May 13, 2018

I see a rainbow and I want to paint it black – Mick Jagger

Before I get into painting rainbows black, here I am basking in my sunshine(s)…

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there. New mamas, OG mamas, pregnant soon-to-be mamas- I salute you all. Because I know each and every one of you is hustling every day to make the best life you can for you and your babies (no matter how old they are). But this year I want to give recognition to a specific group of mamas: those who have fought, and survived, post-partum depression (PPD). I give this shout-out selfishly as I, too, am a part of this group; in many ways I wish I wasn’t, but it’s just another part of my story. I want to share my PPD battle with you- not because it’s unique or profound, but because the more we talk about PPD, the more normalized it becomes.

The Mayo Clinic classifies PPD as a “very common” disease and estimates there are more than 3 million women diagnosed each year. That’s a lot of ladies. Why, then, does it feel so breath-takingly isolating when it happens to you? I don’t know. I can say from personal experience a big factor was guilt. I had two healthy children, a stable home, loving partner, and supportive network of family and friends. What right did I have to feel so pitiful?  Another issue was the fact that it’s an invisible disease. No one could look at me and know something was amiss. Instead, people complimented me on my ability to “bounce back” after birth and marveled at how well I was managing life. Part of me was relieved I was pulling off the charade; the other part just wanted to scream, “No! I am NOT okay!”

I can’t pinpoint when the PPD started. But I can look back and see little differences between when I had my son versus when I had my daughter two years earlier. As soon as I gave birth to my daughter I was ready to walk out the hospital. Despite having a scheduled C-section, I was anxious to get home and on with my new life. With my son, another planned C-section, I was in no hurry. I convinced my OB to let me stay a third night and would’ve happily stuck around for a fourth and fifth. I didn’t think anything of it then (I wasn’t thinking much of anything those first few days), but already my body was signaling something was off.

Before I left the hospital, I had to complete a Post-Partum Depression Risk Survey. Apparently, this is a state-wide requirement in Virginia, but I had given birth to my daughter in Texas so it was all new to me. My results came back “very high risk.” I was told to follow-up with my OB and discharged home. I took my son to his pediatrician a few days later and they had me fill out the same survey there. The results came back even worse than before. Our pediatrician was shocked the hospital released me without setting me up to see a counselor and told me to see my OB ASAP. I tried, but he was booked solid so they squeezed me in with someone else in a different town. Given that my son was so “fresh” I had to take him with me and, of course, he cried during the appointment. You can imagine how effective it is to discuss your mental state while frantically trying to get a newborn to latch. I left the appointment with a card for a therapist in the area, but of course she didn’t accept my insurance. So I called around, left a lot of voicemails, and finally had ONE clinic call me back and set me up for a consult. This whole process took a few weeks and, honestly, would have taken much longer had my parents and Fox not kept pushing me along. I will admit to dragging my feet. I had a new baby; how did I have time to take care of myself?

I got into therapy and things did improve initially. We talked a lot about “embracing my new self” and setting realistic expectations. Things were still very foggy, but I was starting to see some improvement. Once I hit the 6-week post-partum milestone, I was able to start exercising again which definitely helped clear my head and control my anxieties.

But there was still a nagging feeling of not being good enough for my kids. Some days I would just look at my son and burst into tears. Other days I couldn’t shake the guilt of not being able to spend as much time with my daughter now that baby brother was here. I was genuinely convinced that my kids and Fox deserved more than I could give. So, I started to think about leaving. I didn’t know where I would go or what I would do, but I just felt everyone would be better off without me around. Sometimes, especially in the middle of those never-ending newborn nights, I would try to mentally plan my escape routes. I would think about things like cashing out money from our savings and leaving during the night so the kids wouldn’t be left alone. Thankfully, I was able to stay grounded enough to never act on these thoughts.

After 3 months, I started to go back to work. My job at the time was very flexible, so I started out just working once a week. Working definitely helped me feel more like myself again, which, in turn, helped me feel more capable. The thoughts of wanting to run away were lessening and my therapist was very pleased with my progress. I was, too. I found myself wanting to work more, but we weren’t ready to put the baby in daycare just yet. At this same time, my younger sister found herself in a situation where she had to take a quarter off school and asked if she could come live with us for a few months and take care of the kids as her “rent.” We were only too happy to agree. It was a match made in heaven. But it quickly turned into my personal hell.

Before I continue, I want to make something very, very clear: my sister was NOT the reason things got worse. She was a wonderful addition to our home and I am so grateful for the time we had together. We had and have a fantastic relationship and I love her like only a big sister could. Got it? Good.

I started working more, 2-3 days a week (bear in mind these are 12-hour-shifts so 3 days a week is considered full time). I was also still breastfeeding exclusively, which meant I was nursing before and after work and during the night and pumping multiple times during my shift. Any working/pumping mama will tell you that’s no easy feat. But the good lord blessed me with “cups that runneth over” and I was determined to put them to good use, even if it meant running myself into the ground.

The thing that made me feel like I could manage working and mom-ing full time was the fact that my sister provided an extra set of hands.  Now that we were a household of 2 children and 3 adults, I figured a good number of responsibilities would be taken off my plate. But here’s the thing: they weren’t. They stuck like burnt barbeque sauce. It’s not that my sister wasn’t helping; but it wasn’t her house or her kids, so I still had to tell her what needed to be done. Fox was pulling his weight, too, after I divvied up and assigned his weight to him. Even if they were physically doing the work, I felt like I was mentally responsible for balancing everything and making sure it got done. This is not an unusual phenomenon. The phrase “mental load” keeps popping up all over social media and alludes to the specific feeling many women/mothers face of having to be the ones that mentally keep everything on track. That, in itself, can be daunting, but when combined with my PPD it became downright dangerous.

The realization that, no matter how many extra hands I had or how many tasks I delegated, I was still going to ultimately be responsible for everything caused something to snap in my brain. I was so burnt out and all I could think was, “The only way for me to get any rest in this world is for me to leave it.” That became my omnipresent thought. On “good” days, I could rationalize and tell myself I was being dramatic- that it wasn’t me but the depression speaking those words. On bad days, the lines between me and my depression became so blurred I had no idea what was real.

I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept trying to push forward as the thoughts got louder and more violent. I started having dreams about putting a gun in my mouth and ending it all. I would wake up still tasting the cool metal in my mouth. The scary part was that it didn’t scare me. It intrigued me, lured me in. I started to fantasize about how the barrel would feel with my lips around it and daydream about the tension of pulling the trigger. Like many soldiers, Fox owns a gun and I thank God I had a moment of clarity to ask him to hide it from me. I would be lying if I said there weren’t days I tried to look for it.

In a great twist of irony, I continued to work in an ER, where I often took care of suicide-attempt patients. Around this time, I specifically remember watching a teenage boy try to strangle himself in front of me and caring for a patient that had shot himself in the chest but survived thanks to bad aim. Seeing how the hospital staff and family members rallied around and supported these patients only heighted my desire to become one myself. Killing myself, or at least making an attempt, seemed like the only way for me to get a break.

And where was my therapist in all of this? Well, at first I tried to hide what was going on. Honestly, I was afraid if I told her I might get hospitalized or my kids taken away from me. But it finally came out during one of our sessions. And this was where I learned that it’s not always best to choose your therapist based on who’s in your insurance network. I told her it felt like a river was washing over me and, instead of fighting against the current, I just wanted to lay down and let it sweep me under. She told me that she didn’t really think I would do anything to harm myself. That only made me all the more determined to prove her wrong. I asked if it would be appropriate to consider starting an anti-depressant, but she said I was “strong enough” to work through this on my own. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.

I started sharing with Fox and my parents some of what was going on and they encouraged, ok- begged, me to talk to my OB about starting medication or seeing a different therapist. Again, I dragged my feet, because, honestly, who wants to admit they have that much of a problem? Part of me wanted to be as strong as my therapist thought I was and part of me really wanted to stop trying to fix everything and just end it once and for all. The turning point was when I realized I hadn’t cried in months. And not because I didn’t have anything to cry about- because I had gone completely numb. I wasn’t feeling joy or sorrow. I just felt empty. I couldn’t take it anymore and called my OB. He prescribed Lexapro immediately.

I was ready to start the meds, but nervous about potential side-effects. Like any good nurse, I consulted my Davis Drug Guide to know what to expect. It said that the first week was usually the worst and could cause nausea, lethargy, anxiety, and/or increased suicidal thoughts. I was worried about experiencing any of these while also trying to care for my kids at home and my patients at work. Fox had to spend a few days in Norfolk for work the next week and suggested I go with him so I could start the meds in an environment without any responsibilities. He arranged for my sister to watch the kids, but I was scheduled to work one of those days and I didn’t want to appear flaky by calling out sick when I wasn’t actually unwell. My sister pointed out, “Your mental health is just as important as the physical. You are allowed to take care of yourself.” She might be a decade younger than me, but in many ways, she is far wiser. So, I went to Norfolk and spent 3 days in an Air Force hotel room popping antidepressants, eating pretzels, and watching Law & Order and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Did I come home cured? Definitely not. Nothing is a quick-fix when it comes to depression. But it was an important bridge to cross on my road to wellness. As for what happened next, I will have to save that for the next post. Honestly, talking about depression this much is starting to depress me. But if you are struggling with PPD in any of its many forms, know this: You are not alone. You are not crazy. You are not a bad mother. And you are not going to feel like this forever. Your kids don’t need a better mom; they just need the best version of you and it’s okay to admit you need help in becoming that.

May 10, 2018

Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. CAKE! Everybody loves cake! Cakes have layers! – Donkey from “Shrek”

The first step in minimalism journey was pretty straightforward: getting rid of junk. I don’t know about y’all, but there is little I find more satisfying than clearing stuff out of my house. For me, this was best done in layers. As I said, minimizing our lives is a process and mindset, not a one-and-done task to complete. For simplicity sake, we focused on one room at a time and made a schedule for tackling each one. Some rooms were easy and only needed one “layer” of cleansing. We don’t have anything in our dining room but the table, chairs, curtains, and photos on the walls, so we quickly assessed we still wanted/needed all of those items and moved on. Others were much more complicated. Like the basement. Ugh. I still shudder when I think about it. We took the harder rooms layer by layer over a longer period of time.

The first layer was the easiest: trashing (recycling) the obvious. I’m talking about things that clearly served no purpose in our home. Things like expired coupons, DVD cases without the disc, clothes with holes not worth salvaging, literal garbage (like the candy wrappers in Fox’s childhood boxes). Get a big, black trash bag or two or three, fill ‘em up, and Get. That. Stuff. Out. Even just doing that helped our house and minds feel lighter. But we still had a long way to go.

Layer #2 was getting rid of stuff that was still functional or appealing to someone but not to us. Our biggest source of this was baby items. We know we aren’t having any more children, so anything that our son no longer needs has no place in our home. I confess I probably saved a lot more baby outfits than I should have, but they’re just so dang tiny and cute. I am sure, in time, I will whittle that amount down to less, but I just wasn’t ready for that yet. The nice thing about baby items is you can often resell them to recoup some of your money. We sold quite a few things on Facebook Marketplace and made a couple hundred dollars. This layer of the process also involved getting rid of clothing that didn’t fit, duplicates (somehow we wound up with 4 pairs of kitchen shears), and décor items that no longer matched our style.

Now, for a lot of our rooms, two layers of purging was enough to get to a manageable level. Clearing out the clutter made us feel great and like we were really moving towards our lifestyle goals. Plus, we were able to make a little cash which is always nice. It was good to savor these victories when we could, because the next step was where things started to get daunting. But good results come from good efforts, not from good nights sitting on your duff watching Netflix. Check back soon to read about the next layer in our minimalism cake.

May 10, 2018

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. – Jesus

Welcome to one of my favorite weeks of the year: National Nurses Week!

It’s also National Teachers Week, but I don’t mind sharing. We are both called to care for others as our own and work way too hard for way too little appreciation. But this week certainly helps! Tomorrow is also Military Spouse Appreciation Day and, once you add in Mother’s Day on Sunday, this week is basically my Superbowl.

This is my 9^th year of nursing, which is hard for me to believe, and it’s been quite a ride. I found my calling early thanks to my grandma’s influence (you can read more about that in an upcoming post). I attended my kindergarten career day dressed as a “nurse for babies.” I remember my mom wanting me to go as a ballerina instead because it meant a cuter costume, but even back then I knew that wasn’t who I was meant to be. And thank God, because there four other girls in my class who showed up in tutus; I’m not that basic.

The only day I have ever cried tears of joy was the day I successfully finished my final nursing school exam. In a dramatic show of relief, appropriate only at a (very) Christian college, I fell to my knees and uttered, “it is finished.” The day I found out I passed the NCLEX (nursing licensure exam), I knew I finally had my key that would open the doors to the life I wanted. Since then I’ve worked in 8 different disciplines in 3 different states. I have seen so much and so little at the same time. The blessing and curse of the nursing profession is that there’s always something new to learn.

I admit this Nurses Week is bittersweet for me given my current work (or lack thereof) situation. Normally I would be celebrating with coworkers at some type of appreciation festivity put on by management. When I worked in Texas they rented a sno-cone truck to park outside our ER; I don’t even like sno-cones, but it was still the best day ever. This year I will make do with the free cinnamon roll that Cinnabon gives out every year. Maybe I’ll wear my scrubs to the mall to pick it up, just to feel like I fit in. Plus, who doesn’t want an elastic waistband after eating Cinnabon?

So to my fellow nurses…

Who wake up before the sun rises and come home after it sets. Who can clean up a harrowing code brown and then go straight to the break room for a fudge brownie. Who have been called every derogatory name in the book (including the N-word, which is never okay, but particularly confusing when you’re as white as they come). Who have stripped naked in the garage because you don’t want to bring your bacteria-covered scrubs into the home where your children live. Who have had relatives text pictures of their rashes (or worse). Who have heard the cries of a mother whose son didn’t make it. Who have saved a life and then two minutes later are yelled at for taking too long to bring a glass of juice. Who have listened for a heartbeat that wasn’t there anymore.

To all of you, I say: I see you, I appreciate, I am you. Thank you to the nurses who have taught me and to those I have had the pleasure to teach. Enjoy your week to its fullest. It’s a tough profession, but we are tougher.

 

April 20, 2018

Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. – Jesus

Moving from a 5-bed/4 bath, 3-story home into a 2-bed/2-bath apartment has certainly been an adjustment. We knew that living in such a small space with two little children would mean close quarters for everyone, but we were just so worn out from maintaining the larger home. Four toilets to clean is four too many. So far we are weathering the changes well. The kids are doing well with sharing a room and Fox and I are learning how to share a closet (for the first time in our 8 years of marriage!). All in all, we are happy to have less space to clean and more time for things we actually enjoy. But last night came with some unexpected disadvantages…

Since moving in we quickly noticed our downstairs neighbors are loud, often unhappy, and night-owls. Not the best combination for apartment neighbors, but that just comes with the territory, right? I have yet to meet them, but Fox ran into the wife when he took the kids to the communal playground. Apparently, she didn’t say much to them other than mentioning that her husband is a pastor. That became glaringly obvious last night when we became an unwillingly audience to their latest argument.

From 11pm to 1am they screamed at each other. At one point the husband hypocritically bellowed, “You do not yell at me!” As annoying as a midnight round of verbal wrestling is, what left me completely unsettled and unable to sleep was the fact that they were yelling scripture at each other. Back and forth, from Isaiah to the New Testament, they kept spitting venom-laced verses at each other. I could not make out everything, but I definitely heard the husband shout, “It says in the Bible you are to SUBMIT to me!” and later the wife screeched “Stop calling me the devil!” At this point, doors were slamming and children were crying. Finally I heard another neighbor begging them to stop.

Awkward to say the least.

Now this brings up two issues for me. The first is, at what point do I have a moral/ethical/social obligation to intervene? When does this cross over from an annoying argument to a dangerous situation that needs outside help? It crossed my mind to go down there, ask them to be quiet, and make sure everything and everyone was okay, but then I got scared of putting myself into a violent scenario. But should I have gone? Should I try to reach out to the wife at some point? Do I report this to our apartment management? And if it happens again, does it warrant calling law enforcement? Or do I just get some ear plugs and let them live their lives? I am genuinely perplexed in the best way to handle this and would appreciate any input as to what you would have done in this situation.

The second, and much bigger, issue I have with this is using scripture in this manner. Don’t misunderstand me: I am a believer and follower of Jesus and I often look to the Bible for encouragement and guidance. Christianity in its purest form is based on faith, hope, and love. So to pick and choose scripture, the words and teachings of Christ Himself, to back up your hate-filled arguments? Uh, no thank you very much, sir. Jesus commands in Matthew 22 to love your neighbors as yourself and, as a literal neighbor in this scenario, I did not get the sense that was happening. And let’s be clear on that submission verse: We are called to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). Paul then goes on to say that wives are called to submit to their husbands just as husbands are called to love their wives. It’s safe to say there wasn’t much submission or love coming from Apartment 104 last night.

St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words.” Solid advice. I would add to that- “Live the gospel at all times and, if you have to screech it in the middle of the night, you might be doing it wrong.”

Also, can anyone recommend a good white noise machine?