Tag Archives: frustration

so·lil·o·quy

light-bulb-517345_640Breathe. In. Out. Repeat. Breathe. Breathe.

You are bigger than this. This will pass. You have been through worse, he says. You will get through this. We will get through this, he says, holding my hand and kissing my cheek, his deep brown eyes full of love and worry, his brow furrowed.

My chest tenses. Body twitches. Legs bounce up and down involuntarily. Fingers play an invisible piano, my breath keeps tempo. Breathe slower, stupid. Breathe.

Swallowed whole by darkness. Sinking, sinking, sinking until the sunshine is a million miles away and murky mud slithers all over my body. Carried away from happy, just like that.

Breathe. Just breathe. Look up. Hold on. Breathe.

You have been here before. You have been further down before. You can do this.

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to.

I can’t… shut up. Can’t isn’t in your vocabulary. You are better than this. Bigger than this. Hold on. You CAN do this.

Light. Turn on the light. Take your medicine. Take the other one too. Talk. Reach out. Distract. Breathe.

Baby steps.

Lose yourself in something that is allegedly happy. Laugh and joke even though it feels like the most antithetical thing you can possibly do at the moment. Smile. Fake it if you have to. But move forward. Climb out of the muck toward the sun. Toward the hands. Toward him. Toward HIM. Toward love. Choose. Breathe.

Bake. Create. Eat. Give in to the minuscule joy surrounding you. Let go of expectations. Walk your talk. I don’t want to. Frown. Sink. Mumble incoherently out of frustration.

Smile. Laugh. Twitch. Eat. Sink. Smile. Laugh. Twitch. Sleep.

Repeat until you are out of the muck.

“Are we there yet?” your brain asks. I’m tired, it says.

Almost, you answer. We got this, we got this. He’s got you. HE’S got you – through Him you can do ALL things. HE will carry you. Let Him.

But don’t stop doing what you are doing. Breathe. Eat. Smile. Meds. Light. Distract. Repeat.

Find the funny everywhere. Fight until the fog fades. Fight until the light is bright. Until the laughter is real. Until your twitching stops. Fight. Breathe. REPEAT.

Inhale. Exhale as the light breaks through the clouds intermittently. Smile.

You got this.

A Tango With Pain

This morning began as all mornings usually do, with the promise of hope and accomplishment.

Then, I got out of bed.

I stretched, as we all do upon waking, and something in my right shoulder or back shifted out of place. I audibly gasped, and J asked me what was wrong. I told him I was fine, finished up in the bathroom, desperately trying not to scream as pain washed over me while I washed my hands.

I opened the door, hunched over, and made it to the bed, where I knelt down and rested my upper body on the mattress, head in my hands, my hair falling  down around my face. I tried to move so my hair would allow me to breathe but I was wildly unsuccessful. I stayed there for a short bit, until the pain eased enough to allow me to climb into bed. J moved the pillows out of the way for me. I attempted to do the Cobra Yoga position which will sometimes pop things back into place but all it did this time was steal my breath. I grabbed a pillow, rested my head on it, and that was that.

I was stuck in bed for awhile.

I made it downstairs after the pain subsided and managed to eat an English muffin along with my morning medication plus ibuprofen. We menu-planned as I sat, nearly immobile with fear on the couch, and decided to go get J’s van while I was feeling better. Somehow, I managed to drive my 5spd to the dealership and back home. It wasn’t that bad because I was sitting down and there was not a lot of sharp movement involved in driving.

Once home, as J ran errands, I decided to fix his daughter’s nightlight in her bathroom and that’s when my lower back decided to join the party. After I got the new bulb placed, I retreated to our bedroom, tossed two pillows in bed, grabbed my body pillow, and curled up with the two pillow behind me, and the body pillow intertwined with my body to prop me up. A neck pillow lay on top of my regular pillow. I was as cushioned as I was going to get.

J finally arrived back home and came upstairs right as I was uncontrollably drifting off to sleep. It was not my intention to fall asleep but the pain was so great I could do little more than sleep. I slept until shortly after 3. He brought me some cheese (I wasn’t very hungry nor was I interested in sitting up for a long period of time to eat), water, and some Aleve.

I tried to get up shortly after to use the restroom only to move horribly wrong and fall back onto the bed, utterly defeated, tears streaming down my face, terrified J would need to help me.

I’m stubborn, though, and I made it on my own.

Eventually I took a hot shower right as J & his daughter ran errands. It helped slightly but not enough to kill the pain. J came home with patches and a heating pad. I opted for the Capsacin patch which helped somewhat and allowed me to get a few things popped but as I sit here, now using the heating pad and finally on Tylenol Arthritis, the pain washes over me as if high tide were rolling in.

Pain is my nemesis but over the past couple of years, it has worsened immensely. I have a threshold of pain I live with on a daily basis but when things go above this threshold, I get bitchy. Today? Today I would qualify at triple my threshold. I’d rather be asleep, to be honest.

Tomorrow, my goal is to make it to the gym to sit in the hot tub for as long as I can tolerate it to help with this. I may swim, I haven’t decided on that yet.

Just like PPD, the pain has taught me to be patient with myself, to be willing to take care of myself, and to let others do things for me. For some reason, I am less willing to do these things with the pain than with the PPD which makes no sense at all because with the pain, I am physically incapable of doing all the things. Perhaps it is the frustration of having the capability suddenly snatched away which initiates the frustration, who knows.

Pain is a cruel mistress, y’all. May you never end up in a permanent tango with her.

A Simple Dream

A mum in the UK recently took her own life. Fellow PPD blogger Ivy Shih Leung wrote a very long and insightful piece about it here.

While I have not read anything beyond Ivy’s piece, I want to address one of the issues Ivy touches on in her post. For me, it is one of the primary reasons women who struggle with a Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorder still fight so desperately with reaching out for help and then with actually receiving the proper help.

Our battle has multiple levels. Were PMAD’s a video game, we would have to survive level after harrowing level before finally reaching a properly educated doctor or therapist. Some of us may be lucky enough to skip all these harrowing levels but for most of us, we are destined to fight with all we have while we don’t have much just to get by in a world expecting us to be super mom while we are at it.

First, we have to fight with ourselves to acknowledge that there is a problem.

Then, we fight with loved ones for help with every day tasks and with reaching out for help.  We fight the argument that we are “faking” or “pretending” just to get out of housework or parenting. We are, some of us, told to suck it up and get over it. Move on. We’ll fall in love with our children eventually. Worse yet, some of us are told depression is some sort of luxury the former generations did not have time with which to deal.

Next, we fight with the front desk folks at the doctor’s office who may tell us such things as “If you’re not suicidal, don’t call us until you are.” (And yes, shamefully, that DOES happen in real life).

We then level up to arguing with a doctor who may brilliantly tell us that our hormones should be back in order by now so of course it can’t be Postpartum Depression despite the fact that we just admitted several high risk symptoms to them. So we are referred to the therapist who calls and reschedules until we are exhausted and cancel altogether.

So we suck it up and try to make do on our own until the next baby when we completely fall apart and start the entire routine all over again. Only this time around, there is a little less resistance from family members and friends because they have seen you go through this before and realize that maybe, just maybe, she isn’t making it up this time around.

But we have to stay off the Internet because it’s a dangerous place for a woman with a PMAD to be – we will be judged for breastfeeding while taking medication or for giving formula because we have to medicate. We didn’t try hard enough to protect ourselves, there is something wrong with us. Damn straight there is something wrong with us – it’s an illness, it’s real, and it is hell.

Psychiatric stigma is bullshit. The divisiveness motherhood brings to a woman’s life is bullshit. Hell, sometimes just being a woman altogether is bullshit. Why we judge each other so harshly for our choices is so beyond me I don’t even know how to begin to understand why we do this. I’m serious – I truly do not understand the in-fighting or bickering.

It comes down to understanding one simple truth:

Each mother needs to do what is best for HER and for HER family. As long as she is doing just that, we do not need to judge, we do not need to place blame, stigma, guilt, or any other negative blanket upon her or her family.

The Internet can be a fabulous place for support if you end up surrounded by the right people and ignore the wrong people. It’s finding the wonderful people that is the challenge.

I have a simple dream, in closing. It’s a dream that one day, mothers of all sort of different beliefs, will be able to have a discussion about parenting without inadvertently reducing each other to panic attacks and/or tears because they’ve judged someone for doing something outside the realm of *their* comfort zone.

One day, right?

#PPDChat Topic 02.25.13: Outta Steam – Coping on the Hard Days

ppdchat-02-25-13Motherhood, heck, parenthood period, doesn’t come loaded with sick days or days off when the going gets tough. No, we have to steel ourselves to push through it. Sometimes we soar right on through whatever is flung in our direction and then there are times when we feel we fail miserably.

It’s not easy.

With a Postpartum Mood Disorder on board, it gets even muckier. We barely have the energy to fight that in addition to taking care of our children, let alone tossing anything else on top of the flames. So how do you handle it when a tough day (or days) hits when you’re struggling? What if you get sick? What if everyone is sick? Or there’s an emergency family situation? Or..the list could go on.

Today’s chat will focus on these situations. Feel free to join us to vent, share tips, or just hang out. We don’t promise to instantly cheer you up or fix all the tough in your life, but after today’s chats over on Twitter, you’ll know you aren’t alone.

See you there!