Category Archives: Mental Health

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Six

Her breath is heavy and woven with impatience.

I can’t help but feel her expectations.

Her need is drowning me. If I cared to look closer I would see that she’s drowning too.

I know I can never deliver all the comfort and reassurance she craves.

I can hear her speaking to me from somewhere within my body.

Her scent permeates my pores.

I hate her, for she makes me want to save her.

Her beautiful eyes, so deep, so lipid, so tortured beneath it all.

She’s sitting there – loving me.

Loving every single thing about me. Thinking about me every moment. Her presence is all at once around me like a fog.

I can no longer see or think clearly.

My head pounds with all the loved ones banished to the recesses of my mind.

I blame her, the blame is overwhelming. It cuts my skin, turning it gnarled and ugly. It never touches her.

She’s ethereal yet soaked with flaws. Mistakes and regret drip from her eyelashes.

She cries and my anger melts away.

I want so badly to touch the curve of her face. I’m frightened to sit too close – I know she’ll never let me go.

She’s hurt much too long-

She’s been fractured beyond repair-

Why can’t I look away from her face?

All at once I know, I’ll never leave.

I’ll never stop reaching for her, trying to lift her out of her deep pain. Never stop fighting every single shadow and ghost that haunts her. Night upon night.

And in the moment that the certainty of that thought occurs-

Dread and horror inevitably follow.

She has me now, I’m lost with her. I cease to be.

I should have refused to sit with myself.

 

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A Day’s Journey (Syria and Sex)

It occurs to me as I search for change, that I am myself a great creature of change within one single day. My life may not make a drastic change, my habits and opinions and personality may stay the same. My life may not exhibit the changes I wish to see but in a moment of reflection, I realize change within myself is constant.

Pure contentment with a slow drifting off to sleep if only for an hour before the children awoke.

Resigned to the fact that they would not go back to sleep.

Pride in myself for being supermom, breakfast, multiple diaper changes, hot wheels races and the bathtub cleaned all before 8am.

Quiet insanity with my son going through a phase where he can call my name 18 thousand times in one minute. “Mama, mama, mama….”

Feeling completely overwhelmed at the first day free of depression in quite awhile.

Anger at my husband for taking his anger out on me. Anger at myself for allowing this to deconstruct my entire planned day.

Sadness and desperation when this momentarily drove me back to the dark room.

Frustration when my husband could not control his anger and our fight ballooned to packing his bags, name calling and angry cleaning.

Recovery with a cooling down period.

Shame when I accepted an unwanted loan for rent I can’t pay from my best friend. And then relief.

Determination when my mother showed up and we started cleaning my house.

Happiness playing more hot wheels and watching Disney Junior with my one son and seeing my other son laugh for maybe the fifth time so far.

Hilarity ensues when my mother speaks, as a dog ate her dentures and she has her alternate pair on. Complete with buck teeth and crooked teeth that are brilliant white.

Fear and anger when I read that the U.S wants to go to Syria. Fear for my children and anger that this could happen in 2013.

Absolute joy when my two year old and I go for our daily walk way past his bedtime and he becomes obsessed with the mangiest cat I have ever seen.

Reflection and deep thought reading a book about the parallels between neuroscience and Buddhism.

Hope when I talk to my husband about maybe attending a Buddhist temple in September to help us both focus and improve our minds.

Relaxation watching T.V. eating more chocolate than I probably should.

Lust and intense sexuality in bed when postpartum doesn’t affect my naturally high sex drive and my husband and I have amazing sex that leaves me feeling thoughtful, content and warm and fuzzy.

Love when my son can’t sleep and he walks with his doggy and blanket to sleep in the big bed.

And now…. it’s now.

 

All in a day. So my conclusion is, if I am capable of changing my mood and mind so much in the span of less than 24 hours, I must be capable of changing my life the way I desire.

 

 

 

 

 

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And This I Don’t Understand

I need some intense change in my life.

I posted on Facebook that I needed something to change but I wasn’t sure what. Responses from family and friends echoed the same sentiment. Don’t wait for it, make the change. Be the change. Sounds great and I’m sure I would tell someone that exact same advice.

But what the HELL does that mean?

I’m not happy in life and I want things to be different…. so yeah I’ll make a change right now! But what? And how? And when? I have no clue what to do. So telling me I need to make a change, alright I agree with you. But can you tell me exactly how I might do that?

Is it a change of attitude or understanding that makes the difference? How do I do that? Should I have an epiphany? What exactly brings that on? Where exactly do I find happiness? Oh. Within me? Oh great! Wait…. but it’s there and yet I’m still not happy. Could someone please help me work on my own personal step by step guide to this?

Like:

Step One: Do this.

Step Two: Now do this.

Yeah I know, life isn’t that easy and I need to figure it out for myself. But it’s so frustrating being as old as I am and still not knowing what to do. I thought I’d be a well adjusted 16 year old with her life together and now I’m 27, have two kids, a turbulent relationship and I still want my life to change so we can all be happy.

I know it can happen. But how?

This I don’t understand.  

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Belief In Pizza

This postpartum thing is kicking my ass.

With my first son two years ago I spent the first two weeks of his life really hating him. Wondering why I wanted a child, what is the point?? I don’t know him, he has no personality he’s just this entity that cries non-stop, eats and pees and poos. I was getting zero sleep. Why would I like him?

So I was frustrated that I felt like I had completely ruined my life. It’s all that misconception that as soon as your child is born you have this immediate and all consuming motherly love for them. Uhh lies. Thank you for that, you uber maternal freaks. Your people are making my people feel like terrible human beings for not being like you. “How can you not love your child??” you ask. Because I’m honest, and I didn’t.

Now I’ve come to terms that that’s completely normal. Because at about two weeks old, he started to grow on me. I saw a person, a personality and the way you would any other time in your life, I fell in love. And when you’re in love, you don’t mind sacrificing  everything. You even enjoy it. And now at two years old, he’s the love of my life.

Holy hell but THIS time? I’m three months into my postpartum period and I’m crippled by depression. A dark room is my new hang out spot but unlike the times you surrender to a bad mood or feeling of melancholy, this feeling I cannot control AT all. I love my second baby, no problem with that. This time, I just don’t really like myself.

I have no clue what to do other than try my best to take care of my kids and order a pizza.

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Zack

Zack’s full name is Zachary Paul Williams. I met him in 2007 for the first time and he saved my life. Ever since then he’s been my personal hero. Zack lives on the street. If indeed he is still alive.

In 2007 I seemed to be at a fulfilling beautiful point in my life. Great career, great friends, was with a man I loved with a intense passion. But unbeknownst to me, I was in reality, still a fragile dark creature that was simply living in the sun for a moment. The man I loved left and I allowed everything to come crashing down. Looking back I can’t believe I had no fortitude to keep something…anything afloat but at the time I wasn’t strong enough alone to stop the threads of my life from fraying and unraveling.

So on an actual dark and stormy night I took off from my life and drove my car haphazardly down an empty highway, tears burning my eyes and streaming down my face. My mind racing I had no choices. My life was over and in my heart of hearts I felt abandoned for the last time. Drive off a cliff was the only thing that came to mind. I wasn’t thinking in words anymore, only in storyboards.

Drive off cliff. Pain ends. Heart won’t hurt so much.

But like anyone that can’t cope with an intense onslaught of emotions, I had fear first. Overwhelmed and hurting on a physical level, I pulled over at a closed gas station and fell on the ground sobbing. No solution, only pain.

Then Zack. A dirty homeless man on a bike looking for cans if I recall correctly. Much too emotional to be scared of this stranger in a terrible area of town, when he approached me I continued to sob uncontrollably.

“Are you ok?”

“No! My life is over.”

“What happened?”

“The man I love left me…he LEFT me… I can’t… I can’t….”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not the end you know.”

“It is! He is the only one I had and now I have nothing and nobody. What am I going to do…”

“Get up every day.”

“I can’t! It hurts…you don’t understand!!!”

“I don’t? I beat an addiction, got a great job and had a wife and baby girl…. and I woke up one morning and they were gone. My wife took everything, and she took my daughter….. they had to lock me up I went insane it hurt so bad. I lost my job, I lost everything…. I’m using drugs again, my life is shit. Don’t tell me I don’t understand.”

Caught completely off guard.

“Sorry…”

“But you know what? I’m still here.”

“How are you… I mean didn’t you just wanna die?”

“Every single day”

“But then…”

“You just have to fake it until you make it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wake up every day. Breathe in and out. Pretend you’re not in excruciating pain. Live a lie. And one day the pain will actually be less. It’s never going to go away. But it will get better. I promise.”

I can’t remember the rest of the conversation. Either that or it hurts too much to remember. This man who didn’t know me, who had NOTHING, gave me a chance at staying alive. I am fairly certain I was emotionally unstable enough to end my life that night. And his words, his completely sincere and compassionate nature….let me believe I had a chance. It was months, perhaps years until I healed from it, still hurts today, but he was right. It got better. And THAT night, he let me stay alive. Love him until the end of time. He’s a part of my soul and a part of my life for always. I wear his name in ink on my wrist along with the names of the most important people to touch my life. I defend his honor with the ferocity of a mother who has a threatened child.

I left that night with a spark of hope. Enough to sustain me until morning. Fake it til you make it.

I only saw Zack one more time after that…. but that dear friends is a story for another day.

 

 

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The Selfish Person’s Struggle With Kids

If you’re selfish, I suggest you don’t have kids. If you are going through a selfish phase, wait until you don’t care so much about yourself, THEN have kids.

I’m not entirely sure I’m selfish but I’m pretty sure this is the diagnosis I keep going back to upon a self evaluation. And I have kids.

*WARNING* THE FOLLOWING MAY OFFEND MANY BLOGGERS.

I am not now, nor am I ever going to be one of those damn mommy bloggers. I love my kids but I am not going to talk about them every second of every day. No thank you. Post your cute “I’m the perfect mom who has laundry problems ha ha ha” I just will not be doing the same.

So anyways… the problem with being selfish and having kids is, there is this constant war within yourself. You love your kids more than you love yourself and you’re constantly angry at the world about it. As screwed up as it is, I miss being able to be self destructive. You constantly feel trapped into living a better life and thriving and providing. When you’re selfish, there is no pressure when it’s just you. But the pressure when you have children, holy moses on fire. It’s this intense mom guilt of, I’m too selfish to be a “good” mom. They deserve better…

Right now, much to my utter embarrassment, I’m trying to cope with some postpartum depression. I’d rather be the raving lunatic I normally am then be lumped in with a bunch of weepy moms that hate their kids. I’m not like that, I love my kids but just happen to be in the post partum period and I…. well I like dark rooms a lot right now. And even with this, some chemical, hormonal monster I can’t control, I feel guilty. Are my kids suffering some huge life altering trauma by me taking (selfishly so) some time to mope in my dark room watching the complete third season of ER? Peter Benton is the worst developed character since 90’s television by the way.

I see these stroller moms who cocoon their kids in bubble wrap, who all waited until their late 30s or early 40s to have children, well adjusted and not at all selfish. They live for their children. And I’m fairly certain, or at least it’s my belief that they suffer no inner cat fight of priorities. They let go of their selfish ways. And it’s all so easy. They can worry about the damn laundry and not about their mental health and competency as a bearer of human lives.

So I really would suggest, crazy or not, don’t have kids if you’re selfish. The worst part is you love them so damn much you wish you weren’t selfish at all. But you’ll turn, slowly and agonizingly into a selfless mom or dad. Skip the agony people.