Becoming steady

No questions about it, parenting is hard. There is a never a time when you feel like you have done everything right, when the worries stop, or when you feel appreciated. On top of all this, there is a special kind of “perfection” that comes along, simply because I am a woman. With the influx of social media, blogs, “advice,” being a parent seems even harder.

The shifts that happen when you become a mother, are so drastic and different than you ever expected. Some good, some bad, and some are beyond anything you ever thought you could ever be prepared for. Parenthood, and motherhood in particular, is a job that requires you to put so much of yourself into the well-being of others, that you can very easily lose yourself. You lose yourself in appearances of perfection. But motherhood is the farthest thing from perfection you could ever imagine. It’s messy – both literally and figuratively. Just when you think you understand something, your kids throw curve balls. It was the curve balls, that before I was steady, would throw me into episodes of anger and frustration.

When I became a parent for the first time, I was 28 years old and unbeknownst to me, I developed a severe case of postpartum depression. I was in a haze of exhaustion, cluelessness of how to be a parent, and a surge of hormones that created this cyclone. I was unaware of how my depression was affecting my behaviour. I couldn’t see myself from an outside perspective. My husband thought that maybe I should see a doctor. I brushed it off, disbelieving that anything was wrong. My daughter was happy, and that’s all that mattered. But I thought that if he saw something was off, maybe I should go.

I went to my family doctor and he lazily scratched out a prescription for a 10mg dose of Celexa, and left the room. I began the prescription and began to feel better, and the haze began to clear where I could see the difference from the pre-meds to the post-meds. But I never refilled that prescription. I felt better, so I thought that’s all I needed. While still under the guise of being a perfect mom, I still felt a stigma that these pills made me less of a mother. So I made due without.

I still felt a stigma that these pills made me less of a mother.

Fast forward 3 years, I had just given birth to my son. My husband, was extremely busy with work, gone for 12 hours a day, sometimes more, and I felt utterly isolated. My own mother, who was a big part of my support system after I had my daughter, had moved across International Date Lines to pursue a new career opportunity, and I was left for the majority of my day alone with an almost 3 year old daughter and an infant. I felt guilty contacting my mother-in-law for help because she had her own life and job and there was 3 other grandkids that were with her more frequently, and I felt guilty piling more on top of her. I didn’t want to be a burden.

I presented myself as a happy mother of 2, and that my world was finally complete. My social media feed was full with happy selfies, all smiles and cuddles, a picture of perfection. “My life hasn’t changed now that I have two kids. I can totally handle everything,” I thought to myself. But in reality, I made myself handle everything because I had no other choice. My kids needed me. I could not just lie on the couch snuggling my newborn son to recover from the ordeal that is birth, because I still had responsibilities. My daughter still needed me to take her to daycare, she still needed me to take her to the bathroom to help her with her potty training. Laundry, dishes, dinner all needed to be done. I could not just sit and rest. I had no other choice but to make it work.
When my son was around 3 months old, my depression came back with a fury that I had no idea I was capable of. I was so sleep-deprived that I didn’t know which way was up. I was bleary-eyed and alone. My husband still had a crazy work schedule, and I never saw him. I felt like a married single mom. My only life was the kids, I had no time to rest and reconnect with myself or my husband. It was a life of tears, wails, and battles. I would explode with anger at my daughter for the stupidest things, yelling at a volume that seemed other-worldly, for simply doing things that toddlers do. If she spilled her juice, if she asked too many questions, I would blow up into a screaming fit.

I could not pretend that I had everything under control.

The time of realization came when she began to cry out of fear. She was scared of me and my reactions. I felt like the worst mother in the entire world. I collapsed on to the floor in tears, holding my crying son, hugging my daughter, apologizing to both of them over and over again. I was overwhelmed. My depression was beginning to affect my relationship with my daughter and that was simply unacceptable.

The next day, I told my husband very matter of factually that I needed to see the doctor again. I was beginning to really hate myself. I could not pretend that I had everything under control anymore.

I went to a different general practitioner this time – a woman. I hauled myself into the office with a baby in a stroller, a diaper bag slung over my shoulder, and a 3 year old grasped to my right hand, as I repeated over and over to be quiet as mommy was talking. The doctor gave me a questionnaire and asked me to rate each sentence of a scale of 1-5 and to answer as honestly as I could. I completed it and she took a minute to look over my responses. A look of empathy washed over her face as she told me this questionnaire evaluated the risk of postpartum depression and she would be concerned for a woman who scored a 9 – I scored a 13. She started me a prescription for the 10mg Celexa again, but this time I was told me that this was just a starter dose. If I didn’t feel better she would raise it to 20mg. She also sent a referral in to a psychiatrist right away.

I left the office feeling validated. There was a diagnosis that I could understand, with a support system that would guide me through these feelings. I felt happy that I was being proactive. This was the start of me being the parent that I knew I could be.

I have been on a 20mg dose of Celexa for a couple years now, with one break during which, I again, thought I was fine, and it turned out I wasn’t. I started the process for a third time, and haven’t looked back. I realized that without my meds, my personality becomes bitter and angry, one full of resentment and anxiety. I still have bad days, but they are minor compared to what they were. When I am steady, I can focus and take deep breaths to calm down.

My kids are now 5 and almost 3, and my world has become more routine. My husband still works crazy hours, but they are getting better, and now that I am steady, I don’t feel like it makes as much of an impact on me as it did before. My kids are also at ages where they can play with each other now. Where I can feel like I can leave them alone to play in their rooms or in the backyard, so I can have some peace and quiet to enjoy some coffee and maybe some TV that isn’t cartoon related.

My meds work for me. Plain and simple.

As a mother, perfection is impossible. All the blogs you read and all the unsolicited advice you receive, just needs to be taken with a grain of salt. What works for you, might not work for someone else, and that’s okay. My routine won’t work for you, and yours sometimes makes me confused, but I won’t ever judge you as a parent, because you have found your own type of steady, and I know how hard that is. My meds work for me. Plain and simple. I am steady.