And Just Like That....

My house is so quiet this morning.  I am not used to the quiet yet, but I am finding it peaceful and relaxing.  Yesterday was one of those "how did we get here so fast?" moments.  Just like that summer was over....Just like that my little girl is in second grade....Just like that my baby boy is in Kindergarten.  And he just took off down the hall with his sister and didn't even say good-bye to his Mama.  He was so excited.  He is so ready for Kindergarten. 

So here I am in my quiet house, with both my babies in school, thinking about all the things I haven't been letting myself think about before now.  The big question since last spring for me has been, what do I do with myself with both kids in school?  I will get to that in a minute.

First this summer....this summer was...well...terrible...  It really was.  And now that it is over I am torn between feelings of relief that it is over and sadness and guilt that my kids missed out on having the relaxing, fun kind of summer that kids are supposed to have.

June was just a crazy, hectic haze with school ending, dance recitals, graduation parties, my daughter's birthday, my son's scratched cornea....it was just a blur, and that was also when my headaches and migraines really started to amp up and get out of control.  I basically spent more than half of June and July holed up with terrible headaches.  The kids were stuck in the house watching tv or playing, anything that would keep them quiet enough to get me through the headache.  We did have some good days in July.  I scheduled as many playdates as I could and tried to keep us busy, so we did have fun with friends.  That was good, that was summer.  I just feel like it was so overshadowed by my headaches.

Then the plague ascended on my house at the end of July and has yet to leave us entirely.  It has been six weeks now.  We have had bronchitis, strep, fever viruses, reactive airway asthma, pneumonia....it has been awful.  All four of us have been hit at least once.  My son was sick on his birthday.  I had to reschedule his birthday party TWICE because he was still sick and running a fever.  Who is too sick for a birthday party in August?  The poor little guy, he was just so disappointed, and it was really stressful for me as Mama.  My husband was the sickest.  He started with bronchitis that turned to pneumonia and after three rounds of antibiotics and six weeks, he is just now almost getting over it.  Of course he was working an insane schedule for the whole summer, so we were all really looking forward to our yearly end of summer trip to Maine, our favorite place in the world.  He still wasn't feeling his best, but the kids were so excited so we went.  A few days on the beach would do us all some good.  And it did.  We have some great memories from our trip.  But....I started getting sick the first night we were there, I developed a terrible cough.  Our daughter started coughing the next day.  We actually came home a day early because we just didn't have the energy to continue.  I went to the doctor three times before I finally really got treated for my cough, which was actually basically bronchial spasms and inflammation.  Last night was actually the first night I slept without coughing in the night for 11 days.  And then my poor little girl.  She was coughing, she had a fever that would come and go, and was really congested, but the doctor couldn't find anything really wrong with her.  We had bloodwork done and everything (which is a whole other story).  We finally chalked it up to be a virus, or seasonal allergy related.  She was sick right up until the start of school.  We thought she might miss the first day and she was devastated.  It was so stressful.  But she made it to school yesterday and today...and she is still recovering but is definitely on the mend.

So in the middle of all the headaches and migraines this summer, my depression was really not well controlled.  I felt like I could fight one or the other, the headaches or the depression, but I just didn't have it in me to fight both of them.  I was simply exhausted.  I saw my doctor at the beginning of August.  I had kept a calendar chart for the last couple of months documenting when I was having headaches and the severity of them, which she found really helpful.  We made some adjustments to my medications and added a daily medication to combat the headaches.  I have been on the new medication combination for a month now, and I can say that I think it has made a difference.  A few weeks ago when I talked to my doctor to follow up I wasn't so sure because I was in the middle of the craziness of everyone being sick and I was just so stressed out and worried about everyone.  I knew the headaches weren't as bad, but I wasn't sure if the depression was better yet.  I couldn't think or focus on anything because the entire summer was just so overwhelming.

Now I am sitting in a quiet place and I can say this.  I have only had one significant migraine since I started the new medication.  I have had some headaches but they were able to be controlled by Excedrin, which was not happening before, so that is definitely better.  I also think that the new combination medication treatment for my depression is working.  I would like to go through another whole month before really saying this for sure, but I am definitely feeling better.

Now that I am feeling better and things are QUIET, I am able to reflect on all those jumbled feelings I have been having for months about what am I supposed to do now that both of my kids are in school.  And it is kind of funny, I don't know what exactly I was thinking by asking myself this question.  Was I thinking that there was going to be some kind of huge change?  Was I thinking I was going to be less of a mom?  Less of a friend?  Less of anything at all?  I realized yesterday, in the quiet, that I am just going to keep doing what I have been doing.  I will be there to pack their lunches for school every morning and get them ready and out the door.  I will be there to pick them up after school, to take them to dance and soccer and help them with their homework.  And if they are sick I will be here to take care of them.  And while they are in school, I can do more things for me and more things for them.  I have more time to pray, more time to write, more time to offer help and support to my friends.  I can get to things that I haven't gotten to because we have all been too sick, or I didn't have the energy to try to do it with the kids around.  I also have volunteered for lunchroom duty one day a week at the kids' school.  I will help out with some other things at the school as well.  I can even help out my husband every now and then, which will be nice. 

But the most important thing is that I feel like I can take time to focus my thoughts and not feel so jumbled up and tired all the time.  I can work through things with purpose instead of just trying to get through a day.  And I will never get lonely at home during the day, because I have my wonderful dog to keep me company. He doesn't seem too upset that the kids are gone either.  I think he is also enjoying the quiet, and extra snuggle time with Mommy. 

So it is only the second day of school, let's see how the year goes.  :o)  Hang in there Mamas....remember to draw strength from each other.  I have been ever so grateful this past month with all the sickness in my house by my Mama village of friends that have reached out to check on me, see how we are all doing, that have supported my emotional ups and downs with the sick kids, that have offered to help out when I wasn't feeling well.  I feel such strength and power from that.  I was thinking of that yesterday when I was talking to a couple of Mama friends that were feeling down.  I draw such strength from my Mama Army, the love is so powerful.  I feel their love for me, for my kids, and I feel the same way for them and their kids.  People have the ability to tear each other down so quickly...but remember we have the responsibility to build each other up. When we build up each other, we build up ourselves and we create a powerful community.  So thanks for being there for me this summer and always my Mama Army and for giving me the strength to keep being there for you.

On the Giving Up....

It has been a long six months since my last post.  My life has been the typical roller coaster that life brings, with the added kinks that battling depression brings to it.  Going back on my medication has helped.  It brought my anxiety under control very quickly.  It has helped with the depression.  I feel like it hasn't helped as much as it did before I went off it.  But...that choice was made and I can't go back and make it differently now.

So many things have happened in the last six months.  We took an amazing family vacation to the Caribbean, and were blessed to be able to share that with friends.  It was a great week.  We were totally unplugged and totally in the moment together.  It was hard to come back to reality after that.  Being away from everything felt so good, it was so freeing.  I wish I could feel so carefree every day.

We went on our vacation the last week of April, and then May and June passed by in the blink of an eye.  My kids are growing so super fast!  My Anne lost her first tooth, finished First Grade, TURNED SEVEN, and had her very first dance recital. This picture was from right before she went on stage.  She was SO nervous to be in front of all of those people.  When she was done I asked her how it was.  She told me she loved it.  "Who wouldn't like being up on the stage like that Mom?" she said to me. Well, I wouldn't!  I love the pluck this girl has.  She faces her fears with courage and grace and always finishes smiling. 

She has her own ups and downs though and we are working on that.  She feels emotions so deeply and often acts on what she feels before she thinks things through.  It is hard at the age of seven to recognize that point in yourself when you lose control of your behavior to your emotions.  I struggle with that sometimes myself.  She is destined for greatness though, my girl is, she is always full of surprises.  She got an award at the end of the school year for Kindness, and honestly no grade she could receive would could make me prouder than that.  Kind and Brave is what we are going for and she is well on her way.

Then there is my little guy, my Matthew.  In the past two months he has finished preschool, had his kindergarten orientation, fallen totally in love with Star Wars, and scratched his cornea in a scary accident.  Thankfully that healed quickly within a couple of days, but that is not an experience he or I will easily forget.  It was so hard to say good-bye to our pre-school.  Anne went there for two years and then Matthew started after she finished and did two years as well.  It was a part of our daily lives for four years and just like that it was over, and my baby is ready for kindergarten.  Wow!  This picture is of him walking out of the pre-school for the last time.  I cried.

All of this kids growing too fast and too many things changing has been very overwhelming for me.  I feel like I am losing my babies.  I know I still have lots of time with them, but I also know that time will fly by!  My snuggly, baby boy is going to Kindergarten and our afternoon snuggles before school pick up time have come to an end.  I already miss him and school doesn't start for two more months!

What is most overwhelming is the change in my Mom status.  I have been at home on full press kid duty for seven years, with both kids in school full time, this role will change significantly.  I know they will still need me and they will still be my priority.  I will be there to take them to activities, make sure they do their homework, make their lunches, and be there for any illness or injury.  I just don't know how to handle my time anymore.  If I think too much about what I want to, or should do with my time after school starts I have to stop thinking about it, because I don't know how to proceed.

This is the part where I have given up.   This depression and other life events have brought me through so many ups and downs and stops and starts I feel like I have given up on progressing forward.  Now don't get me wrong, I have generally and slowly moved forward over the last five years.  Things are very different now than they were in the beginning.  I just feel like real change is something that is not going to happen.  My view of how I should spend my days and how I actually do spend my days are very, very different.  I am not a perfectionist or an idealist.  I don't imagine some utopian lifestyle that is impossible to attain.  I just can't set and accomplish goals for myself for the simplest of things.  I can't make it to the gym on a regular basis.  I stopped going last fall when Anne got really sick with strep for a week and I pretty much never went back.  I never actually enjoyed going....it was much more soothing for me to spend my alone time getting things done and prepping for the holidays.   The longer I stayed away the easier it became to not return.  Now when I think about it I kick myself for wasting the money, because I haven't cancelled my membership, because I have to actually go to the gym to make any changes in my membership.  That is a more extreme example.  I have also failed miserably even at the smallest of goals I have set for myself, such as reading for a little while each day or getting in my devotional time every day.  I just feel like I keep failing over and over again so I just stopped trying.  It is easier for my life to stay in my comfortable little ruts, doing the same stuff every day.  I actually feel better when I have busier days and I do different things, but those quickly become overwhelming and I feel like I need a "rest" day and then before I know it, back in the comfortable ruts. 

I have given up on the fight to some extent.  When the depression comes on and it gets bad, I don't really have the will to fight it any more.  Thankfully the bad days do pass eventually.  Sometimes it is one day, but it has lasted up to a full week.  I can manage to a point, but I also have a breaking point where I fall apart completely.  I was that way for a couple of days in June and then it passed.  I am back to my status quo now, one day at a time.  Sometimes I get myself out there, some days I spend most of the time on my couch.  I am constantly fighting fatigue and my allergies and sometimes headaches too.   So I just wonder, will my life every actually change?  Will I get stronger?  Will I be able to reach some of my smaller goals, and someday maybe some of the bigger ones?  What am I actually going to do with myself come September?  Will I get myself more involved with things or will I just dig those ruts deeper?  Is there some hope for me?  A better way to fight it all?  I know there is very little to nothing anyone else can do for me at this point, I just wonder what I am actually capable of doing for myself.  I know there are things I do right every day, and my kids are doing well and growing in kindness and love, if I fail at everything else, maybe I can accomplish the one thing that matters most.  I just know that I need to do more and I fear that I can't.  Right now that is just where I am, and I don't know if there is much I can do about it.  Sometimes just putting it out there helps, in writing, floating in the universe...I don't know.  I know that I can push past it, I can fight it, I do win sometimes, but then it always sneaks back in and I lose again.  That is what makes it the hardest, at this point in the game I feel like the depression is never going to go away, it will always be a part of me.  Accepting that fact has made me feel like it has won.  Why should I keep fighting it back if it is never actually going to leave?  It's not like this is some movie or fairy tale with a happy ending.  This is real life and there is no miracle cure for this disease.  The stuff that helps doesn't make it go away, so what level of fighting is actually worthwhile?  What will actually be enough for me to move forward enough to make small changes here and there?  Is there an answer to that, or do I just give in and live life the way it is? 

Isolation

It dawned on me a couple of days ago that I have been dealing with this depression for FIVE years.  That is some kind of crazy.  I can't even fathom that it has been that long, but then I can't even really remember life when I wasn't dealing with it.  On it goes.  When it all began as Postpartum Depression when my son was five months old, I never imagined I would be dealing with Chronic Depression five years later.  But then, I guess I never imagined I would be dealing with depression at all.

When I went off my antidepressants last spring I thought I was in a place where everything was manageable.  I was still having symptoms, but I could handle them, and I did, for awhile.  I made it through the summer, with some very rough weeks here and there.  My symptoms started getting worse when they happened, but they weren't happening all the time. They were still very cyclical, so I pressed on, even though I could feel the rage that was associated with my early depression starting to return.  I just kept super busy.  Playgroups, playdates, swimming lessons, family reunions, even a little vacation at the end of the summer.  In reality we really took that vacation because I was so desperate to get away and regroup, so we did and it was great.

Then school started and at first it was so freeing.  I was exercising more and plugging right along.  Then October hit and my daughter had a nasty case of strep that kept her out of school for five days...looking back that is when the tide really changed for me.  I haven't been back to the gym since that week she was sick.  Everyone has been taking turns being sick since then, me included.  Mostly minor stuff, but I have been dealing with sinus headaches and issues all through the fall and winter, mostly because of the extremely warm weather we have been having here for this time of year.

When November and December came I was just spending all my free time doing Christmas Shopping and Christmas preparations.  I knew I was really starting to go down hill, but I was in denial.  I was determined to make Christmas extra exciting and fun and perfect mostly because I was feeling so bad.  I love Christmas, and the excitement of getting ready for it, the anticipation in the waiting.  This year though, I just could not hold onto the spirit.  Don't get me wrong, the season wasn't a wash, but it was somewhat disappointing.  I have some great memories from some specific days.  We did make it NYC for our yearly holiday trip.  That day was practically perfect.  We had fun getting our tree and decorating, and Christmas morning itself was just what I hoped for.  And my kids loved every second of the season, so even if I wasn't always feeling it, they certainly were.  I just kept feeling like I was missing something.  The depression was stealing my joy.

And something else was happening.  The first few times were subtle and I was able to brush them off, but after Christmas was over, everything snowballed so fast.  I started having anxiety attacks.  I recognized what was happening.  Some issues happened at my daughters school regarding her peanut allergy that were very quickly resolved as soon as I voiced my concerns.  I started to realize that a lot of my anxiety was centered around her allergy.  It was happening at other times too, but that is where it started.  We started planning a trip for mid spring.  We have never flown before.  I started panicking thinking about flying with her and wondering how I was going to keep her safe.  I knew in my mind that my thoughts were illogical.  I knew that I was obsessing about situations that I was handling just fine.  I do my research, I plan for every possible scenario.  I know what to do if she has a reaction, and I know everything I can do to prevent one.  Why was this happening?  Anxiety had never been an issue for me before.  Then I just started feeling anxious a lot the time for no reason at all.  I couldn't figure out any particular trigger.  By this time my yearly physical with my doctor was only a few days away so I just waited it out.  But I didn't want to go anywhere unless I had to.  There were a couple of days where my husband took the kids out and I stayed home, and that was just how I wanted it to be.  I just wanted to be alone and not responsible for anyone else.  By this point I had resigned myself to the fact that I needed to go back on my medication.

This was a blow to me.  Not only was the anxiety a major issue by this point but the depression was totally winning.  I felt, I still feel, so defeated.  I am so tired of fighting this fight.  Five years is a really long time.  I sleep, I have nightmares, get woken up or can't fall asleep and get up every day exhausted.  Exhausted from not sleeping and from fighting the fight.  I have been living with the attitude that this is as good as it is going to get, so why bother?  Why bother going to the gym, or trying to eat better, or trying to get out there, this is just as good as it is going to get.  I just don't have any fight left.

I started my medications again two weeks ago.  At this point the anxiety is definitely better.  Some stressful stuff has happened since I started taking them again and I have definitely weathered them better.  This has been a relief.  The anxiety was more than I could handle.  At least I am used to feeling depressed, I know what to expect, and how to handle it if I have the energy to fight it.  The anxiety was different.  It was a new sensation, a scary sensation that I was really having a hard time dealing with.  Hopefully it won't come back!

I am not seeing much of an improvement with the depression at this point.  I have had a couple of better days, but not better overall.  I had forgotten that a side effect of the meds is definitely worse migraines and headaches.  I still got migraines when I was off the meds, but I forgot how bad mine can really get until I went back on.  I had one all day migraine a week and a half ago and I feel like it never really went away completely.  That crappy kind feeling doesn't do much for the mood.

The depression is heavy.  I feel isolated and disconnected.  I am doing okay with my kids, I don't feel disconnected from them, with my husband it comes and goes, but outside of this house, I just feel disconnected from everyone at this point.  I find myself avoiding having conversations with people.  Every now and then I will get out there in a group and chat with friends and actually feel pretty good.  I think for a second, "wait, there I am.", but then the next day I can be in a whole group of people that I know and feel partially invisible, like no one notices me, and partially hoping that no one will notice me.  People will say "hi, how are you doing." and I say 'good, how are you?" end conversation.  Why don't I say more?  I just can't get it out.  I can't say the stuff I want to say, or need to say.  I know what I need.  I am simply exhausted.  Right now, I can't fight the darkness back by myself.  I know that I need to be with people and to just do normal stuff.  I need to go out and walk the dog, go to the gym, just hang out with friends.  I don't even necessarily need to talk about all this stuff I just need to do normal stuff.  I need to not be alone in the house curled up on the couch all the time.  I really try to shine light in other peoples lives as much as I can. I try to be supportive and help out when people need help.  I try to help friends talk through stuff when they need to, watch their kids when they need a break and all that stuff.  I feel guilty for not doing that stuff for people right now.  But honestly I am in survival mode right now.  Most days I do the absolute minimum that I must do to get the family through that day and nothing more.  I don't have any more to give than that right now.

I have not given up the fight, but right now I am battle weary.  For now I have reached my limit, I need to rely on other peoples' light right now to help pull me up and out of the darkness.   Five years is a long time to fight.  It's a really long time.  I know that someday I won't have to fight anymore, and this burden will be lifted from me, but today is not that day.  My life has a purpose, I have a family to raise, I will get through this.  I just can't do it alone right now.  I need some light.

My fight song;
It's Not Over Yet

Addendum:  So last night after I went to bed I realized that I can't do math.  And I never claimed to be good at it anyway.  I have been fighting depression for four years not five.  Year Five is just beginning.  My husband and I were having a heart to heart last night and we were discussing how bad I have been feeling and I said to him "I just don't have any fight left."  He said to me "You always say that."  I said "I do?  But this is the worst it has ever been, since it all started."  He said, "You always fight your way out of it."  Thanks for the LIGHT my Love.

I Wonder What They Will Remember....

Things have been rough for the last month or so, kind of on and off, but the last few days have been pretty bad.  I have to say that I am thankful that I haven't been ragey depressed....just sad depressed.  I feel like sad depressed isn't quite as bad for everyone around me, so I don't feel as guilty about it.  But sad depressed is a heavy weight to carry.  It actually even hurts sometimes.  I hate feeling like this.  It really sucks to feel depressed when you know that in actuality you are really happy.  I have been on the verge of tears for several days now.  I have been forcing myself to carry out my daily duties.  Some get done, some don't.  I go from feeling totally disconnected from everyone to wanting to curl up in a ball to just wanting to hug someone, be it a small human child, or husband or lovable dog. 

I have found myself wondering lately what my kids are going to remember from their childhood.  I often worry that I am ruining them.  I am afraid that all they are going to remember is me yelling, or sending them to their rooms so I can just breathe.  I wonder if they will remember me putting in movies for them so I can just sleep on the couch and escape for a little while.  Are they going to remember the times that it got to be so much that I just left them?  That I yelled up the stairs to their Dad saying "That's it!  I am leaving!", and then I did.  Are they going to remember the things that I said in the heat of the moment, the stuff that I didn't really mean? 

What is growing up with a depressed Mom going to do to my kids?  They aren't really old enough for me to explain this to them yet.  The fact is, this is not going away.  I have learned to accept this, but that doesn't mean that I like it.  I am honestly exhausted from the fight these days...sometimes I don't know if I can even fight it anymore.  If it swallows me up, what happens to them?  Are they going to remember the times I shut down, and left them, or are they going to remember that I always came back? Will they remember that I always fought my way back to them?  Will they understand?

I have been going through photos for the past couple of days, getting ready for some Christmas scrapbooking projects.  So I have been looking at hundreds of pictures from the past year of my kids.  One of my joys is to take pictures capturing all the big moments and lots of the little moments.  I love making scrapbooks as gifts for them each year and for their grandparents too.  As bad as I have felt the past few days I have been constantly reminded that my kids are happy. 

One of my favorite pictures of Anne this year, it just captures the joy that she always carries with her.

Joyful, goofy and cuddly, that is my boy!

My kids actually seem to be undamaged and secure.  They are both confident and compassionate kids.  Is it in spite of my depression or because of it?

I really do wonder what they will remember about their childhood.  Will they remember how much I hate to cook or will they remember that every Friday I made them homemade pizza and we curled up on the couch and had a movie night?  Will they remember that I was always rushing to get them places on time, or will they remember that I signed them up for their favorite activities and made it work every week to get them there?  Will they remember that we stayed inside more than we should have, or will they remember the fun they had playing with each other when I just let them run rampant with their imaginations while I was trying to cope inside my own head?

Will they remember Halloween this year?  Will they remember how close I was too the edge that weekend?  Do they know how many times I almost cried that day?  Do they have any idea how much I just wanted to crawl into bed instead of taking them to our Church's Fall Festival?  That isn't what I think they will remember?  I think they will remember that Mommy dressed up like a pirate to match their pirate costumes and went out anyway.  And I hope they will know how glad I was that I did, and how grateful I was to be present with them in their joy.  I hope they just remember that all I ever wanted to do was play pirates with them.

 

This Crazy Up and Down Life!

I feel like I go so long between blog entries these days.  Honestly it is just this crazy up and down life I live.  I went off my anti depressants last spring and things were okay for awhile.  Then I had a bad cycle and they weren't okay for awhile.  Then the summer happened.  I was determined to keep myself and the kids busy through the summer, so that the depression would not sneak in and take over.  I guess that is always my goal, that it won't get in and take over.  But it does, and then I fight it off and things are good again...and then it comes back and so forth.

The summer was busy, we filled it with playgroups and playdates and swimming lessons and Vacation Bible School and family reunions.  I actually made it to the gym three times a week for most of the summer.  In general I was pretty impressed with myself.  I have had good days and bad days, but honestly the bad days hit harder without my meds.  I wouldn't say that there are necessarily any  more bad days being off the meds, the bad days just seem  harder.  My focus sometimes is so driven by just staying okay that I don't realize how it affects the rest of my life.

My husband is self employed in the wedding business.  He works all the time, and as you can imagine, the summers are especially busy for him.  So I live my summers determined to get through them and keep everyone busy and happy.  I stumbled through the bad days and pushed forward.  After a while I realized how angry and disconnected I was feeling.  And then I realized that we, my husband and I, just weren't talking anymore.  My bad days are really hard on him.  The anger pulses through my depressed mood and then before I know it, I am letting it all loose on him, and the kids, but more so at him.  The kids are used to me yelling, they are not even really phased by it anymore.  I wish I didn't do it as much as I do, and I try not to, but it still happens.  I don't think I am as "yelly" as I used to be though.  But on the really bad days I can't control it.  I was afraid things were getting too bad though, going down a road that we wouldn't be able to get back from.

So we found some time to reconnect, and went on an awesome family vacation the last week of summer.  We all needed it so much.  Going to the ocean always rejuvenates my soul.  My husband and I actually used to daydream about moving there.  We used to think that was the only place we could be happy.  This trip, though, as our daughter was declaring that she wanted to live at the beach forever, we realized that we are exactly in the area where we want to be.  We know that we have more to lose than to gain if we moved away from our family and friends and the kids' schools and our church family....it feels good to know that we actually have a place in the world where we feel settled.

Then school started.  We have a first grader and a pre-schooler this year.  My emotions started going all haywire about the kids growing up.  My baby will be starting Kindergarten in a year, and I just don't feel ready to give him up just yet.  I know he will be ready but I won't be.  Crazy roller coaster emotions.  And First Grade is hard.  HOMEWORK is hard.  We are just adjusting to a whole new set of routines.  I let the kids each choose one activity outside of school to participate in this year.  My daughter has wanted to dance forever, so I signed her up for ballet, and my son has been begging to play soccer for ever, so I signed him up for a soccer skills class.  So three nights a week after school we have activities now.  We have soccer night, church night and ballet night.  And on Saturday mornings the kids have swimming lessons.  I do better when I am busy, and I feel better when the kids are doing stuff that they love, and both of them really love their classes.  But it has also been a struggle to get in a routine where all the homework gets done, and dinner is on at a reasonable time.  And honestly I always feel that there is so much stuff to do, that I then start to get overwhelmed and then nothing gets done at all.

Right now I feel like I have this huge to do list and there is no way that anything will get done.  This is kind of funny, because who decides the stuff I have to do anyway?  I mean aside from the daily laundry, homework, food preparation  and cleaning, all that other stuff is on me, right?  All those deep cleaning and basement organizing and scrapbook making projects are things that I have assigned to myself.  I guess I don't really have to do them.  But I feel like I do.  Then there is the list of phone calls and e-mail kind of stuff that needs doing.  I  hate doing that stuff because the kids always interrupt me at the worst moments....and I just hate doing them.  I just need to buck up and plow through them, but finding the motivation for that can be challenging, so that stuff just falls into the I have overwhelmed myself category.  I don't know what it is about feeling overwhelmed.  This is kind of a new thing for me.  The just not feeling motivated feeling is very different from the overwhelmed feeling.

I think that I just keep coming up with these plans and ideas about how to make myself feel better, how to parent better, how to make my marriage better, how to make my relationship with God better.  Then I just fail miserably at trying to follow through with anything.  I bought a parenting book, a couples devotional and we went to a marriage retreat.  I get determined to diet and exercise and go to the gym and walk the dog...and all of these seem like completely reasonable things to do.  None of them take much time.  I just can't seem to do them.  The only thing I am doing remotely well is making it to the gym several times a week.  I usually do 3-4 times, unless I have a kid who is so sick that she misses four days of school.  That happened last week. 

So why can't I find time to read a book every day?  To pray more?  To clean the basement?  To write more blog entries?  To make that phone call to switch my car insurance?  It is seriously frustrating.  And when I stop to think about it, sometimes I wonder why I bother to try to change things at all.  I feel like even if I start, I will never follow through all the way anyway, so what is the point.  There are some days where I do really well and then I feel accomplished.  I have succeeded in creating a good school year routine for the kids.  We are keeping up with Anne's homework and both of their church quiet times pretty well.  We are fitting in their classes and dinner is on the table every day.  I have yet to fall into that giving up on dinner attitude that I have excelled at in the past.  But I just feel like I can't push it to the next level.  I feel like I will never get past the point of just doing what I have to do for show.  If the kids aren't fed and the homework isn't done, other people will see that.  I can run the vacuum and clean the bathroom before people come over. I would like to do more than just live on the surface though, but mostly I am just too tired.  I fight the daily battle.  Some days I win and some days I lose.  But I am coming to the conclusion that this depression is going to be part of me for the rest of my life, and it kind of sucks.  I wonder how much fighting is actually worth doing.  I feel like it is pointless to try to change because I will never really ever get there.  Then I just feel like I am failing myself and everyone in my life because I just can't move past it.  When I feel like this, everyone elses' lives just look so much easier, and better.  What do you do when you want to change, but you actually can't because something inside of you is broken? 

It is hard to go from having days where I feel motivated and I feel like I actually can change some of the things that I want to change, to days where I feel like everything is impossible.  In actuality, I have changed.  I have changed a lot.  I am more in tune with myself and my emotions, which is probably part of the reason why I feel like I have failed so miserably every time I lose it and yell at my kids or my husband.  I know that things can be better in certain areas in my life and I actually know what I need to do to change them, which is why I am so hard on myself when I feel overwhelmed and generally unable to move forward.  It is just a constant, exhausting battle.  I just have to do everything I can to make sure that I keep moving forward, even if I am moving at such a slow, painful crawl that I can't even see it.  I know that someday I will be able to see it, even if today is not one of those days.

Dear Master of the Darkness

Dear Master of the Darkness,

I wanted to take some time to let you know something.  You fight a good fight, and lately you have won a few battles, but guess what?  You are not going to win the war.  You might sneak into my thoughts and prey on my insecurities and make me doubt myself, my Faith and my ability to mother.  Some days are harder than others to push you back, but I always do.  It's been 3 1/2 years and you haven't won me yet.  You aren't going to.  I am stronger than you are, I have too much to live for, too much to fight for.  Let me just remind you (and myself) of what I have that you are not going to get.

I have my God.  No matter what kind of day I have, or how far I wander, He isn't going any where, and He will always take me back.  Whatever confusion and questions and doubts I have, He and I will work them out, and you aren't getting in there.  You can try, but you won't succeed.

I have this guy:

I waited around for most of my adult life for him.  I spent a lot of lonely years before I found him.  Then I did.  Our life together hasn't been easy.  We face constant challenges and struggles.  We have bad days, bad moments, but we have more good days and spectacular moments.  I miss that sometimes in the dark moments.  You sneak in there.  Then I make mistakes.  I worry that I am failing him.  But guess what?  You can't take what we have.  He loves me.  He will fight this fight with me, and he isn't going anywhere. 

I have this girl:

She can drive me absolutely crazy.  She is stubborn and dramatic and JUST LIKE ME!.  She is AMAZING.  Look at her!  She EXUDES light.  She has the gift of happiness.  She has an amazing imagination and creative spirit.  She has a kind and loving heart.  You can't have her.  She is my rainbow baby.  She is the light of my life.  I will fight for her with everything in me.  And when she is older and I explain all of this to her, she will understand what it is to have a Warrior Spirit.  She will know how to fight, and you will never take her.

I have this boy:

He has a quiet stubborness and a wild energy.  He is also snuggly, and charming, and so sweet.  And look at THOSE DIMPLES.   My sweet boy is my heart.  You can't have him either.  He will fill this world with light and love and those adorable dimples.  He will melt hearts where ever he goes.  Darkness can't get into melted hearts.

Then I have this guy:

Whenever I feel disconnected from the world, from God, from my family, when you get in there and I just can't feel anything...this pup is there.  He looks at me with those eyes filled with love and devotion and reminds me what unconditional love is.  He soothes my spirit, and fills me back up with light and love.  You can't have him, no way can you get in there.  This waggly, lovey, has eyes only for me puppy is the biggest barrier against the darkness that I have.  He always brings me back.

So you can keep trying.  You will bring me down sometimes, you do pack a pretty powerful punch, but with these four in my corner, plus my supportive family and friends and my God.  Let's face it, you don't have a chance.  So I guess the choice is yours.  You can admit defeat and move on, or you can wear yourself out trying.  You aren't going to get me, I have too many reasons not to let you win and I will fight you to the end.

Sincerely,
Me

The Battle is Not Yet Won

So here is the thing.  It just isn't over.  Everything went so well through the process of weaning off the medication that I really thought that I might be okay.  I knew I would have some bad days, but I really thought all would be well, that I was strong enough.  If you are a follower of my blog you know that I have been battling PPD turned Chronic Depression for 3 and a half years now.  I just went off my medications about two months ago.  I really thought I was ready, maybe I am ready.  Maybe I should be on medication for the rest of my life.  Maybe I just don't really know what is going on at all.  All I know is this, I am feeling pretty crappy, depressed, emotional, and just plain broken.  There it is....I have been debating for weeks about whether or not I was going to share anything at all.  I have been walking a very careful line.  I feel like if I let too much out, if I reveal too much to anyone I will completely fall apart.  I guess I am afraid I won't be able to put it all back together.  So here I sit, wondering what the purpose of all of this really is.  Then I remembered why I started this blog to begin with.  It was born out of the absolute worst, darkest place of me.  I started this blog so other Mamas (and really anyone who suffers from depression) wouldn't feel as scared and alone and lost in the dark as I did.  So I have decided to share what has been going on over the last few weeks, as much for myself as for all of you who are going through this to.  And if you love someone who suffers from depression, this is for you too, because they probably can't tell you what it feels like to be in this dark place.

This is it people, the raw unfiltered truth.  Depression sucks and I am terrified that this is what my life will always be now, and that I am losing the core of myself to it.  This is not the darkest that it has ever been for me.  At this point the hold is not so strong that I can't fight through it to some extent.  I can put on a happy face, I can still immerse myself in projects, but the me that my kids see, that my husband sees...is not the me I want to be.  I can only hold onto the other me, the real me, for so long at a time, and then it starts to slip away, swallowed by the darkness and the rage.  When I fall there, I am afraid that I won't be able to pull myself out.  I fear this is the only me that my kids will ever remember.  I fear this is the me that my husband will someday no longer have the strength or will to love.  There are moments when it chokes me completely and I fantasize about packing up the dog and disappearing, that Joe and the kids would be better off that way, and maybe I will be too.  I know that if I did leave, I would miss them without measure in a matter of hours, it would never last.  But it breaks my heart that the thought ever comes to begin with.

Fighting this on a daily basis is exhausted.  I am thankful that there are days that I do feel okay.  My depression is very hormonally based.  I am on my second cycle since going off the medication completely.  I was actually okay while tapering off the meds and for the first few weeks once I was off completely.  I felt strong and empowered.  I was totally convinced that going off the meds was God's Plan for me.  Everything went so well.  His answer was so clear.  I had no reason to doubt it.  Then something strange happened.  I know that this catalyst has had a huge impact in how everything has been going over the last five weeks or so.  Joe and I are very done with having children.  We made this decision years ago.  We were always open to the possibility that something might happen and we were okay with that.  But...there would be no trying.  We were  not going to add that stress to our lives.  I certainly did not want to deal with the possibility of going through PPD again, so we were happy and we were done.  Then one day I was sure that I felt God tell me that I was pregnant.  It was two full weeks before taking a test was even possible.  So I went with it.  I hadn't asked for it.  I would not be disappointed if it wasn't true.  I am happy with my family the way that it is.  I begin having strong PMS symptoms, but one symptom in particularly, breast tenderness, was very strong.  It actually presented the exact same way that it did when I was pregnant with my second child.  I took this as confirmation and waited until I could take a test.  A few days before my period was to begin I started getting really irritable, a normal PMS symptom.  The issue with the breast tenderness was interesting though.  Normally with PMS it will last on and off for several days prior to my period.  It is never a constant discomfort.  The only time that it was a constant discomfort was when I was pregnant with my son.  It was to the point where I could not wear my sports bra, and could not get comfortable at night.  So I waited.  The early tests were all negative.  The morning my period was due the test was negative and it started a few hours later.  This is the part that gets difficult to explain.  I was  not disappointed that I wasn't pregnant.  The idea sounded fun here and there, but I am well enough versed in the reality of parenthood that I understand the stress that this would put on me.  My fear was never that I wasn't pregnant, it was what not being pregnant would do to me in my relationship with God.  And this little detail of not being pregnant struck a huge blow to that relationship.  Being pregnant was not something I asked for or desired.  As many women I do have an occasional fleeting moment of holding a baby where I wonder what if, but then I move on.  I still am trying to figure out and fight my way back from why God would tell me this and have it turn out not to be true.  Maybe I misinterpreted something, but I was so sure and so at peace with this knowledge that now I am utterly confused and frustrated.  I feel totally disconnected in my relationship with Him right now, and that has been the most difficult thing to deal with.  I know that I need Him if I am going to keep this depression under control at all.  This has also left me doubting my whole decision to go off my medication to begin with.  That prompt from God seemed so clear and decisive.  Yet here I am, weeks later, completely falling apart.

The PMS part of that last cycle was rough physically, but mood wise I was okay except for the irritability the last several days.  Once my period started that irritability persisted and the depressed mood started to kick it.  I am an angry person when I am depressed.  I don't have loads of patience to begin with, so when I add this anger on top of my lack of patience things do not go well.   Luckily I had lots of stuff going on to distract me.  Both kids were still in school and I had a huge birthday bash to craft and plan for.  This kept me motivated, and we went right from that to all of the end of the school year activities, including a Kindergarten Graduation.  So I plowed on through, feeling depressed and irritated here and there, but I was managing it.  Then school ended.  Now both my kids are with me ALL the time.  And we are in wedding season, so my husband is working ALL the time.  PMS for my current cycle kicked in hard, right as school ended.  Then my period started and girls, it has been a rough one.  Besides the issues with my mood, it has been really heavy and the migraines have been killer.  And I have also turned into an insomniac over the last week, which is NOT helping.  I used to have issues with insomnia when I was younger and they popped back up during my pregnancy and every now and then with a bad cycle, but it has been a long time. 

So this is where I stand right now.  I am exhausted, I am depressed, I am angry and I feel completely alone.  I have really been trying to work my way back into having a connection with God, and have done a few things that have helped a little,  but I keep getting overwhelmed by the thought that I can't trust myself to know how He is trying to guide me, which leaves me feeling that disconnect all over again.

I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to.  I could talk to Joe, but honestly he is rarely home and the times I have had the opportunity, I haven't been able to talk.  I held back because I knew I would end up dumping all over him spewing everything out, and I just didn't have the strength to even let a little out, because I was just barely holding on in that moment.  I felt like if I moved just one little inch everything would come crashing down.  So I held it in.  I have lots of Mom friends....lovely people, I am sure many of them would listen to me and be supportive, but have you ever tried to have a serious conversation with kids running all over the place.  I honestly feel like I never actually get to finish any conversation when my kids are around.  I decided it is more frustrating to try to start a conversation about the stuff I need to get out there, and then get cut off and never get to finish.  That will just leave me feeling more lost and disappointed.

Then I feel terribly guilty.  I feel awful for the way I speak to my husband and my kids.  I feel like I yell all the time.  I snap at Joe for no reason way too often and make him feel terrible.  I don't know why he puts up with it.  I feel so jealous of him sometimes that he gets out, that he has time to himself even though he works so much.  He still has time with other men, he gets to talk to them, he gets to get AWAY.  I desperately need that and I know that it is not going to happen, so I try not to think about it.  We are immersed in wedding season now.  I am lucky if Joe is even home more than three nights a week.  And when he is home we are both so tired that we put the kids to bed and watch tv and go to bed ourselves.  He actually went up to bed at 7 pm tonight.  I can't blame him, he didn't get home until 2:30 am last night.  It is so much harder when he is not here.  One night this week, when he was home, and there was one meltdown too many from the kids, I just got in the car and left.  I didn't have to say anything to him, he knew what was happening.  It didn't help as much as I hoped it would...I was too emotional to calm down much.  I just know I am faced with night after night all summer long without that as an option.  Forget just the summer.  Last year the working all the time lasted until Thanksgiving...so hooray.  I love my husband with everything in me, but I often wonder how things are going to be able to last, with him gone so much and me like this. 

I need time to myself to reflect and work through this, time to not think at all.  I need time to talk to other people who get this, to have uninterrupted conversations to help me hash all this out.  I need time with my husband.  We need to have some fun, this stress is not good for him at all either, and I hate what it is doing to him.  BUT, funds are low and debts are high, so I basically have to figure out how to work through this as things stand.  The things I feel I need aren't going to happen often enough, so I am going to have to figure something else out.  I am going to have to figure out a way to pull myself out of this darkness that is trying to take over the core of who I am. 

Whenever I write a blog entry, I try to end it with a positive thought.  My purpose is to bring hope to those of you who are also fighting the darkness.  Sadly I don't think that I can do that today.  But maybe that is okay?  Sometimes it just really sucks.  Sometimes you will feel completely alone and like you can never find your way out.  There are people out there that have found ways to overcome this.   I honestly don't know what I am going to do.  I am going to try to do better tomorrow than I did today.  And I actually did do better today that I was at the beginning of last week, so maybe that is progress.  I am going to find projects to immerse myself in. I am going to try to find ways to feel connected to other people.  I am going to try to keep my kids busy and happy this summer.  I am going to try to not yell as much tomorrow.  I am going to try to let my guy know how much I love him, even when I feel like the darkness is trying to choke it out of me.  I am going to keep fighting. No matter how lost and alone I feel, I have never lost sight of how much I have to fight for.

 

Following the Light....

I have said this before, but I ALWAYS want to write more often then I do.  I have blog entries in my mind all the time, but rarely sit down to write them.  My life is full in many good ways.  I don't always have the time to sit down and think things out enough to write them down.  This is GOOD thing for sure.  But, I still feel it is important to tell my story, and I have so many things that I want to share that I hope will help others on their journeys.

Things have been busy for sure.  I run a playgroup at my church once a week.  Anne, my oldest, is in Kindergarten five days a week, and definitely keeping me on my toes.  There are so many things to navigate when your kids our in school and we have been dealing with some issues with her peanut allergy and how she handles herself with the other children in her class.  Everything is fine though, we have met with her teacher and are talking with her on a daily basis.  Her teacher and the school are so wonderful.  We are so grateful that Anne has such a loving teacher.  My Anne will be turning six in one short month.  I am just in awe of how much she has grown, and matured and changed in the last year.

Then there is my Matty, he will be four in three months!  I can't believe how much my baby is not a baby anymore.  Granted we have some issues that we need to work on, like using the toilet, but he has also grown and matured so much in the past year.  Pre-school has really helped him come out of his shell.  I LOVE his pre-school.  I will be so sad at the end of next year when I don't have a kid to send there anymore!  Matty has developed an amazing imagination just like his sister.  It is fun listening to them play alone, but even more fun listening to them play together.  Sometimes Matty forgets that he is growing up though, and likes to crawl into our bed almost nightly for snuggles and security.  I am savoring those moments, because I know, before long, those full on, squeeze you around the neck hugs are going to be a distant memory.  Slow down kids...you are growing to fast!

We are rolling into Wedding Season, that means my husband is working more, and we miss him.  We have been dealing with some hurdles lately with the business, but we are praying our way through them.  We know God is taking care of us, he hasn't failed us yet.  So we try not to get discouraged, and my guy just works super hard.  He is pretty amazing, always there to help, whenever his talents are needed.  He helps at church and my daughter's school, and still finds time to do a magic show every now and then.  Matty can't wait for Daddy to come perform at his school!

As for me, I caught the flu this year, just when I was getting myself into a good healthy routine with going to the gym and trying to be more active.  The flu then turned into a bad sinus infection that took two rounds of antibiotics to clear and then I ended up on steroids to deal with respiratory issues that have turned out to be allergies.  This has been strange.  I have had allergies all my life, but never more than the sneezing, itchy eyes kind of stuff, and never in the spring.  My issues usually happen in the weed pollen season in the late summer/early fall.  But suddenly I am on an inhaler to deal with spring allergies.  The doctor said it was probably just the wonderful timing of when I got the flu.  After about a month of feeling pretty crappy, we finally have it under control for the most part, and hopefully I won't need the inhaler for much longer.

Now the last time I wrote was in March and I discussed the issues that I was having with my anti-depressants and the side effects.  I was considering going off of them because of my frustration with the side effects.  This is what happened.  I kept feeling like it was time to go off my meds.  I felt like the side effects were starting to become bothersome, maybe because I didn't need the medication anymore.  BUT listen, I know the state that I was in when I started taking medication three years ago.  I was a mess, and I COULD NOT function.  I needed them and I don't regret my decision to take them at all.  In fact, I am quite sure that they played a significant role in literally, saving my life.

So I grappled with these thoughts, that quite voice saying, "Laura, you are okay, it is time."  but then the other voice saying "What if I still need them?  What if it puts me back to where I was three years ago."  Mamas, it is scary stuff.  It is scary to be in a place that is so desperately dark that you need medication and counseling to pull you back to a place where you can function, as a person and as a parent.  I thank God that there is medication that can help us when we are in such a desperate place.  God was telling me that I am okay that I can move forward from this, but after being on medication for three years I was terrified at the thought.  I don't ever want to go back there.  So I went back and forth in my mind about this for awhile.  When I brought it up to my husband, I could tell by his reaction that he had the same fears that I did.  Ladies, he has seen me at my worst and loves me too much to want to see me there again.  So I struggled with which voice to listen too, which one was real.  So I prayed this prayer  "Lord, I am too emotional about this medication topic.  The thought of going off them is very, very scary and my emotions are not letting me make a decision that I feel comfortable with.  Please Lord give me a CONCRETE sign as to what you want me to do."

Two days after I prayed this prayer I went to the pharmacy at Target to pick up my refill on my prescription.  I was taking 60 mg of Cymbalta.  This has been my good therapeutic dose during the worst of my depression.  It was early in the morning, the store was so quiet, the pharmacy had just opened.  I went in there with my son, only intending to go to the pharmacy and then leave.  The pharmacist handed me the bag.  I did not look in it, but I HEARD the pills.  A bottle of pills makes noise, especially in a quiet, echoing environment like an almost empty Target Store.  We left the pharmacy and walked right out of the store, I had the bag in one hand and my son's hand in the other.  My thoughts paused briefly as I walked past the front registers to congratulate myself at walking in and out of Target without spending any money.  I know you all understand what a big deal that is!  We went out to the car, I opened the back door to put my son in his seat, when I did this I reached over the front seat and gently dropped the prescription bag on the front seat.  The front door was never opened on that side of the car.  I strapped him in and we went straight home.  When we got home I came inside and went to take the pills out of the bag to put them out of reach of little hands.  THE BAG WAS EMPTY!  Totally empty, as empty as Jesus's tomb.

I went out to the car and searched it about three times.  My car is not that big.  I called the pharmacy.  The pharmacist assured me that the pills weren't there and he put them in the bag, and I believe him.  Not only is he a wonderful and helpful man whenever our family needs assistance with medications....I heard the pills in the bag when he gave it to me.  The bottle was not in the house, it was not in the car.  Matty and I went back to Target and searched the parking lot and retraced our steps in the store and nothing.  I kept thinking to myself that if the pills had fallen out of the bag at any point, either in the store or the car, I would have HEARD them.  I spoke to the Pharmacist, and he called the insurance company who, of course, would not pay for a replacement prescription (Shocker, I know).

"Well Lord, I asked you for a concrete sign, I guess you can't get any more concrete than making a bottle of bills disappear into nothingness."

I knew in my heart then, that it was time.  We simply could not afford to replace the missing pills.  Cymbalta is NOT a medication to go off cold turkey, no anti depressant is.  The pharmacist thought that the insurance company may approve a lower dose, so I called my doctor.  I had to wait most of the day for a call back.  So I had lots of time to think.  I started to think about all the things that I have now that I did not have when the depression took over:

1. Coping skills.
2. Kids who are older.
3. An amazing and supportive church family.
4.  Supportive friends that have been through similar trials that will literally talk me through anything.
5.  My therapy dog, always available for soothing snuggles.
6.  And most importantly, a much deeper relationship with my God.

God was telling me to go, I knew it was time to listen.  My doctor was a little concerned at our initial conversation.  I remembered the talk that we had when I first started the Cymbalta.  She told me it was one of the very hardest drugs to go off of.  The withdrawal symptoms can be debilitating.   At that time Cymbalta was the right choice for me.  Now I was confident that if God wanted me off it, then he would get me through it.  So my doctor agreed and called in a prescription for 30 mg, which is half of what I had been taking.  She told me to take it for a month and see how I was doing.

A few days into the lower dose I had one evening where I felt really dizzy and lightheaded and out of it.  This is a withdrawal side effect, so I assumed it was just my body adjusting to the lower dose.  After that day, I had no side effects, and most importantly no change in my mood or overall emotional state, sure I still had bad days, and bad moments, but everybody does.  These times were no different then the bad days and bad moments I experienced while taking the full dose of the medication, so I was prepared to press on.  After about two weeks on the lower dose I started getting sick with the flu, followed by the sinus infection.  I think I would have lowered my dose sooner but I was just too sick.  So on one of my follow up visits, she lowered my dose to 20 mgs.  That transition was absolutely fine, I didn't even have any dizziness, or if I did I think it was from the steroids I was on.  The final step was two weeks later, to go to taking one pill every other day for two weeks and then I would be done.  I was on an inhaler and steroids at the time, but I decided that I was already feel crappy, so why wait until I was off the steroids and lower my dose so I could just feel crappy all over again.

Now the decision I made next is not something that I would recommend to anyone.  Going off an anti depressant is serious business, and if you are ready you need to taper off following your doctors instructions.  Your tapering off dosages and instructions will be different from mine.  TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR, make a plan and follow it.  That being said, I didn't do exactly what my doctor said.  I did the every other day dosage for three doses.  I was feeling so dizzy and light headed about 36 hours after a dose (about 12 hours before the next one), but that was the ONLY symptom I was experiencing.  I made the decision to stop taking it after those three doses because I felt that was the right decision for me at the time.  I figured that if dizziness was my only issue, that the sooner the medication was out of my system for good the sooner the dizziness would stop.  I turned out to be right.  It got progressively better and after about four days was gone completely.  If I had any major issues I would have contacted my doctor.

I firmly believe with all my heart that my transition off the medication was so easy because I followed what God wanted me to do, and I trusted him to take care of it.  I have now been completely off the Cymbalta for two weeks.  I feel very empowered, like I have reached the end of a very long road and I am okay.  I am doing great.  I still lose my patience and have moody moments.  This is because I am a woman.  The biggest change I have noticed is that I definitely have more energy and that feels great.  It is amazing to get through the afternoon and not feel like I need to take a nap in order to make it to dinner.  This is actually a life changing thing for me.  I have been getting the kids out more, I have gotten tons of yard work and other projects done and it just feels good to have the energy to accomplish more things.  Don't get me wrong, I am still very done with the day by the time the kids go to bed.  I actually feel free of this depression burden that I have been carrying for such a long time.  I don't regret one step of this journey.  It has shaped my life and who I am.  It has put me in position to touch other peoples lives either through the blog or face to face with people that I know.  It has made me empathic to the struggles that all Moms face on a daily basis.  In fact, the two most important things I have learned are:

1. Nobody's life is perfect, no matter how perfect their lives LOOK on social media.
2. Everybody has something that they have to struggle with.  Some of us have dealt with trauma or loss, some of us battle with depression or other mental illnesses, some of us struggle with infertility, some of  us parent children with special needs.

Don't judge other people, LOVE them.  Because in the end, none of us get through our struggles alone, we all need love and support from those around us.  And Most Importantly, God is good. He loves you and will be there with you every step of the way, all you have to do is let him.

Dream Weaver

    Life is full, and that is a good thing, but it also distracts me from writing my blog, which I always intend to do, but never really get around to doing, mostly because I am too tired.

    Update:  Generally things have been going well.  I have been back on my feet since the last weekend in November.  The holidays were wonderful, we dealt with some winter illness in January and February was COLD, SNOWY and DREARY, as anyone who lives in the Northeast will attest too.  I believe that they are saying it is the coldest February on record.  And it was cold, too cold to play outside, too cold to walk the dog and even too cold to do the laundry.  My washer freezes on a regular basis when the temperatures are too low for too long, which seemed to be about two thirds of the month of February this year.  Ugh!  I can say that March has been much warmer though, I have been able to do wash whenever I have needed to!

  So there have been some tough moments, days, even weeks since my last entry.  We had a scare with my husband at the end of January.  He was having severe headaches and we thought maybe he had an aneurysm.  We endured a very stressful trip to the emergency room where the doctors and nurses had us believing he was going to be rushed off for brain surgery, until the results of his tests came back and we found out that he just had a bad sinus infection.  Whew!  It took us a couple of weeks to get the headaches under control with the right medication.  Thankfully he is just fine now.  But, while we were dealing with the headaches with him, my daughter had the flu with a fever for five days and she missed four days of school while my son had an ear infection.  That was a LONG two weeks.  I think I survived on adrenaline alone, because nobody was sleeping and I was taking care of all three of them.  As soon as everyone was showing improvement, this Mama was a cranky mess for a few days.

  My last cycle was really tough on me mood wise.  I had a few of those kinds of days that make me feel like the depression is starting all over again, and all I want to do is be left alone so I can sleep. but as always, sleep eludes me.

   One of the biggest reasons I was so upset that insurance forced me off the medication that worked the best for me (Cymbalta), is because it was the one medication that did not make my problem dreaming worse.  After being off it and trying other medications, nothing else worked quite right.  Now I have been back on it since the early fall and I feel better overall than I have on anything else,  but it is making the dreaming worse this time around.   I am at the point in my life where I feel there really is no solution to my dreaming problem.

I have always been a dreamer.  I don't know what most people dream about, but my dreams only sometimes contain people and places that I know.  I am more likely to be a character in a movie with a really confusing and drawn out plot.  I have had dreams like that ever since I can remember.  I have many stories in my head that need to be written down as a result of some of these dreams.  The one component that my depression has added to my dreaming is an emotional component.  We all have occasional dreams that are upsetting, but I find it happening on almost a nightly basis lately.  And the dreams are exhausting.  I wake up feeling like I have just run a marathon.  I have just lived this other life out in great detail, and now am expected to get up, fully refreshed and go about my own life during the day.  Except I never feel refreshed.  The best sleep I get during a 24 hour period are the twenty minutes I am lucky enough to doze off while my son is watching tv before we go to pick my daughter up from school.

I guess they call this kind of dreaming Lucid Dreaming and I can't find any way to make it stop.  My doctor and I have discussed this at length and apparently I just seem to be one of those people who rarely, if ever, gets into a deep sleep.  I can shake off the dreams, but I am never able to really shake off the tired feeling.  I think this is why I have such a hard time getting up in the morning.  When the dreaming gets worse during the PMS part of my cycle, sometimes I ask myself what is the point of going to bed  at all.  Sleep Aids will help me to fall asleep, and sometimes to sleep a little better during part of the night, but it is the crazy dreams towards the mornings that I find most challenging to endure.  Lately I have been waking up feeling really down, and last night felt that way at bedtime too.  It is a struggle, a minor struggle compared to being the throes of a bad depression, but it is still as struggle.

Sometimes my dreams will be tied to real life.  I often dream of my former best friend.  When life priorities changed, our relationship started to change.  I was married, then with one baby, then another baby while she remained single.  Then as the depression took a good hold of me, our friendship fell apart and she decided to end it.  I still miss her all the time, but try not to think about.  I will get heart twinges when I see the kids playing with something that she gave them, or they want to read one of awesome books she found for them.   I still stop and have to remind myself that I can't share things with her anymore.  But I try not to think about her for too long, I have laid the issue to rest.  Then I have a dream about her where we are reconciling and going on some adventure, or I dream that we are having some kind of argument, and either way I wake up thinking about her and missing her, and just generally feeling bad because the dreams are so emotional and they feel so real.  It  is very frustrating to not be able to control what goes on in your head while you are sleeping.

It leaves me with facing a decision about when and how and if I should go off my medication.  I don't think that it is time right now, but maybe soon...I don't know.  I know that going off is not going to solve my depression and it definitely won't make me stop dreaming, nothing is going to that.  My dreams, my depression are all part of who I am and I have to continuously figure out ways to cope with them, and ways to get better sleep whenever I can.  And the issues that the dreams bring up, you know, those issues that I thought that I have dealt with, but apparently parts of my brain don't agree, well, I guess I will have to figure out ways to cope with them too.

Dreams and hormones, hormones and dreams will always be around to frustrate me.

Darkness to Light....

So I just realized that it has been a month since my last entry.  I guess I have been keeping myself busy enough just hanging around.  My hip is healing slowly. I am now allowed to put up to 25% of my weight on the bad leg, so that has made getting around a little easier.  I think I am finally learning some patience, although I have been quite thrilled to get some privileges back, like standing in the shower and being able to put my foot down!  I really am looking forward to going back upstairs to my bed instead of sleeping on the sofabed in the middle of Grand Central Station. This happens every morning...even on the weekends:

 

I have had lots of time for reflecting.  If you are reading this because you are on your own journey with depression, I share my experience to offer support to other Moms and also to give hope to those who are deep in the struggle.  This January I will be coming up on three years in my journey.  So I know that I am currently in a much different place than those who are just starting out.  Do I still struggle, of course?  About a year ago it was determined that my PPD is now just plain old Chronic Depression.  Apparently it ceases to be PPD after the two year mark.  When I am  not having a good day I try to reflect on how far I have come since the really, really bad days.  When I worry whether or not I have totally messed up my kids, I reflect on how sweet and loving and HAPPY they are, so I guess my husband and I have done alright despite everything.  They know that they are loved and that is the most important thing.  I am okay.  There is still some darkness that sneaks in from time to time, mostly based on my hormonal fluctuations.  At least I can see those coming, know what they are, and know that they will pass pretty quickly if I just ride it out.    The situation with my hip has resulted in a few day of feeling sorry for myself here and there, but for the most part, being pretty much off my feet with limited control over my own life for over two months now, has shown me just how much of a handle that I do have on my depression, and honestly that is a good thing.  I am on a good therapeutic dose of a medication that works, I have wonderful support in my life and I do feel pretty much normal.  So maybe I have finally found my end in sight, until the next challenge arises or until I decide that it is time to go off my medication.    My greatest enemy is, and will continue to be sleep deprivation, but unfortunately that is just the way I am and there really isn't much I can do to sleep better, so I have learned to live with it the way it is, and I catch a good nap whenever I can.

My dear friends, if you are at the beginning of your journey and the darkness is heavy right now, rest assured that there is hope.  It is a long journey, full of many difficult days and many challenges.  It is important that you remember that you are a good mother, and this is not your fault.  Seek support and don't believe the negative thoughts that the darkness puts in your head.  It may take therapy and medication to help you move forward.  If you choose to take medication it might take a while to find the right medication with the right dosage, I went through many trials before I found the right one.  Don't lose hope.  Ask for help.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel I promise.

It has been a while since I recommended one of my favorite resources for information and support about Postpartum Depression:  Postpartumprogress.org.  This website helped me tremendously with figuring things out in the beginning.  I am sure it can help you too!

"I just want things to go back to normal."

Just a quick background for this post if you haven't been keeping up.  Towards the end of July I injured my left hip, but I didn't really know what was wrong, and it wasn't too bad at first, so I continued to use it normally for the next 3 and a half weeks.  It got steadily worse until I could no longer put weight on my left leg.  I was diagnosed with a stress fracture just below the joint in my left hip.  I cannot put weight on my left leg at all while it heals, so I have been on crutches or in a wheelchair for the past six weeks.  I still have at least six weeks to go until I am crutch free, as my doctor told me I need to stay off the leg for six weeks AFTER I no longer feel any pain in that hip, and currently I do still have some pain.

Last evening while Daddy was heating up our dinner, this precious girl of mine, Anne (age 5) had a meltdown and climbed up onto my lap sobbing and saying that she "just wants things to go back to normal."  I was pretty sure that I knew what she meant, but I questioned her further just to be sure.  Through her tears she told me that she wanted things to go back to to normal when Mommy did all of the work and she had more time to play.  She didn't want to have to help me carry things all the time and always be the one to let the dog out.  Now granted this was a very tired little girl at the end of her second full week of Kindergarten, but she was breaking my heart!

Now I feel my child's pain.  I have really been struggling the last few weeks, trying so hard to be patient, trying so hard not to let my depression creep in and take over, and wishing so hard that I could just get up and do all the things I am supposed to be able to do.  I want to sleep upstairs in my own bed!  I want to walk my children in and out of school every day instead of having someone else do it for me.  I want to clean my own house.  I want to take a real shower.  I want to take my dog for long walks in the woods on these beautiful fall days.  I want to make dinner for my family.  I want to be able to pick my kids up off the floor when they fall, and walk my rascally son back into time out over and over and over again.  It has been six weeks, well longer than that if you count the three weeks of pain before that.  I am really trying to learn this lesson in patience that God is trying to teach me.  God is always trying to teach me patience.  I must be pretty bad at it!  He is also trying to teach me to let go of control, to let other people help, to let HIM take over.  I must be pretty bad at that too!  BUT, I am trying.

I really have struggled with the extra pressure that this has put on my children, especially Anne.  She is more sensitive and because she is older, more has been expected of her.  And while she says that she doesn't want to do everything to help, she worries about who is helping Mommy when she is not there.  And she wants normal again.  I don't think that she understands that our normal has changed.  The old normal wasn't so great.  There were wonderful things about it, and many things that I took for granted, but I can sit here now and say that there were many things in my life that were normal for me, but that need to change.  It takes time for "normal" to change.  I need to change for a healthier me.  I need more time with God, I need more exercise, I need to eat better, I need more quality time with my husband, my friends and my kids.  However, I spend most of my life sitting in safe and comfortable ruts, doing things the easy way.

I feel like this experience is giving me the opportunity to change my old normal for a better normal, and honestly, I am so afraid I am going to screw it up.  I am afraid I am going to forget when I am free to move again.  I am trying to use this time to better my mind and prepare myself to have a whole new normal.  I feel like that is the reason that all this is happening, because I needed a drastic intervention to change and wiggle out of my comfortable old normal.

So my poor precious girl, this has put too much stress on a five year old.  She worries that I am going to get hurt worse if I fall, and about who is going to take care of me when she is not around, and then she is five, and just wants to play sometimes, so when we ask her to help she feels like she has to do everything.  So we had a long cuddle and a long talk, about being patient, and about what it means to do things out of love, even when you don't feel like it.   Even though it feels like it is taking forever for this hip to heal, it will.  In the meantime, I have been listening to Andy Stanley's series, "In the Meantime (Meantimeseries.org).  It is all about what to do when you can't do anything.  It is very inspiring.  So I am trying to be inspired and to plan out my new normal, while I patiently wait to heal.