Feeling Blue

I’m gonna be very honest, I’m not in a good place writing this blog.  I feel like a bad mom, a bad wife, and a bad friend.  It’s hard to get up and participate in society when you feel like shit and worse, when you feel unworthy of being a part of the world.  I’m not trying to be dramatic or worry anyone, but I feel like this is something I need to talk about. 
I never really understood depression.  I guess it’s something that’s hard to imagine unless you’ve been through it.  I would hear people talk about their battles and feel sympathetic, but I couldn’t really put myself in their place.  I remember wondering what it must feel like to be “sad” all the time.  I put sad in quotation marks because it’s such a simplified way of describing depression.  I’m not going to pretend to know everything (or really anything) about depression, but I know how I feel and I know I’m not alone and I know it will get better, but getting through is much harder than I could have ever imagined.
It started for me a couple of months after my second son was born.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I was angry at everyone, at myself, I would cry buckets for seemingly no reason, I felt like I was a burden on the people I love; I felt so unlike myself.  I was scared.  I remember talking to my husband about it and we kind of came to the consensus that it was the hormones from having the baby and the stresses that come from growing a family.  It was also right around the time that I went back to work, and that transition was admittedly very difficult for me.  I went from being with Jason & Jon all day every day to basically just having dinner and bedtime with them.  And the alone time with my husband went from sparse to nonexistent.  I mean, we were lucky to have the 45 minutes in the car together to and from work, all while battling traffic and with very rambunctious boys in the back seat.
I went on for a couple of weeks trying to snap myself out of my bad mood.  I was short, snappy, and just very unpleasant to be around.  I didn’t recognize myself and I think that was the scariest thing of all.  Who was this weepy, mean, ugly person?
At the urging of a dear friend, I called my ob-gyn.   She was very nice on the phone, told me it was perfectly normal, and asked me if I would like a prescription for Zoloft.  I said yes and within an hour, the pharmacy was calling me to pick it up.  I’m not sure why, but the idea of taking medication to make me feel normal was really hard for me to grasp.  I think I convinced myself at that point that I was feeling better and didn’t need it.  I never picked up the prescription.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of the depression.  I continued to battle the unhappy person I was with the happy-go-lucky person I wanted to be, and the unhappy person always won.  The depression was taking its toll on my life.  My marriage was suffering, my boss had noticed a change and wanted to help, and I was afraid of the thoughts that were consuming my mind.  It is a strange feeling to not recognize the voice in your own head.  The voice that used to tell me that I was beautiful and a good person was now telling me that I was a bad Mom who was not good enough for my boys.  It was telling me that my husband was too good for me and that I should set him free to find someone better.  It was telling me that I should go away and never come back. 
At this point, I was scared enough to try anything.  For the third time in my life, I found a therapist to talk to.  She was able to see me right away and I found that talking to her helped me to sort out the thoughts in my head.  I saw her every week and after every session I felt more and more like myself.  She helped me identify the things I like about myself and the things I want to work on, not because I need to be better, but because I would like to be the best version of myself.  She stressed the importance of finding “me” time and finding time to be alone with my husband.  She is a huge believer in date nights and weekend getaways.  She helped me remember who I am and how to get back to that person. 
I’m not there yet.  This is most definitely a work in progress.  I continue to see my therapist, although it is no longer weekly.  I still have moments (like now) where I throw myself a pity party and wonder what I’m doing with my life, but overall I feel like Susie again.  Today was a hard day.  I can’t put my finger on why, but maybe I don’t need to identify the why as much as I need to recognize myself falling into that mindset so I can do things to bring myself back to happy.  My boys deserve a happy Mom.  My husband deserves a happy wife.  And I deserve to feel valid in this world. 
I struggled with writing this blog for a while.  I’ve talked about my depression with a couple of people, mostly other Moms who I felt would get me, and you know what?  They all got me.  They all understood exactly where I was coming from and shared with me that they had their own battles.  So I’m writing this for me (it is amazing what writing does to my peace of mind) and I’m writing this for them (I love you girls!) and I’m writing this for anyone who is feeling like this who needs to know he/she is not alone.  I only hope they have a support team as wonderful as mine.  <3