Katie S. 28

I wrote this last week having no intention of posting it (hence the title). I felt that giving the darkness a place here would in some way be surrendering to it, but I didn’t know how to just sit on it either. So I wrote it and kept it as a draft until this morning when I had an important realization. It finally dawned on me that what I’ve been experiencing is real, and if I’m ever going to get through it I’m going to have to admit to its existence and stop beating myself up for not being able to simply will it away. I’m dealing with some postpartum depression. I am talking to a counselor to try to work through some of the thoughts and feelings that have been terrorizing my head these last few weeks, and I am relying heavily on the unwavering support of my friends and family. Those are the facts. What follows are the feelings. I am sharing them here for two reasons; one being that I am a communicator and I have always had an irrational compulsion to express my deepest thoughts and feelings to anyone who would listen, and the other being that I am finding a certain measure of comfort in sharing with others, because in doing so I am learning that I am less alone in my fears than I first thought I was. This is a bit stream of consciousness so please forgive the meandering.

I was never one to stew. I prefer frequent eruptions. I live for the highs and lows, which is the whole problem now. I’ve held onto the lows, but the highs have been replaced by a flat dead line. Nothing matters, I feel no hope, nothing to look forward to, nothing to celebrate. Whatever good I have I am convinced I will lose because I am too weak and too undeserving to hold on. I think its my fault I got sick during the pregnancy, and my fault that I wasn’t there for Chris and Corbin when they needed me. And now I have two children. Two wonderful, innocent little boys who deserve a mother who doesn’t feel terrified every time she looks at them. I feel like I am just too weak, I can’t be counted on and I will let them down. They deserve a mother they can depend on and Chris deserves a partner, not a liability. One day I just want to disappear, and the next I don’t even care enough to do that. I love my children. I don’t feel detached from my infant as I have heard some women do. In fact caring for his basic and immediate needs is perhaps the only thing that I feel remotely capable of doing right now. I can nurse him and change him and hold him while he is still a baby….its everything out there that I feel ill equipped for. Its looking at Corbin and having no idea how to help him through this time of transition, its realizing that Bennett will be two years old one day as well and then I will have nothing to give him. Its knowing that Chris deserves to fall apart too, but once again he can’t because I’m too weak to let him. Its getting out the door, down the hall, my left foot in front of my right, putting on makeup, going to the bank, cleaning the bathroom and cooking a meal. These are the things that overwhelm me, terrify me, undo me completely. When they cry I want to run away, scream, beat my head against a wall, and when they sleep I lie awake terrified that God will take them from me because I didn’t deserve them in the first place. I’ve talked a lot about deserving here. Apparently I’ve forgotten that we all deserve the exact same thing. This isn’t really an accurate representation of what is going on. It is so much better and so much worse that I am letting on. Maybe you can’t condense four weeks of postpartum emotion into a paragraph.

I know that right now I am nutrient depleted, sleep deprived and hormonally volatile, but somehow that doesn’t make the feelings seem any less real to me. In my clearer moments I remember that His strength is made perfect in weakness, and that He knows the plans He has for me, for my husband, and for our children….but in the dark places, that is where I believe every lie I am told. I believe that everything in their precious little lives hinges on me getting it exactly right. I believe that I will be judged based on my deeds and not on the cross. So naturally, I am crippled by the pressure.