Human.

It's been two months. Two months. Two months.

Two months that feel like two years.

Two decades.

In two months, I have transformed. I've peeled back the layers. I've felt. I've mourned.

Respectively: into a truer version of myself. Under which I hid. Love, fear, happiness, sadness, relief, pride, strength. My broken self.

We all want to believe that we will not break. On some level we know it is possible and so we cloak those fears in terms like, "I can't imagine" and "god forbid." We don't look at it. At the possibility of our broken selves. What we would do. What we would say.

Yet breaking - the great possibility of it - exists for all of us.

I broke.

And I am okay.

Healing - the great possibility of it - exists for all of us.

No secrets.

I've been putting on a brave face. My "I'm proud of my journey to wellness face." My "I'm not ashamed" face. My "kicking postpartum depression's ass" face.

All of those faces are genuine.

But really, what choice do I have? Sit around feeling sad about all that's transpired? Feel embarrassed about my rather public (at least in my personal life) unraveling? I can't hide in my house forever, so I haven't hid in my house at all. I've gone to the grocery store. The playground with the kids. Boot camp. I've seen friends and neighbors, people who know a lot, people who know a little, people who know none of it. I've worn my brave face.

In a few weeks, I have some events to attend where I'll be seeing people I haven't seen for a while. People who might have talked to someone who talked to someone who...read my blog. Or talked to someone.

And though I've said and stand by the fact that I'm not ashamed, I am aware. Of what might be said when I get up to refresh my drink. Of nervous smiles greeting me hello. Of whispers. Of the awkwardness of the question, "It's been so long! How have you been?"

I am aware of judgement. Of ignorance. Of the fact that sometimes people get only half a story. Of the fact that stories often get very twisted.

The truth?

I'm scared. Because there's at least a tiny part of me that wants to cry all of the time. That wants to scream out an explanation and education to everyone who might have heard. That deep down, cringes as my imagination runs wild about what people might think. What they might say.

There are two sides to this coin. On one, I know the facts. I understand the statistics. I believe mental health is a spectrum and I'm suspicious of anyone who claims to permanently operate on the extreme end of healthy. But the other side is where ignorance lies. Where it's easy to pass judgement on a good day, even easier when it's a topic we don't understand or discuss openly.

I am getting well. I can't believe where I am now in comparison to where I was a month ago. Truly, I can't believe it. I've worked my ass off. I'm proud. Hopeful. Confident.

I'm also angry, sad, and self-conscious.

We don't get to pick our journey. Just how we handle ourselves as we travel.

This particular journey?  Effing blows. How I'm handling it? I'm doing my best.

And onward.

But I don't feel depressed.

It seemed to start in November. I thought it was PMS. For about a week, I felt full of rage, impatient, not myself. Then I got my period and things returned to normal. I felt happy. Thrilled to be home with the kids, finally having left my job. So excited about the coming holidays. Looking forward to my sister flying home from CA for an extended visit. Life was good. I had everything I've ever wanted. I certainly did not feel depressed. In December, the hormonal swing came on stronger and lasted longer. For two weeks, I felt like someone had taken over my body. She was a raging bitch. She was sarcastic with my children, short with my husband, full of rage and possessing zero patience. I hated her. My period came, and once again, I felt normal. Happy. But confused. And scared. Was this PMDD? I made an appt. to see my OB to go on birth control, thinking it would level out my hormones. The appt. was scheduled for February; her soonest opening. Until then, I'd ride it out.

In January, the crazy, rageful me came out stronger than ever. Kyle came home from work one day and I declared I was done. DONE. I shut myself in the bathroom and let him handle the kids...dinner, bedtime, all of it. I thought the bath would unwind me, help me relax. Instead, I lay in the warm water and was flooded by sudden and disturbing intrusive thoughts. It scared me. I scheduled an appointment with my PCP for the following morning.

And here's the sad reality. I recognized something was wrong. I took every step I knew to intervene, get myself back on track. It was too little, too late. The next month is a blur.

PCP prescribes Zoloft. Allergic reaction. PCP switches me to Paxil. I take it for several weeks, until it becomes apparent that Paxil and I do not get along. Instead of helping get my moods under control, it makes the instrusive thoughts much more vivid and tortourous. I start thinking of killing myself. Not because I want to die, but because I can't take the torture of my crazy mind any more. Terrified, I fess up to Kyle. I call Postpartum Support International. I get connected to a therapist who specializes in PPD. I see my OB and start on a hormone stabilizing birth control. My OB tells me to stop taking the Paxil, suspecting it's making my thoughts more vivid and violent. I stop cold turkey. Begin going through SSRI withdrawals. My anxiety goes through the roof. I constantly feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. For the first time since all of this started, I feel deeply depressed. I become totally overwhelmed by my life. My children. I throw myself into cleaning and baking. I steam mop my floors three times a day. I steam mop the toilets, the bathtubs, the counter tops. I vacuum constantly. My tiny kitchen is taken over by bubbling vats of sourdough starter. Anything I can do to escape the crazy. I'm too overwhelmed and anxious to be alone with the kids.  We set up a schedule of friends and family who come over every day to help me while Kyle is at work. While they're there, I wander my house in a frenzy, starting 100 projects and finishing none. I have some good days. Mostly I have bad days.

And then, I have "the day." Where my distorted thoughts stop feeling distorted and start sounding logical. Imagine you're walking across a bridge. You're just out for a walk, and the bridge is in front of you. Naturally, you start to cross it. And the next thing you know, instead of crossing it, you're standing on the edge. Your next step will be to jump. And what the fuck? You're just out for a walk. You don't want to die. This wasn't your plan. But here you are. Confused. Terrified.

It wasn't an actual bridge for me. What it was is deeply personal, deeply painful, and deeply sad. But as I stood on that metaphorical railing, I knew it was crazy. Crazy. I called for help. And with help, I climbed back down.

The next day I checked myself into a psych ward. It was the best thing I've ever done for myself.

In opposition to silence.

Last night, Kyle and I were curled up on the couch watching recorded sitcoms from the last few weeks. Trying to laugh. He got up to go get something and I hit pause. I sat curled up on the couch listening to the hum of the baby monitors. Anwen's white noise. The boys' lullabies. The same lullabies they've been listening to since they were only a few weeks old, the ones I downloaded one overwhelmed day when I needed a sensory grounding to motherhood. Their lullabies have become an integral part of my sense of self as a mother. Reminding me of that boundless love and entrancing magic of childhood. As I sat listening to those sweet songs softly muffled by the monitor, I saw the first true glimpse of my mothering self that I've seen in weeks. It was amazing. It made me cry.

***

I hadn't blogged much since the fall. Or since Anwen's birth. Or since...when? But suddenly, I had the urge to write. A little over a week ago I hopped back on the laptop and let it spill out. A confused, chaotic, terrifying attempt at finding my way through a mind that was suddenly foreign, with no idea how I'd gotten there, and no idea how to get out. At the urging of loved ones, I took the posts down. Lacking any context to my daily life, they were just plain scary. But then again, daily life had gotten pretty scary itself.

***

It's hard to decide where to start in blogging about this now.  Do I go back to all the signs I missed over the last few years? Do I start with an explanation of postpartum depression and how truly serious and life threatening it can be? Do I start with my steady unraveling over the past few months? Do I start with my six day stint on a psych ward? Maybe with the journey ahead of me, the journey back to my true self?

***

None of that. I'm starting with an explanation that could be mistaken for a defense. Let me assure you, it is no defense, simply because I don't need one. I don't need to defend my sanity, my worth as a mother, or my decision to admit myself to a psychiatric ICU. It's not a defense because I feel nothing but proud of myself. For having the courage to be honest, to ask for help, and to set aside my pride to get the help I needed. I have a long way to go in healing. PPD isn't like the flu, over in a few miserable days. And especially when it's gone unchecked for as long as mine. Unchecked, unnoticed, accepted as part of motherhood. When your thoughts are distorted, it's hard to have insight to that fact. I'm starting with an explanation for anyone who is wondering why. Why I would choose to share this openly. Why I wouldn't edit out some of the more gasp-inducing details (psych ward!?!). My explanation is simple. PPD can be deadly. It's far more common than you think. And chances are, we all know somebody who will at some point suffer from it. Very likely in silence, or near silence. 

***

I'm sharing this because I'm here to write about it.  Because I felt safe enough to not be silent. 

Let's take a pro-longed commercial break.

My return to blogging was short lived. I'm taking a blog-vacation while I focus on becoming well.

I still encourage anyone who is struggling with or knows somebody who is struggling with PPD to reach out for help. These are great places to start: http://www.postpartum.net/Get-the-Facts.aspx and http://postpartumprogress.com/.

PPD is treatable and temporary. And far more common than most people think.

So I'm signing off for now...but not quietly.

A few thoughts to share before I'm back laughing about the time I went bat-shit crazy:

-Fuck stigma.
-Fuck ignorance.
-Fuck anyone who thinks this is my fault, that I brought this on myself, or that having PPD makes me any less of a mother. I'm a fantastic mother. I take amazing care of my kids. Their health, well-being, safety, and happiness are my first priority in life.
-If you're going through something similar to me, you're not alone, help is out there, and you can get better.

So with love and lots of F bombs, I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of sanity.

(Saying fuck a lot feels cathartic, and pretty fucking awesome right now).

Beyond Attachment

When I was pregnant for the first time, I threw myself into preparing for motherhood. I researched gentle parenting techniques. Kyle and I prepared to rearrange our lives to accommodate and nurture our baby twins in the most loving way possible. I couldn't wait to change their tiny cloth diapers. I couldn't wait to snuggle them close to me in the Moby wrap. I felt peaceful in the idea that attachment parenting would provide us with the right tools to gently nurture our little family.

When the boys were born seven weeks early and whisked off to the NICU, our plans for the early days with our babies changed dramatically. Instead of taking a quiet few weeks together at home to bond, the boys were kept in plastic isolettes amidst the constantly chiming monitors. When I was discharged three days after my Cesarean, I was told to go home and visit the boys during the day, rather than staying with them in their room as I desperately wanted. Weak and overwhelmed, I agreed. I was petrified for my tiny babies alone in their fancy plastic bins. How would this time impact our bond?

Somehow, as time went on, in the blur of postpartum depression and sleep deprivation, I began to think of those first few weeks as my first transgression against attachment parenting. Every AP article I read talked about the shoulds and should nots. I should always respond to my babies' cries. Did they do that at 3 AM in the NICU? I should not allow my baby to spend hours a day laying alone in a plastic bin. Nothing addressed things not going according to plan. In whatever big or small way, I felt I had failed.

Fast forward several months. I persevered with attachment parenting, trying my best to live up to what were beginning to feel, at times, like pretty exacting standards. As time wore on, that early NICU experience started to feel like the first of many stumbling departures from AP. At nine months, there was sleep training - a desperate and heartbreaking solution to my extreme sleep deprivation from getting up to nurse the boys every two hours at night. Skip ahead a few more months. At some point I yelled for the first time. At some point, I swore. At some point, I tried time outs. In my head, all I could hear was "failure!" "Failure!" "Failure!"

Here's the thing. I think attachment parenting offers some wonderful tools. I believe the world would be a better place if more people adopted its principals. However.

I AM AN IMPERFECT HUMAN BEING. I am not always entirely zen. I am emotional, sensitive, and quick to react to my environment. No matter how hard I try, I can never be true to myself AND fit my circular body into a square shaped box. But it goes further than that, too.

I'm concerned about the ominously missing coverage of "what if" situations in AP literature. No parent is perfect all of the time. I'm wary of any parenting advice that quickly and harshly judges those who chose other paths, and I can't help but feel horrified by every AP article I've ever read that warns of the brain damage! and antisocial behaviors! suffered by non AP children.

As a feminist, I'm left feeling icky about the implications of AP on women. AP is child centered, but I'm not sure that it's family balanced. In college, I spent my senior year completing a capstone project on women and self-help culture. My overwhelming conclusion was that our society's plethora of self-help books and television, largely aimed at women, lead to the message that we're somehow not good enough as we are. Forget that we're all supposed to look like super models. We're also not centered enough on the inside. At some point, AP advice has started to feel the same way to me.  I need to be more patient. I need to do a better job of empathizing with my child. I need to be gentle and maintain my child's dignity when disciplining. If I do not do these things, I bear the weight of harming their very sense of self.

I offer these thoughts not to condemn AP or those who practice it. In most ways, I continue to parent in a very AP fashion. What I want is to be honest with myself about how and why I choose to parent. I want to challenge and examine it. AP is becoming increasingly popular. I suspect I'm not the only one who at times feels confused by a parenting style that centers around the gentle treatment of children yet leaves me feeling like my own sense of self has taken a beating. In the end, I pick and choose. More than anything, I strive to parent mindfully, in a way that is gentle for our entire family. As a mother, I know that I am not now and never will be perfect. I'm learning that this little fact isn't a failure on my part. In all reality, it's one of the best parts of this journey.