There’s No Neat Way

I often separate my depression blog entries from my mommy blog. I mean, parenthood is supposed to be more about the growing pains of family life; how could depression possibly fit into that?

Yea. Right.

The more things change within my family dynamic I realize I can’t really separate these two facets of my life. They are determined to coexist.

Postpartum is always particularly tough for me, and this past birth experience was no different. Except this time I had a teenage daughter and an 8 year old son to add to the mix.

Things with my daughter have been tumultuous to say the least. I won’t divulge all the personal details on that matter yet because she is still young and these things still have a great deal of an affect on her. What I will say is that this journey with her has been exhausting, angering, sad, anxiety riddled and many days have been spent with me wanting to throw my hands up.

The reality that I’m coming to learn is that this is par for the course with girls her age in this generation. All I can do is weep, keep fighting and pray we see the other side of the dark eventually. My son has his own idiosyncrasies I have to contend with. Sometimes their personalities in the same room explode into World War III. I’m usually in the middle like a begrudging referee screaming at the top of my lungs for everyone to shut up.

Yea…screaming. Not nicely and neatly saying “woo woo woo. Everyone use their inside voices.” No. SCREAMING “EVERYBODY SHUUUUUUT UP!!!” Usually mom frantically throwing her hands in the air is enough to grab their attention for a moment; even if it’s only to look at ME like I’m the crazy one.

In the midst of all of this, I still need to make sure my husband feels loved and desired and honored for all of the wonderful he does. And he REALLY does deserve it…not just because he’s my husband but because he’s a GOOD husband. Good husband’s deserve to be showered with adoration; and I’m trying to maintain doing that as well as keeping my head screwed on tight.

The thing I need to remember is that the things I’m going through I am not going through alone. He is my partner and in this with me. Bad habits long in the making lend to the whole isolation behavior I engage in. This isolating feeling makes me feel like I have no one to turn to when in fact all I have to do is roll over and BOOM. He. Is. Right. There.

I’m also struggling with a few health issues which make the depressive episodes feel exacerbated. I recently found out I have thyroiditis, and this has triggered both an episode of hyperthyroidism and now hypothyroidism. This has resulted in a goiter growing, which makes my neck look thick, and as it gets larger it presses against my trachea which makes my breathing a bit more difficult and swallowing very uncomfortable.

The hormonal imbalance that comes along with it is wreaking havoc in my body. There’s nothing more harrowing for a control freak like myself than not to be able to control their body.

All in all, I still find the need to see the silver lining in this playbook of my life. Things aren’t where I always want them to be; but it could ALWAYS be worse. And when I sit back and look at the sick sad world we live in, I’m reminded of just how blessed I really am; even with the bad.

Life is an ever changing scene; I’m just trying to play my part.

Peace.