Yet another disclaimer:
I've likely been struggling with depression for a very long time. I admit to being in therapy on and off basically since I was 8 ish, I think? I mostly rejected it after high school (ya know, when I had the right to refuse) except for a few very short visits in college, when I was coerced into going by a professor after I was one of the first on scene after a school shooting.
That being said, I've never really felt much help from therapists. I'm so much of a realist that often, when I find my problems overwhelming, the only thing that makes me feel better is actual solutions to my issues. Merely talking through them can and does help vent some of my emotions, but just trying to take a positive viewpoint isn't often a particularly helpful plan for me.
I have a really hard time making a distinction between what I hope for and what I plan for. Frequently, if I hope for the best, and it doesn't happen, I feel completely unprepared to handle the outcome and any hiccups. Whereas if I plan for the worst in the first place, and the situation comes out even slightly better than I planned for, I'm very happy and have an easy time handling tough situations. I'm not saying this is the right or healthy way to think/feel, but it's how I get by.
For that reason, merely taking an optimistic view of any situation is incredibly difficult and potentially very painful to me. Therefore when people suggest that me thinking positive about my problems is the best solution - I tend to lash out. Whether it's anger or just tears or more feeling of being overwhelmed depends on a ton of other factors, but either way I tend to reject that and shut down.
Now, with my current predicament, I'm trying so hard to be positive. I'm thinking maybe in these first few weeks of motherhood, in this new club I didn't want to join called NICU moms, I might actually get a Twitter and/or Instagram account. I want to use some hashtags for things like "real life c-section bellies" and "this is what recovery looks like." I feel like a dairy cow (seriously, 1.5 LITERS of breastmilk every day?!), and that's OK with me. I also want to show other people that you can suffer from depression and hit lows that other people can't understand and will shame you for and get angry at you for, and you can still do a great job handling a situation anyway.
I want other women and mothers to know that even if you them suffer from birth trauma that borders on assault, have more unexpected setbacks, and your child doesn't actually meet the expected medical milestones on time - you can do it. You can get through and make it to the other side, and you don't even have to totally breakdown.
I had to withdraw from the online support system I had built during pregnancy. I was part of a fabulous forum and group of ladies who were all due in July (or nearly). I enjoyed having these women to celebrate and commiserate with. Unfortunately, they also bore the brunt of the worst of my lows in the last 8/9 months. They were the people I didn't censor myself with when I felt hopeless, maybe just because those ladies couldn't commit me when I lost my mind. Either way, when things got really rough, I was too much for the group as a whole to handle. So I removed myself. I'm not upset about it, just sad to have lost that fun group and that support. Losing them added to my feelings of isolation in this ongoing adventure. Even so, I kept on going. Other people can too, even when they feel alone.
Sometimes it's easier for me to be positive when I'm all alone. Sometimes it isn't. At times, I find myself feeling as if I need to defend my right to be upset when people start offering "advice" or their sentiments. It can be very demoralizing when even loved ones make comments that appear to devalue my emotions/feelings. I cannot just focus on the positive end when I feel as if I'm surrounded by people that refuse to even acknowledge the negative events at hand.
Sometimes traditional or cliche comments and expressions make me feel worse-they just don't resonate well with me. Hearing that I should just be grateful for what I have when I'm deep into a low and have more struggles piling on can make me feel even more hopeless. Telling me to seek help when I already feel like I'm begging for it makes me feel inadequate. Telling me to buck up when I feel like crawling into a hole and never coming out can make me feel like I've already failed.
I know that the people that offer their support all intend to help, however when my responses frustrate them everything has a tendency to blow up. When I find it necessary to defend my emotions and refuse to disregard the shittiness of the situation I find myself in, others feel that I am rejecting their support. To those people, please know that I'm not trying to-but that your flavor of support at that moment might actually make me feel worse. Which isn't YOUR fault, but I don't think it's my fault either. When I'm in the depths of a depressive low, having my feelings seem to be invalidated or not acknowledged by others can be even more overwhelming and merely adds to the all encompassing isolation I'm already surrounded by.
That all being said, I have some friends and acquaintances that feel hurt by some of the things I've said and the ways I've rejected their support in the last few weeks. I won't beg for their forgiveness. You can forgive me or not, I won't judge you, but if I pushed back against the things you said or did, it's because in order for me to navigate through the shit-storm I was dealt, I had to. I have no hard feelings for anyone, but when I'm enduring one of the hardest times in my life, I cannot be too sorry for putting myself and my feelings first. Part of surviving a traumatic event even somewhat intact lies in your ability to do/say/feel/act as your gut insists. Had I just accepted my awful delivery and pretended it was perfectly acceptable, I could not have found the strength to stay present with my son. I could not have drug myself out of my hospital bed and into a visitor's lounge at 36 weeks after that birth. I would have been busy wallowing. Not everyone's path to acceptance of life's trials is the same or pretty and I refuse to believe mine is any less acceptable than anyone else's.
Just please remember that no one can truly understand anyone else's life path or their approach to it. So if you find yourself arguing with someone who is struggling, especially if they're potentially depressed, all I ask is that you ask yourself if arguing can even possibly help. If not, then why bother?
For those who worry, I do intend to attempt to find a therapist once again. No promises it will stick. But I have to wait until Legan is home, for my sanity. Right now, one of the biggest reasons I can function is because I know I'm doing everything I can do help him heal and to get him through the cascade of issues he's faced too. Taking time away from sleeping, pumping, snuggling, feeding, and eating could potentially send me over the edge of an emotional waterfall. I know in my head and my heart that right now, what I NEED to do, is spend 12-15 hours a day at the hospital, caring for my son.
It took me roughly a week to be able to say "my son." Even "my baby" was hard to say at first, because as I came out of anesthesia, missing the warm wiggly creature that had grown in me, it felt more that he'd died than been born. He was stolen from me in a violent attack. That's what I felt. Being kept away from him for so many hours afterward only exacerbated that. Now we are back together, even if not entirely whole or hale. Perhaps he can't come home just yet (but soon, hopefully, as he's off air support and he's starting to eat finally!), but I am still the one who he reaches for, and the one that feeds him. He knows my voice. So as long as he's here, there is no more restful place for me to be than in the rocking chair next to his crib - preferably holding him while we both snooze.
I spend at least some of the last few months (yeah, like 4 of them), thinking that we should not have this baby. That with where we were at financially (and therefore for me emotionally) that having a baby now was a terrible idea. Thinking that if I had known then (sept/oct) what I know now (we'd be house-sharing and continually relocating and very broke with a lot of medical bills), that we never would have chosen pregnancy for this life stage. All I could think of some days was that we should find a nice family to adopt this child. The few people I told I don't think took me seriously. There were many nights that this kept me up all night long.
It took 5 full days after Legan came into our lives for me to be sure that he belonged with us. No one else can understand how his life started. No one is better situated to tell him "I know how you feel." This was revolutionary for me. It was an emotional breakthrough. At least a door opened towards healing.
I'm anxious to get him home not JUST because that will mean he's healthy and happy and I'm no longer stuck in a place that I dislike so much...but because it will mean that the family is finally reunited. Poor Barley & poor Eric, they have both been missing me like crazy too as our schedules barely allow us to see each other while awake.
Until then, I shall just count down the days until my family is intact.
And I'm not apologizing for how I feel about it.
And I'm not ashamed of these tears. This was our first real meeting and he was so sick.
This was a good day, first time really snuggling - now that his oxygen support was unobtrusive enough to snuggle.
I had just woken up after a lovely short nap.
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