I'm baaaaack

I haven't posted in a while as we've had a 2 week holiday in the Gold Coast of Australia visiting the Chief's family and I also spent time catching up with friends from when we lived over there.  Aside from a few ups and downs it was a pretty good holiday.  We got back at midnight on Thursday only to wake up Friday morning, repack and drive up north to Rotorua for a family meeting.  If that wasn't crazy enough, Hammer got sick while we were in Rotorua.  We took him to the doctor because he had so many ulcers in his mouth that he couldn't eat.  Turns out he had hand, foot and mouth virus. 

So we got back on Sunday night to a house that had clean laundry piled up the lounge, dirty laudry piled up in the laundry room and an undetermined smell coming from the kitchen (note: don't leave food in the fridge while you're gone for 2 weeks!) and on top of this I had a very clingly toddler and an on the go baby who started crawling while we were overseas.  Hammer just wanted to be with me so both boys napped ON me during the day.  The good thing was they both slept for about 3 hours during the day.  The bad thing was, of course, that they were laying on me!!  I just sat in a chair thinking 'this is about them, not me' and tried to ignore the growing mountain of laundry and the mess in our house.

The plan (when will I learn not to plan??!) was to come home, have Monday as a 'do nothing' day and then I was going to start the kids with a care giver on Tuesday.  Of course with Hammer being sick, all that went out the window.  I was ok with not starting the childcare because when he's sick, I just want him to get better, but it did make me feel like SOMETHING always comes up.  I was feeling like it is constantly one thing after another and how it seems like as soon as I see a light at the end of the tunnel I sort of feel like there's this hand reaching up to pull me back down.  I started thinking maybe I'm not meant to be happy.. maybe this is the way I'm supposed to feel because every time I start thinking it will get better, something comes along to show me that no, in fact, it won't.

But then a couple of strange things happened... I was thinking all of this while in the car after dropping off the Chief at work and then I thought of the devastation going on in this world and I thought.. at least I have a home to go back to.  Man that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Firstly because it changed my thinking from feeling sorry for myself to actually feeling pretty lucky and grateful for what I do have... but secondly because it made me aware that I am getting better.  Two months ago I never would have thought about it that way.  Less fortunate people would come in to my mind but I would quicly dismiss it because I just couldn't contemplate other people at all.  I was so far in the darkness that I couldn't even see beyond myself.  But by realising that I am lucky, I can see how far I've come.  I can now realise that even if my life is crap right now, it's only right now and life will get better.  Next week will be a different week.  And this made me realise that even if I had a setback, it doesn't mean I am back where I started.  Say there's a scale of where I'm at from 1 to 10 (where 1 is wanting to drive in to a tree and 10 is loving life to the max) I was probably at a 2 in November of 2010 or even a 1... and now I'm probably hovering around a 6.  Getting help with the childcare would push me to a 7 or possibly an 8... but then coming home and being jet-lagged and having a messy house and a sick child has probably only set me back to a 5.  It's good to know that.  Like a set back is just a set back, not starting back at square one.

And the other strange thing happened when C (the nurse from Maternal Mental Health) visited.  She told me that young children tend to get sick 10 times a year.  TEN times!!  Now wonder why I feel like it's one thing after another - because it is!!!  This is why I think knowledge is key.  Now that I know this I don't have to think 'why me' when my kids get sick.  I can instead think 'this is time number 3 out of about 10' and I'm not the only one it happens to.  And for some reason that makes me feel better.

Welcome

Hello and welcome.  I wrote a couple of entries a while back when I was in what was probably (hopefully) the worst of my Postnatal Depression (PND) or Postpartum Depression (PPD) as my friends back home would say.  I figure now is a good time to start again on this blog as a way to help me work through my life at the moment.

A little bit about what brought me to where I am today.. the story is pretty long, but the reader's digest version is this... I met my husband, the Chief,  in 2004 and we got married early in 2008.  Later that same year, our lovely little Hammer came along... then in 2010 little Nicky joined our family.  During that time we have moved country 3 times (yes country!) and our life has been pretty unsettled to say the least!  After all the major changes were finished and we were moved in to our new house, I realised that I was still not getting better.  I constantly found myself saying that I was miserable 80% of the time and I could see no way of it ever being any better unless I could build a time machine and go back and not have kids... finally someone heard me and told me to go see my doctor.  I did, and I made the extremely difficult decision to go on medication.  Looking back now, I can't believe how bad I was.  Things that I thought were just a part of who I'd become since having kids, from the basic lack of joy in my life all the way to my thoughts and beliefs about my parents and my childhood were all actually part of the depression. 

That's not to say that I'm 'all better' now.  I'm still struggling through this bumpy road, but at least now I think that at some point it will be fine.  I can actually stay home now instead of always running around town trying to keep busy so that I didn't have to feel the hopelessness that I was feeling. 

This is the point where most people seem  to go in to how much they love their kids and how happy and well adjusted they are.  I think this is because there is some unspoken rule that it's not ok to say that being a mother is tough and sometimes it sucks.  It's like we feel we need to keep everything in balance by saying what a rewarding experience motherhood is and reassure everyone that our kids are ok and are not being neglected and are generally pretty happy ... but I'm not going to do that here.  I'm not saying it's not true, I'm just saying I won't do that here.  This is not a blog for my kids.  It is for me.

Rock Bottom

Or at least I hope it is, because I'd hate to be feeling much worse than this. 

I feel that 'PND' is just 3 letters that we string along and throw around in my house and it hasn't come to mean much.  I am now at the point where I can't think straight.  This is not an exaggeration.  I literally can not think clearly.  I am having trouble remembering to eat.  I am having trouble deciding what to eat when I am hungry.  I want to sleep all the time.  I am miserable.  I do something and a second later can not remember that I've done it.  I am miserable more than 80% of the time.  I am tense, I am out of it.  I am very, very spacey.  I walk around feeling light headed.  I can't have a long conversation because I can't even follow it.  I get stuck mid sentence because I can't remember what I was going to say next - or what I had just finished saying for that matter.  I smile at the kids, but the smile doesn't reach my heart.  I no longer even cry.  The tears won't even come.  I go around and around in my head.  I feel like nothing can touch my heart.  I am anxious about the kids, checking on them repeatedly.  For the past 2 weeks I keep going through the day feeling like I've forgotten something so I check to make sure both boys are in the car with me before I head out.  I am drowning.  I need help.

The problem is that I look fine.  That I do get things done.  That my kids are so happy.  That I seem to struggle sometimes but other times, everything seems just fine.  I think this is the problem with being so strong and capable.  I do just get through it, but I am actually dying inside.

I can tell you when it started to get bad again.  My grandmother died.  I mean I was obviously already finding it hard - but I think that before this happened, it was mostly the basic struggle of a mum with 2 young kids. It was hard but I did cope.  At some point 'coping' became 'merely existing' and that's when I started thinking, hmm.. I'm a bit unhappy really.  The second blow was the thought of taking my older son out of daycare, wehre he goes 2 days a week.  My idea.  I wasn't happy with the situation there.  Suddenly my husband and I started talking about not having him in care at all and slowly the dread of this started building in me.  I mean I was coping, but barely.  I started talking to my husband about getting a nanny to help me because I knew I couldn't do it all on my own.  Then the issue of money came up and I started to feel like it was a waste to pay someone else to help with the kids when I am a stay at home mum.  So, feeling guilty, I started looking for other ways to make money.  I thought well I'll try to start up the business I've always wanted to start, to contribute, since I am lacking in my capibility to do my share of things (taking care of the boys).  I felt that since I couldn't do it on my own and needed help, I'd better come up with a way to make up financially so that I could have that help. 

Then things started snowballing.  All of a sudden it was going to be me off to work, working full time, and we were going to buy a beach house with the extra money and life would be perfect.  And I believed that for a few days.  Then I stopped believing it.  Then I felt like I couldn't reel my husband back in.  That he had all these new hopes and dreams and suddenly I was going to be able to do my part again and pull my weight and be an awesome earner and stop being a whiney, complaining person that lacked the basic ability to just stay home and look after her kids.  I mean, how aweosme a job, stay home and just sit around all day.  How come  I can't do it?!  So I felt like I had to do something to contribute.  In the meantime we sold our house and I felt like I was the only one who still wanted to take care of the house we were still living in. 

Then my baby started getting more demanding.  He needed attention now and wouldn't just sit quietly in a chair so I no longer had my 'days off' (when my older son was in daycare) to either rest or get things done.  Then my older son got sick with a virus, my husband and I were both run down.  My husband was up all hours and I knew I couldn't ask him to do more than he was already doing.  There just wasn't time in his day.  Or energy.  I'd already had some pretty hard blows having to take my baby to the hospitals for tests for a kidney problem they picked up when I was pregnant during an ultrasound.  Then he got quite sick with a related infection.  I had to be in hospital with him and bring my older son with me.  He's only 2 so I worried about how he'd fair being couped up in a hospital all day.  We coped.  I managed.  But I didn't manage.  I was struggling.  But still, I 'looked' fine and everyone saw me taking care of things.  I wasn't.  I'm not.  I'm struggling.  I'm losing the struggle.

Any of these things on their own would be enough to bring most people to their knees.  I am strong.  I am resiliant.  I have a good husband.  I lasted a long time.  But I'm not lasting any more.

I don't know what I need.  You can't ask a drowning person what help they need because they can't talk to you.  You just need to dive in and save them.  Or call the lifeguard. 

I think 'well this isn't fair - my husband didn't sign up for this'.  But I retaliate in my own head saying I didn't sign up for this either.

I don't know where to go from here.  I just need to say how dire this situation is.  I need to get this off my chest.  Sure I look fine.  But I'm  not fine.  I would be happy if I could even be somewhere in the neighbourhood of fine.