So my last post was about time, about how it’s moving so
fast while I’m stuck in slow motion. This post is about depression. This is
personal, this is raw, this is my experience, and it may or may not be like
anyone else’s.
I’ve struggled depression most of my life. I’d need to use
my toes to count the number of counselors, therapists, psychiatrists, and
psychologists I’ve seen over the course of 11 years. It started when I was 10;
I saw a counselor and things got better for a while. In middle school, I
started cutting myself. Not the way you think of, I wasn’t trying to kill
myself, I wanted to have a reason to hurt. All the internal hurting didn’t make
sense, I don’t like to talk, and I needed a visual of my pain… I needed
something to make sense. My hands, my arms, my calves, my ankles, they’re
covered in scars. Some of them, like the “J” you can’t really see anymore, have
meaning…others are just lines, a road map of hurt covering my body. I have been
on an antidepressant of some sort since I was 16, I have thought about suicide
more than you can imagine, and I was extremely worried about this when I was
pregnant with Ayden. I’ve always heard awful things about post-partum
depression and women who deal with depression are more susceptible to it. My
midwife was great and talked to me about it and agreed we shouldn’t play with
fire and I started taking Prozac in the hospital. I had the baby blues but
nothing terrible.
We moved in with my mom and younger brother after Ayden
passed; I just couldn’t be in our house. After losing Ayden, I think I was just
in shock. My brain and my heart seemed to agree that exposing me to all the
pain at once would kill me. Then everyday it hurt a little more and the fact that
Ayden was gone, that he was not coming back sunk in a little deeper. And then I
snapped. The day before Ayden should’ve turned 4 months old, I was having a bad
day, my husband and I went to go get pizza, and I just wanted out. I wanted out
of the car, out of my life, out of this existence… I tried to open the car door
while we were going down the road. My husband grabbed me, held on to me, and
that just made me madder. We got home and I just let all the anger I’d been
keeping bottled up inside out, but I didn’t do it in a very constructive way.
My fiancé (now husband) had me Baker Acted. Then I spent three days in a
stabilization unit… I hit bottom. I kept having to tell people why I was there,
and then get “the look”; the one where you know the other person is thinking, “Poor
girl. What do I even say to that?” When I got out three days later I was
feeling better, being out of the mental hospital probably had a lot to do with
that. They tweaked my medication and my lows haven’t been that bad since.
All of this is why I’m worried about the upcoming
anniversaries. What if I snap again? What if I hurt my husband again? What if I
have to go back to the mental health facility? What if I do something stupid? I’m
just hoping my hubby and my friends can help keep me together through them.
Wondering why I didn’t mention my family helping me? That’s
coming up next…
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