by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Addiction, Self Injury |
Inside my chest – there’s static. It started when I was small, so small I can’t remember a time I felt still. There’s static in my chest and noise in my head. The kind of noise that reminds me of a Devourment song, but instead of Mike Majewski screaming at me through my iPod, it’s my subconscious screaming at my insides.
12 years ago, I found the thing that made the static stop.
Cutting.
5th grade saw the beginning of my war against self-injury. I started burning myself with my curling iron and scraping the skin from my arms with a craft scissors. The injuring became more frequent over the years, the wounds more and more severe. By the time I was 17, I was cutting everyday. I had a make-up case stocked with scalpels and bandages and would cut dozens of times a day. I couldn’t imagine my life without cutting, couldn’t imagine the next 45 minutes without it. I spent the next two years plastering myself with my pain. The injuring, an elaborate metaphor, the vent through which my fear and anxiety, my blood, flowed. I spent the next two years breaking, and eventually attempting suicide.
Six months after I was released from the hospital, I looked in the mirror and saw the mess I’d made. That day was the day I QUIT cutting.
God, it hurt.
But the hours clicked on, adding up to days and weeks…months. My life changed on September 9th, 2007, the day I’d stopped hurting myself and it changed again on November 24th, 2007, the day I learned I was pregnant. I had an even bigger reason to heal. I used my pregnancy as a catalyst, everyday inspiring a change in my heart, finding a healthy way to ease the anxiety. I was inspired, but there were still bad days. I remember one such day, somewhere around my seventh month, sitting in the bathroom trying to break the straight razor out of a gillette shaver and the glint of metal struck me, lain against the backdrop of my growing belly. I stopped. I didn’t get the razor out. I threw it against the way and screamed. My child was NOT going to grow up with a self-injuring train-wreck for a mother!
I couldn’t let that happen. I’d eliminate myself before I’d let that happen.
It has been 3 years and 21 days since that September night. My daughter was born healthy and beautiful in July ’08 and every day she continues to inspire me. I kept the promise I made to her, I have not injured myself. It’s hard sometimes, I can admit that I’ve had some close calls, but I’ve kept that promise.
I think self-injury is a lot like alcoholism – always recovering, never recovered. But with the support of my amazing family and my miracle-worker therapist, I will continue to beat this thing. The hours clicked into days, then weeks, months, years. Let’s make it decades.
I WILL make it decades.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Long Distance Relationships, Loss, Miscarriage |
I should be a mother.
I’m not.
I got pregnant at 18. My boyfriend (now husband) and I hadn’t been together long – it was a long-distance relationship, and the two months he spent visiting me that summer were the first time we’d been together face-to-face, the first time we’d gotten intimate without a phone or keyboard or webcam involved.
It wasn’t until he left to go back home, after plans had been made for me to visit his family at Christmas, during my winter break, that we found out I was pregnant. And not exactly in the best way possible. I was on the pill, and my period had been almost non-existent thanks to the contraceptives. I started bleeding and cramping. So get thee to the doctor, young Anne, where I had the fright of my life.
That I was miscarrying was shocking enough – I was on the pill! That I was still pregnant after that was even more so. Twins run in both of our families. My boyfriend and I flailed around, tried to make plans and decide what to do – we were 18! Living in different countries! Both in school! What would we tell our parents?! Nothing, it turned out.
I miscarried the first at around five weeks, and the second four weeks later.
Intellectually, it was a relief. I was 18, in university, no job, living with my parents and siblings, my partner lived in another country… a baby was the last thing I needed.
But oh, how I wanted it. Far more after I lost them both than while I was still pregnant. A pregnant woman or small baby would bring me to tears. I was a wreck for weeks afterward (I’m still surprised my mother never seemed to figure out something was wrong) and ended up withdrawing from university and entering a modern apprenticeship at a daycare. Which was even more agonizing, though I loved working with the children.
I gave that up after six months (and trouble with both the senior daycare staff who (illegally) treated me like a cleaner and the ‘adviser’ for my apprenticeship work forgetting to meet with me and holding our meetings in front or the co-workers who were breaking the law so I couldn’t SAY anything) and moved to office work, which is where I’ve been since. Fewer babies and pregnant women.
It’s been six years, but it still hurts. I cry at baby product advertisements on the TV. I sobbed for hours after reading some of the posts here on Band Back Together. I watch children on the bus and on the street. I wonder what my babies would have been like. I brush off co-workers’ and in-laws’ questions about when we’re planning to start a family with a flip comment about having plenty of time.
I don’t tell them that I should have twin five-year-olds.
It still hurts. I sometimes wonder if it will ever stop.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Estrangement, Grief, Loss, Loved One in Prison, Parent Loss |
I found out yesterday that my biological father, Michael, passed away. I still don’t know how to process the news. I have been estranged from him for most of my life but he was always a constant figure on the back of my mind. My mom divorced him when I was a baby and married my step-father when I was three. My step-father is my father, he raised me, he walked me down the aisle and he has always been there for me.
When I was little, I would spend a little time with Michael and I have good memories of those times. As a kid you’re oblivious to the bad stuff. As I got older, I found out about all the bad things and I saw him less and less. He wasn’t a good man to my mom and my brother. He was abusive and mean to them. I struggled with that for awhile because I never saw that side of him. He was careful to only show me his good side.
When I was twelve, he went to jail.
That was the last of I saw of him. It was then that my parents realized he would never change so they stopped letting me see him. I went about my life. I’d occasionally get updates through the grapevine and I was fine with that. I would imagine sometimes that one day he’d be different and we’d be able to have a relationship.
When I turned 18, I tracked him down and gave him a call. I drove to see him by myself and spent the afternoon with him. It seemed like old times but was very awkward at the same time. We didn’t know each other any more, but we tried. We began speaking on the phone fairly often and were trying to get to know each other again.
It was nice, and I thought that maybe he really was a different person from the one my mom and brother knew. Then one day, I saw that side of him for the first time and it scared me. I never spoke to him again.
About a month ago, I received a phone call. He was in the hospital about to pass away.
I was devastated but I don’t know why. He was never there for me. He wasn’t my ‘dad,’ but I was still so upset. My husband convinced me to go to the hospital and make my peace. He came with me. I’m so glad I went, even though it was incredibly awkward. He was skinny and frail. He wasn’t the strong handsome man I remembered from my childhood. I stood and we spoke as if we were acquaintances, we didn’t speak of the past at all. We made light conversation for about an hour and then I left.
That was the last time I ever saw him.
My aunt called yesterday to inform me that he passed away. Apparently, he tried to smoke a cigarette while hooked up to oxygen and it didn’t end well. I feel awful that he went that way. I wish it could have been a peaceful death for him.
Since that phone call, my emotions have been all over the place; anger to sadness and everything in between. I still have the man I consider my father and Grace’s grandfather, but I still feel such a sense of loss. Mostly a loss of the future relationship I still thought I would one day have. I’m angry I didn’t have a ‘normal’ childhood with a regular family and a dad that wasn’t crazy. I have a lot of what if’s and they’re driving me crazy.
There is nothing I can change now. Everything is final. Our relationship will never change. He passed away alone, without me in his life and I feel like it was my fault. Like I withheld my relationship from him to punish him and he didn’t deserve it. The rational part of myself knows this isn’t true. He hasn’t tried to contact me once in the past ten years.
I can’t change any of that, I know, but I can focus on the here and now. I will focus on my daughter, Grace, and I will make sure she never has to go through anything like this as a child or an adult. I will focus on the father I do have in my life and let him know how grateful I am for all the love he has given me and that fact that he has been always there for me. He calls me everyday just to tell me he loves me. He IS my dad and Grace’s pawpaw.
I will chalk yesterday up to a bad day and try to move on with my life.
I can’t change my past but I can let it not affect my future.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Anxiety, Breast Feeding, Parenting, Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (P-OCD), Postpartum Psychosis |
You know that question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Well, here’s my question: “If something you don’t want to happen is taking place and you don’t blog about it, is it really happening?”
I thought if I didn’t blog about this and kept it a secret then I could save myself the agony of actually admitting that it is.
But I can’t not blog about it.
It’s my story and it’s important to me. So here it goes.
My breastfeeding journey has unexpectedly come to an end. I am devastated. Heartbroken. All those words that describe anguish? This is where I would place all of them if I had the time or space or energy.
I’ve known this day was coming. Fretted over it. Worried. Nervously paced back and forth trying to figure out a way that I could make it work for longer. But I have finally come to a point where I know there is no other choice but to stop.
I went off my depression medication in early August. It was the same medicine I had taken for depression while pregnant with Brigham. I took it for seven months and it was successful in keeping me stable during and after pregnancy. But over the summer I became increasingly anxious with the prospect of renting our house and buying a new one. I jumped head first into this exciting conquest. When it didn’t work out it upset me and I didn’t handle it well. To me, I lost another game. And I hate losing.
I spoke with my therapist about how I started to go downhill within about a week of coming off the medicine. I told her that my body reacts very quickly to meds whether I’m coming off or going on. It was hard to believe that coming off medicine could affect my mood so fast but since I’ve done this quite a few times already I knew where this was headed. And it wasn’t good. But I kept it to myself anyway.
My therapist is smarter than that though. She sent me to new psychiatrist. I was nervous to see anyone or go on anything. She knew that I was still breastfeeding and that my goal was to continue for at least six months. But she told me that at the very least I needed to have an action plan for when we knew it was absolutely necessary to go back on my meds.
So I went to visit a new doctor. He was every bit the mood disorder expert my therapist claimed he was. He actually listened to me. Took notes. It was obvious that he truly cared about my health. If you’ve ever been to a psychiatrist you know that is most definitely not the norm. For any psychiatrist worth seeing, it can take weeks if not months to get an appointment. But due to a cancellation and shamelessly name-dropping my therapist, I got in within a week.
He was unlike any doctor I’ve ever seen. Not too quick to over-medicate. As a full-time working mom of two little ones the last thing I need is to be more tired than I already am. Together we came up with a good plan of action. I left his office with prescriptions in hand. And told him that as soon as I felt the need I would use them.
After Labor Day, Brigham came down with his second ear infection and decided that the whole sleeping-through-the-night thing was a terrible idea. He would wake up screaming two or three times a night. He could not be consoled. I can handle the no-sleep thing for maybe a week. But a month? Not so much. Add to it that I had pneumonia in both lungs and the downhill slide became steeper.
At first when Brigham cried I felt compassion. But throughout the month of September the sound of his screams morphed into the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Many a night I would throw up my hands in desperation screaming that I couldn’t do this anymore. Let me just say there is a reason why they use lack of sleep as a form of torture during war. A month of no sleep and a baby screaming is enough to drive anyone insane.
I felt myself becoming less patient with Landon. I was snapping at Naaman. I couldn’t concentrate at work. All I wanted to do was drive away from my life. Hop in the car, gun it to 85 and make way for Mexico. All the while I felt incredibly guilty for feeling these feelings. I knew I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It wasn’t normal.
I remembered back to when Brigham was born. I was so happy. In a state of bliss. I remember people asking to hold him and I didn’t let them because I didn’t want to put him down. I was in love with my baby boy. But by the end of September it was all I could do to pick him up when he cried. The constant screaming was just too much. When he would start crying I would too. I was way more emotional than usual. Lack of sleep is my biggest trigger for falling back into a depressive episode.
My mom recognized I was not myself and stepped in to help. She took the boys for a night so Naaman and I could get at least one night of sleep. When Naaman got home from work we went to bed early. But before we fell asleep I broke down in tears. He put his warm hand over my cheek as I lay sobbing.
I sobbed thinking of the countless times depression has robbed me of simple joys throughout the past seventeen years. Each time I have miraculously survived. Even when I thought I’d never last. Even when I didn’t want to. I stood up to him. And if I couldn’t someone stood up on my behalf. But here he is again. Knocking at my door. Threatening my life and my happiness. Even though he knows full-well that he is unwelcome. Even though he knows that I have slammed the door in his face before. He returns anyway. Once again, the battle to reclaim my life begins.
Naaman told me that we’re just going through a rough patch and it’s going to get better. And deep inside I know that. Deep inside I know that Brigham won’t always cry and I won’t always be sad. And then he said the words I needed to hear the most.
“I’m worried about you, Molly.”
That’s all it took. Because Naaman knows me better than any other person on this earth. If he is worried about me then I know it’s true. He is my mirror. I can look at him and see far more than any sliver of glass could show. We both knew that I was at the beginning stages of postpartum depression. But I decided I am not going to let it happen. Depression has already stolen too many precious years of my life. I refuse to hand over more. Especially not the first year of my baby’s life. No, my boys are too important.
The next morning I found the crumpled prescriptions at the bottom of my purse. I dropped them at the pharmacy to be filled and picked them up after work. I stared at the warnings on the bottle for quite some time: Do not use while pregnant or breastfeeding.
Damn it. DAMN IT! I was less than 30 days from my goal of six months. I didn’t make it. DAMN this depression for ruining yet another part of my life.
I wish I could describe how I felt when I took that pill. I’ve taken it before but it never meant the end of something so important. The end of one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The end of breastfeeding.
I thought about the last time I breastfed. It was Sunday, October 3rd. We had tried to feed Brigham a bottle at a birthday party but he didn’t like the formula. So I went out to my mom’s car. It’s amazing to me that I really didn’t care who walked by and saw. All I really cared about was getting my baby fed so he didn’t cry at the party.
The whole process was effortless. I pulled up my shirt, he latched and my milk flowed. Just like it’s supposed to work. Just what I had wanted. It was a beautiful moment between mother and son.
I wish I had known that that would be the last time I would breastfeed my son. I wouldn’t have been in such a rush.
The next day, when I got home from work my breasts were full and aching. Nature had come to an abrupt stop and it’s clear my body didn’t get the memo. Even though I thought I wanted to drive away from it all, truthfully I missed my baby when he was gone. I swooped him up in my arms and kissed his forehead. I sat down on the couch and started to pull up my shirt. The urge to nurse was instant and strong. Funny how it only felt like a duty in the beginning. But now, now it was mother’s instinct in its purest form.
Then reality smacked me in the face . . .
Molly, you can’t anymore. The medicine is already coursing through your body. But it can’t be in his.
That night before I placed him in his bassinet I held him. I gently rocked him to sleep. Tears dripped from my cheeks. A consolation prize for what should have been my milk. But I could no longer offer Brigham my milk. What I could offer him, however, were my words. I began to whisper . . .
I’m sorry, Brigham. I’m so sorry that mommy can’t feed you anymore. I know when you’re rooting at my chest wondering why I won’t let you nurse, you won’t understand. But I hope someday you will understand why I had to stop.
I hope you know how much I love you. If mommy didn’t need medicine to make her better I would have nursed you as long as you wanted. Please know that I’m sorry. Mommy tried her best. I want to thank you for giving me the chance to breastfeed. It was a dream come true.
He was fast asleep when I finished. Naaman walked in as I was wiping the tears away and asked why I was crying. I told him that I didn’t want to stop nursing yet. He said, “It’s okay, honey. You did great.”
I did, didn’t I? My journey to breastfeed my sons was not at all an easy one. While trying to breastfeed Landon, every single thing that could have gone wrong did. I was unable to nurse him for many different reasons. And even though Brigham was a latching champ, I had other breastfeeding roadblocks that I never imagined I would encounter. I still cannot believe I kept nursing after I had two huge MRSA-filled abscesses drained. And a case of thrush. And a new job started at eight weeks postpartum. And pumped in cars and bathrooms and supply closets. I kept nursing. For my son. For five months. For 150 days. I did not fail. I am scarred to prove it. Physically and emotionally scarred. And both my boys were worth it.
I have to get better. I have to stay well so I can take care of my family and myself. It’s just another part of my journey. I must accept.
I will miss breastfeeding. But depression cannot break the bond between mother and child. I won’t let it.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Anger, Feelings, Grief, Infertility, Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sadness |
Sometimes you don’t even realize what you have been running from, or for how long.
Until the night (why is it always at night?) it knocks you down, sits on your chest and forces you to stare directly into the eye of the storm. The night when you turned your head too casually and found it, there, staring at you from your peripheral. Angry for being ignored, pained for not being nurtured.
It is on this night that you pay for the days, months, (years in my case) of composure, the relief you have culled from choosing to ignore your demons.
And oh, I paid dearly.
Six years ago, I woke up from anesthesia an altered woman.
I have never allowed myself to mourn what I lost that day and how much of my soul has been scraped away since. I have been too busy ‘looking forward’ and ‘moving on’ and ‘being thankful’. I have kept a smile on my face and I have continued to placate myself with thoughts of ‘it could be so much worse’ (it could) and ‘I still have more than others’ (I do). But last night night, I was not thinking of how much worse it could be, but how bad it is, not caring that I don’t have it as bad as others because my situation is looking worse by the day.
And it all fell down. My feelings of frustration and inadequacy. My overwhelming pain over never being able to do what I always thought I would and could do.
It honestly became exhausting to hold down my feelings about losing part of my body, of being let down for the past four years by other parts of it. My arms and my heart gave out from the weight of it all. I have been holding my hand over that little girl’s mouth for too long but last night she was allowed to wail and cry and stomp her feet for what she has lost. For the life she felt promised, but was never and may never be fulfilled. For being the exception to the rule and for being held at arms length from almost every goal she ever set for herself.
Today, yes, I will try to get back to my zen, a place of acceptance and a place where I can build from.
Last night though, was about how much has been lost and destroyed.