Monthly Archives: October 2012

My Fear=Their Fear

Posted on October 6, 2012 | 3 comments

I have been afraid of the dark as long as I can remember. I never slept without a light on. That light was often the overhead light.

It drove my dad crazy.

But I could taste the fear. The worst to me was when I forgot to do something outside and had to go out after dark.

I grew up on a small farm. We had a barn, which means we had barn cats. It was my job to feed them. I did not like my job. I put it off as long as possible. Especially when my dad told me I was feeding skunks in with the cats. Um, who wants to do that? Not me. I hated my job.

Fast forward a “few” years. Now that my husband is around I am willing to sleep without a light.

Go forward a couple more years and we have 2 of our girls. It is time to teach them to sleep on their own. Discussion, give them a light or make them learn from the beginning…

I chose incorrectly.

I chose with the light on the first time Caitlyn cried.

And now their overhead light is on every night.

So my fear is their fear.

*Patrice has been trained with her light off…hubby didn’t let me make that mistake twice.

3 Comments

Posted in Mommyhood Confessions

This all started

Posted on October 5, 2012 | 1 comment

with a baby. A baby I prayed for, begged my husband for. A baby.

After she was born, things went crazy. I had to be busy or I would cry. And busier and busier.

I knew something was wrong. I even guessed it was depression of some kind. But I’d never heard of the term postpartum anxiety until MONTHS after Patrice was born. Until I found a website, www.postpartumprogress.com.

The resources and information on this site are epic.

And today she is doing her annual fundraiser, Strong Start, to keep the site going.

Won’t you please donate for all the mamas you know, whether they have dealt with postpartum depression/anxiety/OCD or not?

Help a mama out.

www.postpartumprogress.com

1 Comment

Posted in depression, Postpartum Depression

Suck it up or Let it out

Posted on October 4, 2012 | 2 comments

My doctor is a psychiatrist, can prescribe medications, and a psychotherapist, does talk therapy. I am very blessed to have one who does both. It is the ideal situation for treating bipolar, but is hard to find.

I see him once a week. Sometimes we deal primarily with medications. Sometimes we work more on the therapy side.

This week was more therapy side. It is harder work for me, but where I hope to see long-term results.

Did I mention this week was a lot of talk? Well it was. Starting with, what went on this week. I blanked. Apparently, if you ask me about my week straight up, I can’t remember a thing…you have to lead me to it with more specific questions.

We moved on to my transitions blog post. He read it and then I gave a synopsis of the amazing comments people left. In the end, my take away was, be sad for a while, miss what is past but suck it up and move on.

Shockingly, he didn’t agree. Crazy, isn’t it, that a therapist wouldn’t agree with that?

And we talked about it. About the need to express thoughts, feelings and emotions. We talked about how I express things on my blog, he was glad to hear I am back to writing, but that I, again, tend to suck it up. I decide nothing can change by talking about a situation, so why talk about it. He believes that “sucking it up” is actually sucking it in, or stuffing it. He also thinks this is a bad idea. He says expressing it, whatever it is, helps it lose its power; it helps to get rid of the pain or the issues ability to cause depression and anxiety.

Honestly, I do feel better about a couple things that we talked about. I feel validated. But in other areas, I’m not so sure. I don’t know if talking about it will help, but what I’ve been doing all these years hasn’t worked, so I might as well keep giving this a try. He’s been right about so many things. I’m willing to trust the process.

Will you continue to join me on this journey of self discovery–without thinking I’m off my rocker?

2 Comments

Posted in depression, Postpartum Depression

When Nothing is Wrong

Posted on October 3, 2012 | 3 comments

Today nothing is wrong. I don’t mean life is perfect, I just mean there is nothing glaringly wrong.

But something feels wrong.

Like I’ll say the wrong thing.

Do the wrong thing.

Like today when my phone, which I had silenced, rang–not silently, in a meeting. I’m not whether to apologize to my managers or just pretend it never happened. Yes, for the record, I had a valid reason to have my phone with me. I don’t wear a watch and needed to know the time so I could leave in time for my doctor appointment.

But again I’m just afraid of the wrong.

Afraid I’ll say the wrong thing to the speech therapist about her talking to me about changes, not the sitter.

When nothing is wrong, I can express things like this to my doctor “I am really tired of feeling very upset or anxious inside and acting fine on the outside.” The doctor didn’t solve it for me, but he did validate it. He said, “yes, there is a disconnect with you. Sometimes I can sense you are upset, but often it is hard to tell.” Again he didn’t fix it. He just validated it. For some reason I feel better.

It was good to have an appointment that was not primarily talking about medicaiton, but actually talking about what might be causing my anxiety. These are the good things we can do when nothing it wrong.

3 Comments

Posted in depression

Sue’s Big Moment

Posted on October 2, 2012 | 5 comments

We are Christians. And in our religious beliefs and traditions, one comes to their point of salvation in their own time and place. But it is absolutely necessary for each person to confess their sins to Jesus and ask Him to cleanse them from sins and come live in their heart.

Last night, all the kids and daddy were playing in the living room. As only kids can do, they managed to each be doing something totally different–inches away from each other. And I hear Sue saying “I’m pretending to be baptised so Jesus can wash away my sin.

This was a moment I couldn’t miss. Facebook could wait.

I headed into the living room. “Sue, come here. Do you know what it means to have Jesus wash away your sins? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes.”

So in simple, clear terms, I explained sin and forgiveness and asked her if she wanted to pray to ask Jesus into her heart.

She did.

She prayed.

You could hear the truth ring through.

This mama is so proud and happy.

Sue has Jesus in her heart.

5 Comments

Posted in church, Faith, Sue

PPDCHAT ladies

Posted on October 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Today’s post is simply a thank you to the #ppdchat ladies on twitter. I was struggling a bit today and they rallied around me.

I said, the depressions’ latest conquest over me was my confidence in the knowledge I have as an experienced mom. The ladies immediately started telling me how much they valued my knowledge as a mom and had benefitted from it.

Then when I expressed some new fears, the fearless leader, Lauren “hugged” me and encouraged me to get some help from my doctor. I did talk to my doctor. We decided to wait a few days before making any changes. I see him Wednesday.

Ultimately, thanks to these special on-line friendships, my day turned out, all and all, lovely.