Post Partum Depression sucks.
Sux.
Is a bear.
Leaves you bare.
A lot.
Especially when it doesn't occur to you that that is what you have. ( When it doesn't occur to one that that is what one has? Grammar. Love. ) And I didn't. For some reason I thought that the panic attacks and the anxiety and the anger and the nerves about to snap would all go away. That somehow it was my fault. That somehow I needed to get my BEEP together and pull myself up by my bootstrapseses and DEAL.
Zack was doing his best, God bless him. He'd look at me with an expression like,
"Where in the hell did you go?"
I didn't know. All I knew was that I was having the hardest time LIVING. Not in the "oh I want to die" kind of way. Just, wow. Life is very, very hard and so I'm gonna go upstairs and pull a Rip Van Winkle and all of you can just stuff it until things make enough sense in my head to wake up.
The crazy part? Life wasn't/isn't very very hard at all. AT ALL.
I have the following:
An amazing, adorable, talented, funny, hard working husband who loves me so much and is so good to me.
My sweet Phoenix and my stepsons Caleb and Joshua. All who warm my heart and are such good boys.
Hawke, who is a DREAM baby. Sleeps through the night. Hardly cries. Smiles and coos and travels like a champ.
A lovely little house.
I don't HAVE to work. ( I do, but I don't HAVE to. I just can't NOT work. Blech. )
I could keep going about food and clothing and running water and toilet paper and the internet and pretty, pink lamps and key lime pie and trips to New York and my family and fresh flowers in teapots and Hawke's hand on my face while nursing and my slightly out of tune piano and central heat and air and books and being able to read said books and the luxury of three pillows in bed at night and lipstick and ripe avocados and being alive for 31 years and Lindt chocolate truffles...
(deep breath)
My friend, Jenny Runkel, called me out on it. She called me one day about 6 weeks ago or so and while talking she simply said,
"Meghan, what's wrong? You sound sad."
"I am sad. And I don't know why."
She convinced me to go to the doctor. Jenny even talked to the doctor before I got there as she ended up having an appointment with him the same day as me only earlier and told him,
"My friend, Meghan, will be in here to see you this afternoon. She's going to tell you that's she's really fine and that it's not a big deal and that it's really nothing, but she's really sad and she just had a baby and she's not herself so don't let her wiggle out of it."
Or something like that. Jenny knows me really well. ;-)
So I go. And the doctor says,
"Oh, you're Meghan? Your friend Jenny, she told me about you!" And he told me what she said. And I cried and said she was right. He listened as I explained about how in theory I should be very very happy but that I wasn't, that I was very very sad and how guilty I felt because that didn't make SENSE. That I was avoiding emails and phone calls and most communication with people that I really like and love simply because I didn't have the energy. I couldn't DEAL. That I have a hard time admitting that I need help. That admitting I needed help was akin to saying I wasn't good for anything. As I said that I realised how silly it sounded.
He said three words that actually scared me.
"You are depressed."
Aw man. C'mon. Don't tell me that.
He prescribed me a little white pill called Lexapro.
I started taking it about 5 weeks ago.
2 weeks into it I started to recognise myself again.
Zack did, too.
I'm not all drugged up or weird or anything. I don't understand all of the medical science behind it per se. I just know that the parts of my brain that had decided to wage war against each other have now opted to sit around my cerebellum and sing Kumbaya. But efficiently. And with zest! Happily! This situation looks a bit stressful! It's okay! We'll make a list!
I'm still heavier than I ever have been ever ever ever. And I still have stressful things going on right now. That. I. Would. Totally. Write. About. But. I. Can't. On. The. World. Wide. Web. Oh. Em. GEE.
But.
But.
I am a blessed, blessed lady. And I'm thankful for the brains of scientists and researchers and doctors who were creative in coming up with a little white 10mg pill that helps brains like mine make sense to itself again. I'm thankful for Zack who has been so patient and good while I wrestled with this other me that wasn't me.
Does that make any sense?
I have 14 tons of laundry to fold. It's nearly 2am. There is so much to do. I'll make a list.
Tomorrow.
Right now, I need to go crawl into bed with my beloved and let this mind of mine have a rest.
G'night.
"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning, which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
~A.A. Milne