keeps me going to the office when I can or pushing out of my comfort zone and forcing myself into large gatherings.  

This is what “normal” looks like after psychosis. Its over-run and dominated by the inability to trust your own brain. Everyday I celebrate small victories like grocery shopping without being triggered or lasting in my office for a full 9 hours without crying or throwing up.

I don’t know if this is how I’ll be forever, but I am hopeful I can keep working through it one small victory at a time.

“Normal”

I swear I used to be “normal”. At least I thought I was. I had battled with depression seriously maybe one other time before I had a baby, but nothing close to what I experienced postpartum. I struggled with my fair share of anxiety – but thought everyone did from time to time. My anxiety, I’d later find out, was PTSD from an accident I had in college. The only real “mental health” struggle I really had was ADHD.

And now, one baby and a lot of hormones later, my “mental health” rep sheet is a tad longer than that. I don’t know if “normal” is a thing that I will ever be again.

The first two psychiatrists I went to heard that my grandmother was a bipolar schizophrenic and immediately dismissed the idea of “postpartum mood disorders” and jumped straight to “bipolar schizophrenic”. They didn’t seem to care how normal I was before I had a baby, they didn’t listen to my symptoms, they just labeled me and told me I needed medication or inpatient services. Call me stubborn, but I refused medication from my first two psych’s because I didn’t feel the need to listen to them if they weren’t listening to me.

And then, in June of this year, I found myself in the office of yet another psychiatrist. He sat with me for over an hour at my first appointment and we talked about EVERYTHING. I half expected him to write me off just as the others had, but this time it was different.

He explained genetic mental illness to me like this – let’s say someone has a family history of alcoholism. That person isn’t automatically an alcoholic, but instead would be considered more likely to become one under the right circumstances. If that person experiences undue stress, that could trigger that “alcoholic” gene to turn on.

Whether this is exactly what he meant, or if its scientific at all, I don’t know, but this is how I interpreted it and it made me feel heard.

“I don’t think you are schizophrenic.” He told me, “I don’t know if you are bipolar, but having a baby was your ‘triggering’ event.”

He wasn’t jumping to conclusions. He was listening, attentively, and he laid out my options so I could decide my next step, instead of having one chose for me. I felt seen. Most of all, I finally didn’t feel like all of this was somehow my fault. For so long I had felt like I wasn’t mentally strong enough to become a mother, like I had inherently done something wrong, that the depression and psychosis could have been somehow prevented.

Through blurry, tearful eyes, I looked up and asked, “am I going to be like this forever?”

He sighed, handed me a tissue, and said, “I don’t know.”

Strangely, I found his honest uncertainty comforting.

He went on to explain that the hormonal surge of postpartum often causes these triggers in people prone to depression or psychosis, and that sometimes the “prone gene” can be “turned off”, or altered, by medication, or sometimes with time and lack of hormones they go away on their own, but sometimes they don’t, and it becomes a lifelong issue.

Its been nearly 6 months since this appointment and to be completely transparent, I ask him every 3 weeks during our check ins - “am I bipolar?” and his answer still remains “I don’t know”.

I ask, in part, because I am neurotic and have a need to be in control… but also because after doing my research, bipolar disorder really does explain a lot for me.

So, all that to say, I don’t know what my new “normal” is. Or if I will ever be “normal” again. Right now, I am stable. I don’t consider myself depressed. I haven’t had any hallucinations in a few months. I am doing really good, and I am proud of myself for getting to this point. If anything, I’ve learned that standing up for yourself as a patient is important, and that “shopping” for the right doctor can be LIFE-CHANGING. Great doctors are out there, doctors that listen to everything you need to say and ask all the right questions and make sure you are comfortable with your treatment plan, so don’t settle for doctors that throw you a prescription and move on to the next patient. I am also extremely grateful for the advances in modern medicine and availability of mental healthcare that I know my grandmother did not have the same access too. In a way, this whole journey has made me feel a lot closer to her. She struggled so openly with her mental illness during a time where mental illness wasn’t acknowledged as a medical issue, she was often misunderstood or labeled “crazy” or “having a nervous breakdown”. I think she’d be so proud to see mental illness talked about the way it is today.

So if this is the way I am going to be forever, then I will spend forever breaking the stigma that mental illness isn’t “normal”. Who wants to be “normal” anyway?

Hindsight

Its been awhile since I wrote.

In part, its because my last post was so intense, it brought up a lot of raw emotion.

But if I’m being honest with myself, its also in part because I was sunk in a bout of depression again.

I feel better now, but I knew I wasn’t myself. So here I am, after a few months of struggle, blessed with the ability to look back and say “that’s not me”.

So as an exercise in self-awareness, lets recap all the red flags I ignored. The things I knew weren’t “me”.

1. I stopped doing the things I enjoyed – like writing.

2. I fell behind on housework

3. Over-procrastinated my work work.

4. I craved energy, and in turn, was drinking excess amounts of caffeine (like double shots of espresso at 2pm)

5. I changed my nighttime routine – instead of putting the baby down and enjoying a show or game with my husband or watching something to unwind, I was going straight to bed… mostly before 8:30.

Those are just the big red flags for me, I’m sure there’s more if you asked my husband.

Let’s take it another step, how did I get there?

1. At the end of August, I had a few psychotic symptoms resurface after a few months strong on a new medication. I think I can trace this onset psychosis to mainly intense stress. Nevertheless, I felt defeated, I felt ashamed, I felt like a failure.

2. At the beginning of September, my doctors changed my medication to alleviate the psychosis. As a person who struggles with change, and with the concept of medicine, this caused me a lot of anxiety.

3. The med change was hard on my body, physically, the adjusting period took a few weeks and my body was TIRED. I felt like I couldn’t keep up with day-to-day activities.

4. On top of being tired, I started to get busy at work. I wasn’t so stressed about the actual work though. This time I began to stress about my own levels of stress. I’d say to myself, “if you don’t stay on top of this, the psychosis will come back, and then you’ll have to restart new meds AGAIN and then if those don’t work….” I’d start to spiral in negative thought. I was constantly anxious.

5. I became so anxious; I was literally making myself sick. Every afternoon around 2 or 3 when I’d feel like I’d accomplished a lot of my to-do lists, the ball of anxiety in my stomach would sneak up and tell me it wasn’t ever enough. Despite my best efforts, by early evening I’d be throwing up lunch, and neglecting dinner. This went on for about a week.

6. I was blaming myself. My therapist, Whitney, pointed out to me that instead of saying to myself, “these things are happening” I was saying, “these things are happening BECAUSE I am an insane person” or “BECAUSE I am not enough”. I was quick to jump the gun and point the finger at myself.

In our final exercise of self-awareness, I like to reflect on what helped me snap back.

The answer, this time, is short - The stomach bug. While I wish this reflection could be something profound and helpful, the honest answer is that I caught a nasty stomach bug. However, I do think a couple really important things happened during the 5 days I miserably fought this bug.

1. I was forced to stop. Forced to “lean into” the way depression makes me feel. Coupled over in stomach pain, I had no other option but to call in sick, temporarily drop my responsibilities and let my husband take care of the house and our child and just *lay* in bed for a few days.

2. FOMO (fear of missing out). While I was laid up in bed, I could hear my son playing outside the bedroom window or giggling in the living room, and I felt so sad that I wasn’t there playing too. It made me really look forward to filling dump trucks full of dirt or going on walks again – or even just sitting with him at dinner while he says/does funny things. I couldn’t wait to get back to mommin’.

3. I was in pain. Intense pain. A pain so fierce that reflecting on that pain made me grateful to have an otherwise healthy body.

4. I COULDN’T take the blame for this. There was nothing I could have done to prevent myself from getting the bug. This forced me to realize that not everything is my own fault. Things don’t happen to me *because* of anything… sometimes, things just happen. Good or bad, they just happen.

While it super-sucked and I don’t recommend trying to get a stomach bug to cure depression, I do think that this bug forced me to mentally reset. It put into perspective the things I love about life, and I lost interest in the “what-ifs” I’d been exerting so much mental energy on. I instead began to use that energy to plan out “when I feel better…” activities.

As it turns out, I have a lot of things to look forward to, and a lot of things in my daily life that I LOVE doing. I needed the miserability of the bug to help spin all those things back into a positive light.

This is a process my therapist and I used during the height of my depression and sometimes still circle back to as necessary, and it’s become my favorite tool. After an episode of depression, or psychosis, or anxiety or any other big mood change ask yourself 3 questions. What changed? What happened that made you feel that way? And What helped you feel yourself again?

I feel in control when I can reflect in this way. As the old saying goes - “The only doing better is knowing better” . When you begin to unravel and know more about yourself, you grow. There is so much strength and empowerment in self-awareness.

Soaking up the little moments I could during the nasty stomach bug

What the Suicidal Person Wants You to Know…

This took me about 2 weeks to write – because even though I consider myself “recovered”, I am not too far removed from the darkness. It doesn’t take much for me to get *that* bad, but it has gotten a lot easier to bring myself out of it, and that’s progress.

Anyway - I’ve wanted to talk about this but it’s always felt a little dark, and I don’t want it to be. I think this is important. If people on the outside could get a better understanding of what severe depression feels like, they can be a better resource for their friend, sister, brother, parent, child, or stranger. They could help save someone’s life.

However, I realize there is no “light” way to talk about suicidal thoughts, but as a recovered suicidal person, I am going to try my best.

This is the picture the media, society, whoever… has painted of the “suicidal person”.

That person is sad. That person is pessimistic. That person is dramatic. That person lacks a support system. That person needs to pray more.

Very rarely are those things true.

In fact, these assumptions are incredibly unhelpful.

Here is my experience, here is my *darkness*

That person is sad.

I can’t even call it sad. Sad doesn’t touch the surface of what is happening here.

I wasn’t feeling intense sadness, I was feeling nothing at all – which is worse. Sadness implies you have something to be sad about. I had nothing to be sad about. I was in a life stage I had been longing for. I was a mom!!!! I’ve wanted so badly to be a mom! And yet, *nothing*.

I felt worthless. I wasn’t good enough to be a mom. I was failing my son, he deserved better. I felt guilty for not feeling happy. I felt guilty for feeling consumed by nothingness. It became physically painful for me to do anything, and when all my responsibilities piled up in front of me, I sat in awe of how worthless I was. I proved all those negative thoughts right. I fell so behind on my day-to-day tasks that I felt like I was drowning. I couldn’t catch up; I couldn’t start over… and that’s when death started feeling like an option. I wasn’t sad, I was overwhelmed. I wanted a re-start button. The closest thing to a restart button, was death.

That person is pessimistic, dramatic.  

There is no one on earth who wanted to be happy more than I did. I tried so hard to just *be happier*. I wanted to wake up and feel myself again. In my darkest moment I remember asking my husband as he held me sobbing “why does everything have to feel like this?”.

I did not want to feel what I was feeling. No one wanted me to get better more than I did. No one CHOOSES to feel depressed. Depression consumes you in a way that leads you to believe you have no other option but darkness, or more darkness.

I once had someone I love very much tell me, “It can’t be that bad”.

That sentence broke me. I was trying my very hardest to hold myself together, exhausting every fiber of my being just to barely scrape by, and for what? To be told I was, what? Dramatic?

It is that bad. No matter how it looks on the outside, if someone tells you its ~THAT~ bad, believe them. Love them, support them, help them… but do not doubt them. I’ve never broken my arm, but I know that it probably hurts. If you have never felt that pain, you can still muster up some empathy.

That person lacks a support system.

This may be true for some people, but it wasn’t for me. I had the world’s most supportive and understanding husband who was doing everything he could possibly think of to get me the help I so desperately needed, but I still felt alone in my own thoughts. I felt immensely guilty that my husband was having to take on my burden, I felt weak, I felt unworthy. Everything I was feeling on my own, doubled in size when I shared it with my husband, feeling shameful that he had to spend even 1 second of his time worrying about me.

To a normal person, you’d think “well that’s just not true, he loves you and wants what’s best for you, he was just doing his part, you aren’t a burden.”

You are correct, normal person, that is the case. But depression did not let me think that logically. It made me believe that I was undeserving of the love I was receiving, I was a bad wife, a worse mother. These thoughts cycled in my brain, worsening in intensity until I was so alone in my own head, it did not matter how much love and help I was receiving, I’d been convinced that if I was dead, my husband would have less to worry about.

It sounds extreme. That’s because it is.

People think suicide is “selfish”. I’m guilty of that. Before having experienced this darkness, I’d probably agree with that statement. I would have thought, “how could they do that to their families?”.

What I learned in the darkness is that suicidal people have been lied to by their depression. Depression has convinced them, as it convinced me, that their death would be a welcomed sigh of relief for their loved ones. That dying would be a favor.

Onto my last soapbox –

That person needs to pray more.

I got this “advice” a lot. This, to me, was the most harmful advice I received. Let me first clarify, this is the insinuation that the severely depressed person is somehow not “spiritual” enough, that they could “spend more time with God” and be “cured”. 

I know people who told me this did not mean it harmfully, but in my darkest moments, this advice just made me feel more alone.

I had been praying, I had been seeking out God. Guess what? I was still depressed. I still thought I was better off dead.

At night, after my baby and husband had gone to sleep, I’d sit in prayer. Most of the time through heavy tears, I would plead for God to take away the pain, to take away the darkness, or even to just take me away from all of it, I’d tell Him how thankful I was for all the blessings I had, but I struggled to feel the joy of being “blessed”. I spent countless nights crying myself to sleep, only to wake up and do it again.

Depression would rear its ugly head and say, “not even God can save you.”

I was led to believe that God’s cure for depression was somewhere in between the lines of verses about anxiety, overcoming obstacles or finding strength. That simply isn’t true.

When the bible does address depression and suicide, the answer is far from “pray harder”.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is overwhelmed, he is tired, he is comparing himself to others and he just doesn’t understand “God’s plan” for him. He gives up. Elijah becomes suicidal and asks God to take his life.

God sends an angel to Elijah who tells him to “take rest, eat cake”. 

When he is rested, Elijah seeks God again. He still feels unworthy and overwhelmed. God understands, so to ease Elijah’s burden, He names 2 men who Elijah can depend on to step in for him, and a 3rd man who is to be his right-hand man.  

Gods actual cure for depression had 3 parts.

1. Take rest

2. Fuel your body (eat cake)

3. Ease the burden

This brings me to the real point of this post.

Lets summarize all the things that are NOT helpful to say to a severely depressed or suicidal person.

UNHELPFUL

-          choose happiness

-          just be happier

-          you are just sad, sadness will pass

-          you need to be more positive

-          you are being dramatic

-          it’s not that bad

-          you are being selfish

-          spend more time with God/in prayer

-          maybe you need a hobby

-          try making new friends

- everybody feels like that sometimes

-          you need to “get out” more

(if I missed one, please DM me, I will add to this list because I think its helpful to know)

If these are all the wrong and unhelpful, then what is right? What is helpful?

Ultimately, what helped me come out of my darkest moments was God’s actual cure for depression. Those three things are what could help save a suicidal person. THESE things are helpful.

REST.

I needed to take rest, I needed to let go of all responsibility and just ~rest~. On a few occasions, that was laying in bed for the whole day. On those days, my mom or my husband would take on my household duties. I laid in bed, painfully fighting intrusive thoughts, but the laundry still got done, the baby got to daycare, the floors were clean (thanks mom). I didn’t have to watch those responsibilities pile up in front of me, I got to take the rest my mind and body needed.

EAT CAKE.

This goes hand in hand with rest. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t doing much of anything for myself. My mom came up and stayed with us and she and my husband planned dinners, she would go to the grocery store, she would bring breakfast up to my office, she asked me what I wanted for lunch and would make sure I got that thing. She was making sure my body was fueled and taking one more thing off my plate.

EASE THE BURDEN

You can see what a huge role my mom had in easing my burden at home, she was truly a God send.

My husband helped a lot too, he is also the one who researched therapists in our area and found one that he thought was the best fit.

Whitney, my therapist, helped me learn coping mechanisms, provided an outlet to talk to and an honest feedback to tell me when I wasn’t thinking logically or needed more intervention.

While I never told my boss outright what was going on with me, she could tell I wasn’t performing at my “normal” and when things got bad, I had to tell her the workload was just to much for me, and she took care of it. Somedays, I just called in sick because that was easier than trying to work.

Little by little I chipped away at what I could, but I couldn’t fully do it on my own. I needed support, I needed guidance, and I also needed medication. Those are the things that pulled me away from the darkness, and it didn’t happen overnight. It took weeks, if not a few months, to be able to look back and say “wow, I don’t even know who that person was, because it was not me”.

Helpful things –

-          Is there anything I could take off your plate?

-          Let me take *child* for a few hours so you can get some rest.

-          Would you like me to come stay with you for a few days, I would love to help around the house.

-          I saw this funny video and it made me think of you.

-          Can I bring you a meal?

-          Can I pick up some groceries for you?

-          Do you need someone to talk to? Cry with?

-          YOU are the best YOU for your family, they are so fortunate to have YOU.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis call 800-273-8255 to talk to a dedicated suicide prevention specialist. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger of committing an irreversible act, call 911.

What’s Next?

My whole adult life I been meticulously planning. Planning for what, you ask?

Everything.

I have painstakingly planned and anxiously waited for event after event, always knowing I was 2 steps ahead of myself.

I’ve always known what projects at work I was striving for, how I needed to get them done, what was next. I’ve pinned our finances down to the dollar, always knowing exactly what percentage of our income was being saved. I’ve broke our savings into percentages to account for our miscellaneous financial goals. I’ve planned and replanned our future vacations, our house remodel, and even what our Christmas budget would be 6 months in advance.

I methodically planned out my school schedule throughout college, intertwining it down to the minute with my work and volunteering schedules. At one point during college, I was working 3 jobs including teaching a class and held a coordinator position for an on-campus non-profit. I wasn’t doing it because I was hurting for cash. I spread myself thin because I hated doing nothing.

After I graduated college, I got engaged, was planning a wedding, interning full time, and decided I wanted to get my Masters. Not just an MBA, or Masters of Accountancy which would have sufficed for my career goals, no. I wanted to go full super nerd. I wanted to get my Master’s in Taxation.

In hindsight, I should have ended my internship and pursued this degree before accepting a fulltime position, but what would have been the fun in that?

The last 4 years, as I welcomed substantial life changes like starting a big girl job, moving to a new city by myself, getting married, buying a home, undergoing a major dental reconstruction surgery, getting pregnant and becoming a mother, as well as overcoming the challenges I have faced in postpartum, I have done so while also being a grad student. I only allowed myself 3 months off school after having Ridge before I insisted on getting back to class. A decision that, by all accounts, was a huge mistake. The workload compounded with other stressors to eventually trigger what I now know as stress-induced psychosis symptoms.

Last week, I took my very last final. And yesterday I found out I passed my graduate exam, and I have completed my master’s program.

I am proud of myself.

Rarely do I get to say that and believe it, but this time it’s true. I am so proud. I did this, I worked so hard for this.

For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have a “what’s next” career goal.

I’m done with school. I don’t feel like my position is stagnant, and still have so much learning and challenge in my current role. I am happy with my job.

You’ll be shocked to hear this, as I am shocked to admit it, but I think it’s time to stop spreading myself so thin. Instead of pouring energy into new ventures/projects, what if I poured back into myself?

I’ve spent the last year and a half of motherhood depriving myself of attention, and now that the distraction is gone, what if I attended to myself the way I should have been all along? What if the answer to “whats next?” is ME. I am next.

As a parent, it is 100x easier to do something for your child than it is to do for yourself. As a spouse, its only 50x easier to do something for your significant other than it is to do for yourself. (Sorry Reese, but you know it’s true)

Ridge, and Reese, deserve the absolute best version of me. I want them to have a mom/wife that’s loving, fun, supportive, emotionally stable, and physically able.

Right now, I am those things. But I am not the best I could be at those things.  

Action item number 1 - Get away and force a happy celebration.

I’ve worked my butt off for the past 4 years, I deserve to start this new era with a bang. So this weekend, I’m leaving. I’m driving 45 minutes away, by myself, and just RELAXING. No cleaning, no cooking, no laundry, no work, nothing. I’m going to do what I want to do, for 48 hours.

Whether that involves going to target or eating a burrito in bed and watching teen romcoms, well, that’s none of your business.

I am working on true self-care. Self-care that expands further and deeper than weekly sessions with my therapist or occasional face masks. This self-care is going to be for me, for truly bettering myself, so that I know that I am doing everything in my power to give Ridge, and Reese, the version of me I want them to know. The version of me that I want to know.

Recycling this picture from my college graduation because its fitting

Breastfeeding

Its world breastfeeding week, so I figured it’s the best time to talk about my BF’ing journey.

To be honest, before I gave birth all I knew was that I was going to give breastfeeding a shot. If it worked, cool, if it wasn’t for me, cool.

What I didn’t foresee was how much I would love it, or depend on it, in my sons first year of life. I don’t know who benefitted from it more, me or Ridge.

Before the nurses could even get my son to the scale, he was latched. I didn’t expect it to come so easily but for us, it did.

In the early days, we would sit in front of the window, next to the electric heater. Ridge down to his diaper so his new, yellow toned skin could absorb the sun. I’d strip down too, so I could absorb him. I’d nurse him until he fell asleep, then we would nap cuddled up together.

From early on I made a promise to my guy- that I would never waste this time we had with just the two of us. To me this meant no distractions, or really, no mindless scrolling or stupid phone games, no phones at all.

In hindsight, this promise played a key role in saving my life…

When the darkness of depression fell over every corner of my soul, there was always a small window of light that shined when Ridge and I nursed.

With a slight lip quiver, or hungry whine, my boy could stop time.

He needed me.

Nothing else mattered when he needed me.

Life’s heavy burdens were stacked densely on my shoulders, every step became heavier than the last. I felt empty, worthless, and as though my family was better off without me.

And then, he would need me.

I had to be here, even if just for this moment, I could not fail him. In this moment I am weightless, I am painless, I have purpose, I am needed.

He took me away from it all, forcing me to sit in silence and reflect. There were many sessions that ended with wiping my tears off my little boy’s head. It kept me from sitting in the darkness, alone. It reminded me of all the blessings I was surrounded by. When I say breastfeeding saved my life, I mean it.

Nowadays, the fog of depression is behind me. I am in a much better place, mentally.

I will admit, I am emotionally attached to breastfeeding because of how much it provided for me when I couldn’t provide for myself.

My now toddler wiggles, flips, and sometimes lays on my face while he eats and yet I strangely still find this time meditative. It’s a time for just the 2 of us. Its a time where I ask him about his day, when I can comfort him in his sickness, where I steal tiny belly tickles and play peek-a-boo. I melt when his little hand reaches up to hold my chin, or point out my nose. I love when he stops eating and motorboats into my chest - knowing he’ll get a laugh out of someone. I’ll cherish the memories we create in these moments, as I know this time only lasts a short while.

I’ll be sad when this journey ends, whenever that may be.