Someone recently said to me, “No offense, but I don’t know
how you do [parenting] without alcohol!” One, in no way was I offended. Two, I
don’t find parenting sober to be a challenge any more than I find being sober
in a general a challenge. If anything, parenting helps keep me sober because I
have to be sober not only for myself but my children as well. What I do find
challenging, in fact what I find the most challenging aspect of parenting and
living, is dealing with my depression and anxiety.
I am 31 years old meaning I have been battling depression
and anxiety for 21 years. Some times have been easier than others. Some years
have been harder than others. But parenting…parenting has been by far the most
difficult.
For those of you
unfamiliar with depression, it is not the crippling sadness that is often
depicted in movies or books. Depression is not just a form of sadness;
depression is a blanket that suffocates everything you do. Instead of just
being sad, you are tired—so very tried. You feel as if you could crawl into bed
and sleep for days and still be tired. Your body feels as if you are moving
through mud mixed with honey with a 50 mile an hour wind blowing in your face.
Every step seems to cost you the small amount of energy you have and you do not
think you can move three steps let alone get through an entire day. I read a
quote that said, “Sleep doesn’t help when it’s your soul that’s tired.” This
perfectly sums up depression. You are tired, your body is tired, your soul,
heart, and spirit are tired. And nothing helps.
To add anxiety on top
of depression complicates matters. Anxiety is, simply put, worrying. I worry
about everything. I worry about scenarios that have a one in a million chance
of happening. I worry about things I can control and I worry about things I
can’t control. The worrying makes me tired, exhausted in the sort of way you
feel after getting over an illness. The anxiety makes my depression worse or my
depression makes my anxiety worse, depending on which demon is in control that
day. Either way, I’m usually a mess of depression and anxiety, bone weariness
combined with deep worry.
On bad days, bad days not horrible days, but the regular bad
ones, I struggle to stay up right. I long for my bed, my deepest desire is to
crawl under my blankets, listen to depressing music (Sound of Silence, lots of
Alanis Morrisette and early Jewel, that kind of thing) and sleep. I just want
to sleep. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t have depression but sleeps
seems so wonderful when I’m depressed. It sounds glorious to slip away for a
while, to not think, to not worry.
On good days, I function like a healthy person. I stay awake
all day, I eat healthy, I play with my kids and joke with my husband. It’s all
good. And on those days, it’s easy to forget that bad ones. On those days, it’s
easy to think that life will always be like that. Then the bad days come, or
the god awful horrible days, and I’m reminded that I am not a healthy person, I
am a mentally ill person who needs help.
Since I was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety, I
have been on medications. I went through a time when I fought taking my meds,
seeing them as a crutch. Eventually I adopted the mind frame that is true and
works for me---just as a diabetic needs insulin to survive so do I need
antidepressants. There is no shame in that. My medication is not a crutch but
rather cane as in I can walk without a cane but not well and not for long. I
need my medication to fix my brain’s chemical imbalance. Without it I cannot be
happy or even experience happiness. The longer I go without my meds, the worse
my depression and anxiety gets. Eventually, I will suffer a panic attack so
severe I will “freak out”, no longer be in control of body and most likely
vomit and, yes, soil myself. My reaction to being without my meds is not
simply mental but physical as well.
So if I take my meds regularly, I can control my emotions
and my worries with ease, given that I have had 21 years to practice reigning
them in. It is still a struggle, especially when I am PMS-ing or my hormones
are not regular, like now when I’m nursing. Most of the time, I feel as if I am
a tightly wound coil that can spring/explode at any moment. The trick is to
either explode where no one gets hurt (like screaming into my pillow) or to
defuse in a safe way (usually by reading or taking a bath or simply going to
Target by myself). Difficulty occurs when I can’t calm myself or when I
detonate in front of my kids.
Parenting a toddler is tough enough. If you have never had a
three year old in your house then it’s hard to imagine but three year olds are
basically teenagers (hence their nickname three-nagers) without their level of
education or ability to reason. Parenting a seven year old isn’t nearly as
challenging but as he has a new baby sister and this is the first year I’m a
SAHM, he often feels left out and neglected. And then there’s my newborn who is
such a happy baby but is still a baby, needing constant attention and even
though she’s happy, she does not like sleeping of any kind. So, as any parent
knows, parenting is tough. Parenting with depression and anxiety? Now that’s
near impossible.
The worst part of depression, the absolute worst aspect,
symptom, effect, whatever you want to call it, is the way it makes you give up,
the feeling it gives you of just wanting to quit.
When I was at my worst with depression, right before I
entered rehab, I wanted to quit. Quit what you ask? Well, life. It’s not that I
wanted to end my life, I just wanted to quit it. I didn’t want my life to be my
life anymore. I wanted to run away and start all over. I wanted a clean slate
where I couldn’t remember all of the times I had messed up. I wanted a new
life. Thankfully, I got the help I needed and did get a new life, it just
involved coming to terms with my past instead of erasing it.
Even though I no longer want to quit my life, I still
struggle with the feeling of wanting to quit, to give up. There are days that
sometimes parenting seems too difficult for me to handle and I want to give up.
There are days when I feel I’m a total failure as a wife, mother, and friend
and I want to give up. I want to curl up into a ball and give up. Those days
are the hardest. Those days it takes a lot of motivation to not give up, to not
freak out and explode, to not walk away. What adds fuel to the fire is knowing
my kids know something’s wrong. “Why is mommy sleeping” “Are you going to bed
early again?” These words cut me and break my heart. At the same time, I know
that recharging myself is better for all of us. Still, I don’t want my kids to
look back on their childhood and only remember me sleeping. Or to look back on
their childhood and think, “When mommy was happy, she was really happy and when
she was sad, she was really sad.”
It’s been 21 years.
TWENTY ONE YEARS of fighting my depression demon and anxiety imp. I’m tired. I
am so tired of fighting and having to fight and knowing the fight will never
end. Yet, staying and fighting is so incredibly worth it. I’m not going to
sugar coat it, the hard days are hard and don’t get easier but the good days
are phenomenal and happen more frequently with every passing year.
I am far from the perfect mother and I am far from the
perfect wife. What works for me may not work for you. What helps me keep my demons
at bay may have no effect on yours. I’m simply sharing my story so that other
moms out there know they are not alone. I hope they know that they need to keep
fighting, not only for themselves but for their children. I hope they know that
it’s okay to ask for help, that it’s okay to take naps, that it’s okay to take
“me time” to recharge as long as it’s just a recharge and not a white flag. You
have to keep fighting. Not only for yourself but for your children. Your
children need you and need you to be strong. Who knows? Maybe one day they,
too, will suffer from depression and the only way they’ll be able to battle is
to remember how bravely and resiliently their mother battled.
My wish is that my
children will look back on their childhood and remember not a mother who
suffered from depression and anxiety but rather a mother who battled depression
and anxiety bravely. I hope they look back and remember a strong woman, a brave
woman, a woman who woke up every day to battle the same demons, knowing she could
never win but knowing she would never give up.
