How Did I Get Here?

Posted by Anonymous.

Growing up, success came fairly easily. Mostly 'A' report cards, co-Captain of the Pom Squad, Scholarship to college. Even college continued mostly along that line -- even the bumps in the road could be overcome with a little extra work.

Ever since then it's been downhill. First job after college I left after 2 years because I bombed. The next jobs were ok, so I thought things were getting back on track. Got married, had a child. Started on anti-anxiety meds for stress. Started to get more depressed and anxious. It started to effect my job. Marriage hit a major rough patch. Upped the meds. More struggles at work. Baby number 2 arrived and my depression ballooned into a hideous monster. Started therapy and what became the long process of more and more medication. That was 6 years ago. My job is in trouble, my marriage is in trouble, and my life is a mess.

My dad was a high functioning alcoholic. My mom is the classic "enabler" - sweeping everything under the rug. I'm the classic "Adult Child of an Alcoholic," constantly "people pleasing." I almost wish I were an alcoholic because then I would have a problem that can be solved --You can stop drinking (or taking drugs, or stealing). It's within your control --at least to a point.
With depression like this, there is no control. One minute things are going along Ok --then for the next 10 days you have no energy, stare into space and have no concentration.

I used to have a phenomenal memory. I could keep all sorts of appointments and scheduling in my head. Now I can barely remember things long enough to write them down. I have a pile of "reminders" to go through --many of which have passed the deadline by the time I get to them.

I used to be happy and bouncy. I used to have tons of self confidence. I feel like a shell of what I was.

People say, just focus on being happy. Just focus on getting things done. They don't realize I can't focus -- my brain is set on a loop of negative feedback.

So, how did I get here? How did I go from over-achieving to "holding onto my job by my fingertips?" And is there any way back up out of this pit?

You're So Vain

Posted by Anonymous.

I bet you think this blog is about you, don’t you? Well, for once it is.

I’m the mother of a beautiful five month old guy. He wasn’t planned, he wasn’t expected and despite the terrible first few months of learning how to deal with this little alien I created, I love him to pieces. Unfortunately, there is ONE thing that is not addressed in pre-natal classes that becomes an issue after baby is born.

Breast feeding? Check – been through the hell, done that.

To swaddle or not to swaddle? Check.

Lack of sleep, lack of a proper diet? Check

Post partum depression? Check check and check!

The fact that your once supportive partner will quickly become a stranger and ‘not be able to deal’ with the changes in your relationship? Definitely NOT covered.

I’m starting to think that men should have a separate segment of pre-natal classes; how to deal with their own warring emotions, how to handle jealousy and how to realize that sure, your happiness is important, but there is now a new little demanding creature whose needs do come first.

After almost five years, he decided to leave, right after I was diagnosed with post partum depression and having to accept the fact that medication was necessary. After five years and being beyond supportive during my pregnancy, beyond supportive and helpful in the first two months of the new little one’s life, he decides he’s ‘miserable’ and can’t handle it anymore. He walks out, expecting me to grasp at any small bit of strength I can find. After five years, he decides he’s not sure if he knows what love is and has feelings for someone at work, whom he has confided all in recently. After five years, he’s decided that he’s not happy and someone else needs his support and energy more than his young son and his still adjusting wife to be.

And after all this, he expects me to be understanding, sympathetic...and not make it hellish for him when he comes to visit the little guy. He doesn’t understand why I’m so bitter, of course and why my normally in check temper comes out blaring sirens. He can’t understand why “no one wants him to be happy”

I’m supposed to be supportive and keep it together. It’s not easy.

Booby Trap

Posted by Anonymous.

My daughter is 11 years old. When she was born, she refused to nurse, would not, could not latch on. The nurses at the hospital threw up their hands, the first lactation consultant told me "it must feel terrible to have your own baby rejecting you", the second lactation consultant showed up forty eight minutes late, after telling me not to pump until she got there and not to feed my baby so that I was engorged and my daughter was starving and it was not a good day. I cried a lot back then. I cried and I told my husband that I wasn't worth of being a mother. Because I had never heard of a woman being unable to breastfeed her own child. That was unnatural. That was fucked up. It destroyed me for weeks. I pumped and I fingerfed my daughter through tubings but I was hollow. I'd never know such pain, at a time when I was supposed to be so happy. I made bargains with God. "Let me nurse," I pleaded. "Let me nurse and I'll cop to breast cancer in a decade." I meant the treatable, curable kind of cancer, of course, but really, I was out of my mind. It hurt so much. So much.

A parade of lactation consultants went through my house.

"Your nipples are inverted," one told me. "You should have been wearing nipple re-inverting shields throughout your pregnancy," she admonished.

"You definitely have enough milk. A nursing mother has enough milk to feed the Red Army." I didn't want to feed the Red Army. I wanted to feed my daughter.

I'm sure that I had a healthy dose of postpartum depression thrown in as well, but whenever I think back to that time, I catch my breath. Because it's been over 11 years. And the memory is still sharp.

Asking For Help

Posted by Anonymous.

Things have been building for a while.

My husband has been battling some deep depression issues, work hasn't been going really well for him, and a hundred stupid things at home. And we're leaving for a 2 week trip tomorrow, which no one has packed for.

When we moved into the new apartment, we signed up with the only option for cable (until August, that is) RCN. RCN assigned us a home number that apparently belonged to a credit deadbeat. We get multiple phone calls a day for "Maureen" from creditors. Having filed for bankruptcy when I was 20, I know what creditor phone calls sound like. And having spent the last 10 years rebuilding my credit and paying a steep penanance for my idiocy at 18, I really don't appreciate creditor calls. Especially when they're not for me. Especially when they refuse to take the number off their call list because the person they're looking for doesn't live here. ESPECIALLY when Rent a Center flat out called me a liar and accused me of being this Maureen person who was just trying to get them to stop calling. We have been trying to fix this for almost 2 months. We even went so far as to re-hook up our Vonage line for several weeks to see if that would help. Nope. RCN in their infinite wisdom decided to make our number unlisted....because that totally helps when the people who are calling are creditors who ALREADY HAVE THE FUCKING NUMBER. Yesterday I spent 3 hours straightening the matter out with supervisors and managers. I have my "new number"

Or so I thought.

Because guess who I got a call for this morning. When I called my cell to check the number...it's still the old one.

So I was pretty cranky.

When the baby woke up, I was so excited because she drank six ounces of formula which was the most she'd ever eaten in a sitting. She had gotten up to 4 regularly and had drank 5 oz during her last 3 feedings yesterday. She burped and it all seemed okay. Except a half hour later she was sitting next to me, and picked up my cell phone. And a minute later made a face and before I even realized what had happened, she puked up a good 2 ounces...right onto my phone.

Of course my first reaction was to calm her, cuddle her, and get her out of her now soaked pj's.

Then I picked up my phone and wiped it off. When my friend called me about our plans this afternoon, I couldn't hear her...until I turned on the speaker phone. My ear speaker wasn't working...fuck. My husband took a look at my phone and then both speakers started giving off feedback. Dead. Not covered by warranty.

My phone is dead. Which is a $400 problem. I don't currently have $400.

I haven't been sleeping well, and what little sleep I have gotten hasn't been high quality.

The last week I've randomly been having dizzy spells where I feel like I'm going to pass out for no reason.

And I realize now that I just hadn't been taking my meds...any of them...allergy, antidepressants, vitamins at night in at least a week or two. Probably since the night that my husband kept me up until 4 am to sort out the flights for a vacation in August.

I don't know what it is or why, but the phone was the last straw.

My husband wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain what was wrong with the phone and then told me it was fine. I ended up screaming at him until he understood what was wrong. I screamed at him so much that he just gave up and left for work.

Then the baby started crying.

It was like someone had taken a match to the straw.

Anger ripped through me. At her, at the world, at everything. I threw something into my bedside table drawer and slammed it. The alarm clock fell of my bedside table and I picked it up and began to bash my bedside table with it.

The baby cried louder.

I screamed at her to shut up.

For a second what I wanted to do wasn't to throw my alarm clock at the table, but to throw her.

It scared me shitless.

I picked her up, ran to the living room, put her in the pack n play, ran back to the bedroom and slammed the door. I picked up the phone and told my husband that I was a danger to the baby and to get home NOW. I then ran to the bathroom and shut that door. I curled up on the floor and sobbed. Not crying...gasping screaming keening sobbing.

I quickly catalogued all the ways I could hurt myself. To punish myself for almost hurting my 8 month old who had done nothing wrong.

I thought about leaving.

I thought about giving her up for adoption.

I thought about suicide.

I thought about hospitalizing myself.

I don't know how long it was until my husband came home. Probably only 5 or 10 minutes. He didn't see the baby in her pack n play so he found me and was clearly scared when he asked me where she was. He checked on her and reassured me that she was okay.

I couldn't look at him. I couldn't do anything but sob.

He asked me flat out if I needed to go to the Emergency Room. I said I didn't know.

He arranged for our daughter to spend a day with her grandparents.

I think the worst part of today is that I don't want to admit it to anyone I know. I have a therapist and a psychiatrist. I'm scared to tell them about this. I'm scared that it might involve DSS. That she might be taken away from me. That I might be hospitalized. I don't want my child to grow up with the mom in the mental institution. I don't want my husband to have to go through that either. I don't want to the relative that everyone talks about in hushed tones, like the former wife of one of my great uncles who committed suicide or the first wife of one of my husband's uncles who is a shameful family secret.

I don't want to raise my daughter to fear me because I'm unpredictable. I don't want her to cringe from me because she's scared I might hurt her. After all, I went through that with my own mother, who has serious depression but who has never sought help. When I complained, I was told just to deal with it and that 'it's just how she is."

Sometimes I wonder if I had any right to reproduce. To pass on my flawed genetic code.

I'm relieved that she's okay. But I haven't forgiven myself---I don't know that I ever can.

I have an appointment with my therapist and I will either force myself to tell her or re-evaluate our relationship. If I can't tell her things like this, then it's not the right therapist/patient mix. I took my meds today and will build back to the higher dosage.

It's frightening because now I can understand how women spiral out of control. How bad things happen to children at the hands of their mothers. How PPD or even just plain old depression can magnify and twist life's little problems into insurmountable anger filled hazes. How that anger can consume anyone who's unfortunate to be in your path.

I have recognized it. I can name it. Now I have to admit to it and ask for help.

That Which Does Not Kill You

Posted by Anonymous.

There's this thing in my head that I can't bring myself to talk about. Oh, I'll talk about the very big burden that sits on top of this thing, that everybody knows about. But nobody knows about the thing in my head. The thing is part of the bedrock of my mind. It is not a challenge to be overcome. It is something that is; something that has been there all along. Sometimes I can tap dance right over the top of it, completely disregarding it's existence. Sometimes I can steamroll it with a series of events and activities. But the last six months have torn away at the bedrock, flipped it over and exposed all kinds of things, gouging at the familiar landscape of my mind and completely changing my perceptions about myself.

But what to do with this thing? I am not a secretive person by nature. I like people to know what's going on with me. If I struggle, I don't mind people knowing that I struggle. If I'm happy, I like to share it. If I screwed up, chances are you'll hear it from me first (if I'm aware of it). But I don't know how to articulate this thing, and I don't want to know about it. But the longer I don't speak it, the larger it looms and the more distorted my perception of certain situations becomes.
For a year now I've been trying to write a thesis. I have not made much progress. This lack of progress makes me feel foolish, stupid, worthless, unprofessional. I know I am none of those things. I am a wife and mother, daughter and sister, friend and coworker. I know I am loved and valued. That is what keeps me from telling anybody about what actually has been going on inside my mind for the past six months. The thought of trying to finish my thesis actually sparks recurring thoughts of cutting my arms or of swallowing handfuls of pills. I have never been suicidal in my life. I don't want to die. I have no idea why these thoughts take shape in my mind, but I can see them vividly. They impress themselves upon me multiple times a day.

When I'm not feeling the pressure, the thoughts are not there, but when I am, they are frighteningly present. Just yesterday I went to the bathroom medicine cabinet and checked to see if we had razor blades and did a quick inventory of the medicine bottles. Their presence comforted me. And all of this I did rather matter-of-factly. I did not contemplate it. I just up and walked in there and did it with the same absentminded mechanics as one gets up to reach a ringing telephone. It was what the moment called for, it seems.

I know that some people who know me, who are around me, can see that something is wrong. A couple of dear friends have told me so. But what they see is the surface--the stress, not the depths--the darkness. And what they probably assume is that once the thesis is finished the stress will go away. What they don't know, what I hesitate to tell them, is that I don't know that it will. I am scared that it won't. I am not a fearful person, but that scares me. Some things, once their strength is tested, are forever weakened by the test even though they pass. I have never thought of myself as weak, but I do now.

I try not to feed these thoughts by worrying and wringing my hands about them. I use conversation, television, blogging, Facebook, obsessively cleaning my kitchen, and basically the daily activity of life to try to simultaneously avoid it and make sense of it. I want to be clear: I have NO intention of carrying out what I see in my mind. But I fear what might happen if I don't find a way to deal with this. Getting out of one's own head is not an easy thing to do, especially when the landscape is so unfamiliar. It's a very strange and disconcerting to feel truly lost in one's own mind. To not recognize one's own tendencies or desires or motivations. The temptation is to explore, to try to figure it out, to solve the puzzle. But the landscape here is rather scary. I don't want to know where it leads.

An Update, In Which Breathing Occurs

Posted by Anonymous.

So a while ago I wrote a post here about my mental illness, general disgruntlement with New York City, and my ridiculous college. (It was called "Suffocating.") Some folks in the comments section wanted to know how that all ended up, so here it is:

I found a subletter for my apartment, sold eighty percent of my clothing to Beacon’s Closet, packed up my cowboy boots and my snowboard, and high-tailed it back to Colorado faster than you can say “spring semester medical leave.”

Or rather, that’s how it should’ve happened. It is true that I left, but it was more complicated than that. I met this boy. Theme parties are dangerous in so many ways, Internet. On October 29th, I went to a Black Friday party with my hair in pin curls. We drank gin out of a bathtub, blasted jazz on vinyl and celebrated our forthcoming decline into financial ruin. There was a boy wearing suspenders and a fedora playing piano. Like, really, really mind-blowing piano. It was his twenty-first birthday. I told him that my birthday is also on the anniversary of a terrible event: JFK’s assassination. He was a piano major at the jazz conservatory at [my ridiculous college].

The day before I went to this party, I had called my parents and told them I was leaving New York, and would never step foot in it again except maybe for Passover Seder.

I am so not that girl. I don’t do things for boys, like move across half a continent. But here I am, living in Colorado, screaming about how miserable it is to be alive in front of a great shrink twice a week, auditioning medications into my system, and moving back to God Damn New York in August, to pull one more semester at my God Damn College. He’s been out here twice; I taught him to snowboard. I spent ten days at his family’s house on the Puget Sound in January, baking bread with his mother for their co-op. (Yes. It’s exactly how it sounds.) Let’s back up.

I said to him: “I’m miserable and moving away, but I’ll have coffee with you and be your friend.” He said, “Okay.” Stupid. What that ALWAYS means is “I will marry you, move to Portland, and have your genius babies. On the weekends we can go antiquing.” Internet, we had a lot of coffee. (BTW, coffee means sex.) The plan was to have a lot of coffee, never commit, I would leave and that would be that. Then we started doing terrible things like having conversations, going to Prop 8 protests, and revealing intimate facts about ourselves like “I am batshit insane sometimes because I have unmedicated bipolar disorder, can you pull my boot off because I’m sobbing uncontrollably and can’t do anything at the moment thanks.” He stayed. Even after he saw me have a panic attack about how to put on pants.

I had an ovarian cyst rupture in November, (My third, and yes, I’m on the pill for it. Look how effective that treatment is!) and he skipped an entire day of class to hang out in the emergency room with me while I got high on morphine. He read aloud to me the last forty pages of Eclipse, which I had crawled into my room to grab as the paramedics banged on my front door. I had it clutched to my chest when they loaded my into the ambulance. (He doesn’t like it when I tell people that he has recited Stephanie Meyer aloud, but hot damn, that makes a keeper, doesn’t it?)

I love him, Internet. I love him more than I hate New York. (And I really, really hate it there.) So I’m moving back, with an arsenal of legally-acquired Xanax, a team of mental health professionals already found, and my very tired snowboard. It’s only until we both graduate, which is two more years, because he is earning two degrees at once, (a BFA and BA) and I am scholastically incompetent. After that, he wants to ride a motorcycle with me across Europe. My only concern was, how would all of my Sephora Problem fit onto a motorcycle? He said, “We can get a side car.” Oy Vey.

Violent Thoughts

Posted by Anonymous.

I am really struggling with this. I have various mental health problems, including depression with bipolar tendencies (means my moods go haywire but I'm not actually manic), personality disorder (closest to Borderline Personality Disorder), Anxiety, Panic Attacks and the like. I get so frustrated with my kids and we've been working on changing my meds to compensate for that. The new meds I just started are helping but I still have one main symptom that is starting to scare me. When I get frustrated at my kids (which is always and over VERY little things) I want to hurt them. I don't think I actually would but I get the thoughts and I have spanked them (which I don't actually believe in.) I feel like an awful parent and I want the thoughts to stop. I'd never forgive myself if I hurt my children.

But here's the problem. How do I tell the doctor without having my kids taken away? I don't want CAS (Children's Aid Society) involved in my life. If I admit to having feelings of hurting my children, they will become invovled but I obviously need some kind of medication or something. It's starting to scare me but I just can't admit to having the feelings. Losing my kids to CAS is a big fear for me. We were involved with them once before only because I had a major panic attack and dissacioative episode right after giving birth the first time and they wanted to make sure everything was okay and kids were being taken care of. I can't take weekly visits and probing questions. I asked once what would happen if I was hospitalized or something, would the kids be taken away and they said no, as long as they were being cared for properly at home (like by husband or my mom.) But if I said I felt like hurting my kids surly they wouldn't allow them in the home with me until my thoughts were gone. That would make things a million times worse and there is NO way I am admitting to the thoughts if that could happen.

So I don't know what to do. How can I tell the doctor I'm having violent thoughts and not say towards whom or elaborate? Will that be enough info to get proper medication/diagnosis or whatever? I'm at a loss.

Cutter

Posted by Anonymous.

She was the only person in the waiting room. It was sparse; a few chairs, some nicely ironic parenting magazines. The nice motherly-looking nurse called her name. Down the short hall, she walked into his office and shook his hand. They sat down.

Vague introductions, how are yous, what did you do todays were exchanged. Finally, he got to the meat of it: how do you feel? A one word answer: Fine.

"So, have you had any thoughts of hurting yourself?" the shrink asks, pen at the ready. She wordlessly yanks her arm up and rips down the sleeve of her hoodie. He sees the jagged tears, some half-healed, some just fresh. They crisscrossed the length of her forearm. She very carefully kept her face unconcerned, staring just left of his cheek, directly at his ear, silently daring him to question her indifference.

"I see," he said. He scribbled in his notebook. "And why did you do this?" She shrugs, not wanting to explain to a stranger. Not that she wanted to explain herself to anyone she knew, either.

"Alright. How long have you been cutting yourself?" And she didn't like that wording. It made it sound desperate; almost childish. "Awhile. 7th grade." She's unsure. Feelings are not her forte and this may be the worst thing she's ever experienced, being stuck in a cold room with a man she doesn't know, being expected to share. The seemingly constant stomachache is present; the gut twisting, clenching rage made of guilt and worthlessness that she can always depend on. Her intestines are writhing like a snake above a flame and all she really wants is to be the perfect kid.

She fights hard to keep her game face. Thinking about this is not an option. She focuses on the shrink's degrees that proudly proclaim how clever he is. How clever she's not. Not anymore.

"I think we'll get you started on Prozac. I'll see you back here in about a month, for starters." She nods. Anything to get out faster. She walks to the door, prescription clutched in sweaty hands. She smiles coldly at her mother, willing her to see that she's fine, mentally apologizing all the time for being fucked up, being crazy, losing both her mind and her potential.

Crazy

Posted by Anonymous.

Am I crazy? I think I just might be. My mother was, so it would stand to reason that the Nutso might jump from her branch to mine in the ol’ family tree. (She wasn’t like, dangerous crazy. Not really. I mean, she might have been, given a weapon at the right time, but since that never happened, she was generally not physically harmful. Emotionally, however, is a different story… And that wasn’t intentional. She didn’t mean to be the way she was…)

I’ve wondered for years – since I was old enough to observe that other moms weren’t like mine, and that I wasn’t like other daughters -- if maybe, just maybe, I’m cracking up. Maybe my attic has a few leaks, if you know what I’m saying. The idea scares the ever living shit out of me, the thought of being out of control in the same ways that I witnessed for so many years, the very possibility of harboring that kind of beast inside my brain… Why, it’s enough to make me want to scratch my own face off.

You see, my mom was different. Very large Catholic family. Very, very religious. She thought she heard God’s voice as a child, and she may have. Having never heard it myself, I wouldn’t recognize it and have no reason to brush off her claims. (She was a lot of things, but never a liar.) She was her father’s favorite. They weren’t poor, but were rubbing elbows with it. She married a rich boy straight out of high school, he joined the military, they moved overseas to a small island. He became wildly abusive, attempting to kill her every chance he got. She had my oldest sister in a hospital in Germany, alone, when she was 20 years old. They all moved back to the states, and eventually back to the place my mother was born and her family still lived. Her father was diagnosed with cancer and died. Her husband mocked her pain, and in her rage she found the strength to leave him, although she was no longer… whole. The years of terror and pain and torture had left her already-fragile mind fractured. She was still beautiful, brilliant, vibrant and so brave, but there was something foreign in her mind after that, something that warped her view of herself, the world around her and the people in it... She met my ‘father,’ married him, had my other sister. I believe she then had an affair with a man she never identified to me let alone admitted to being with, and then I was born.

She loved us so much. More than I can even fathom. We were her entire world, my sisters and I, or at least everything in it that was good. That love didn’t keep her whole, though. In fact, it frequently acted as a bludgeon she used to break our hearts and her own. She had two major psychotic breaks that I know of, because I was there for them. I grew up idolizing her, and living in terror that I would become like her. She was everything to me- my fear, my love, my hate, my protector and the person I longed to escape. As I got older, she became one of my best friends, the person I loved more than life. She died three years ago. Cancer. Was diagnosed in January, died in June of the same year… It literally tore her apart. One of her obituaries said “died peacefully after a long battle with cancer.” What a fucking load of shit. It was a horrific, swift massacre. Nothing peaceful or long about that “battle.”

Oh! When she died? I was pregnant. My boyfriend of seven years and I were expecting a baby. A little girl. I was the exact same age my mother had been when she had my oldest sister. Did I mention that we were high school sweethearts, and that he joined the military? Or that he was stationed on an island overseas? And wouldn’t you know, he had this really odd habit of getting violent when I made him angry, which happened a lot. (His hurts were small potatoes next to the torture my mom lived with, but he was gearing up for the big stuff with shocking speed and enthusiasm. However, I’m sure we can all see the parallels between her life and mine.) Yeah… So, she died about 4 and a half months into my pregnancy. I turned to my boyfriend for comfort, he shoved me, I fell and went into early labor. Miscarried a few days later. That was three weeks before my 21^st birthday. Four months later, I left him. (I know. Really long time, huh? Well, I probably AM crazy. So duh.)

Then I got together with a guy that was my best friend. He was happy, spiritual, beautiful. He was everything I’d ever wanted. He was more than I ever thought I’d get, given the fact that my stepfather and my mother’s psychosis pounded “you’re shit” into my brain for many, many years. Three years later, he wasn’t even a shadow of the man I’d met and I called our relationship off because I got tired of killing him. We ended up being really terrible for each other… I made him sad, and he made me angry. We both struggle with clinical depression, so… bad combination. I loved him so much, I never thought we’d be apart. Leaving him was the most terrible choice I’ve ever had to make.

Now, there’s this great guy. A guy that’s so peaceful, so mellow, so supportive. I have no idea how to be with him. I’m so far out of my depth that I can’t even see the shore, even though he’s right there with me, encouraging me to swim. You can do this, you can be this, it’s okay, I’m right here. After being on an emotional roller-coaster for nearly 25 years, I don’t know how to stand still. I don’t know how to be sane, or even how to fake it. I know he makes me wildly happy, and that he cares for me and understands my issues as much as he can, and is so loving. I know he quiets the static in my brain and eases the terrible grief in my soul. Yet… every day I find something to dissect, something to pick apart and sharpen and stab myself in the heart with. Something that tells me I’m not good enough, I’m fucking it all up, I’m ruining everything and the sky is about to fall in.

I can’t get out of my own head, I can’t stop the shockwaves that keep pounding me down into the terrible, dark hole I know is waiting just beneath this delicate net he’s woven for me, allowed me to weave for myself. It’s the hole my mother dug, the one she was trapped in for most of her life, the one she pushed me toward and shoved me away from. I see it there and know it like the back of the hands I inherited from her- every detail is etched into my mind. I’ve had a quarter of a century to stare at that hole, to slip into it and claw my way back out. I can’t stop staring at it now, from the corner of my eye, even as I try so hard to focus on this happiness in front of me, this reality that could so easily be mine if I could just fix what’s wrong in my head and heart and quiet the voices that scream out so much terror from the bottom of that pit.

I know that the next time I fall, when the net finally gives, that I’ll never get back out of that terrible darkness again.

I am so scared. I don’t want to be this way.

Wrecked

Posted by Katie.

I’m afraid I’ve wrecked our future. And we’ve only been married for 6 months.

This failure goes back, way back, to 3 years before I met you, to my freshman year of college.

I hated college. I hated every single minute of it. And I was scared of coming home because I simply don’t do failure. And calling and saying that I wanted to come home from a college 2 hours from my house because I was homesick was my definition of failure.

I called my mom twenty times a day, always in tears, unable to cope with anything. After several weeks, my family decided that it was time to stop this cycle of depression and get me some help. And I resisted, oh how I resisted. But my doctor convinced me that anti-depressants were the right choice. At the time I was embarrassed. I failed at keeping my emotions under control, I failed at being happy. I failed at something so innate that it shouldn’t be something you can fail at. But I did.

And that failure flipped a switch in my head. It was as if from that moment on, I needed control in my life. It didn’t matter where. The medication helped and the crying slowed down and my moods stabilized, but the fact that I couldn’t even control my own emotions without pharmaceutical aid ate away at me.

And so I turned to food. Not in the, gobble down everything in sight way, but rather in the, control every single calorie that my body ingests way.

I started slowly. Just cutting back on sweets, eating a little healthier, reading some fitness websites. And then I began running. And running was this freeing process where all that was going on was the wind and air and whatever music I chose to listen to for the morning. I wasn’t thinking about my classes, or my future, I was just thinking about taking the next physical step in the run. It was amazing.

But before long, it wasn’t just eating healthily or running for the exhilarative freeing feeling, it was a problem, a sickness. It was counting every single calorie I ingested. It was calculating the speed and distance I ran to convert it to calories burned. It was stepping on the scale each morning, and despite it showing a weight lower than what I’d been since middle school, it was wanting to drop just two more pounds. Or three more pounds. Just a little more.

It was anorexia.

At the height of my eating disorder, I was eating, (at best) 1 cup of cheerios in the morning, a salad of only vegetables and fat-free Italian dressing for lunch, a snack of green beans and a dinner of either a bagel or the same salad as lunch. On a wild day, I might throw a whole apple into the mix. But I always felt guilty about it.

There were days where my calorie count was easily less than 500, but I drank water and tea so I didn’t feel the hunger. I had over $1000 out of my initial $1400 from meal plan left at the end of the semester when most everyone else was completely out of money.

And the numbers on the scale dropped. 120. 118. 115. 110. 107. 103. I went from 145 to 103 pounds in less than 6 months. On my 5 pound 5 inch frame, these weights were dangerous. I looked gaunt, my hair was falling out, and worse, I hadn’t had a period in months, a fact I outright lied to my doctor (and mother) about when she asked after rightly assuming that I wasn’t just “exercising and eating healthier,” but rather, killing myself.

It wasn’t until the end of my freshman year, after all but one of my friends completely deserted me (understandably since the most important social part of college is meals and I wasn’t participating in any), that I realized that I had a problem. I remember getting into a car with my only friend and saying out loud what I had known for weeks, maybe months. And before I could stop myself, I blurted it out. “I think I have an eating disorder.” And she hugged me and said that she knew, but also that she knew I needed to realize it first.

I went to the school counselor, which was a huge failure (“You don’t look underweight, you’re probably fine”) and eventually just worked hard to let myself eat again. To get past the voice in my head telling me that that muffin over there would go right to my belly, or thighs (never my boobs of course). It was miserably difficult, I was forbidden from stepping on a scale and I hated myself. I could feel myself getting fat again and I hated every single minute it.

In the end I gained too much weight back, a fact that I came to peace with, and tried to move on with my life. But the damage I had done over the past year was not damage that could be fixed simply by gaining the weight back. As it turns out, depriving your body of fat and nutrients for more than a year is not a safe thing to do.

And that brings us to today.

One of the things that my gynecologist talked to me about recently is that because of the severity and length of time of my eating disorder, I may be infertile. We can already see that my bones are too thin and it makes sense that the after effects of my anorexia aren’t confined to just my skeleton. She said, actually very compassionately, that because I went 14 months without a period from being malnourished that there’s a good chance that I won’t be able to conceive a child. Ever.

Suddenly it’s hitting me that our dream of having children may already be over.

I know how badly you want kids, how badly I want kids, but I’m afraid I might have already ruined that life for us. What if what I did 7 years ago keeps us from the lifetime of happiness we’ve both wanted? How can I un-do something like that? What if my life and my mental illness caused us to be childless?

I know that you’ll forgive me and tell me it’s okay, because you love me. But I know I’ll never forgive myself for ruining the future we were supposed to have, because I know it’s my fault.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Posted by Anonymous.

It's depressing to me that what feels like the most important decision I will have made up to this point in my life can be reduced to some stupid, cliched song lyrics. My husband and I have been together for more than a decade. We have an amazing two year old son. And more bad blood between the two of us than I care to think about most days. Our marriage got off to a rocky start, I'll admit, what with me attempting suicide a few months in and then again a year later. What can I say? I was young, and depressed, and felt trapped in the horror of feeling that the walls were continually closing in on me. I tried to kill myself, in part, because I thought my husband deserved better. Now, years and scores of pills and hours of therapy later, I look back on that time in our marriage and regret that I felt so utterly incapable of letting in my husband (or anyone else) even the tiniest bit. And I regret having ever put him through that mess.

Five years ago when he told me that my depression and emotional withdrawal from the marriage led him to have an affair, I cringed. I felt responsible. What was wrong with me? The fact that he waited to tell me about the affair until after we had planned a move across the country to be closer to (his) family eventually infuriated me. Cue the start of breeding resentment. And then, six months after we had moved across the country and he told me he was having another (emotional) affair with a coworker, the world slipped out from under me and I ran, no, sprinted head-on into the land of denial and workaholism. Maybe it was because my body was telling me, in a voice not unlike what I imagine a shrieking harpy to sound like, "You need to have a baby! Right now!" and having one with my husband seemed the most accessible option. Maybe it was because I couldn't imagine giving up on the years of history built up between us. Maybe it was because neither my family, nor his family "believe" in divorce, and I couldn't imagine shaming them by telling them I just wanted to give up. Maybe it was because I felt incapable of living on my own. Maybe it was because I was scared.

Not surprisingly, we had had sexual issues from the getgo. We had waited until marriage. Why, I don't know. Our honeymoon was one long disaster. I have always found sex uncomfortable at best and painful at worst, and not infrequently, would cry after intercourse because I felt as if something was being taken away from me. I know, I know, that sounds pretty fucked up right there. He wanted it all the time; I never wanted it. I was convinced (and he was convinced) there was something wrong with me. I had sex only out of a sense of obligation, and never really out of a sense of anticipation or enjoyment or intimacy. And then, after a long dry spell, he subtly pressured me to have sex. I can't really blame him for that. I understood that he had needs that weren't being met. I don't know if I can blame him for continuing to pressure me - "Come on, it'll be fine" - after I said no, it wasn't a good time. I know I blame myself for not standing up more strongly to him. Of course, I got myself good and knocked up. I was never really ambivalent about being pregnant. I knew from the moment I found out that I wanted the baby.

For a brief period, we got along better. We tried really hard. We stopped the constant arguing and forced ourselves to look forward to the oh-so-bright future. And then he told me that he was still in contact with the woman with whom he had had an emotional affair. That he was still attracted to her. He described the sex acts they had discussed. Even though something in me was screaming, "Get out! Get out! Get out!" the thought of being a single, graduate student mother flooded me with fear. So I stayed. I have tried to forgive him, but I can't. I have told myself I need to live with the consequences of my actions that led to my (wonderful, brilliant) son being conceived. I thought that meant staying with my son's father and "working it out." I thought it meant providing my son the perfect nuclear family. I thought it meant swallowing my pride and self-respect and getting on with life.
But now I just don't know. I went through a horrifying postpartum depression and have emerged from the other side. Emotionally, I'm still a thousand miles away from my marriage. I cringe inwardly every time my husband touches me. I don't feel attracted to him. I've stopped sharing things with him. We haven't had sex since our son was conceived. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm exhausted.

Last weekend, the issues in our marriage, sexual and otherwise, came to a head once again, as they tend to do when even the strongest denial is insufficient to fill in the gaping cracks in our relationship. He shared his frustration that I won't touch him. He told me "We need to do something about this. I can't ignore this need forever." In my head, I agree, yes, we need to do something about this. In my heart, I feel sick about the idea of touching him. He told me that he thinks I need to touch him, even if it is uncomfortable for me. Even though he took it back later, a part of me flew away and started singing a high-pitched tuneless tune when he said that. I can't live with that expectation, I told myself. I can't live with that expectation, I told him.

I spend most of my time feeling utterly numb. In the moments when I touch the despair in our relationship, I feel like I cease to exist. I want to make this all his fault. Outwardly, I do. But inwardly, I keep chanting, What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? I look at our son and think How can I shatter his world with a divorce? And I think How can I keep living this nonexistence in his presence? And I sit here, paralyzed.

Suffocating

Posted by Anonymous.

I went to seek drugs, because I need them desperately. They said, “you are exhibiting drug-seeking behavior. We will give you nothing.” Well, Sherlock... My aunt has the same illness I do, and has been sending me Xanax in the mail. I ran out, and I don’t want to ask her for any more. It makes me feel dirty and exploitive. So now I just scream into my sweater for hours.

I hate everything about college. I hate New York, I hate my classes, I hate the idea of transferring again. I don’t even want to be a writer anymore. It was all so fluid before; I only wrote when I had something to say. Now I have to write constantly, all the time, about things that I don’t care about, and it’s all crap, which makes me feel bad about myself, so then I go spend all of my money on alcohol and cab fare. I miss Colorado so much it makes my skin burn to think about it. All of my friends here are so glamorous; and they think that I am too, but really, I’m not. I read books and listen to decent music and know how to dress myself coherently. If that’s all it takes to be glamorous, than people should stop spending so much time reading up on it in Vogue. I will never be glamorous for real, because I am never going to be calm when I meet a famous person. I've become good at pretending, but the whole time I was talking to John Mayer I wanted to throw up. Also, John Mayer is an asshole. They are all assholes. Nobody here is normal. They get vodka companies to sponsor their birthday parties and then rent out some venue and fill it with people they don't know. I am constantly surrounded on all sides by strangers, and they have their faces pressed against mine in the photos the next day. Fuck you. I don't even know your last name, or what makes you laugh. You seem to be laughing always, with your head thrown back like someone punched you in the spine. Nothing is funny. Don't worry, everyone is looking. Being suffocated by people is the most frustrating way to be alone.

I was crying uncontrollably the other day, and M. said, “You just have to not do that.” Right. Because that’s how bipolar disorder works; you just stop. God, why didn’t I think of that? M. has allergies that are so severe she has to carry around an epi pen with her, and I wanted to say, “The next time someone accidentally feeds you a tomato, you should just not swell like that. Seriously, just stop.” But that would be terrible and mean, so I didn’t.

It’s lucky that I only live on the third floor of my building, because if I lived high enough that I’d for sure die on impact, I’d totally jump off of my fire escape.

My So-Called Life

Posted by Anonymous.

I hate my life.

I’m very aware of how teenaged that sounds, and I probably need a slap upside the head for thinking it and two for typing it. And that is exactly why this is the only time I’ve ever said it to anyone.

It looks good on paper. I’m 21, in a major university, and working a part time job that by all accounts, I should be in love with. I live with two considerate roommates, and I live in a good area of my city. I’ve got two parents who would do anything for me. Where’s the downside, right?

I. Hate. It.

I’m miserable being this far away from my parents, my family and my friends. I miss having that support system at my fingertips, and physically there. My parents are always a phone call away, but it’s not the same as a hug from my dad. In 21 years of life, I have never felt so alone. It’s ridiculous of me, because that family is not gone, but it’s not there physically and I don’t belong anymore.

There are days I can’t bring myself to drag myself out of bed, shower and get to class. I just can’t. I want to but I just can’t. There are three things that inevitably follow that: me crying, me feeling absolutely numb, or me eating more junk food than any person should. The repercussions of the first two aside, the third is resulting in weight gain. I’m not at the point of obese yet, but it’s getting to the point of chubby around the midsection, which (call me vain, if you’d like) isn’t helping with the self esteem levels.

I’m also not a typical university student. I don’t drink to excess (I have never been drunk in my life; believe it or not), I’ve never smoked or tried any drugs. That puts me on the outside of the university social life right from the get go. Everything revolves around alcohol, so it seems, and when that’s happening, I’m uncomfortable and desperately want to leave. I last all of 5 minutes in a bar before I’m searching out emergency exits to make my escape.

The last three years of my life have been, by far, my least favourite. I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t know how much longer I can stay above the surface. I’m not a crier, but I’ve burst into tears too many times without knowing what caused it. I’ve spent too many hours feeling terrible and not knowing why, and I’ve had far too many mornings where getting out of bed and keeping up the happy public face is impossible.

In my mind, I’ve got the perfect picture of where I want my life to go, and it’s the one thing that keeps me going. I want to be a teacher and it’s what's keeping me in university. I want to get married, have children and create my own family where I belong. But that dream is slipping further and further away, and I don’t think I can keep swimming.

Am I Normal?

Posted by Anonymous.

After my husband told me he was going to go on antidepressants, I ate a bag of cheezies and drank almost one entire bottle of (good) wine.

Am I normal?

Living In A Nightmare

Posted by Anonymous

Is this for real? Am I living in a nightmare? Let me start by saying that my husband and I have been married for almost 4 years. We have been together for almost 8. Really and truly he is my other half. My everything along with my 14 month old daughter. Last week he tells me that he does not know if he is in love with me anymore or if he wants to be married to me anymore and that it is my fault. The bad thing is that I think it is my fault.

Throughout our whole relationship I have been battling depression and most likely pmdd along with a little late onset congential adrenal hyperplasia which has symptoms that mirror polycystic oviarian syndrome. I have been dealing with these things my whole life, along with a few ovarian tumors and the removal of my right ovary. So lord only knows how messed up my hormones are and you can guess at my moods. I don't even know if I believe in pmdd but I know that I feel like a raving nut for about two weeks out of the month.

So, for the past several years, but really getting bad over the past year since we had the baby I have been very, very mean to him. If I was a man you would call me abusive. Not physically, but emotionally abusive. I call him names, I yell at him, I curse at him, and I have no idea why. Too much mayo on the sandwich? Major tantrum. Baby not dressed in clothes that match? Better watch out. Why do I do this to him? What is wrong with me? He is a really good man who has been more than patient with this lunacy. Now he says it has killed our relationship and he may want out.

However, there is our daughter to consider, and we want her raised by both of us and we don't want to be single parents. We don't want to be arguing parents. We want her to remain happy and safe and perfect. Also, I know I cannot raise her alone financially or otherwise if he leaves us. Every day is a roller coaster.

I wish he could understant that I do not know what is wrong with me or how to stop it. I wish he could understand how hard mothering is. I wish he could know the tangle of love/aggravation/exhaustion/sadness that I feel. On top of all this we have a kid-which means we have no money, so go nowhere unless our parents are paying, and are constantly under financial stress bc the mortgage on the house we just bought and the daycare are sucking us dry. He has been at the same job for four years, which is good, but I make more money with a bachelor's as a teacher then he does with a masters at his job. This has been a point of contention for years. But the alternative seems to be he is not home much, and that is not good either.

We have had many talks over the past two weeks and some days are better than others-I am trying really, really hard to clean up my act. I also went to the doctor and got some Zoloft, I have a fabulous doctor who talks about all of this with me. There is apparently a two week waiting period for this to kick in. This is day 2 and mostly I feel spacey which could also be due to lack of sleep as I convinced myself that he was having an affair so I stayed up worrying about that all night. I asked him, very calmly, this morning if he was in fact having an affair. He said no, if he was he would not be at home every night. However, he is going out tonight with friends, something I have encouraged him to do, but he has never actually done much. He asked if I was going to call 20 times tonight-I said no, how about 3? He said no, only if it was an emergency and reminded me that he kept the baby on Friday night and all day on Saturday so I could visit friends and did not call to bother me-but let me have a good time. I know I have to do the same.

The whole idea of an affair came to me at 1:30am when it dawned on me that he worked sort of late two weeks ago on a Thursday, before all of this and I never thought about it. Now it is another Thursday and he is going out again and it reminded me of our very haunted past, when we were sneaking around behind someone's back. Not something we are proud of, not something I ever got over doing, but it was there none the less. Maybe I deserve this as some sort of kharmic payback. He says he is not having an affair. He almost laughed at me and asked me if I was. I checked his phone, not very many unfamiliar numbers but he uses the thing at work so who knows who those numbers are. I will not check his email, even if I knew his password I could not bc he always knows if I try something like that. Where did this craziness even come from? It never would have occured to me to even consider this until all of this got dumped on me last week. I breifly considered stalking him but he would hate me for it as he does not do that to me and anyway what would I do with my daughter?

We are trying to get into counseling but I have yet to get a stinking counselor to answer the phone, much less return a phone call and I do not know what to do about that. Isn't counseling what counselors do for a living? Don't they need patients? Are there that many screwed up people out there that all appointments are full?

Over the past few days he has told me he loves me, does not love me, loves me, feels good and bad on some days, might be in love with me, and made love to me. I have no ideal what to think, what to and am trying to survive my day in a zoloft and exhaustion induced haze. I will take care of my daughter and make sure she is happy and cared for. I will try not to give in to the pain building up in my chest threatening to burst out at any moment. We just go on - living together, parenting, and acting like nothing is wrong, and then sometimes we talk about it. I don't know what else to do. Any thoughts?

Don't Know How To Help

Posted by Selzach.

My mom is bipolar. She suffered post-partum psychosis after my birth and tried to kill herself. She was hospitalized for a year and eventually got well when the doctors realized she was bipolar, not just depressed, and got her onto the right meds. She was an great single mom and was mostly stable for over 20 years.

About 9 years ago she suffered neurological damage, we think from her meds. Her then-psychiatrist wasn’t monitoring her as frequently as he should have. It was awful – at one point she didn’t know who I was and couldn’t do simple tasks like dial a phone or balance her checkbook. Eventually another doctor figured out what was going on and put Mom through a series of neurological tests and got the meds straightened out. Mom improved, but was never the same. She went on disability because she can’t cope with stress and can’t really learn new skills. She now averages 3-4 visits to the psych unit a year. Her personality has changed as well. She used to be fun and kind. Now she’s judgmental, rude, and has a warped sense of entitlement. I don’t like what she’s become. If she was a friend or acquaintance, I would have written her out of my life years ago.

She’s pushed my husband to the point where he wants nothing to do with her. We do what we can to help her and we get complaints and a nasty attitude in return. I don’t feel like I can talk to him about it, because he’s (rightfully) angry at her. My dad understands what I’m going through, but has little sympathy for my mom after all he went through with her…it’s hard to
hear one parent be brutally honest about the other. Most of my friends have no idea what it’s like and have little comfort to offer. A few others ignore the subject when I bring it up – I guess the stigma of mental illness is too much for them.

This weekend my husband and I had her involuntarily committed. We went out for a few hours and she took an overdose of some meds. It’s not clear if she was only trying to go to sleep or was hoping to die. I sat and held her hand while my husband called the sheriff’s office. I don’t know what will happen when she’s released from the crisis unit. She can’t live alone, and staying with us isn’t enough anymore. I’m so scared for her, and I’m near my breaking point.

I don’t know how to help her or if I can help.

Heartbreak

Posted By Anonymous.


As a person who writes as a form of personal therapy, it has been painful to NOT be able to write about the one thing that is devastating my life right now.

My husband had an affair. Not a physical affair, but in some ways this is worse. He had an emotional affair with an old girlfriend from his college days by email and phone. He alluded to something going on when he mentioned that he had been in contact with an old friend by phone, but when I checked our cell log I realized that they had spoken ever day for two weeks. Sometimes four times a day. For hours. He admitted that he had fallen back in love with her, and even worse, that the love he had for her (in their former relationship) was deeper than the feelings he had ever had for me. But he also realized that the past was past. That this was a fantasy with zero chance of being reality (she is also married with a son), and he ended the relationship completely and says he wants to repair our marriage. He also said that he has been depressed and unhappy in our marriage for some time.

I cannot begin to express in words the pain that this has caused me. I never, not once, realized that there was anything wrong. I honestly believed, to the bottom of my heart, that we were soulmates. That we had the perfect relationship. The very foundation of my world has been shattered.

My husband is a good man, a great father, and he seems genuinely remorseful that things progressed this far. But I desperately want, need, to hear that he thinks that we can move past this, repair our marriage, and be happy with each other. I do not want to lose him, even now. I love him as madly as I did the day we met. But he seems so uncertain himself, so depressed that he can't give me the reassurances I need to hear.

We have a two-year-old son whom we both love with all our being. And we both want him to grow up in a relationship that is happy and secure. I truly want to believe that we can give this to him together. I am willing to do whatever it takes to fix our marriage. My husband sounds so uncertain now that it breaks my heart. He tells me that he is still here. That he wants to try. That he still loves me. But he is unsure that we will be able to recreate something that will bring happiness. I don't know if he is speaking through the lenses of his depression, or from the freshness of having to end his affair, but it is his uncertainty, his ambivalence, that hurts far, far worse than the betrayal itself. It is the fact that he never told me there was something wrong that brings the most pain. I feel I have lost before I have even had the chance to try. I feel like the emotional rollercoaster, the fear and the pain that I am going through right now, will drive him away before we can heal. These are the darkest days of my life.

He has agreed to start counseling, and we are still together, but I could use some hope right now and some help getting through my days.

The Thin Red Line

Posted by Lara; cross-posted from her blog, Life: The Ongoing Education.

If you follow my blog, you have been reading for quite a while now. Those of you who've recently joined, well, even you have most likely heard or read about the Depression Series by now. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're either a random passerby, in which case I say "Hello, and have a great life!" because you're probably not coming back, or you should take the time to go read up a bit, so that you won't be left behind in this (and future) post(s).

So, as I'm pretty sure you all know, I'm a cutter. I haven't cut in over three months now (as of last Wednesday - hooray!), but I'm still a cutter. I'll always be a cutter, because it'll always be there, in my mind. But I don't always have to cut. I have the power to make other decisions. I have the power to choose not to cut.

At any rate, that was a mini pep talk for myself that sort of strayed from my intended topic here. I'm a cutter, and I've admitted as much to anyone and everyone who might stop by here to visit. Part of my reasoning for that was that I wanted the freedom to talk about myself and my problems; when I wrote the Depression Series, I did so because I needed to share all the crap inside my head and my heart, and that included the cutting. But there was also a part of me that chose to talk about the cutting because I know it's not something that's often talked about. The amount of attention it receives in society is completely out of proportion with the number of people dealing with it. The silence about it upsets me, because if I'd known about it, and about how many others were struggling with it, it might have been easier for me to get help sooner.

So I wanted to put it out there, shout out to say, "Hey, I'm here and I have this problem, and it doesn't make me a freak." And what I realized at the time, and what has come to be proven since, is that people probably have a lot of questions about it. Most people don't know about it, or know very little if they do. And, more importantly, most people don't know where to go to ask about it.

So here I am. Ask me.

I want to tell my stories. I want to answer your questions. I want people to know more about this problem that so many out there have. That's why I'm giving myself out as a resource. Anything and everything you've ever wanted to know about cutting, I will do my best to answer. You can leave questions in the comments, email me, IM me, call me, whatever. All questions will remain anonymous and will be answered here in a future post (or posts, if there are a lot of questions). And forward this to anyone you think might also have questions, or even post a link to it on your own site if you're willing. This, while perhaps not a "cause," per se, is my thing. I care about it, the way Her Bad Mother cares about muscular dystrophy , the way Julia cares about diabetes, the way Little Shot cares about global warming. I want people to know more about it.

One thing to keep in mind, however: I am not a pyschologist. Clinical questions about the disorder might not be so easy for me to answer, and would probably be answered by a lot of Googling. Questions about the personal and emotional experiences are going to be more my strong point. But as I said, I'll do my best to answer any questions you toss my way.

So really, please, what do you want to know? Because I want to talk.