And Now For Something Completely Different

I wanted to write something funny for my first post. Something that would make you giggle and grin and say, "Oh yeah, you got that right, chick!" Instead, something really serious seems to have been clawing at my insides. You ever have that experience? That feeling that something needs to be written?

I felt like I'd been sucker punched in the brain. No warning. No cerebral sourced shout of "Duck!" One moment I felt even keeled, stable, and in control. The next I was seriously whacked out, given to sudden fits of irrational weeping, and contemplating how much better the world would be without me in it.

And no angel was going to come show me the error of my thinking.

I was pregnant, and it was Neil's last year of grad school. The year where he worked in various clinics gaining invaluable experience and whatnot. The year that we moved every three months and thought that it made more sense to sleep on an air mattress than cart a huge mattress and boxspring around.

Remember that me being pregnant bit? Yup. That didn't go so well.

I decided something had to change. I needed help. So naturally I emailed Oprah. Our newest in a long line of apartments came with free cable, and I'd become rather enamoured with her. A week later, I received a phone call and was interviewed as a potential guest on the show. I cried. A lot. And they didn't call back. Can't blame 'em really. Still, it kind of dropped me to a new low.

I was so pathetic even Oprah didn't want me.

Next stop was my doctor. I told her that things had been getting really bad. I remember giving a hollow little laugh and telling her we were into the realm of the curled up in the fetal position sobbing like mad, that I'd had horrible dark thoughts about how my family would be better off without me. I cracked up a bit over that. She just sat there, listened dispassionatley, and then told me it was situational. My life was unstable, ergo, I was as well.

I had confessed to her my deepest, darkest secret. That I'd started having suicidal thoughts. She brushed it off, said I hadn't had depressive issues during my first pregnancy, so there was no way I would with my second. Once we settled down somewhere I'd feel better. No, no chance I'd have post partum depression. No worries, Kim, on your way now. Next patient, please.

I cried a lot on the drive home. To the point I had to pull over and sob in a Safeway parking lot because I couldn't see through the snot and tears.

I had my second child. I coped as best I could. I started having paralyzing anxiety attacks. My chest would seize up and I'd hyperventilate like mad. My vision would swim, black blooming spots would start to take over, and I'd have to grasp at something for support. I began to get really, really angry. I started slamming cupboard doors, losing patience with Emma several times a day, and then weeping uncontrollably the second the guilt set it.

And then my mother-in-law visited for two weeks. Let's just say, it's a wonder she's still speaking to me. A wonder.

Once Neil graduated and we settled down, I expected things to get better. I had a nice house, a lovely community to become a part of, and I quickly made some good friends.

The expected change never happened. I got worse. The anger turned into shouting and rage. The depression became all consuming, to the point that my previously oblivious friends and family began to be alarmed.

And then there came a week where I cried literally every...single...day. Sobbing into the phone one morning, a friend threatened to drive up to 100 Mile House and drag me to the doctor by my hair if necessary.

I'm a wuss and I have a sensitive scalp, so I elected to go on my own. The doctor I saw here sent me for a barrage of blood tests, expressed sympathy, put me on a super low dose of an anti-depressant, and literally twenty-four hours I felt fine.

Fine.

Neil made a comment about the wonders of the placebo effect. I wanted to smack him.

A year and a half later I'm off the medication, and I have my ups and downs. Those down times seriously freak me out. I think I'm going down that path again. That I'm going to be curled up in a ball crying and thinking scary dark thoughts again. But the great thing about ups and downs is that there are ups.

I have my own personal theories about depression. I think the link between nutrition and mood is a pretty solid one, and I've noticed mood trends that seem sourced in the sort of foods I eat.

Eating three bowls of Corn Pops in the morning? Bad, bad idea.

That's not the entirety of it though, and I hate to hear the raving judgments that fly about these days. Talk of depression as an excuse or a cop out. Something imaginary. An attention getter. Laziness incarnate. People can be really, really cruel, often without intending or realizing the fact.

To me though, it's something very, very real. Something that had me in its soul sucking grip for far, far too long, and seems often to wait there on the edges ready to snatch me up again. I feel the tears well at the thought. I am so much better than I was a year ago but I am still very, very much afraid.