An Angry Sea

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For so many the sea can be a source of calm, peace, relaxation, meditation. It is in the sea that many find their anchor. I am one of those people. I grew up at the beach as I noted in a post from the other day. The sights, smells, and feel of the beach trigger so many wonderful memories often locked within my heart. Memories which are the foundation of my life.

But even the sea, the tranquil sea, gets angry.

Today is one of those days.

A storm system is traveling through the area. Filled with lightning, thunder, threat of tornado, the clouds are moving swiftly over land and out to sea. As a result, the ocean is reacting to the forces placed upon it by nature.

Soft and gentle waves are replaced by short and choppy waves as far as the eye can see. They crash harshly onto shore, pulling more sand angrily back out to the depths of the seabed with each new crash. A red flag declaring no swimming is raised tall in front of the lifeguard stand. No one is meandering along the beach except for a few brave souls.

So here we sit, waiting for the storm to break, the rain to fall, and planning alternate activities for the family so as to maximize our last day here at the beach.

And that’s when it hit me.

That this, this storm, this angry weather, is just like a Postpartum Mood Disorder.

Sure, we can predict to whom it MAY happen.

We can identify the jet streams which may swoop it into the lives of certain people. Identify the environmental factors which ripen the possibility of occurrence. But until we get pregnant or give birth, we don’t know if it really will happen to us.

Then when it does, we seek shelter. We make alternate plans. Hopefully we have an emergency kit ready to go in our shelter which should include a list of resources to which we can turn if the waves of emotion get short, angry, and choppy. If the waves decide to reclaim us bit by bit. If they do, we hedge ourselves in until we can heal, seeking respite from the very storm which threatens to tear us apart.

Just as we sit to wait for a storm to pass, we also must wait for a Postpartum Mood Disorder to pass. Some storms pass through quickly, a mere blip, other storms linger and take days to pass. Of course, a Postpartum Mood Disorder takes longer than days to pass – for some it may be months. For others, it may take a year or more. Again, this is in direct relation to your risk factors, level of support, contributing circumstances, proper professional care.

We may feel helpless as the storm whirls around us. But we are not as helpless as we believe ourselves to be in the midst of this vortex. Others always stand ready to come together as a community to support us, to join hands with us in this shared experience.

We must also remember our loved ones become trapped in this vortex with us. They too, need support, love, and understanding.

As I sit and listen to the angry sea, I find peace in knowing that soon, this too, will pass. So the angry waves crashing upon the shore bring solace and strength. The sand will one day be replaced, the beach will grow stronger, and once again, we will play in the waters of the ever-changing sea.

Know too, that one day, your Postpartum Mood Disorder will pass, and you, you will be stronger, able to play in the ever-changing sea of your life.

Respite

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Today, for the first time in years, my toes and the Atlantic Ocean made contact.

I grew up on the Jersey Shore (NO, not THAT Jersey Shore – mention it again and I’m a send someone with a whole lotta vowels in their last name your way) just mere seconds away from the ocean. I suffered from perma-tan as a result of spending almost every waking minute on the sands of the beach during summers at my grandmother’s house.

We had a routine – we’d hang out, then eat cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on toast while watching The Price is Right (with Bob, not this new guy, Drew). We’d pack up the station wagon after the show was over to glide the 5 measly blocks to the ocean. Hot metal car seatbelts do NOT feel good against young skin, lemme tell you what. Then, we’d slather on sunscreen and go running smack dab into the ocean.

The afternoon always passed too quickly in squeals of delight, screams of fear after stings of jellyfish, and whoops of joy as huge waves carried our brave bodies toward shore, hurling us unfailingly into the hard sand underneath the soft water. We’d laugh, get up, and run smack dab back into the ocean all over again.

The grandmother with whom I spent all that time with at the beach, at the Atlantic Ocean, is now a part of the ocean. She passed away well over 10 years ago and her ashes were spread in the Atlantic.

Today?

Today I said hello.

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow I will run with glee smack dab into the ocean to give her the biggest damned hug of my life.

I am home.

Words of Hope

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Words have always brought me a great deal of comfort. Hope.

What I love about books, especially my favorites, is that each time I read them, I am struck by the power of some new phrase. Some new something in the novel speaks to me as if I were reading it for the first time. I’m finishing up my non-fiction unit with my freshmen. We’ve just read Night by Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor and his story, sparse in the telling, is powerful. Moving. Emotional.

I’ve probably read this novel 15 times, but never through the lens of postpartum depression.

Until this time.

“Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the time when I parted from my mother… Tzipora held Mother’s hand…my mother was stroking my sister’s fair hair, as though to protect her…and I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever” (Wiesel 27).

Wiesel and his father spent a year in the concentration camps and their love for one another is often seen as the thing that drives them both to continue living. Mentions of his mother are infrequent as she does not survive.

But the memories he does share are of her strength. Her determination to care for and love her children. To not let them see her struggle with what she knows may happen to her family. To protect them from the cruelty in the world around them.

As I read this passage to my students, I thought of postpartum mothers, desperate to seem “normal” in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Wanting nothing more than to hide their struggles from loved ones. And as I read that passage, tears crept into my throat, causing me to choke just a little bit on the words.

I’d been that woman. Sometimes, I still am that woman. That mother trying so hard to show the world that I have it all together.

Monday night in the #PPDChat, we talked about what postpartum looks like for us. When it’s more than just tears. The conversation drifted away from the topic as it sometimes does and some of us began chatting about what those early days had been like.

The moment Joshua was placed in my arms in that recovery room, my love for him was immediate. Fierce. Never ending and unconditional. We didn’t bond right away, but I knew that I loved him more than I loved myself.

Now as I re-read that passage, I think of how Wiesel’s mother must have felt as she walked that path. How her bravery wasn’t really for the rest of the world. It was for her son and daughter. Had she been alone, she likely would have wept bitterly.

And then I find myself thrust from my musings back into today and I realize that this struggle to save face isn’t so much for me as it is for him. I fight so that he may never have to know what it’s like to live with mental illness. I fight because I love him. Because I want him to have a mother who is healthy and whole because that is the least that he, in all of his innocence, deserves.

I keep walking this path of recovery for him. I battle against the darkness, the despair, and the pain for him.

I have survived this not so that I CAN love him. But because I DO love him.

Miranda is a wife, mother, teacher, daughter, friend, and NOT a super mom.  At best, and worst, she’s average. But with a cape and tiara? She could probably save the world. She blogs about life as a mom and wife and PPD/A survivor at the blog Not Super…Just Mom.