The D word

I skated through my teens and most of my twenties without every struggling with mental health stuff. I had my days where I felt down, sure. But mostly those were circumstantial. I was in a fight with a friend. Stressed over school. Missing my family. Normal stuff.

A few weeks after Jude was born I remember one night when my family was in town for Christmas. Jeffrey and I were going on a date to one of our favorite places. I had a dress on. I curled my hair. I had been excited about this all day. I snuck away to the bedroom before we left to nurse Jude. As I sat in bed feeding him, I felt this wave wash over me. All of the excitement I had felt minutes beforehand just disappeared. And I couldn’t figure out why. I felt hopeless. Like I didn’t have anything to look forward to, despite our date and my favorite day of the year being less than a week away. It was confusing and I didn’t have words for it because it didn’t make sense. I shoved the feeling down, finished nursing, and went on our date.

This was the start of what turned into a year-long battle with postpartum depression. I didn’t know it when I was in it. I just wrote off to a hard adjustment to two kids, and my hormones readjusting. But looking back, it was not normal. I slowly became a shell of the person I used to be. I would wake up and feel so overwhelmed by the day, before it even started. I kept telling Jeffrey, “I need more support. I need help.” Which I didn’t really know what that meant, I just knew I couldn’t handle life as it was. So we hired a few girls to help with the kids a few times a week, thinking that would solve the problem. But it didn’t. I still woke up feeling overwhelmed most days. I would look at the clock starting at 2pm and count the minutes until Jeffrey would get home from work. I couldn’t stand to be alone. I cried a lot. Jeffrey and I fought more than usual, without really knowing what the fights were about. It was a dark year, and I never once said out loud the word depression. I didn’t know that’s what it was. I didn’t get counseling. I didn’t really talk about it with anyone else, because I just thought this was normal life. This is how every young mom feels right?!  I felt ashamed that I couldn’t handle it. I watched friends with more kids or more responsibility get by without help, yet I was struggling so badly to just make it to 5pm everyday. I was angry at myself, and I felt weak. I doubted my role as a mom. As a wife. I convinced myself the quick fix solution would be to move back to Michigan to be by my family. I thought that would solve all my problems. I thought I wouldn’t feel so alone then. I grew resentful of where God had me. Angry at the portion I had been given.

The craziest thing is that in the midst of this all I started to believe this lie. Twisted theology. Nothing I would acknowledge with my out loud voice. Or ever say in the context of a bible study. Or even admit to myself. But what I was started to believe was that God was not good. Oh I knew he was “good”, in the big sense of the word. But when it came to me? No. He was letting me suffer. He didn’t hear my prayers for help. My cries of loneliness. He might be all loving and his plan might be perfect, but when it came to my life he had abandoned me in this place of hopelessness and darkness.

It’s really only until recently that I’ve been able to look back and see any of this with some form of clarity. We got away for New Years Eve this year, just Jeffrey and I. We had planned to spend time thinking and dreaming about 2018 and the goals we had for our marriage, our family, and for ourselves. I love this stuff. I printed out something I found online called “6 Questions to ask on New Years Eve” and was so excited to go through each one with Jeffrey on the car ride over to the Bay Area. Well it turns out I didn’t read the questions very closely because they weren’t about 2018 at all. It was entirely focused on the past year. You should have seen me in the car when I realized this. “I don’t want to reflect. I want to talk about next year and dream and set some freaking goals!” It hit me as I said those words that maybe, there was a reason I didn’t want to reflect. Maybe there was some real stuff I needed to process but had been avoiding.

So we dove in to the questions. We slowly started unpacking the year, and we realized for the first time that it was a hard year. We talked about ways we had wanted to grow, but didn’t. We talked about how our marriage had been really stretched, and we were feeling hurt by each other in a lot of ways that were unvoiced. We picked out wordswe felt like described our year—words like exhausting. Defeated. Long-suffering. This was really the moment I realized through looking back that I didn’t just have a “difficult time adjusting”. It was something much deeper than that. For the first time we realized that I may have been struggling with symptoms of postpartum depression.

 It was like once I said it, and started reading about it everything clicked. Even that moment nursing Jude was actually explained, and it even has a name! (Dysphoric Milk Reflex, FYI) Over a few weeks, God reminded me of women who had mentioned to me previously in passing that they struggled with PPD, and I decided it was time to reach out and start opening up. So I started meeting with women, and hearing their stories, and I felt like I was coming up for fresh air. I finally had words to describe how I had felt, and encouragement on where to go. On the next right step.

I scheduled a counseling appointment. I started writing again. I cancelled our weekly sitters, and instead joined a gym with childcare. The kids and I go a few times a week and just getting my heart rate up has helped clear my head and help with mental health. Jeffrey and I spent weeks going through our house and getting ride of the clutter, anything that wasn’t necessary or that we didn’t love. We created space to breathe and added plants to each room to help with the winter gloom (this is real thing you guys). A few weeks ago our house group met up again after a month long hiatus for the holidays. During the prayer time with the girls, I opened up about struggling with depression and asked for prayer and support in taking better care of myself.

I picked up the phone and called some of my girls, the ones who I somehow let too much time pass since the last time we caught up, and I cried over the phone, sharing with them the darkness of this past year and allowing them in to sit with me in that place. And Jeffrey. We have committed to keep this conversation open. To be checking in more with each other, and not let so much time pass if things start to go downhill again. 

All of this was messy. There was no solution or bow on any of it. I was simply honest with where I currently am. I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve done that. I tend to pride myself on being vulnerable, but most of the time it’s transparency once I’ve come out on the other side and have eloquent things to say about what I learned through “that hard thing”. But what I realized is that real community is born through these moments. The present struggles. The “please pray for me right now because I’m in the thick of it” requests. It’s funny that I haven’t learned this yet.

It reminds me of one of my favorite passages in the bible from Luke 5. It’s the story of the paralyzed man on the mat. He has a group of friends who decide to help him, by carrying him to Jesus. But turns out they can’t get to Jesus because of how crowded the house was that Jesus was at. So they come up with a plan to climb onto the room, lift their paralyzed friend up there somehow, and then lower him down through the ceiling so he can get in front of Jesus. Man I love this story. It spurs me on to be that kind of friend. The friend that’s willing to drop whatever she’s doing, to be there. To help carry my friend’s burdens.

But have I ever let someone carry me in that way? No I want to be the one carrying. I don’t want to be the one on the mat. The needy one. The weak one. But that has been me these past few months. And funny enough, that is where I have found the truest intimacy with others. This is where I’ve found community is born.

I love what scripture says next. It says Jesus saw their faith, and healed him. Their faith. I never noticed that word. It makes me want to bawl as I’m writing this. Because I have experienced this, or at least the beginning of it. My healing has been a collective effort. To my girlfriends. Our conversations, your check-ins, your prayers from afar and from near.  You’ve seen me and loved me right where I am.

Your faith has healed me.

To my local church body: you have given me places to be vulnerable. You’ve sat across me in coffee shops and living rooms and you’ve listened. You’ve shared your stories and that has breathed life back into me and made me feel less alone.

Your faith has healed me.

To my family. You are far yet in these past few months you have stepped in closer. You know the whole picture. I don’t fear being known with you.

Your faith has healed me.

And to Jeffrey, the one who has experienced the darkness with me, the one who’s been the most impacted by my depression, the one who I’ve probably hurt the most this past year. You have been faithful. You have been constant. You have been full of grace.

Your faith has truly healed me.

Thank you all for being those people who’ve surrounded my mat, lifted me, and fought the crowds to bring me before Jesus.

As much as I would love to rewrite this past year, to erase the depression from my story, I have seen the gospel lived out more clearly because of it. I have learned to be honest with God about my doubts and to name the lies I believe. I have seen the power of prayer as people surrounded me. I have seen his goodness and his grace on my life, and am slowly starting to rewrite those lies, to apply truth to myself. That despite circumstances God is good, and he sits with me, even in those places of darkness.

There may yet be HOPE. -Lamentations 3:29