Note: the italicized parts are what my depression sounds like to me.
I have depression.
It's under control now though so you can stop feeling sorry or embarrassed for me (huge winky face).
I'm pretty sure I've had it off and on most of my life. I went to a few sessions of counseling in college. The counselor I saw decided it was because of stress so I went to a few workshops on stress management. After a few months it went away.
Then I had my 2nd baby and life seriously went down hill. Two moves (one from Logan to Sandy, then from Sandy to Pullman), stressful school, stressful calling, stress about feeling so strongly I needed to have another baby, and anxiety caused by my birth control created an anxious wreck. But I was in denial about what was happening. I had been conditioned that it was only OK to experience positive emotions and that I needed to hide anything negative I felt. And if I was having negative emotions, it was because I was selfish or ungrateful or wasn't reading my scriptures enough. I certainly couldn't talk to my husband about it because then he would be worried about me and he had enough on his plate to worry about. After all, one of the great things about me is he could go to school and not worry about me or the kids. I felt like if I did ever ask him to come home early then I should be ashamed for taking him from his duties to help me with mine. That meant I was less than he was and he was the better person for being able to handle his "job" AND come help with mine.
I had created this alternate universe in my head where it was my job to keep everyone happy and it was supposed to be an easy job. If I couldn't keep everyone happy then I had failed. And who fails a simple job like that? A failure. I'm a failure. And everyone would hate me because I needed help with something. But if I could serve endlessly then that meant I succeeded, even if that meant Dave got to sleep all night AND sleep in while I was running on 3 hours for the last 3 days and still felt like if I didn't pack his lunch then I was the worst wife and I failed.
I was very much afraid of failure and letting everyone down. Asking for help was admitting defeat and letting everyone see I failed. (That's what my depression sounds like)
I once went to the mall (a term used loosely for Moscow, ID haha) and bought a lot of clothes...like a lot a lot. I returned most of it but that should have been a red flag immediately for Dave and me that something was wrong because that's pretty out of character for me. We both noted it was odd I had done it, slapped on a temporary band-aid for what we thought caused it and moved on.
But I still struggled. I struggled every day with knowing what I should be doing and finding the courage to do it. Every day was a constant battle with myself and that's exhausting. Really, really exhausting.
Then I got pregnant (with Calvin) and it all went away. No more anxiety, no more depression, just a wonderful crazy hot summer being huge and pregnant. I thought it was over. I thought that I had only been depressed because I was fighting the inspiration to have another baby (Andrew was 3 months old when I first felt like it was time for another one BTW so I feel pretty validated in telling God "give me a few years, please.")
As my due date got closer I had a weird appointment with my doctor. Our conversation went something like this:
Dr: Are you ready to have this baby?
Me: I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore but I don't know if I'm ready to have 3 kids.
Dr: You probably aren't... (leads into a discussion about postpartum depression. Apparently I'm high risk because I'm young and have lots of little kids and all that.)
Another discussion with my doc about which drugs I prefer for the c-section led him to telling me my preference for one drug over another is a red flag again because it helps with the emotional pain as well as physical pain. Really my preference was because the other one makes me vomit and who wants to be vomiting after a c-section. I know he was trying to help me, it just came off a little...off. But no doctor in UT had ever brought up PPD so I was glad to see it was being monitored.
Because of the things my doctor said, half of me was waiting for the depression to come swooping down and swallow me up since apparently I was a huge red flag and the other half was ready to fight it because I wanted to prove that doctor wrong.
Then I had my perfect little boy. It was wonderful. I started a blog post but never finished or published it. It went like this: "Remember when I wrote a post about the truth about having a 2nd child... then like 8 people told me they were never going to have a second kid because of it? Well, here's the follow up to that. The truth about having a third baby (in my experience) is that it's the best thing you can do!"
I felt good. I felt SO good. I honestly felt like super-woman. I'd get all three kids (dressed and fed!) in the car by 8 to get Eliza to preschool. I once took all 3 of them to the pool at 7 AM on a Friday BY MYSELF. I had my apartment the cleanest it had ever been. I meal planned and went grocery shopping and cooked meals for my family and often for other families too. Dave was gone most of the time but I didn't even need him.
Then my life slowly got darker and darker. Like when it's really bright and you're driving so you put on sunglasses. Then the sun slowly sets and all of a sudden you can't see and you've forgotten you're still wearing your sunglasses. But by the time I took them off it was pitch black outside.
I felt it start at the base of my neck and slowly creep up my neck and engulf my brain in blackness and emptiness a little more each day. JK Rowling wrote the dementors based on depression and she nailed it. That's exactly what it felt like- having my soul slowly sucked out of me until I was just a body going through the motions, no feeling on the inside.
I didn't want to go anywhere. I didn't want to do anything. I had no appetite or desire to eat. I was only eating because I needed to make milk for Calvin. That was literally the only reason I put food in my body. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't put anything away. I couldn't get my kids ready to take Eliza to preschool. I didn't want to do my calling anymore and yet I wanted to keep it because helping others distracted me from my own darkness. (I was relief society president which was hard because I knew about a lot of rough stuff going on in people's life and my life was pretty easy in comparison and yet I was so depressed. So I'd beat myself up for not being grateful enough or humble enough and it really made it worse).
I honestly sat and cried thinking about having to walk out the front door with all three children. I was so lucky that I had many wonderful friends who were inspired to bring me meals and watch my kids. I put on a good face. I'm not sure how many people actually knew what was going on. I even fooled my husband which I was part proud of and part terrified of. When I finally got the courage to tell him he was surprised at how bad it actually was. I was surprised he had no idea how much I was suffering even though I went to great lengths to hide it, especially from him. I finally told him because it was either that or call a hotline. I was never suicidal but the voices in my head were so bad I just needed someone to know what they were saying. I wasn't actually hearing voices, I'm referring to the negative stories I was telling myself, "I can't do this! I hate my life!" was and still is the one played most often.
In March it hit me. This can't be normal. To go from the feeling the best I've ever felt in my life to the absolute worst? That's not my normal. I've always been moody, but this wasn't moodiness and it wasn't going away. So I called my amazing friend who is a counselor for LDS Family Services. She talked to me on the phone for a while and then suggested I get counseling. But it was an awkward time for it because I was going to be in UT for a month, then Pullman for a month, then move back to UT. I was still struggling with the suggestion that I needed to go. I didn't want to admit that there was anything wrong with me. I didn't want to need "fixing." So I just dealt with it. My amazing friends in Pullman are what helped me deal with it.
I talked to another friend who also recommended counseling. I told her I wasn't sure if I needed it because I was still functioning. My kids and I were dressed and fed and out doing things so it couldn't be *that* bad, right? I wish I still had the text from her but she said something along the lines of: "There's a difference between functioning and living. Counseling helps you live your life to the fullest despite the depression."
But I still couldn't bring myself to do it. Mostly because of the stigma behind mental illness and counseling. Even though I had always been supportive of my friends who struggled and never thought less of them for getting help (in fact I admired them for doing it) I couldn't bring myself to do it and I couldn't bring myself to tell any of my friends who weren't counselors or already really open about their own personal struggles with depression/anxiety/bipolar. Which means 3 people knew, including David. I remember one instance where I was on the verge of a complete breakdown and I wanted so desperately to tell my friend everything I was feeling but I was afraid of what she would think of me. I really liked her and didn't want her to think less of me as a person or as a mom for these thoughts and feelings I was having. I made light of one of my unwanted thoughts hoping she'd probe and she didn't so I left it alone and continued to suffer in my dark self.
I remember hearing stories about moms who "one day went crazy and left her family." I assure you she didn't randomly go crazy one day and up and leave. I can promise you that she fought herself for a long time and didn't get the help she needed. If she's like me, she thought that getting help was a sign a weakness and that the depression had won, she was defeated. So she kept it to herself and did everything she was supposed to to be happy. I bet she crafted and exercised and coached her kids teams. I bet she cooked her husbands favorite meal with a smile on her face while the depression told her she couldn't do anything right and she was stupid and a terrible mother and wife and no one appreciated her and they were all manipulating her and she should just leave. They'd be better off without her. She'd be better off without them because then there was no one to fail. And then one day she was too tired to fight in anymore. She was too exhausted to even try anymore. So she left. And no one knew why because know one knew about her constant battle because it's not ok to talk about it. It's not ok to tell someone "I'm in a dark place right now."
{{{SIDE NOTE
Why? Why?! Why is it so bad to admit we're struggling?
I once overheard the following conversation:
Person 1: It's sad she left her family like that. I really think she struggles with depression
Person 2: That's so weird because she runs a lot.
As if running was a cure. Can it help? Sometimes, when used correctly. But you know what happened when I went on a run all by myself? I had less distraction from the depression and I ended up crouched down in the dirt, sobbing hysterically, mentally and emotionally beating myself up. Um, no thank you! I didn't run again for a very long time.
(More on that later but basically, if someone tells you they are feeling depressed DO NOT TELL THEM TO GO ON A RUN. Or to get a hobby. Or to start serving others and stop thinking so much about themselves. It only makes us hole up more and is not helpful. }}}
It was when I could fully understand how a woman could up and leave her family without notice that I realized how far sunk I was and how desperately I needed to get out. And yet I still attributed it to things like the stress of school and moving, and having three kids and assumed it would go away when life "settled down" a bit.
Then we moved to UT and I lived in and took care of an 11,000 sq ft house (no typo there) on a 2 acre lot with a pool, a dog, and 21 chickens for my parents living out of the country in a ward with very few people my age while Dave worked up to 12 hours a day. I can't even begin to tell you how overwhelmed I was.
(This pic sums up my whole experience best. It felt like depression was continuously adding more and more cement blocks and I was just holding on as frantically as possible.
(The picture says: and the worst part is, no one knows how close I am to drowning)
My sister and her family came from out of state to visit for a few weeks. My other sister lives close by so we were all together a lot during that time. I watched both my sisters handle their bigger families with much more patience, care, and energy than I had. I remember watching them and realizing (again) (I was in some serious denial still) that something was wrong with me. They were doing such a better job than I was. They even took care of my kids in addition to their own. And they could do things like make a meal, move plates from the table to the sink, AND wipe off kids faces and hands after meals. Whaaat?? How did they do that? {That's simple mom stuff though- make food, eat it, clean it up. I was feeding my kids but that was it. We were eating yogurt and string cheese and quesadillas. I was doing the bare minimum and that was even over-exerting myself. I wasn't cleaning up or really even cooking.} I was too tired to get out of bed some days.
I'm not saying that to be self-depreciating. It's just that was the moment I realized and accepted that I truly had depression and it was actually affecting me and more importantly, my family. Because I was so overwhelmed and depressed I was impatient and mean to my kids. They picked up on it too. Eliza copied my same nasty tone on her brothers and on me. I wasn't the only one suffering from my depression anymore. So I decided (many times, actually) to go to counseling. It still took a few times of making that decision to actually call though. I was so nervous to set up an appointment but with a lot of encouraging from a friend and David I did it.
Counseling was such a blessing. I left the first 3 sessions in tears. It was such an emotional workout but I felt so much better. I made huge breakthroughs quickly and I feel very comfortable and confident as like myself again. If anyone is interested I can write more about that too.
I also read the book The Happiness Trap. Basically, it's about how we have all been conditioned that we can only experience positive emotions and how we can learn to live with the negative emotions. It's quite freeing, actually, to allow yourself to feel what you're actually experiencing. I recommend this book to everyone, not just those who are struggling with mental illness.
Again, I'm not writing this for sympathy. I actually wrote it a while ago and have held off posting it because it's personal and scary to put yourself out there. I didn't even tell my husband about it until it got really bad. I only hope that it will encourage someone else to get the help they need and to take away the negative stigma for depression.
