Monday, May 21, 2018

Under the Dome [Part 6]: The dome.

Trigger warning: The following blog posts are heavy with describing details of Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD, also including suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts and various medical procedures/complications during pregnancy and delivery. Please use caution while reading Under the Dome posts if they might trigger you.

Motherhood is so beautiful.
I have this very vivid memory that I locked away for safe keeping. It's 7am and my brand new baby is a few months old. My son was the first to wake up and the baby followed shortly after. I changed my son and opened his blinds and then went to change the baby.

The squishy new baby is flailing her arms and legs watching me as I sing song good morning and I look over to see her brother playing Lion Guard in his fleece zip up jammies. I love them. With everything I am and I think, how is this my life? How did I get so lucky to witness and feel such pure joy and happiness through my children?

That moment may seem simple, but it's the simple that is so beautiful.
Maternal mental illness takes that away from mothers. It makes everything feel like overwhelming panic. The simplest thing feels like too much and we aren't able to soak in such simplicity.

I smelled my newborn and felt happiness and for the first time ever I whispered "stay little".
I had never before wanted that. I never before was able to cherish the days and weeks of the first months or even first year at times. I memorize her tiny features and stare at her in awe instead of fear. My kids all crowd around me on the couch and I feel immense love instead of suffocation.

I am in this moment.
I am grateful.
And the only thing bringing me down is the fact that now that I know "normal", there are 2 new things breaking my heart:
1. This "normal" is what hinders people from fathoming what maternal mental illness feels like. Now I know why people who had never experienced maternal mental illness would look at me with confusion and wonder when I was overwhelmed and in a panic and unable to do seamlessly easy daily tasks.
2. Those who only experience maternal mental health problems will never know this beauty.

It feels backwards, but now, with three kids and a clear mind I feel like superwoman. I can have the house tidy and dinner on the table by the time my husband comes home. I organize, plan, and I even leave the house with all three in tow.

My therapist and prescribing doctor ward off wanting to know the "why" of this normalcy. We don't delve into it as if figuring out will make it go away. People ask me how it's possible... and I can't answer them. Medication.... lack of stressors.... lack of unnecessary responsibility? Maybe?

At my 3 month visit, it is discussed and decided that I start to wean down to a lower dose of my depression and anxiety medication. I will eventually cut the dose in half. I don't feel the need to be on such an unnecessary high dose if I don't have to be since there are withdrawal symptoms at this dosage if I don't take the medication at the exact time daily.

I am no longer locked in that dreadful, cold, dark cellar - just a shell of who I once was. I am now out in the open and it is beauty and sunshine and warmth and my children are with me... all of me.
I am happy and everything is new again. I can love the things I used to love because I am whole. I sing along to music that I had previously had no interest in.

Beautiful.
Warm.
Bright.
Loving.
Living.
I am whole.

120mg.
90mg.
60 mg.

Then a thunderous crack is heard overhead.
I look up at the sky in confusion because this is the first sign of any storm thusfar. I shrug it off. Skies can't always be perfect I suppose.
I watch the storm roll in.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
It begins to rain. Faint at first, so I barely notice.
Then a large crack of lightning and thunder rumbles deep.

Except... it is not the storm that is rumbling... it's my own voice.
Uncontrollably angry.
Anxiety spreading like wildfire through my veins.
And once more, my brain screams just run.

I am lost and confused and scared.
I drop to the ground and beg the sun to come back and once more shed light and warmth on us.
I look up to the sky and cry out...
...and that's when I see it.
There is a large crack in the sky.
But... it's not the sky that is cracked.

I look all around me and now I can see.
How could I have been so foolish to not notice this before?
I am under a dome.
A 120mg dome of protection from the storm. I brought down the dosage and weakened it. I let the storm back in.

I took a small moment to mourn the loss of what I thought was regular "normalcy". This is my normal. I can accept that. I am grateful. I take a deep breath and send a message to my doctor letting her know that the drop in medication wasn't happening anymore and that I would be going back to my full dose for the rest of the year.

Nothing is perfect anymore... that crack is still there and my dome now leaks periodically. Stress brings on a storm that I can't always shield myself from but I now know to be careful and not do more than I can handle.

So now when they ask "HOW did you do it?!" I know the answer.
The right doctors.
A supportive maternal mental health community.
And this beautiful dome.