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

today, i took a shower.

I found the following entry in my journal, from a little over a year ago…

The girl who wrote this was trying so badly to find light in her dark. She carried the weight of a sinking depression and hid it almost TOO well.

I wish I could tell her how well she was doing, how cool that lil 4 month old would be in a year. I wouldn’t tell her that this was the beginning of his sleeplessness that lasted another 9 months. But mostly, I wish I could tell her how she overcame this, and I wish I could tell her that she WILL make it out alive.

“June 3rd, 2020

Today, my teething, sleepless 4-month-old fell asleep in his walker. I took pictures of the cuteness and picked him up, fully expecting this to jolt him awake as normally any mundane sound does.

He stayed asleep.

I took him into his bedroom, turned on the sound machine and laid him in his crib. I expected his eyes to flutter open and to hear him start his rebuttal.

He stayed asleep.

I walked away and shut the door behind me. I stood in silence, waiting for his final “got cha” moment.

He stayed asleep.

Immediately I thought about every little thing I needed to do to make this the most of this unexpected nap.

I could finish up my homework for my master’s program. I could wrap up the work project I had been working on for a few days (mostly in the early morning hours when the baby would fall back asleep at 4 am and I knew I was clear until my husband left for work at 6:30). I could finish our taxes. I could make that call I’d put off for a few weeks… or a month, I’m not quite sure at this point. I could do the dishes. I could fold the laundry. I could strip the beds and wash the sheets. I could start prepping dinner.

The list kept going.

I looked at the monitor, he was OUT. None of those things, not today.

Today, I took a shower.

I washed my face, like really washed it, not just quickly taking my make up off or rubbing soap on it hurriedly while my conditioner soaked.

I took the time to find my good face wash, my circular brush, and I washed my face.

I washed my hair, I even ran a deep conditioner in and shaved my legs while it “settled”

I glanced at the monitor; he was still asleep.

I sat down and let the water run over my face, something I haven’t done since my pregnancy. I started to cry.

To be honest, I was surprised it took me so long. Teething has done a number on my normally restful, right on schedule, happy baby. He hasn’t slept in a few days. He has screamed most of the day. He has refused my nipple, a bottle, and a spoon feed… except for at 1 am, or 3 am, he seems to be okay eating then.

I sunk into the water.

Up until now, today I felt like I lost. Just like the day before. Defeated by noon, once again. I was tired, I was angry, I was overwhelmed, I was easily flustered-with my work, with my son, with my husband, even my dang dogs had sent me over the edge.

And then, I took a shower.

Today, I took a shower. Because I wanted to, not because the baby needed to, or because I hadn’t in a while, or because I got pooped on, or whatever else.

Today I showered, for me. Something routine I used to take for granted truly felt like a gift.

Today, I took a shower. I learned that self-care is not just ‘self’-care when so many are depending on you.

Today, taking a shower was the best thing I could do for my son. It was the best thing I could do for my marriage. It bettered my family, it refreshed my mind, it restarted my day.

I am levelheaded, I am rested, I am restored.

Today, I took a shower.”

the beginning

Let’s start from the beginning. As in, my very first primitive blog post on instagram….

(see instagram for all post prior to publishing the website in july 2021, y’all know I don’t have it together enough to go back that far)

At 3 months post partum I started to feel an overwhelming amount of guilt. The pressures of everyday life were to much to bear, and the main thing that pulled me through were the moments I got to breastfeed my son.

I slowly started recognizing how bad things were getting. It hurt to get out of bed. It hurt to think about all the things that needed to get done. I was constantly putting pressure on my self to “be productive”. That’s when the ~thoughts~ started.

It started off as “if I didn’t exist, x wouldn’t be a problem” or “They deserve someone better, who can handle this”

It slowly developed to “I could drive into to headlights”, “It would look like an accident”, “they would be better off if i were dead”

A sweet boy with a sweeter smile who was attached to my hip (well, my boob), was my constant reminder of the little life who depended on me, and I would absolutely never put him in harms way. Every moment with him saved my life, day after day.

And then it was time for him to start daycare so I could work. That’s when panic set in. I was afraid to drive. Afraid to be by myself. Afraid I would do something impulsive. That’s when I was sure this was bigger than me and I could no longer manage it on my own and I started seeking help.

The day I sought help, I became a better wife, a better mom, and a better me

Seeking help changed my life, but it didn’t put an end to my problems. It really was just the beginning of my journey