Often when we think of women suffering from post partum depression we think of Andrea Yates drowning her poor children in the bathtub, but it’s not like the the vast majority of the time. There is a spectrum and I am very grateful that mine is on the mild to moderate end and feel greatly for those, including those I know, who are suffering or have suffered from more severe encounters with this ugly thing.
Mild to moderate postpartum depression can be hard to identify. You are already exhausted and overwhelmed by the state of your life and so in the beginning you think that the symptoms are normal and you ignore them and this is just what I did and then it morphed into something more debilitating and which eventually resulted in a mild breakdown.
I couldn’t really see the depression for what it was at the time. I even remember saying that I just didn’t understand why I felt the way I did, I wasn’t a depressed person. But I was. As I look down the list of symptoms, it seems so obvious now.
I find it really intriguing that looking back at the past year, I can see it all so clearly and how relieved I feel to finally have a name to put on what’s been going on with me. Yet, when you are in the middle of it all, you just feel horrible and don’t for the life of you know what is causing it.
To talk about how I could barely get through the day, feed the kids and manage the minute by minute is a difficult and somewhat embarrassing thing. But it was what it was. It took every ounce of energy I had to do the most basic things and everything beyond that just didn’t get done. This is how it started and then it progressed into paranoia and self-loathing of the sort I have never really experienced. I felt like I was terrible at everything, that nobody cared about me and that I wasn’t worthy of anything positive.
As things started to get worse and worse, I knew something was wrong, but I just couldn’t fight my way out of it. I tried to commit to things that would help me heal, inspire me and help me to reengage with the world, but I just couldn’t do it and then I would feel guilty and helpless and like I was letting everyone down, including myself.
As a strong, intelligent, independent woman who has overcome and crawled out of some pretty dark spots in her life, it was very difficult for me to ask for help and I think this is why it went as far as it did. But, sometimes a little breakdown is the best thing that can happen to a person.
There were a few things that finally broke the cycle for me and got me moving in the right direction and asking for help. I ended a destructive relationship, which empowered me to stand up for myself and understand and communicate my needs. I sought out therepy and was very picky about who to see. I waited for the right person, connecting and being on the same page is really important. This is the person you need to share your darkest moments with, you better trust them implicitly.
I also made a personal choice not to medicate. This is a very personal decision and for me it was about finally facing my demons head on. There are many things that I have learned to deal with or pushed aside throughout my life, but never really faced and integrated and learned from. I felt that now was the time to do that so that I could move forward in my life on a more meaningful path. I felt that medication would only impair the process for me.
My therapist discuuses my journey as two parallel paths. There is the current situation with the depression and this involves a lot of talking and learning of tools to deal with the day to day. And then there is the deeper issues (the demons so to speak) that I am trying to face and deal with. For the latter, we are using a technique called Lifespan Integration. This is where the timeline of my life originated and I will talk more about this technique at a later time.
My goal is that those two paths will meet down the road and that I will be able to use all of the tools and knowledge to find a way to live a more fulfilled and full life, to become the person I want to be and to establish more meaningful and healthy relationships.
I have days now when I think to myself ‘wow, could it really have been that simple, I feel great, I must be cured’. And then I have a day that reminds me that this is a journey and a process and that although I am feeling much better, there is still a lot of work to do.
Today is a bad day. I am tired and uninterested and easily irritated and counting every minute until I can have just a minute of quiet to close my eyes and reflect on what is happening. The good news is that I haven’t had one of these days in several weeks and that I can see it clearly for what it is. That doesn’t mean that I am not fighting it and managing it every second, but I can own it and know that it will pass and that I will feel better when it does.
A few months ago this day would have been the beginning of a downward spiral that may have lasted days to weeks and ended in my sobbing in the shower and scaring the crap out of my poor husband as I am reduced to puddle of self pity. I’d say we’re making progress.
This creates a lack of job performance recognition. I have been feeling undervalued lately. This is a rough time for us and although we are very lucky and blessed in our life, we are struggling right now.
Although it is a lot of pressure, all the responsibility for lifting me up and making me feel valued and validated falls on my husband and this is a little much for him, I think. Unfortunately, there is no one else to help carry this burden. It is his to bear, and I am sorry for that.
I tried to give him an analogy to help him to understand. I asked him to imagine that he went to work every day and no one there ever said he was doing a good job. It would be awful for him, and I think that it helped him to see the reality of the situation. This is our job and validation for being good at our job is just as important for us as it is for anyone else.
Unfortunately, now that I have spoken about it, we now struggle with how to provide me with the support I need without his compliments or statements sounding contrived and trite.
The great thing is that we can have this conversation at all. I feel very fortunate that I feel safe enough and loved enough that I can say that I need more from him. That says a lot about the strength of our relationship. Many don’t have this situation and live alone with all this.
There is this catch 22 about being a stay at home parent. At least for me, i feel guilty if I complain at all. I made this choice and I am very grateful for it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have hard days, days that I wish I could crawl into bed and not get out till next week. When you have a job outside the home, you come home and discuss the things that are going well and the things that are hard at work. But when I do, i feel guilty. I feel guilty for not enjoying every moment with my children, guilty for complaining about a choice that has been a huge sacrifice for our family, guilty for wanting more for myself. And in response I usually get the suggestion that I go back to work.
I don’t need to go back to work, I need two days by a pool with a foofy umbrella drink or ten.
It is impossible for those not staying home to fully understand the joys and trials that we face every day. There are moments of pure bliss and moments when you feel like you have completely lost all value and substance. It is equally impossible for us to fully understand the stresses that working moms face trying to be and do it all and not feel like they are doing any of it very well.
The hard fact is that being a parent is hard. It just is.
We need to support one another, husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend. We need to be compassionate and lift each other up and be there for each other, even if we aren’t all the same or make the same choices or parent the same way.
Hugs and kisses and flowers and all that crap.
We lived in a construction zone for six months and when the house got to a point where we could finally live in it, we just stopped. There was much left to do, but we just didn’t feel like it any more and decorating and finishing touches just didn’t take priority. Over the years we have accomplished much, from a remodeling stand point, but now it is time to make this house a home. I want throw pillows and soft fabrics and coordinating furniture and really just a place that our friends and family as well as our selves can feel comfortable.
Our couches are on order and should arrive in about a month. We ordered them back in August and it seems like they are taking forever, but it takes a while. Nine to eleven weeks in our case.
So in the meantime we have a lot to take care of. We thought about buying a new dining room set, but decided that with two small children that would be a terrible idea. They are just too hard on things and although our dining room set isn’t exactly what we would like, unlike our couch (or should I say glorified dog bed), it works just fine for our current circumstances.
So, for about $150 I bought all the materials to reupholster the dining room chairs.
Although I do sew, this is something I have no experience doing, so I went out online and looked for instructions. There are lots of options, but these seemed to be the simplest and easiest to understand.
This was much easier to do than I expected. I would say each chair, including a detailed cleaning with a wood cleaner and polisher, took me about an hour.
Here are the before pictures. They don’t do justice to how stained and dirty the fabric on these chairs is. They are dingy, greying and terribly stained. The chair in this photo has a water stain the size of a cantelope in the middle. This dining room set belonged to my grandmother and is from the 40s, but my mom says that she redid the seats several times.
Because I don’t know what the original fabric looked like, I tried to stick with something similar to what my grandmother had used, assuming that she was at least somewhat true to the style of the set. I chose a fabric with a green undertone and gold overtones to coordinate with the walls and curtains.
When we chose the couch colors (slate blue/grey and chocolate brown), we didn’t really think about how warm the rest of our things were, so our color pallet is a little unconventional. But, I have done some color coordinating with photoshop and I actually think it is going to look nice.
I also want to increase the padding in the chairs as they weren’t very comfortable, so I added a piece of foam under that batting.
Here are the after photos. I am really pleased with how they turned out.
I believe that I am in the middle of learning some big life lesson and although I don’t have a complete handle on exactly what is going on I feel that it has something to do with learning to set boundaries and feel ok about stating what I need. When we discuss things going on in my life right now, there are some common threads (things that I keep saying over and over), including that I don’t feel that I am being heard as well as issues around boundary setting.
To get at the root of where these feelings are coming from, where in my past they originated, and how best to move past my issues and move forward in my life on a more directed and purposeful path, we are going to use a variety of techniques beyond just hashing it out over and over again.
I am having some pretty exaggerated emotional responses to the pretty straight forward issues I’m dealing with right now, so I think that there has to be something more going on here. Something from my past rearing its head or a brick wall that I have to fight through in order to learn a life lesson that will enable me to find that path to a fulfilling, balanced life that I so eagerly seek and find so elusive.
One of the therapy techniques we are using requires I come up with a simple memory from each year of my life. The memory should be neutral to positive and not induce any serious emotion of any sort, just a pleasant memory.
I can’t say that I totally understand how this is all going to work yet, but it sure was interesting making this list. Some years were definitely easier than others. There were some pretty dark areas of my life that I struggled to find a positive memory for. Not that great memories don’t come out of some of the darkest times, but finding something that wasn’t tied to someone or something that was going to dredge up the negative things associated with that time was sometimes rather tricky.
The numbers correspond with my age at the time and I have added the years in brackets once I hit my 20s because it is easier to reference it that way. My therapist said that when we hit our mid twenties we start identifying more with what year it is and less with how old we are. Makes sense, i guess, who wants to dwell on how old they are past 25, right?
This is what I came up with.
4 - Sitting on the hearth in front of the fireplace Christmas morning with my Grandpa in our Christmas jammies.
5 – Eating pomegranates on the playground
6 – Decorating my bike for the fourth of July parade
7 – Earthquake evacuation drills (we lived in northern California at the time)
8 – Meeting Lizzie on the first day of school
9 – Having pizza with my math teacher
10 – Building the pasture fence with my dad
11 – Braiding the horses manes with the other riders in my barn before horse shows
12 – My first kiss
13 – Going to Disneyland with my choir
14 – 9th grade graduation
15 – Riding in the back of Kris’s brat
16 – Braiding our hair at Tegan’s house
17 - Driving out to the valley in Joanne’s convertible listening to Violator
18 - The green shag carpet in my first apartment
19 - Watching 90210 at Lauri and Tiff’s
20 - Learning to Rock Climb in my systems class.
21 - Climbing a tree with Karli my first trip to Bellingham
22 - Drawing in art class
23 – Coming home from School everyday to Karli, Jason and Lucus on the couch
24 - Meeting Sarah
25 - Smoking Cigarettes in the garden behind CUH with Sarah
26 (99/00) – Propagating plants in the greenhouse. Oh, how I loved the greenhouse
27 (00/01)- Getting married
28 (01/02) – Buying our house
29 (02/03) – Taking my first business trip – to Las Vegas
30 (03/04) – Going to the cabin with Matt and Teresa
31 (04/05) – Sitting in the quad at the UW
32 (05/06) – Little Gym
33 (06/07) – Finding out I was pregnant, again
34 (07/08) – Our road trip to California
35 (present) – Karli and I building the deck
This was actually a really interesting and fun way to look back over my life. Remembering the past and sifting through all the emotionally charged memories in our lives to find those simple moments when all was right in the world is very therapeutic. I encourage you all to give it a try.
Finding a therapist is easier said than done in many cases. Oh yes, if you were willing to pick blindly off a list, then it’s cake. But, I was looking for someone who would resonate with my belief system (no christian counseling please – you would be very surprised how many that eliminates), had a time slot that would work for me and of course was on my provider list.
I did find someone, but she only had middle of the day spots, which initially I balked at because I don’t have child care. I then found out that there was no one else that I really liked and I decided I really wanted her, so I called back a few days later to take the one available appointment and it was gone. She was full and no longer accepting patients. Great.
Well, for a couple of weeks, I just let the whole therapist thing go and concentrated on doing what I could myself for my current situation. This has gone pretty well, actually. I feel a lot better. I have been really embracing and feeling my emotions, I think for the first time in many many years. This has allowed me to let some it go and to have the courage to do something that was very difficult but necessary.
I was talking with my friend T and she suggested I see if I could get on a waiting list with this woman that I want to see. So yesterday, I sent an email to see if she had a waiting list and she wrote back that she now has three appointments available. They are still daytime appointments, but we are just going to have to work it out. I am now confirmed to begin therapy next week. Yea!
I also asked her to put me on the waiting list for later appointments as they become available. This way, I can hopefully end up with an evening appointment in the next several months.
I am very excited to begin. She specializes in life journeys and incorporating or releasing residual baggage from the past as well as moving forward on the life path you are meant to follow. I am so looking forward to begin this work.
For me, and I think for many with childhood issues, it is important that I learn to accept what happened, understand that it wasn’t my fault and learn to do what I have to to let it go and stop the patterns that were created by it.
A lesson I learned for this process is not to be afraid to ask for what you need. She has been very supportive and accommodating of my scheduling issues, within her boundaries of course, and I ended up seeing the right person and on a path to it working well for my schedule. Finding a way to make things that matter work and asking for what you need are two very important life lessons.
You may think that sharing something like seeing a therapist is too personal to share on a blog, and yes it is a very personal thing. I am sharing because I want every woman, mother or person for that matter to know that talking with someone in order to grow or heal or whatever your goal is not something shameful at all. On the contrary, talking about your feelings is the healthy way to deal with our problems. Much better than the variety of escapism methods available or taking it out on the people we love.
It is brave to face your demons head on and wise to know when we need more that we can provide ourselves.
As a matter of coincidence, the next tarot reading in my self inventory is all about relationships and how they will work out. How fitting that I am beginning a new relationship that I would love some insight on.
SI2008 – #11 How will this relationship turn out
They talk about the entitlement issues with today’s youth and I see all the problems this causes and try very hard with my own children to instill a sense of responsibility and understanding of where things come from and working hard for the things that we have. I also want them to know that working hard is rewarding in and of itself. I feel that we model this the best we can to them and that this will become more and more important as they grow up.
But I can also relate to that entitlement. Not in that I shouldn’t have to work hard for it, but shouldn’t I be able to follow my dreams too? Must I sacrifice everything? Is there a middle ground?
I think that finding that middle ground is what being a grown up is about. Finding a place where I know myself well, do something I love and still have the energy and commitment to provide a healthy and happy upbringing for my children. This is my quest.
But will I ever be satisfied? Is satisfaction the goal? Oh, I don’t know.
I have found several ways of alleviating this that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. I was talking with my fellow classmates and my instructor before yoga class last night about this very phenomena. I was commenting that I was up at 3 in the morning last week, really wishing I new what moves would help me get to sleep.
Turns out there are several that are very helpful. It turns out that having your head close to floor is very helpful and touching the floor is even better. Viparita Karani (legs up the wall) is very restorative and helpful for calming the mind, relaxing you and making you better prepared to sleep. Combining this with a concentration on your breath and clearing your mind might be very helpful.
Prasarita Tadottanasana (Wide-legged forward bend) is also a great move. If you can get your head on the floor, even better. Try using a block under your head if you can’t get all the way down. When completely in this pose, it is pretty intense and supposedly all of the racing thought will just flow out of the top of your head and leave you alone.
One way that I attempt to get rid of the thoughts is to write them down. This really helps when you have tomorrows to do list in your head or a great idea for a new blog post that you don’t want to forget. Don’t let it swarm in your head, just turn the side table light on, keep a pen and pad next to your bed, and write it down. Poof, done. And as I learned last night, it also helps when you just can’t keep your mind from spinning on something that is bothering you.
I was having a hard time settling down last night as I had been pretty worked up most of the day and I just needed a release, so I blogged it and read it and rewrote it several times and by that time it was done and I was ready to sleep. I actually slept really well last night, if not for the number of hours I would have liked.
Another topic that came up at yoga class was savasana (corpse pose). I too find this helpful but as my instructor was saying, when the mind is really whirling, savasana is most likely enough. This is really helpful after you have released some of the thoughts and I practice this in bed all the time to help me fall asleep.
The key to savasana and why it is considered by many to be one of, if not the, hardest yoga pose that there is, is to shut off your thoughts. This is a very difficult thing to do. They creep in even when you are actively trying to keep them out. The key is to acknowledge them and then send them on there way, returning your attention to your breath.
This is really meditation, so I did a little search on meditation and found the Change blog and his article on how to meditate. It’s a pretty good article and made me think about all the ways that I use to turn off my mind, reminded me of the conversation I had at yoga class yesterday, inspired me to learn more about meditation and ultimately brought me to writing this article.
But even better, the original author of this blog (it is now a multi-author blog) spent a year looking for change and has documented it in his blog and ultimately in an ebook, which I downloaded and look forward to reading. From the titles of his most popular posts, the same ones ultimately gathered into his ebook, it sounds like he has accomplished many of the things I am looking to accomplish on this journey and I look forward to his insight.
The links to the asanas (yoga poses) above were provided by Yoga Journal. For each pose you are given a good image (not always easy to find), a full description and how-to, and also a wealth of information about the benefits and uses for the pose. Really great stuff. In addition to their comprehensive pose gallery, they have a whole section on home practice section (I can’t wait to try this one), and a tool to build your own practice. Pretty cool.
Why is it that I allow something so inconsequential to get me so riled up? Probably because it isn’t inconsequential. Not because of the specific situation but because of the feelings of loss that it brings up in me. Loss is a very sad emotion. It’s one that I’m not sure I have ever fully addressed.
The good thing is that I am feeling the sadness, boy am I feeling it. And it is all muddled with anger and resentment and the need to slug someone in the gut. The problem with this kind of emotion is that it interferes with everything.
It seeps into all the little crevices of your life and start to mess with you. It’s just wrong. But it needs to be done. Opening a nest of pent up emotion is a scary thing and not always the most pleasant for those that you love, but it needs to be dealt with. I have no choice to but face it all and look it directly in the eye. Be brave. Be brave. Be brave.
I also know what needs to be done to put all this current messy business behind me as well, but doing it is also pretty scary business. I am wired for flight and turning to face my fears is not something I do with ease. I am a person who has walked through life in fear. Not any more.
Sometimes what needs to be done, just needs to be done. Sometimes there is no salvaging it. And sometimes, even if you could salvage it, that isn’t the right or best thing to do. I am done with situations that are not healthy for me. I am done pushing my true self aside to please others. I am done feeling bad about who I am. I’m just done. I want it over with. I am ready to move on. Too bad that all comes with a bunch of ugly consequences.
Just for the record, this has nothing to do with my marriage. Karli is my rock and I would be huddled in a corner right now if it weren’t for him. He is everything a husband should be and so much more. I wish everyone had the opportunity to walk through life with their soul mate.
Someone told me something really important once and I repeat it to myself often.
I have everything that I need and I am getting better and better every day.
I am grateful and hopeful and full of love.
A couple of weeks ago, a minor incident caused a huge upset in my life. My disappointment and hurt feelings transformed into misdirected and overinflated anger and caused me to stop for a minute and consider what was really going on.
What I said in the post about not letting things build up because years of frustration and pain are really hard to deal with all at once is so true as I feel that much of the intensity of what is happening with me right now comes directly from hiding from myself and my issues for so long. But, there is more than that at work.
Over the last couple of weeks I have done some serious soul searching and have determined a couple of things.
1. It is time for me to find a good therapist. I spent a couple of years when I was younger in therapy to deal with my issues surrounding my parents divorce and also to try and eliminate some pretty self destructive behavior. Although this was crucial to my current success in life, what I learned to do was to set the bad feelings aside and concentrate on the good feelings.
This is sort of the foundation of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is one of the most common forms and although I can not be certain, I assume the type of therapy I received so many years ago. They take the negative behaviors and circumstances and change the way the you look at them and think about them in a more positive way.
“The objectives of CBT typically are to identify irrational or maladaptive thoughts, assumptions and beliefs that are related to debilitating negative emotions and to identify how they are dysfunctional, inaccurate, or simply not helpful. This is done in an effort to reject the distorted cognitions and to replace them with more realistic and self-helping alternatives.” – Wikipedia
This is extremely effective in increasing a person’s ability to function in the real world and lead a productive and positive life and may definitely be enough for many, if not most, people. And, as I said, I owe a lot to this type of therapy, which enabled me to put aside the anger and hurt and move on with my life.
But what I am feeling now is like I put all those feelings and consequently most of the negative feelings I have had throughout the subsequent years into a drawer and closing it, seeking to avoid slipping into those hurt feelings and negative emotions, no matter what they involve. The drawer squeaks open now and then and I shove a couple more things in and then close the drawer again.
Well, now the drawer is so full that it won’t close any more. It is now time for me to figure out how to empty out the drawer and deal with, live with, or get rid of whatever is in there.
I have been working on finding a therapist since the day, but this is definitely easier said than done. Finding someone who resonates with your belief system (no christian counseling please – geez, is everyone pushing their christianity these days – oops angry words), fits in with your schedule and within your network and actually has time to see you is really difficult. Be patient and active, that’s the mantra.
2. I am very much trying to own my emotions and to truly feel them, even if they are not entirely rational. Feelings are real, in any state and they shouldn’t be pushed aside. I am very overwhelmed by the emotional state I am in right now, but am crying when I need to cry and expressing my feelings either out loud or with words so that I can embrace all that is me.
Remaining in control and not starting down a destructive path is very important, but so is feeling all of this in a safe supportive environment. I want to feel whole and happy and motivated and inspired.
3. It is time for me to embrace who I am. I am a little quirky, a little introverted, and a lot of other really great things too. I am who I am and although life is a journey of change and hopefully improvement, I am proud of the person that I am. It takes great strength to come from where I was to where I am and I need to stop trying to be what everyone else expects of me and just be me.
In that vain, I am going to stop pussy footing around on this blog and just say what I have to say. That’s what this was supposed to be about after all, yet I have found myself tempering myself as to appear in a certain manner and by doing that, not really representing myself.
4. It is time to get my shit together and my life somewhat organized and working more smoothly. I am never going to find the time or energy to do whatever great things my future holds for me if I can’t even handle what I have now. Now, I know that more time will naturally come and that I can’t underestimate the demands of two kids 4 and 1, but there are self defeating patterns that I have propagated throughout my daily existence and it is time for those things to change. A little determination is in order and I am tired of feeling hopeless. Get moving.
When it comes right down to it, it is about feeling comfortable in my own skin. That is what I am working toward.
I am not sure I have ever been so angry.
My body is one big knot. Each day, I wake with a new knotted up muscles. Today it is in my right shoulder. Yesterday it was on the left side of my neck.
Yoga last night helped temperarly. My yoga bliss was a much needed reprieve, even if it only lasted a couple of hours. Today, the anger is back in full force.
I can feel it when I breathe, a hallow dullness in my chest, a slight dizziness, my head light, my thoughts muddied.
The tears come at the most inopportune times, when I most need them to stay stuffed down. I teeter on the edge of control, trying to put on a happy face and keep moving for the sake of my family and many times not too successful. My poor husband, I’m sorry.
This is a lesson in fear and weakness. Do not let things build up without saying anything. Years worth of frustration and bitterness are very hard to deal with all at once.