For Erin

I am a survivor of postpartum depression.

I stand for the enlightenment of a society that hides from mental illness, a society that hides from those who struggle to recover. I am unwilling for my perseverance to be in vain. I am unwilling for our brave friend who suffered the dark night of the soul to have lived and died in shame.

In a world blinded by the pursuit of pleasure, I am here to say that many mothers are in pain. In a world rushing to get ahead, I am here to say that many mothers are being left behind. In a world obsessed with the value of the market, I am here to speak for the value of our lives.

Innocence

I heard a song this morning that made me cry.

Some of you might remember this song:

“Old lang syne” by Dan Fogelberg?? You can hear it at:

http://www.geocities.com/bjaes.geo/lyrics/syne.htm

This song has always gotten to me. Even when I was too young to understand it. When this song came out I was in elementary school, I knew that I didn’t understand it at the time but someday I would.

And now I do.

What happens to all those innocent times? The times before death, divorces, suicides, depressions, kids, major responsibilities, layoffs, disasters, terrorist attacks....

Man. I realize how much time has passed since that song came out. And how much I've grown up. And how hard that has been. My head is spinning. There's so many experiences I'm so grateful for, but so many that I wish I didn't have to experience: breakups, homelessness, joblessness, loneliness, depressions, illnesses, surgery, traumatic childbirth, deaths of friends and loved ones.

My H is flying out tonight to attend the funeral of his friend Erin, who killed herself on Sunday. She has suffered from bipolar depression for a few years now or so we heard, and I guess she just couldnt handle it anymore and took her own life on the weekend. My husband was ok when he first heard the news, but he’s getting more and more upset as time goes on. I hope he is able to handle this ok. He’s not doing so well right now, and neither am I. I wish I could go to, but I didn’t really know Erin very well, I only met her twice. Once in Toronto for a baby shower, and once at our wedding. Besides, I think he needs to go off and do this himself. And I also have to stay and take care of our daughter, and the cost of both of us flying to Toronto for an overnight stay would be pretty high.

I realized last night that THREE people who were on our guest list for our wedding are now dead. Two attended the wedding, one committed suicide before the wedding. Yes - we now have TWO friends who have wives who killed themselves. The other person who is now dead is my own father.

Back to my husband. His friend that died was part of my husband's close circle of friends in Toronto before he moved here. Although I don’t like anyone to be upset, its good to see the emotions in him rising to the surface. He’s spent so much time stuffing his feelings inside, and that has led to some pretty weird behaviour on his part.

I’m ok with him crying, being upset. He thinks he’s a big softy but I really like when people (men OR women) are able to cry and express their feelings. Makes them seem more human, and makes me feel less wacky. I’m a big cryer.. I cry at everything. I was labelled crybaby at a young age, and I still earn the rights for that nickname. Except now I proudly wear the label, and when I was young I hated that people teased me about that.

Gotta go put some cold washcloths on my eyes. They're all puffy.

For Erin, Peter and Carole

Capture My Soul, for it Serves Me Naught

Amidst the thunderous waves of despair
The siren with song
Comes through as Seventeen Pearls
Still in their shell,
Waving you at whim and random
On an unseen strand of hair
Between Heaven and Hell.

As the vessel of your journey
Thrashed relentlessly on
Malevolent waves-
The Pearls
Once your only goal,
Dissolve and chill
Your lives once warm.

I too, like you all
Through endless storms
My hands outstretched hold the shell
Waiting for God's tears from Heaven
To offer me once again,
Pearls of Seventeen
And release me,
For a time -
From Hell.

Tis the season....

To be bummed out.

Christmas bums me out so much. Everything bad happens at Christmas. I just found out at noon today that a friend of my husband's killed herself last week. She too was suffering PPD after her daughter was born. I guess hers went on a long time (since 2003) and she eventually succumbed. People dont realize how lethal an illness depression can be. I wish I'd called them. I wish I'd had more energy in my own PPD recovery to reach out to someone else. I didnt know them that well, so I didnt feel comfortable doing so, but you can be sure that right now I'm beating myself up for not trying at least.

I feel awful right now. I'm shaking, I have a headache, I'm choking back tears, and I feel nauseated. I know that the only difference between me and her was that I got help, the right help, and she obviously didn't. Now there's one more little child, her daughter, without a mother. Another child like me who will grow up thinking her parent (in my case it was my father) didn't even care enough about me to want to be alive. My dad, fortuntely, was never successful in any of his suicide attempts, but the effects of them were the same. A feeling of worthlessness due to complete lack of validation by a parent.

My home life growing up was ANYTHING but jolly and bright. My dad had so many "issues" that they coloured everything. Christmas for me was full of anxiety, anger, walking on eggshells, listening to my dad vent and rage, and watch him so clearly uncomfortable around us, trying too hard, wobbling between extreme, over the top, slightly "put on" joy, while the rest of us wanted to go off to our rooms and hide. Sure, there were some good times. But we never knew how long they were going to last. Until dad had another "episode" I guess.

One year was all about my dad NOT dealing with his mental problems and his addictions and watching him fall so far off the wagon that he was arrested for DUI and his car impounded. Merry friggin Christmas to us. I think it was the day before Christmas Eve that my mom and I had to drive up to the police station in another town nearby to bail out his car. What was worse (as if that wasn't bad enough) he was so mad at himself and so feeilng sorry for himself that he pretty much sat in the basement the whole Christmas and barely talked to any of us. When he did, he screamed and yelled and vented. Great. Ho Ho friggin Ho.

All kinds of rotten things have usually happened at Christmas. My grandfather's death. My dad's arrest for DUI. Finding out my uncle had an affair with my aunt. A friend of mine was killed in a plane crash. I fell down some stairs and severely injured my pelvis. My cat was diagnosed with terminal cancer. No wonder I just want to bury my head under my pillow and wake up in January.

Also this is my last full week working in a group that I REALLY liked working in. I joined my current work team in 2002 and really enjoyed it. A few months ago I was told, with no ifs, ands or buts about it, that I and my small team of 5 (some are on leave right now though) will be transferred to another branch as of January 2007. I'm still really upset about it. No consideration was given of how this might affect us, our work, the files, anything. And I was given no offer to stay on here and choose another file. I can understand possibly the file going, but why me? The people involved in the transfer did not even talk to me about ANYTHING, they dont know me from a hole in the ground, but they had their minds made up that this was the best move for "everyone concerned" - whatever that means?

Today there were people in here, scoping out the building. I guess we're all moving -but to where? We were told there's no space in the main building and we're to stay here for the time being. We're also told that there's new people coming in who don't know about those of us who have to stay. This is getting ridiculous!

My work environment is definitely bumming me out. Besides the transfer and possible move (which we were not expecting until march) there are people deliberately going against our recommendations on things. Now we don't just recommend things, we interpret mandatory government obligations on certain topics. I SWEAR people deliberately go out of their way to thwart us. We didnt make this stuff up.. this is declared obligatory by the Federal Government. We're just the follow-through people. Are we adults or are we five year olds here?

I'm still just getting my head around last month too. The 1 year anniversary of my dad's death. Its still so weird to start my Christmas shopping list, and have one usual row blank. I always used to start my list with Mom, Dad, Chris.. and yep.. the line for Dad is so obvious by its omission.

I also had a spat with my husband this morning. I swear sometimes we argue just for arguing sake. Sometimes he just deliberately goes out of his way to NOT do what I suggest, because I'm sure he sees me as some authority figure. I'm NOT. I do have some knowledge and opinions just as any other adult human being out there, and I do hope that I am a bit more important to him than almost any other person out there, and perhaps that might make him take my suggestions with a bit more weight. But it doesn't. It often contaminates my intentions, it, like somehow I'm just out there to CONTROL him, to push him around, and by God he'll NOT take that from anyone let alone his wife! Its so demoralizing. Kind of like my work situation. Very dehumanizing and frustrating.

Also my daughter is sick again with a bad head/chest cold. She gets croupy coughs at night that keep her awake. Poor baby. I hate when she gets sick. She doesn't sleep well and it keeps us all up. I also worry so much - she's so tiny and that cough sounds awful coming from that itty bitty baby body. I hope she gets well soon.

And I crashed my car last week and its still in the shop. I hope it gets fixed soon. So far the repairs are estimated to cost $250.00. I hope the bent rim and the massive alignment problem is all that they find. It's a pain in the butt to go back to only one car.

Merry Christmas and Bah Humbug. I hope I feel better after I get some work deadlines done at least. If my books and computer don't get packed up and moved when I'm not looking.

Toddler Wrasslin'

Today I am exhausted and sore. I brought my daughter - solo - to a children’s birthday party (for 2 year old). Big mistake. Next time I’m bringing a relief pilot if my husband's not available.

Instead of enjoying a relaxing afternoon with friends, as I used to do before I became a mother instead I spent 3 hours wrestling with my 32 pound, extremely busy, strong and strong-willed daughter.

The event included:

Following my daughter the whole time to prevent her from falling down the stairs. People kept leaving the safety-gate to the basement open to a very long flight of stairs. I did have to catch her at one point, but even me watching her did not stop her from falling down the 2 steps in the front foyer and landing smack on her head on a hard tile floor.

Me pulling her off their Christmas tree and their breakables at least 10 times. How people with 3 kids can put fragile ornaments and other breakables out is beyond me! In my house, I've got everything within her range-of-destruction packed away, taped down or gated off.

At one point I was too exhausted to follow her and 5 minutes later I found her jumping on the bed of the 9 year old (while he was on it) laughing her nutty head off, and another time I found her running around the bedroom of the 5 year old.. jumping on his inflatable soccer-ball-chair.

She sprayed apple juice from an open juice box on the hosts' Christmas figurines. Since there were lots of kids there, there were lots of open juice boxes to grab, chew on and spray all over the place. Everywhere she seemed to go people were mopping up after her. I had to take off after her after each spray and leave the carnage to someone else.

She grabbed a Christmas figurine from under the tree (a large polar bear on skis) and tried to take his ski poles off, they were firmly attached to the figurine. She then tipped the figurine over. The bear was soft/stuffed but the hat, skis and poles were made of plastic. She was just about to give him the WWF-patented-atomic-elbow-drop-crush-tackle until I grabbed her just in time.

She opened cupboard doors, tried to take out dishes and cookware, she opened the bathroom vanity, tried to grab toilet paper, soap, etc.

She tried to serve herself her OWN piece of birthday cake. The older kids were served first, presumably because they could actually sing Happy Birthday and sit at the table unassisted. She saw the cake being eaten by the older kids.. said firmly to me “YUMMY!” and then “ABBY’S” and set off towards the table, with the intent of grabbing some cake of her own. She was rerouted only by the piece of cake coming our way being served by the hostess, otherwise certain disaster would have ensued.

She sat on the birthday boy’s toys thinking they were good benches, flattened the boxes, then proceeded to carry some of his gifts down the hall into his parents’ bedroom.

Why do other peoples kids seem to sit and play together while mine strikes out on her own, investigating every nook and cranny? Why did even the babies at this party seem low maintenance?

Every muscle in my body is sore. I started out the day with a pinched nerve in my neck (you know those where you turn your head to one direction and it burns) and now I can barely move. I’m sitting on a chair with a heating pad in it.

I’m going to a massage at 12:30. Some people may call it a luxury, but I can barely move.

I call it a medical necessity.