Wednesday, January 12, 2011

You're only going to take that insulin for a few months, though, right?

Goodbye, 2010. Don't let that door hit you on the way out. Really, no need to come over ever again.

I started anti-depressants a few weeks before baby A's first birthday, and the celebration with helium-balloons, good friends, family Skyping in, and cake (which she held firmly in her death-grip) was fun. Life is settling down. I'm settling down.

How strange it is to hear your baby "crying at you" at 7am in the morning, and try your hardest to stay calm, not take it personally, and not break down in tears, and then, an hour after starting the medication (my body does at least this well...no side-effects), hearing her "just cry." It isn't "at" my, it isn't personal, I'm not struggling, I'm calm. Not getting any more sleep than before the medication, I realized just how much of my energy I had been funneling into JUST...KEEPING...IT...TOGETHER. Not falling apart, not crying when she did, not getting angry. If this isn't a chemical reaction (as opposed to the misconception of depression as emotional weakness), I don't know what is.

Honestly, I wish I'd gotten on the meds earlier. I feel like myself again, whatever that means. Granted, the question in my head now is, which "me" am "I"? Am I the depressed me or the not depressed me? Which me will I be as a result of anti-depressants, and which me will I be when I find some combination of sleep, taking care of myself, work and family that helps me be the mom and wife and adult I want to be? Maybe I'll be a bit less creative, but also have less of a brain that can't stop spinning. Maybe I'll be calmer and not cry as much, even at sad things. Maybe I'll be less emotionally embroiled with my kid and my husband and that will actually be a good thing.

I guess the meds/no-meds question, about who is the "real" me, is not much different than which is the real diabetic, the one on insulin who feels better or the one who isn't taking it and feel worse. They are both "me." Yet, when it comes to drugs that affect the brain we tend to think they are more fundamentally and detrimentally altering of some innate self. Already, I've gotten at least 4 different comments from 4 different people, about how soon I'll get of the meds. That is almost the first thing they've asked when I mention the anti-depressants. Not about how I feel now, but cautionary, "well, but you won't stay on them too long, right?"

Or else, what? Where does this instinct come from? You wouldn't say that to the diabetic. I guess there is still a strong sense of mental illness as different, temporary, and of medications as anti-true-self somehow.

In any case, I'm on meds, and I feel better. I feel calmer, and not like a tiny boat in a huge ocean storm, scared of capsizing every day. I'm not really angry much anymore. I don't cry much until something is really moving or sentimental. A plate of slightly overcooked pancakes, for instance, won't bring out the tears. And in the aftermath of how hard the last year has been, and how much I was afraid of being a monster who yelled at her baby and sometimes picked her up roughly or put her down and pouted (FINE! don't go to sleep! See if I care! Go play by yourself), I think I have a new outlook on domestic abuse.

I never thought I'd empathize with this category, but honestly, if it were for lack of trying, I don't think there would be even half the child and spousal abuse going on that there is. Forget my number, my main point is, I've felt angry, I've acted out against a baby who wasn't at fault, and I've then gone on to feel like a monster, guilty, ashamed, horrified, promising myself I wouldn't do it again. I tried more sleep, more me-time, eating better, getting more rest, putting notes all over the bathroom about trust and anger and reconnection, no caffeine, herbal teas for relaxing, herbal medications for relaxing, therapy (lots and lots of it, all useful in the long run, but none fixing the problem), and a bunch of other stuff. Just like the first time I was majorly depressed, it didn't help. Not enough. Which is why I'm medication. Because it wasn't a lack of trying. By the time I took the first pill, I'd tried and tried and tried, with my body, my mind, peer pressure, therapy, and everything else I could find. When I try, I REALLY try.

It is a bit like a turkey temperature button I once had that required the turkey come out of the oven 10 min. BEFORE the thing popped. Once I've come to a doctor for anti-depressants, I'm overdue for them. I've already been trying too hard to fix it. I don't come in soon enough.

And I think other people with anger issues that manifest against their loved ones are also trying hard. Don't get me wrong, I still think each one of us has the responsibility to do whatever possible to resolve the issues, be it chemical or other intervention. If I had hurt baby A, I would have been responsible. But the depression and things leading up to it were not my fault. And since nothing else worked in my case, I think it was my responsibility to start anti-depressants. But I no longer think of domestic abuse situations as confined to those who just don't try hard enough, or don't care. I think of them as people who sometimes have huge barriers in their way to their acting like they would like to. And unfortunately the ways over and around those barriers are sometimes the things that friends and family find unacceptable or disappointing (going to counseling, taking anti-depressants, choosing a calmer life and job, etc).

Even one of the therapists I've talked to in the last year displayed a surprising misunderstanding of this situation when she asked me "Can you promise me you won't hurt baby A?" Um, no. That is my point, why I'm sitting in your office, and intent on getting some medication. IT ISN'T FOR LACK OF TRYING!!! If I could promise you, I'd have promised myself long ago, and I'm a much harsher judge of myself than anyone else could be.

So, things have calmed down. M and I lit a candle the night after baby A's party and burned little note paper pieces in it. They were filled with the hardest things we went through last year that were most definitely not going to happen this year...being in painful labor, problems with breastfeeding, not knowing when the colic would end, not knowing when she'd stop waking 10 times a night, and so on. We started over. And so far, with Christmas and New Year's and travel and all, things have been good.