moosh in indy.

It was at this point in my pregnancy with Addie that I attempted to end both her life and my own.

Much of my life story can be told through pictures. Bad boyfriends, vacations, new friends, old friends, bad outfit choices and even worse hair choices.

But there are no pictures from that three month long period of my pregnancy with Addie.

There is really only one picture from my struggle with depression this time around. And I think it kind of speaks for itself.

It’s hard to look at, but I’m grateful I have it.

There are also no pictures from the Spring of 2009 and certainly not many pictures from late fall of 2009.

These were two of the darkest seasons of my life. Having photos from them would only proves to be a constant reminder of how much was wrong, despite everything looking right through the lens of a camera.

Camera lenses can be excellent liars in the hands of a skilled person, I perhaps am a better liar. I can plaster on a smile for a camera that would never alert you to just how broken and destroyed I am inside. But when I look back at the photo? There is a place in my heart that aches, knowing that girl in the picture was lying with her whole body.

There is one photo in particular. I can’t stand to look at it. I haven’t even bothered looking for it, it hurts too much. That I could put on that convincing of a show…

Periods of my life remain photographically dark for good reason, however when the light comes back…so do the photographs.

The first photo I took at the end of a horrible 2009 was this one…

My love for that man has continued to grow exponentially every single day since this photo was taken.

Just as I have to be so careful about the people and outside influences (mainly the media) I allow into my life no matter how healthy my brain is, I must also control what gets remembered with such permanence as a photograph.

This is a story I’d never thought I’d tell, either because it was too sacred or it would scare people off. A woman hearing voices while driving on the freeway tends to land her in the “yay! crazy!” sub genre of society. But allow me to explain.

Cody and I had been married several years. I was having some sort of early 20′s crisis over “is this it? this is all there is? an eternity more of this?” Don’t get me wrong, “this” was good, but a lifetime of Hamburger Helper (I didn’t know how to cook yet) and Friday night movies (come back Friday night movies!) seemed…well…boring.

I was talking to a friend about my crisis (I feel the needs to put air quotes around the world “crisis”) and he said “Did you ever think maybe it’s time for you guys to consider having kids?”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT!!!!!!!” with a bunch of spittle sprang forth from my mouth. “KIDS? ME? I don’t even like kids! Why would I make one of my own that I am responsible for!?” (There was also an underlying fear that I wouldn’t be able to have kids due to several surgeries to remove benign tumors from my cervix.)

But after I was done talking to him I started to think, “Kids…huh. There has to be a reason people have them.” So when Cody got home I brought the topic up. He was totally not opposed to the idea, especially considering how babies are made. But we were still unable to look each other in the face and say “Let’s make a baby.” So we decided to go to the temple separately to pray for an answer.

My drive to the temple was a sunny one, blue sky, big puffy white clouds. I was mulling this kid business over in my head as I was driving when I heard “Yay! Mom’s going to know about us!” in the tiniest sweetest little voices. To say the wind was knocked out of me would be a dramatic understatement. I’ll also say it was a good thing I was already sitting.

The tears started…”Mom’s going to know about us.” and they didn’t stop. Not when I got to the temple, not when I went through the session and especially not when I was able to bow my head in personal prayer at the end. When I finally lifted my head I noticed I was surrounded by nice old ladies who worked in the temple, worried about when the snotty lady in the corner would finish it up already and “I wonder if she’s really okay?”

I mean, there’s being touched by the spirit and then there’s being knocked flat to your knees I dare you to feel any other emotion but the overpowering love of God touched by the spirit. Whew, still wears me out to think of it almost eight years later.

I knew Cody and I had someone waiting for us. He had gotten the same answer but with far fewer emotions attached to it. Addie came into our lives within the next year (not without struggles of course) and we were happy. But I never forgot that those little voices in the car that day said “Mom is going to know about us.” Meaning more than one.

That tiny little moment filled with those tiny little voices carried me through the last six years. Addie was meant to be part of a them. Part of an us. A pair. Of course I was frustrated that I was promised an “us” and that “us” came much slower than any of us expected.

But I grew up, I changed, I learned. I was shaped by the experiences and the people I met and even now I am learning more and more about my capacity to love and hope and dream. Both of my babies have been trapped inside my broken body at some point. While they’ll never remember the experience, I will. There are times when I hug Addie and remember how we made it through one of the darkest times of my life together, literally.

The same will be true of Mozzi. That first moment I hold her I will be able to look at her and say “we did this, together.”

I was talking with a beloved friend this last week and she mentioned that her first baby was her heart and her second baby was her soul.

Addie is my whole heart and everyday with Mozzi inside me the capacity for my soul to thrive grows.

I will never be able to thank them enough for letting me know about them before I even knew of my capabilities and blessings that would result from being their mom.

I have been medicated for almost two weeks. “They” say that it takes about 21 days for any new treatment to really make a difference. Hopefully “they” are right, because while I do feel much better and Cody hasn’t come home to me crumpled in a corner sobbing for two weeks…I still feel as though I am watching instead of fully participating in my life.

You need to give yourself time to get better. I need to give myself time to get better. In a perfectly medicated world I would be able to take a pill and 2 to 3 hours later be fully participating in life. Like when I would take vicodin tylenol for cramps. But the brain doesn’t work that way. Emotions don’t work that way. The best way I can think to describe it is when Addie was six weeks old I tried to go out for a night of dancing, dining and general merriment. I could barely keep myself upright. Babies eat your abdominal muscles for lunch and just because the baby has been out for six weeks doesn’t mean your abdominals are back to their pre baby dancing shape. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

The same with depression. It eats your brain for lunch, knocks you to your knees and until you hit rock bottom where the ground is cold and hard and slimy you can’t begin to work your way back up. Even more importantly you can’t work your way back out quickly. Even with medication.

Imagine being trapped in a 1,000 foot jello mold with nothing but a toothpick to get yourself out. You can see a blurry reality through the jello and so you start digging your way out with your toothpick. If you have someone supporting you, your toothpick can be bumped up to a chopstick. If you choose to go to a doctor for help your chopstick becomes a plastic spoon. As you continue on with your therapy your plastic spoon becomes a wooden spoon and soon it turns into a ladle. Digging has become easier, but you still have a lot of digging to do to make it to the sunshine on the other side.

Right now I feel as though I have a sturdy wooden spoon in my hand (I also suddenly have an insatiable craving for red jello) and I can’t thank the friends around me who have jumped into the jello with me with their toothpicks made up of dinners, encouraging notes, baked goods and emails that have helped me dig my way out with just a little more spunk.

I have to remind myself that I have a lot of people relying on me to get this right. Especially mozzi. To try and speed up my recovery wouldn’t be fair to her. I have to heal properly. I have to recover as fully as I can. I have to be whole when she’s placed in my arms.

A giant jello mold is no place for babies.

I feel I need to mention that my last OB dyed his hair black and on regular occasion missed enormous graying chunks. He sang a little song to the nurses in the delivery room as he was suiting up to get Addie out and he had a total Tom Selleck mustache.

I’m taller than my current OB, weighed more than him when I was 12 years old and he has crazy Willem Dafoe eyes. He also sports a curly gray mullet.

(I’m not going to mention the OB/GYN that thought it was an excellent idea to put me on Lupron. Besides, he was boring looking with a dead fish handshake and a striking resemblance to my sister’s ex-boyfriend. Well. Okay, so I just mentioned him, but parenthetically so it doesn’t count as much.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to be depressed. I mean, it’s inevitable and recurring for so many people so we may as well be good at it, right? Since there’s no snapping out of it and it will eventually end (seriously, it will end.) I may as well have a battle plan in place so I don’t try to do too much or maybe even worse, do too little.

Cody always tells me to “distract myself” so I’m not sitting around wallowing (sleeping) in my sorrows. Distracting yourself when you have very little interest in the world around you can prove to be difficult, but there are a few things that work for me. One of them being cleaning my laptop. It’s very cathartic to go through and delete duplicate files, format your hard drive and back up your entire computer to an external hard drive. I may not have control over my mental hard drive, but I can own my macbook’s. I also do my nails. Not anything fancy. Just trimming, filing and painting with clear polish. Doesn’t require much movement but leaves me with tangible evidence that not everything about me is ugly. (I normally involve my toes too but it’s getting really difficult to reach them.)

Now TV and the Internet can be detrimental to anyone struggling in their brain. I realized a long time ago that violent movies and television shows deeply affect me. As much as my crush on Christopher Meloni rings strong and true, I cannot watch Law & Order SVU. I also do not watch rated R movies, even when I feel okay. I truly believe that sheltering my brain from the sights and sounds of anger, profanity and violence benefits me immensely. However, there are plenty of good shows out there that don’t have a negative affect on me (The Ellen Show for example) and when things are really bad, there’s this entire subgenre of dance/music/talent fight movies that are horribly entertaining to me yet require no emotional involvement on my behalf. (See: Drum Line, Stomp the Yard, Bring it On, Stick It, Center Stage, Step Up, Step Up 2 and the latest cinematic achievement, Step Up 3D.)

Same rules above apply to books. (Which is why Stieg Larsson books are not on my “to read” list. I realize a lot of you will argue “BUT THEY’RE SO GOOD!” I believe you. But they’re not good for me.)

Many of you have to get up and go to work. Many of you miss work because of mental illness, which leaves you at home, horizontal. Sleeping the day away. I get it. Sleep is the single best escape when your brain is hurting and broken. I really have no advice here…because I love sleep. But at least try to distract yourself first, or between naps. And eat. And shower. (Crying in the shower is way better than a lot of other places you could be crying, doesn’t matter if your face gets all splotchy and snotty, it washes right off. And the temptation to use your pillowcase, sleeve or dirty laundry as a tissue is taken away. You’re also alone. Usually. I’m looking at you Addie.)

I am medicated. Unfortunately one of the major side effects is nausea so I’ve been thrown back into bucket hugging mode for the time being. I also feel it very important to say that I hate, H-A-T-E going to the doctor for help. Especially a new doctor. I’m grateful that they are there, but never once have I skipped into an office with joy thinking “OH GOODY! ANOTHER STRANGER I GET TO TELL MY DEEPEST DARKEST FEARS AND THOUGHTS TO!” And medication. I hate it. I hate taking that pill. I hate that I need it. I always have. It’s never gotten easier, even when I know that it is not my fault that I feel this way. So for those of you who hate getting help and taking that pill too? You’re not alone.

I am getting better. And I have every single one of you to thank for it.

So thank you.

My dad does this thing where if I complain about something he comes back with “Well at least you…”

“It’s so hard having Cody gone at school all the time.”

“Well at least you know where he is, he’s not off in Afghanistan somewhere getting shot at.”

“Addie won’t sleep, she’s up crying every night and I don’t know what to do.”

“Well at least you have a baby, imagine all those moms with dead babies.”

We all kind of hate it. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s true or because it hurts so bad to be told your pain and difficulties aren’t all that valid because someone out there has it worse.

I remember in high school a time that I took a lot of pills. A lot. I’m not entirely sure what my goal was in doing it, I was an angsty teenager desperate for attention. I remember arguing with my mom, her berating me for being so distant, when I told her about the pills. She got this look on her face, so disgusted with me. All she could say was “Why the hell would you do that?”

There came a point in my relationship with my mom that I wouldn’t talk to her without a licensed therapist between us. She got us in with someone and when that someone came to the conclusion that something more needed to be done, medicinally,we never returned to the therapist again.

Obviously these are my memories of occasions, I’ve never really discussed them at length with either of my parents. And it’s not my intention to hurt them or paint them in a bad light. They were both raised so differently than one another and I realized a long time ago that there comes a point where I can’t blame my parents anymore because my life isn’t what I expected. They both did the best they knew how with the anomaly that was me.

When I was younger I could mask the pain I’m feeling now with alcohol, drugs and boys. I still remember the first time I had to face my real feelings head on without the perceived safety of reckless behavior.

It was like running full force into a brick wall.

That is how it still feels when I come up against this.

There’s no easy way to cover up this kind of pain and sadness. There’s no bandaid for depression. Alcohol and drugs were crutches for me, they held me above the misery long enough to get through another day.

When it comes to depression there’s only a very long, ugly, dark and uncertain road back to a place you think you remember.

I don’t know why this disease chose me. I don’t know how bad mine is compared to every one else’s but I don’t really care.

I hurt right now. And there’s no quick and easy way out of it that won’t cause pain to either myself or those around me.

The only way is through.

And I’m fighting like hell to make it.

It feels as though there are invisible hands choking me.

The grip is tighter sometimes than others.

At this moment? It’s tight. I’m afraid to move for fear of it truly overtaking me again like it did on Friday.

It gets tighter when Cody isn’t next to me. And at the moment he’s not. And tomorrow he’ll be back at work.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

Some may say codependency, I say he’s the only safe thing I know when the real me is lost.

I’ve been slinking around the Internet reading the words so many of you have written. I want so desperately to be able to reach out to you, to help you the way you’ve helped me. I occasionally stare at twitter and skype wanting so badly to get involved with my friends and with people whom I’ve never met who are pulling for me. But it doesn’t last. I can’t keep it up.

Maybe you know what I mean?

And sleep isn’t coming easily. Which makes this even harder for me. Being wide awake with my misfiring brain when the rest of the world is fast asleep? It’s hard. Last night an owl kept me company. Which in theory sounds like a lovely thing to have keep you company, but if you’ve never heard an owl? They’re unsettlingly loud. Add the whole dark mysterious forest in the back yard to to equation and I kind of miss the fire trucks, modified mufflers and domestic battles that lulled me to sleep in the city.

This time is hard. Because I don’t know how or when it’s going to end. Or what the future holds for my brain. So much talk goes around about postpartum depression, and I didn’t do so well last time. But if you’re one of the lucky ones who has exasperated antenatal depression? Well. It’s kind of like coming up with a battle strategy for leaving the fire for the frying pan, where you have to bring a tiny little baby and your family along with you.

I want desperately to be worrying about nursery colors and arranging bitty baby clothes, not “How am I going to make it to Friday?”

I am grateful for the tiny little reprieve I got between the shock, the worry, the transition, the sickness, the something may be wrong, the anxiety and now this. My memory is pretty talented to have blocked out so much of what I went through the first time. It covered my postpartum fears with delivery fears and it covered those with antenatal depression fears. It then covered those fears with the fear of miscarriage or something being wrong. Those were covered up with the deep and abiding fear of being sick while the whole situation was covered in the giant overwhelming fear that I would never have another baby of my own to rock to sleep.

As I tear through the layers, vividly remembering each one I also remember there’s a reason I wanted to do this again. There’s a reason people have more babies. There’s a reason people fight and spend and never give up hope to get babies here.

Which also reminds me. Baby books, especially the parts about delivery? Are not a comforting distraction when your brain is wrecked.

This never will be easy for me, but at least someone promised me somewhere along the way that it would be worth it.

(At 1:31…just watch it.)

Even the soap is bossy.

I am not well.

I have over 300 unread and unresponded to emails.

I collapsed in Cody’s arms today.

I kept thinking I could pull myself out. I just needed one more day.

But this isn’t going away this time.

And it’s bad.

Addie is witnessing it first hand, her empty shell of a mother.

Mozzi is living right in the middle of it.

And all Cody can do is watch.

But a doctor, a doctor can do more.

And that’s exactly where I’m headed.

For anyone who’s wondered if they’re the only one that has had to stay silent and focused on something while someone else was around so you wouldn’t start inconsolably crying? You’re not.

To anyone else who has wondered if they’re the only one who has held their breath while being hugged so that they wouldn’t have the breath to let a muffled sob? You’re not.

Choking back tears is exhausting. But sometimes letting them go is even more tiresome because once they come they won’t stop and most of the time you’re just left with itchy puffy eyes and a cry headache.

I’m not sure what’s happening to me this time around. Weather? Holidays? Pregnancy? Honest to goodness chemical imbalance knocked even more off balance by the previous three troubles?

I’m not afraid to ask for help and I’m not ashamed to accept it.

I just really wish I didn’t need it.