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