Nothing is so personal as an individuals inner struggle. Something they feel too ashamed to admit, as if others will think they're a crazy nut. Depression is a mental illness, and no, people that suffer from it are not crazy. They are not only struggling to climb a mountain, they also have a mountain chained to their back while they are trying to do it.
I am not quite totally sure when depression started for me. I think for me there was a predisposition that life events set into motion. My mother was depressed, not clinically diagnosed, but she spoke of her high school days as clouded by feelings of depression. Looking back on my younger days and remembering her sometimes irrational irritability I know it was depression even into her mid life and beyond. My mom was a wonderful, loving woman, but she struggled as we all do.
Do I worry about my children being predisposed to depression? Absolutely, but I trust in a loving God who will tend to his little sheep. I often ask the Holy Family to fill in the gaps of my mothering and parenting with their love and mercy. I entrust my children to their Sacred Hearts. I think the real onset that I can remember, was the death of my father my sophomore year in high school. I tend to be a stuffer of feelings and a friend of my mother's made the comment that she was worried about me because I didn't cry at my father's funeral, I was oddly emotionless. Which, I think was my normal reaction to loss, but I never dealt with the loss, never talked about it. I stuffed everything neatly away, feelings only escaping in my poetry every now and again. But those feelings were uncomfortable, so stuffed back in they went. Over the years I have experienced the loss of my parents, one of my siblings, and 4 pregnancies. But, I'm in a better place now spiritually to be able to deal with all these things.
I was clinically diagnosed with depression somewhere around my freshman/sophomore year of college. I was started on anti-depressants and started talking to a counselor. I really didn't have much luck with counseling because I didn't want to face my inner struggles, they hurt too much. I was stuck, but at least the anti-depressants enabled me to function and "live" life. Really for years I floated through life. It was as if I was watching my own self through a looking glass go through the mundane, daily routines of life. I was existing, but not really living.
A couple of points along the way I decided I didn't need anti-depressants any more and weaned off. Doing OK for a while, until I had my first child. That's when Post Partum Depression hit me like a Mack truck. Of course I didn't realize that's what it was in the beginning. However, as the baby neared the 9-10 month old mark and started to be more demanding of more than just holding, feeding, and changing, my symptoms increased 10 fold. I talked to my OB who recognized what I was going through and started me on anti-depressants. After about a month the fog started to lift and I was functioning again. I chose Zoloft because that is the safest SSRI to take while breastfeeding. I honestly think breastfeeding saved my relationship with my son. I was forced to hold him close, my body was flooded with bonding hormones with all the skin to skin. I was forced to reach outside of myself for another person. When I am depressed I want to be left alone, I want to sink inside of myself. I do not want any demands placed on me, physically, emotionally, or otherwise. I don't hate life, but feel it's a cumbersome burden to live. Life becomes suffocating, because you see depression isn't just internal, but it clouds the world around you. You view the world through depression goggles. Darkness is all around you, and sometimes there isn't even a glimmer of light.
My relationship with God was very dry during this period. I went to mass, sometimes even daily mass, but I felt as disconnected with God as with everything else in my life. Who ever He was, He wasn't helping me. It was like He stuck me out in the desert, left with no food or water, miles away from anywhere. But like with my son I plowed through. I kept going to mass, went to adoration every so often and when a women's group called Familia started in my parish I signed up. I think that's the key when you're stuck in the middle of the desert. To keep going, to plow through. It's painful, messy, frustrating, and exhausting. However, you will find the light again if you fight through the darkness. I started talking to a new counselor. I didn't feel like doing anything. Doing the dishes felt like asking me to run a marathon. Taking a shower felt like asking me to fly to the moon. So I was asked to make a list. Start off with one thing. Yes, I didn't want to do it. Yes, it would feel like climbing Mt. Everest. But, I was assured it would gradually get easier. It did, but even today I have to remind myself, one step, one day at a time.
My husband through all of this has sometimes been loving, sometimes been impatient, most of the time doesn't understand what's going on with me. But he's still here, he's stayed by my side. He doesn't verbalize it, but I know deep down he can tell when I'm having good weeks and bad weeks. He's learning his perception and mood of me and around me can make or break me.
During this past and 4th pregnancy, I made the difficult decision to remain on anti-depressants. I weaned down to the lowest does possible and remain there still 15 months post partum. I'm still on this journey but I've come along way. I am striving and feel closer to God than I have in a long time. I view depression as a suffering. It's my particular cross to carry. Suffering isn't always a bad thing. It transforms you and grows you into the person God meant you to be. I think the key for me has been to constantly turn toward God and rely on him. I constantly ask God to shower his graces on me. I unite my suffering with His suffering on the cross. Prayers offered up in the midst of suffering are especially powerful. Every time I feel myself sinking further and further into myself I reach out to help someone else. I have taken on the personal apostolate of meals for others. In my home educators community there are many meal trees. This is my way of reaching out beyond myself. I struggle reaching out beyond myself, especially to my own family. With many young children clamoring for a piece of me, it is easy to want to shrink away. To say, don't make demands on me. Don't ask me to hold you one more time, I'm all touched out. Don't ask me to get you something to eat, I can't even get it together to get myself a cup of coffee.
I remind myself, I am serving Christ, I am serving Christ. To tell myself, I don't want to, but we'll do one thing at a time. Sometimes I fall, sometimes a lot, but I pick myself up. That is the one thing I've learned to do. To pick myself up after I fall, not just lay there in surrender. We all muddle through life struggling with this or that. We are not called to suffer and wallow and scratch out a meager existence. We are not to live out our entire lives on the cross. We are to live for the Resurrection. Joy without suffering is as meaningless as suffering without joy. Where I am today, was and still is hard fought. Some days I struggle to maintain my footing, but I look at the cross and the example there of pure, burning love. I know then my cross and struggle with depression will lead me to an incredible Resurrection. Dona Nobis Pacem.
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