Tired

I am tired today. One of the things we talked about in therapy on Tuesday was giving myself permission to have bad days. This is hard for me. I feel like recovery means that you only have good days. But this is unrealistic because even when I didn't have PPD I didn't have good days every day.
Days like today where the sound of my son saying "Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama," non-stop is like a knife being repeatedly jammed in my cornea make me feel like a total ass. I feel like I should love being a mother every minute of every day. I DO love my son very much. But some days I just don't like being around him very much. Especially days like today where all I want to do is curl up in a ball and stare off into space.
I get discouraged when I read these posts by people I know who worship their children. They find beauty and perfection in everything their children do. Today, as my son used his fingernails to gouge scratches in my arm while I was strapping him into his car seat the last thing I was feeling was admiration for his perfection and beauty. I wanted to beat the snot out of him.
Steve doesn't help things very much. He sits on his stupid computer writing posts on facebook about women he thinks are hot and how people are scared of him while I sit here slowly going insane. His narcissism astounds me sometimes. Newsflash...maybe people are scared of you because you are a total asshole to people you think are beneath you intellectually (which is everyone according to you). I told someone yesterday that I really don't get how someone who is so smart can be so stupid sometimes.
My biggest piece of advice to people who don't have children (Julia) is to make sure before you have them that you are on the same page as your partner about discipline and child rearing. If you aren't, make sure you find some common ground and get the ground rules hammered out before you get pregnant. Otherwise, you are in for a rocky road when your children are born and you feel like your partner doesn't support the things you feel are important in raising your child.
I am off to go drown my sorrows in a bowl of ice cream.

Perspective is a Bitch

Yesterday I saw my neighbor from across the street at the mailbox. She has a son who is about A's age and a daughter who is 12. She had secondary infertility which accounts for the distance between her two children (she disclosed this to me once during our longest conversation which lasted probably 30 minutes 2 years ago). Other than waving while driving past her house and the brief exchanged pleasantries we really don't see each other or speak that much. I noticed about 5 months ago she got a really short haircut and I think I commented on it at the time but I can't really remember exactly what I said.
While at the mailbox, with both our sons running around screaming on the sidewalk, my 30-something neighbor casually mentions that she goes to the doctor every other week. Me, being totally oblivious, ask her what for.
"I thought you knew. I have cancer. It started in my colon and has metastasized to my liver. I get chemo every two weeks." Her blue eyes scan my face intently as the shock of her announcement slowly registers.
"Oh my god, I had no idea. I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?" I say pathetically, stammering and barely able to get the words out.
She refuses my offers of dinners made on her chemo days but asks me to get the boys together for a playdate this week at the park.
I would've given her anything she asked for. Anything.
After I put the kids to bed that night, I looked out our kitchen window which faces her house. In the glow of her garage light I see her putting her son's tricycle away and pushing her daughter's bike slowly into the garage. Her thin frame barely makes a shadow.
Just two months ago she and I had a brief conversation about preschool for the boys and I remember complaining about something mundane and stupid. This was just about the time she found out that the cancer she thought she had beaten two years ago had not only returned but spread. How she refrained from punching me in the face is beyond me. This woman lives daily with the knowledge that she is going to die sooner than later. It must be heartbreaking.
Perspective is a bitch.

So far So good So boring

Yeah, I know. This blog started out as a lovely little family blog for me to talk about my wonderful and exasperating children. Then it took a little dip into the depths of ugliness. I am going to try to bring this blog out of the ashes like a phoenix. Because chronicling my Postpartum Depression is, well, depressing.
Here goes...
A started preschool August 18th.
Here is a picture of him and his big boy backpack on his first day.

You may be thinking...why does it look like he is mooing? That is because he is, in fact, mooing. He likes to moo when I make him do something that he doesn't want to do. I don't know if he is mooing because he thinks I am a cow for trying to take his picture or because that is just his favorite sound of protest. Regardless, the boy does like to moo and does it often.
For the first few weeks of preschool he hated it and cried every time I would go to drop him off. This caused me much anguish because
a) I don't like to see my child cry.
and
b) This frigging preschool is expensive as hell and it seems counter intuitive to spend that much money on something that he hates doing.
What a difference a month makes. He now loves preschool and is excited for me to drop him off in the morning. This causes me much anguish because
a) He is getting so big so very fast.
and
b) The little sh!t now likes school better than being with me at home.
I am, however, very grateful for the time I get to myself and with W (who naps for at least an hour of A's preschool absence).
Speaking of W, she is getting to be such a big girl! She is rolling all over the place and trying to army crawl.
Here she is at playgroup at a friend's houseHow can you tell that this is the carpet at someone else's house?
a) It doesn't look like a toy and clothing bomb exploded on top of it.
and
b) There are no stains in the rug from a certain three year old squirting lotion all over it.
and a bonus answer
c) There are no fat and lazy animals shedding on it.Hope you have enjoyed this little foray into the lighter side of things. I have a therapy appointment tomorrow where I am going to discuss with my therapist how my husband told me last week that if I ever decided to start going to church again he wouldn't love me any more.
Sigh.

Thanks for the support

I appreciate all the comments and emails of support. I feel so gratified that a group of people could be so wonderful. Makes me really have faith in the world and in human kind in general.
After a miserable weekend I can honestly say that I am feeling better. Not sure what that blip was and what caused it but wallowing in self pity Saturday and Sunday didn't really help matters much. I woke up Monday morning and realized that life is what you make of it. So, I am going to believe that this WILL get better and I am going to be an agent of my own change. Even if it kills me. Ha!

The Face of Postpartum Depression

I asked Steve to take this picture of W and I about a month ago. The reason I told him was that I wanted a picture that was of W sleeping on me similar to one I got of A doing the same thing at about the same age.
The real reason?
I wanted proof that I wasn't just fading away. I wanted something concrete to show that I was there that day physically because mentally I felt like I was slipping away.
I have had two bad days in a row. Last night before bed I asked for help. Anyone or anything who was listening (God, Buddha, Cthulu, etc) because I was desperate.
Guess what?
This morning I woke up and felt worse.
What did I think was going to happen? Divine intervention? Ha ha ha, what a fucking joke! Why would God step in and help me? If God truly exists and was going to help someone there are so many people in the world who need help more than me.
Fuck this stupid depression. Fuck this fear. Fuck the medication. Fuck it all.

Still Alive

Just busy trying to keep myself distracted. My therapy appt on Wednesday was interesting. We discussed my childhood and my family. I was forced to consider many things that I hadn't thought about in a long time. More specifically, the terribly selfish things my parents did while I was very very young. And how those terribly selfish things made such a large impact on my life and still do to this day.
My Mom's absence from my life due to her constant working is what inspired me to be a stay at home mom. I wanted to make sure that my son (and, now, daughter) didn't feel like an afterthought as I sometimes did. While I am driving home from my appt my old friend panic decides to well within me. I realize that there may come a day when my son or daughter may blame me for the mistakes I made in raising them. Because while they are growing up I am growing up too. Trying to reconcile raising a child while figuring out my new job as a mother.
Flashback to me, pregnant, and working at a shitty job that I hated. Daily I pictured in my head all the wonderful things that my son and I would do together as I stayed at home. Cozy mornings of play doh and coloring. Afternoons spent frolicking at the park playing in leaf piles, followed by evenings by the fire drinking cocoa and reading Dr. Seuss. At no time did I picture the quiet desperation I would feel upon bringing home my colicky and generally displeased newborn son who screamed more than he slept.
I perservered through it. 3 months of no sleep and daily crying, his and mine. Then I met a friend and started to get out more. We commiserated. Each day kept getting better and better. I started to feel like myself again.
Fast forward 3 years later. While I am nursing my 4 month old daughter one afternoon a thought gets caught up in my head. And refuses to leave. For three weeks. The thought encompasses my every waking moment and has me constantly feeling terror and panic like I have never felt before. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I become the thought.
I seek help.
I start zol.oft and therapy.
I am scared life will never be the same.
I am right.
I feel like a lifetime of blinders has been ripped away from my eyes. Suddenly I am seeing the world through the eyes of my illness. I feel like I have been exposed and now I can't remember who I was before any of this.
Will I ever be her again?
Do I want to be her again?
I don't know.