Why I Climb

It was the middle of the night; dark, quiet and still. I sat in the glider rocker in my living room holding P as she slept. Everything was so still. It felt like me, in this chair, in this room, in this house, were the only things that existed; everything outside these four walls wasn't there. And that was when, for the first time in my life, I felt completely and utterly alone.


It was in those late night hours when I felt like the only person on Earth that I scrounged the internet on my phone looking for answers, desperately searching for anyone that could relate to me to give me hope. It was in those hours that I stumbled upon an online support group where one particular post caught my eye: Event in your area - you are NOT alone!  An event? Near me? With other women who know how this feels? I HAVE TO GO!!!!

I needed to meet other women like me. I needed to be around other women who have felt how I had felt. I needed to know this could get better and that there was light, and I knew these women could provide me that. But more importantly than that, I needed to celebrate what I had gone through. I struggled and felt defeated, but I also clawed and fought for recovery. I deserved to feel liberated. I deserved to celebrate and to feel free of the shackles of depression. I deserved empowerment over mental illness and show that I will not lose. And at the same time, my baby and my amazing husband deserved a strong woman in their lives that wasn't ashamed of a dark season.


Life is a series of seasons, some better than others, but a season nonetheless. Times change, leaves fall, it gets hot and then cold, but we trudge through them because we are anxious to get to the next one. Mental illness is by far one of the darkest seasons we can endure, but the light of recovery shines over it and through it and leads to hope.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we deserve to need this feeling of light over our darkest season. And when your season is over, celebrate it. Don't let it fall away and fade into a distant memory, but rather hold on to the knowledge that you fought the war and won. YOU did.

So to anyone out there right now, scrounging the internet late at night in hopes of finding someone, anyone, that can relate to you, I am here. And I am your post telling you that hey, guess what? There's an event near you where women and families will gather, will celebrate, and will lift you up to hope and recovery. They will remind you that you are not alone and will climb through the battle with you to your light. #climbout #whyiclimb

For more information:
Find a climb near you: http://postpartumprogress.org/climb-out-of-the-darkness/find-a-climb/
 
More information: http://postpartumprogress.org/climb-out-of-the-darkness/

Support my team: https://www.crowdrise.com/sarahmaier1-COTD2016/fundraiser/sarahmaier1

Warrior Mama Out

So, here's the thing. People are motivating. They encourage you. They urge you to keep going and instill feelings of strength deep within you. People lay a thick layer of hope and belief in you that you might not have in yourself and they lift you up and liberate you to be this amazing person that they know you can be on the days when you don't think you can. But you know what? I'm tired.

Scratch that.

I'm exhausted. I cannot get up anymore. I feel defeated. And then there is this group of people standing in front of me yelling that they know I can do it, get up, keep going, you can do it!!

Well ya know what? I can't do it. And I don't think I should have to. I should not have to be a strong person all of the time. I want to inspire people. I want to lift others up when they feel down, but at the same time I want others to know it's okay that when you're down to not want to get back up. So here I am, telling you that it's okay. Stay down there a little longer. Take a nap. I am not going to force you to get back up before you're ready. Because I know firsthand that it is completely draining to keep getting up. Sometimes you need a minute.

I am giving you tired souls permission today to take all the minutes you need. Loathe in self pity for a few seconds, wish things were different, remember when things were easier and simpler and happier. Then, spend as much time as you need after that thinking of your next step, your game plan. But take your time. You do not need to figure things out right now. I am giving you permission to not give a damn today. Don't do the dishes. Let the laundry sit one more day. Stop texting people back. Do nothing. Self care does not need to be complicated. It does not need to be massages and girls nights and pedicures. Sometimes self care is just doing jack shit because it's the only way to remove yourself from how crazy things are getting around you. Sometimes self care is staying in the car just a few more minutes to jam out to your favorite song. Sometimes self care is a candy bar or non-diet soda. I'm not here to judge; do what you gotta do.

But I am TIRED ya'll! I need some self care. My knees are buckling and my back is breaking. I cannot be strong anymore today. I know warriors are suppose to be courageous and aggressive, who fight in battle and never give up, but hey, a warrior needs a day off here and there.

Today I am waving my white flag. I am putting down my shield. Warrior mama out.

212°

I've been sitting here for awhile, writing and deleting this paragraph over and over, trying to think of something clever to say. I thought about describing how, like it is for everyone, some days are hard and some days are amazing. I thought about writing how thankful and blessed I am to have someone as supportive as Hubs in my life, who has literally gone through the ringer being my husband, but loves me just as much as the day he married me. Yep, I've been trying for hours to be witty and yet, this is the best I got.

What I really wanted to say with this post is easy: parenting a toddler is hard. Being a parent with anxiety to a toddler is super, super sucky.

Life is really busy right now. Between work, home life, summer plans and selling a home, there are some days I literally don't remember them happening at all because they went by so incredibly fast I didn't even realize it. There are entire conversations I don't remember having simply because I had too many of them that day. My mind is constantly thinking 479 things at the same time because I need to remember to buy diapers, cook dinner, meal plan, go to work, meet deadlines, pick up dog food, go to the gym, do the laundry, make the bed, text the realtor, approve showings....and the 479th thing I'm thinking is that I cannot ask anyone for help, including Hubs, because for some reason I need to do it all myself. Hubs is capable, willing and able, but Anxiety tells me I just need to do ALL THE THINGS and then get mad that I am doing ALL THE THINGS. And then Anxiety lies again by making me think I really am doing all the things, when really Hubs is taking on just as much, if not more, than myself.

And then life gets super, super busy. It gets so busy I forget to take my medication, and when that happens you better make sure you have a strong drink in front of you at all times because Mama Bear comes out with fists swinging (figuratively speaking). I thought back to last week and estimated that I roughly went four days in a row without taking my medication. A few side effects erupted from this, such as extreme irritability, overeating (awesome), inability to control my anger, and general lashing out at things completely out of my control.

Honestly, those side effects just sound like a bad day to the average person, but to a person with anxiety, it affects daily life and relationships. When the dogs whine, I scream at them. When the dishes and laundry are piled up, I cannot bring myself to take care of them even though I want to because it's too overwhelming. When P cries, I lose my shit. Like, storm out of the room type lose my shit. My anxiety level soars extremely high extremely fast when I cannot meet her needs or soothe her fast enough.

P is the victim of my irresponsibility. The thing is, is I don't want her to grow up with a mom who yells. I don't want her thinking I'm always mad at her, because I'm not. And I don't want Hubs to think all I do is yell at everyone in the house (which he does, but he forgives me and loves me anyways). It's not that I can't 'handle' things, it's that I struggle with just holding my shit together sometimes. My emotions are not directed at any particular person because of something they did, my emotions are spilled out at everything in front of me because I can be a forgetful person. No bueno.

So no, this post isn't going to be clever or witty, and there's no special lesson learned. It's a simple post. One to explain 1) toddlers are super whiny sometimes and there's nothing we can do about it, 2) parenting with anxiety makes just about every task more difficult, medicated or not, and 3) taking medication when you really need it is extremely important; it doesn't matter what other methods you use that you 'think' will cure you. #meditateonthis

So there it is. Honesty. An update on life as a working mommy to a toddler who just wants to not be such a basketcase all the time, but really can't help it. And a reminder to myself that I need to keep myself in check. P deserves the best mom, and Hubs deserves the best wife, and there is really no excuse for not delivering that.

(Note: If you are also struggling to remember to take medication, or need to keep your emotions in check, download the app called Start, currently only available in the Apple store.)

Trials

I don't consider myself a particularly 'religious' person and tend not to talk about it often, if at all, but this Sunday was different. I sat in church this past Easter, as I'm sure many of us did, listening to the message of Christ dying for our sins, and rising from the tomb and the testimony from one couple of the congregation. They were an average couple whose testimony did not necessarily jump out at me, except for one sentence: We aren't sure why God gives us the trials to go through that he does, but we know we can get through them.

I thought about this a lot throughout the service as P kept wiggling around from seat to seat. I thought about the trial we had been through together and would be lying if I told you I still wish I knew why I was chosen to suffer from mental illness, why I didn't have the strength to get help sooner, why I feared fear so much, and most of all why my prayers weren't answered every night for weeks as I laid in bed begging God to fix whatever was wrong with me.

I think a big part of religion, Christianity, and having faith, is acceptance and forgiveness. I still carry a lot of guilt as a mom for those first few months of P's life. I struggle with forgiving myself and accepting the past is the past and I can't change it, that P is growing every day and now she's too big to cuddle with (mostly because she won't let me). Yes, I have missed out on those newborn times with her, the times when I could have spent an entire day just napping with her, holding her, admiring her little fingers and toes and watching her sleep (I do sneak into her room from time to time just to catch a glimpse). No, I can never get that time back with her. I can never experience the happiness and overwhelming feelings of love and amazement as my first baby is placed on my chest for the first time. I think about this a lot. Maybe more than I should.

We don't go to church every Sunday, or even every month, but I do expose P to religion and Christianity. She has her own Bible that we read from time to time, and she has been known to fold her hands for prayer before a Holiday meal. She has witnessed baptism, although there are no plans in the near future for her own. She has attended church and celebrated Christmas and Easter. Maybe she doesn't know what it all means quite yet, but I want her to know it's okay. Religion isn't meant to be something magical where you ask for something you want and receive instant gratification. I want P to grow up knowing that God is peace. Through God, you can find acceptance and forgiveness. You can find comfort in uncomfortable times and the strength to do things you never thought you could. God will not cure you. God will not change the circumstances of your life or the people in it, but what He can do is give you the tools you need to survive this season.

The thing with trials is they are lengthy. Hello, they are trying. They are not easy. They come with ups and downs, setbacks and strides, and they come with no end date. And after the trial is through there is still the processing period. Processing what happened and why and learning to adjust back to normal life. I would like to think my trial is over and I have moved into the processing stage. I am still working towards accepting my past and forgiving myself for something I had no control over. Things happen, and as much as I would like to, I cannot change that.
 

“When you look at the past without God’s eyes, you subject yourself to deception. The past no longer exists and God doesn’t linger there. However, Satan will show you whatever you want to see and believe, so you will be trapped in an emotion that cannot communicate truth, beyond what you want to remember.” - Shannon L. Alder

Finding Peace

I remember shortly after P was born, in the midst of my struggle, my own mother telling me, "She's too little to give right now; all she can do is take." And in those first few months my mom would tell me this and I would roll my eyes because how stupid, but over the last year I have found myself saying this over and over.

{don't you just hate it when your mom is right? She really is, like, all the damn time}

So I waited for P to grow up and I wished the days away (no, I do not regret that) and wanted her to be older so she could hug me and miss me and appreciate me and give. And a few weeks ago the clouds broke and my little girl grew up. I asked her for a hug, and wouldn't you know she actually gave me one! Then she started blowing kisses. And now, she leans forward for me to kiss her tiny little forehead. I could hug that girl forever, except after about two seconds the hug is over and she pushes me away and starts pointing at a piece of lint on the floor and reaches out for that instead of me, but as soon as I ask her for a hug again, she willingly gives one.

Were the horrible days of wanting nothing to do with my baby worth it to get to this place of appreciation and love? Probably. Would I want to go through it again? Hell no.

But what I have learned is that in our short lived hugs together there is peace. When I sit with her on the floor and she builds her block towers and squeals and points for me to see it, there is peace. When she lays still in her crib while I tuck her in at night, there is peace. When we're driving home from a fun filled weekend at Nana and Papa's house and she's sleeping in the backseat, there is peace.

These moments do not happen multiple times a day. Some days are filled with cries and tantrums and her attempting to throw a toy at me because I told her no or won't let her eat my shoe, and some days are filled with boredom when she has no interest in her toys and relies solely on me or Hubs to help her climb to dangerous heights on furniture (no dear child, no). Some days are harder than others. Some days I need to walk away from her and just have a moment to myself. Some days I wish she would just watch TV and give me a break for an hour or two (too young?). Some days I get frustrated. Some (most) days I make Hubs do most of the dirty work (literally, because some of those diapers I just can't even). Some days go too slow and I count the minutes until bedtime. And some days I never want to end because I can't believe how amazing this is and I fear tomorrow will be a poop-filled, crying over my dirty shoes kind of day that I won't be able to handle.

I take those moments of peace I have with P and I tuck them away for when days like that happen. I keep them close to me for when I'm having a bad day. I remember them when I'm struggling. When P was born, she was only able to take, but I was too sick to give. I'll spend forever trying to make that time up to her and to myself, but I will find peace in knowing that I am well enough to give now, and on the days when she can't that I am more than happy for her to take.

When You Lose the Battle

I was standing by the kitchen sink. Hubs was standing next to me telling me about his day, when our two dogs entered the kitchen. And that's when it happened. My blood pressure sky rocketed, my mind went blank and I could no longer hear what Hubs was saying. I lost it. I began screaming at the dogs to get out of the kitchen, get out of my way, get out of my life, they were ruining everything and always in the way and couldn't I just please get a moment to myself for ONCE! The dogs ran away, clearly in fear. 'Why are you yelling?' Hubs stopped telling his story. Because they're always in my way and I'm sick of it! I lied. The real reason?

I didn't know.

I had no idea why I irrationally flew off the handle, flew into a rage and screamed. And that wasn't the first time, nor was it the last. Yelling was normal in our house now. I yelled (yell) constantly. At everything. At the dishes, at the laundry, at the dogs, at the weather, at the bathroom sink, at the water in the tub, the food on the floor, the dogs not eating when I wanted them to....you name it, I found a reason to be mad about it.

But it wasn't just the anger. I distanced myself from others and didn't open up much about what I was really going through. I went through the motions, but the real stuff stayed in. The stuff I wanted to say and ask and find opinions on what my friends thought was going on, but I couldn't. I wanted to know if it was normal to follow your baby around when they played and put their toys away behind them, or to constantly feel the need to be cleaning something up, to get mad when dishes weren't washed right away or put in the dishwasher, to feel utterly irked by the fact that melted snow made a tiny puddle by the door. Is it normal to be completely annoyed by a puppy wanting to cuddle with you? Was it okay that I didn't want anyone or anything touching me, unless it was P giving me a hug or sitting on my lap? Was that alright? Is it normal to go on a weekend getaway to the lake, but constantly feel the need to be cleaning something or moving? To wipe down restaurant tables after eating and tidy up? Are these just normal 'mom' things?

I honestly felt that these little quarks, these feelings, these worries and annoyances, were normal to mtoherhood.

The first time I became of how out of control I had become was when P started to fear me. I had yelled at the dogs for something or another and P started to cry. I hadn't yelled at her, she had done nothing wrong, but she felt like she had. She sat on the dining floor crying, refusing to reach her arms out to me when I tried to pick her up to comfort her. And that's when I knew. I was causing fear in my own child of me, the person that she's suppose to be able to count on, to feel safe and comforted by, to receive love from. This wasn't an end all that made me see the error of my ways. This same scenario played out multiple times and eventually P cried almost every time we were alone together. I told myself it was just a phase, but deep down I knew it was because she was afraid of my temper.

It was February 3rd, 2015 when I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression and it was August 4, 2015 when I deemed myself well enough to stop taking medication. But sometime after that things blurred. My recovery turned into anxiety and my anxiety turned into anger, an anger I couldn't control. I pushed it away and thought if I ignored it that it would fix itself. I was afraid of relapse. I was afraid of old feelings. I was afraid of letting everyone down around me that I wasn't better. I preach to women on a daily basis that they are warriors, that there is no shame in seeking help and that the sooner they get that help the sooner they would feel better. But I couldn't take my own advice. It was too hard to accept that I wasn't over this.

When I started this blog, it was mostly to help my recovery. Writing has always been an outlet for me and I thought if I could write my entire life about everything and get through it, then I can write my way through this too. Over time, my outlet turned towards a bigger cause: helping others. I wanted to be honest, even if it was embarrassing or intrusive, because I wanted other women, and society, to see the truth in PPD. So here I am again, being honest, being open and letting everyone intrude themselves into my life. I am not better. I still struggle. I find it hard to ask for help and accept when I need it. I struggled for months before giving in.

It was February 8, 2016 when I was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety and my recovery has no set end date. I won't stop fighting for this. I may have lost this battle, but I am determined to win the war.

The Silent Struggle

Ah, Wednesday. The week is half over and the weekend is almost here - wahoo!

Except.

I love work. I love getting up early, getting ready, going to work and sitting there all day, going home, playing with my baby and making her dinner and putting her to bed, then relaxing on the couch with Hubs and our furbabies. And five days of the week that is our routine. The other two days? They can be painful.

I try to stay busy on weekends. I try to leave town or make a list of errands to run to get out of the house. I need plans. What happens if I don't have a plan? Panic. Anxiety. Not because I'm Type A, but because PPD. Weekends, when nothing is happening and no one is around, are when small glimpses of maternity leave seem to creep their way back into our living room. And what happens when those memories come back to the surface? Panic. Anxiety. No, I don't burst into tears and have full blown breakdowns like before, but the anxiety stays and rises. I worry. Inside, I'm freaking out.

I spend my week brainstorming ways to leave the house on weekends. I wish I could be at work every day. Understand it's not because I don't want to be around P, because I do. I love hanging out with her and cuddling her and taking her places and watching how excited she gets when she sees something for the first time, and for that reason I cannot stand being home with her. When you're pregnant, it sounds relaxing. Baby gets older and starts to play independently while you sit on the couch and watch in awe, sipping a cup of coffee and flipping through a magazine. Maybe you imagined yourself watching a movie, or painting your nails or organizing your kitchen cupboards. Fat chance, and good luck. Once baby is here and playing independently your days (or atleast, mine) are spent chasing them around the house, putting tupperware back in cupboards, pulling them away from the dog dish, making snacks, putting down for naps, changing poopy diapers (seriously, how much can one small person poop in a day?), reading the same book 17 times, scolding them to get out of the garbage can, attempting to do the dishes only to wash one before said small person poops again.....the days can be busy. They are busy. But they can be painful and lonely. In between chasing a toddler around, there is down time, when you sit on the couch and watch them play with blocks (for about three minutes) when you don't know what to do. And those moments are frequent throughout the day. The moments come and go of being busy and moving and being productive and moments of being still and silent and panic filled.

Where does the panic come from? There is no harm in simply staying home and just not doing anything, you crazy lady. You're right. There isn't. But somehow, staying home with P and simply 'watching her' for 12 hours straight has the power to bring me to the brink of insanity. And don't think these moments are better because Hubs is there. He is. But the anxiety still happens. The anxiety does not stem from loneliness, but from the mere memories that tend to surface when I am stuck inside my home for an entire day.

There is a silent struggle. Not every day poses challenges, but each week does. I don't know if it will get easier. I don't know if it will get worse. But PPD took 9 long months to build and take over every minute of my life, and 'getting over' it I suspect is going to take many, many long months.

What I do know is that as long as I'm out, busy, experiencing, doing, everything is okay. And if the worst thing that happens is that I get a few more things on my to do list done, or experience a few extra things with my daughter, then I guess it's not so bad.