Things that help me as a stay-at-home mom with depression

I've always loved being out of the house and being busy in my days. In fact, one of the quickest ways to know if I'm feeling severely depressed is usually I stay home and don't do a whole lot. Those are usually my darkest times. So it was a bit of a blow to me when Micah was diagnosed with Hirschsprung's Disease and I realized it would be longer than I anticipated before I returned to school and work. 

It can be hard to keep afloat in the midst of depression as a stay-at-home mom. I've often felt overwhelmed and trapped staying home. Where I used to want to stay out until I absolutely had to be home, I find myself not having the energy to go out much even if I could. There are some things that have helped me mold my environment to my needs, however, and I thought I would share them. 

1. Make time to take care of yourself. This is advice you'll receive a lot, but it's important to actually take it to heart. As a mom I find myself putting myself on the bottom to the totem pole all the time. I've put my family above my own health frequently. A couple times that stand out to me have been times my son has been hospitalized. I went to the NICU every day for a month from 8 am until almost 9 at night. Since I had just given birth this was especially hard on my body and I became ill and worn out. Another time was when he was 4 months old and I slept every night at the hospital as well as spending the days there. I ended up very sick and having to go home one night, much to my displeasure. When I got back the nurses told me they had been very worried about me and could see I was pushing myself too hard. 

I should have realized that part of taking care of my family meant taking care of my emotional and physical well being. You simply can't be the mother and wife you want to be when you aren't at your best. Now I take a little bit of time every day for myself. Whether it be taking a long bath, working out, painting my nails or simply taking a little while to lay down and watch a show I do make sure to take it for myself. It's amazing how much it boosts my mood to even just get ready every day. 

2. Make a schedule. I've found that I thrive when I have structure. What this looks like in my life is having a schedule and to do lists. If I can see on paper what I need to get done in the day it really helps me to achieve it. It feels great to cross things off my list. Even more than that I enjoy having a schedule I can count on every day. I like to plan ahead, and if things are last minute or changed for some reason I am more prone to anxiety. 

This isn't to say you shouldn't be flexible. As a mom it's important to know that things don't always go as planned. A schedule just helps give me a little bit of security and to ensure I allow myself time to do things I enjoy as well as chores I need done. It also helps me be more motivated during the day and keep busy. Keeping busy is one way I keep myself from getting too stuck inside of my own head. 

3. Don't isolate yourself. I struggle with this one a lot. It's easy as a stay-at-home mom to keep to yourself. This only fuels the feelings of being trapped and lonely, though. Something that helps me is to try getting together with friends that I have similar interests with. Whether it's setting a play date for us and our kids, or going to the park with Micah and their dog it gets us out of the house and allows for socialization. It's currently one of my goals to try to meet more friends my age to get together with. Never stop trying to branch out and meet new people to enrich your life. 

4. Know that you are doing something incredibly important. Being a stay-at-home mom often makes me feel useless. I feel like I'm not contributing to our household, especially when I see bills. I feel badly using the money I feel I didn't earn. We need to remind ourselves that not only are we contributing to our family, we are building our homes and our children. We give our husbands a place to come home to and we have the opportunity to raise our children each and every day. We know the most about our kids and what is best for them. I have a deep respect for working mothers and how they juggle so many responsibilities, I often wish I was working, but it is also important to realize that we are contributing as well.

5. Know you are not alone in these feelings. In reading other blogs and joining in on mothering forums the biggest comfort I have received is the realization that I am not the only one feeling this way. There is no need to resent yourself for feeling this way, it's completely normal. Try joining a group for moms online, or even just talking to other moms you know. 

Pros and Cons

I have decided it's time to push myself more with the blogging I do. Mainly because I write sporadically with months of time in between. I suppose I just feel like I don't have anything to write that people would be interested in. That is why I found a list of blogging challenges that I'm going to do with topics for blogging!

So here we go... *deep breath*

Today's topic is: What I've gained - and lost - by taking a risk. 

When I read this the first thing that popped into my head was my recovery. When I was in treatment (for depression, self harm, eating disorders, ptsd, drug abuse, and anxiety) we were often encouraged to write pro's and con's lists for decisions we were making. So when I read what the topic was it reminded me a lot of that. For much of my stay in treatment I'm not sure I was in the right mind set to make the objective lists that they were asking for, but it is a habit that has stuck with me. 

What I've lost:

My body: In recovering from my eating disorders I've put on a lot of weight. There's no other way to say it, recovery meant gaining weight. I had ignored my body for so long that I had destroyed my metabolism and my body essentially doesn't trust me (as my nutritionist put it). I get very upset because my husband will tell me that I don't eat enough, and yet it's hard to think that's true when I look in the mirror and see somebody who is overweight. I've been working on losing the weight in healthy ways, but I have a very hard time recognizing what is a healthy way to lose weight and what is not. There have been times where I have gone a day without eating, or taking too many diet pills, and I have to stop and pull myself out of that mind set. The loss of the body I once had is probably the one I mourn the most. I think about it every day, sometimes for much of the day. I know that bottom line is that the anorexia ruined my body, not recovering... but it is a difficult thing to deal with. A jump from 110 pounds (my lowest) to 200 pounds (my highest during pregnancy) is not something many people with eating disorders is comfortable with...

Friends: When you've spent years participating in self destructive behaviors it usually works out that most of your friends are doing the same things. I found that after recovery many of my friends no longer seemed excited to be around me. When we would get together they seemed uncomfortable. And then, after a while, they stopped calling or texting completely. It felt like I had done something wrong, but in reality we just didn't have much in common anymore. I remember my best friend had given me my first razor. We would show each other our scars and talk about how good it felt. We talked about how suicide made sense, and even encouraged each other with our eating disorders. After I recovered I found out that the person who had felt like a sister to me, more like another part of me than anything else, was somebody I didn't know how to talk to anymore. I still miss her.

My identity: This sounds a bit dramatic, but feels true. After I recovered I had to basically find out who I am. For many years what defined me was black clothes, depression, sad music and drugs. It also didn't help that most of the day I was either counting calories, working out, or thinking about food. I was your basic emo. When I recovered I didn't know who I was anymore. Eventually I found songs that I now relate to, and hobbies I now enjoy. The way I am with people is probably very different as well. I used to be a lot louder.... kind of everywhere. Even though I have more confidence now I did use to act more sure of myself. Now I'm probably more careful. Not exactly timid.... but not as much... well, MUCH as I was. 

Coping skills: Although they were unhealthy, many of the things I was giving up were the only coping skills I knew. Whenever I felt sad or anxious those were the things that made me feel better. It took much longer than during treatment to make healthy coping skills a habit in my life. For a while I felt confused, or like a caged animal not knowing exactly what to do when I was feeling intense emotions. I knew options that I had been given, but none of them felt right so eventually after a lot of panic I would relapse into old habits. In recovery I have now found new and healthier ones.

What I've Gained

Friends: While I do have less friends than before, I have better friends now. I know these friends will support me in being healthy and happy. These are the friends that are loyal to me and care about me as a person. I'm okay with having less as long as I have them.

Peace: My mind no longer feels like it's at war with itself. I am more capable of handling the emotions I have.  

Health: Well, sort of. I do still have a few health problems left over from when I was being unhealthy. Many of them, though, have either gone away or gotten a bit better with time. 

My family: I know that if I was still doing the things I was then I wouldn't be able to be the wife and mother I am now. Or, possibly, at all. I know for certain I wouldn't be with the man I'm with now. And it makes it so incredibly worth it when I see my son excited to see me every morning. 

My Life: When I left treatment it was against the advice of the team that I go home. I was meant to go on to a bigger hospital, and they were very sure I was going to die. They told me they were sad because they couldn't see me succeeding without further help. It took a lot of hard work, and now they are all very happy that I proved them wrong. I'm alive, and more than that I'm actually LIVING now. 

My life isn't consumed with depressive thoughts and counting calories, it's filled with beautiful experiences. It's filled with my son's smile and my husband's hugs. It's filled with everyday simple things that make me so incredibly happy. I still struggle with things, my depression and eating disorders especially, but now they're in the background of my life instead of front and center. I'm able to keep those thoughts as background noise instead of the center of my life by practicing the things I learned in treatment. A lot of my healing really was time and waiting it out. Part of why recovery was so hard is because it called for a lot of inaction. When I wanted to purge or over exercise I needed to be in the moment and okay with being at peace. That was incredibly hard for me. It took over a year of feeling manic a lot of the time because I felt so lost at how to deal with emotions I was having. After a while of not doing those unhealthy things it became slightly easier to practice new and healthier coping skills. The things that felt unnatural are now second nature. It's hard every day when I feel like I physically NEED my old habits. Sometimes not doing those things feels like holding your breath for too long. Like I need them to live and be able to cope. With every passing year, though, it gets easier and easier to say no. I find new things and reasons in life to make recovery worth while. I got my life back through recovery, and I'm thankful to every person who helped and supported me along the way. 

*Picture of me during treatment*

*current picture of me*

My Best Friend

Yesterday, as some of you know, my husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Even though it came at an incredibly stressful time, it was just nice to be with him. I would have spent the day anywhere with him as long as we were together. Since we've been together for a year, and since I'm doing this blog, I thought I would post our story.

Urian and I met in my junior year of high school. I was dating somebody else, and quite honestly I didn't have those kinds of feelings for him. Being around him, however, made me happy and boosted my self-esteem. He was so open in his feelings for me, and even though I didn't return them this made me feel good. Who doesn't like somebody who is goofy in their love for you and compliments you freely, right? No, it wasn't fair to him. I regret not setting him straight earlier than I did every day. I regret that I didn't chase after HIM, quite frankly. I was in high school girl mode, though, and my boyfriend was a handsome, athletic football player. And even though he didn't make me happy, and he never made me feel good about myself, I felt like others envied me. 

And others did envy me, they told me that they did. I was thin, I was talented on the flute, I was talented at acting, and I could make others laugh quite easily. People knew my name, and they would tell me that they envied me having such a good relationship with my boyfriend. Because in public we were an "It" couple, even if we weren't when we weren't around people. I was depressed, and even though I only weight 120 pounds (which is actually considered underweight for my bone structure, muscles, and height), I felt fat. I didn't only FEEL fat, I was told by my boyfriend that it was going to be a condition of our relationship to lose weight. 

Now, mind you, I'm no longer struggling with the things I'm about to talk about. I am a much bigger weight, and I'm actually working to lose weight because I need to. Birth control will do that to ya, mkay? I was a healthy weight and without changing my routine or what I ate I ballooned. It sucks. Anyway, the above pictures are of me my junior year, that is why they apply. 

I was frantic to lose weight, at the time. I felt absolutely huge, and even though I ran for an hour every day I felt fat and unhealthy. I started to save up my Adderall, and when I had enough of it I took 3x the dose I was on per day. I did this because it sped up my metabolism and made me not hungry. I stopped eating, and when I had to eat because my family was watching I would throw it up. I knew I had a problem, and I knew that it was wrong. Honestly, I didn't care. I didn't care one bit about the health risks or the psychological reasons. I'd been depressed for a long time, but this is when it started becoming dangerous. And my boyfriend encouraged it. 

After a few months, and when I was getting dangerously thin, the doctor who prescribed me Adderall started to notice. My blood pressure was low, and I was unsteady on my feet. When she weighed me she was shocked at the amount of weight I had lost. I told her that I was just working on increasing how far I could go when running and that I would do better at increasing my intake. I pretended to be genuinely surprised that I had lost weight, and it worked. 

This kept up for a few months more, and I got more and more sick and more and more well... unstable. I was suicidal, I was angry, I was cutting myself every night and it STILL all seemed worth it. Urian was one of the few people who noticed (or at least talked to me about it) and this made me confide in him about how I was feeling. I grew closer and closer to him in this time, and I started to have feelings for him. Feelings I was scared of having at this vulnerable time. I ran away from those feelings, and months later when my boyfriend and I broke up, I hurt Urian by dating his friend I had no feelings for. 

I have no excuse for this behavior, and I wish I could take it back. I didn't find his friend attractive at all, his kisses revolted me, and he was creepy to be honest. After one week he started talking about our future together and other marriage. It was really weird, but every time I tried to leave he would hint that he would commit suicide. I didn't want to be the cause of his death, even if I didn't love him I didn't want him... well... dead! Eventually I broke up with him and immediately called the cops telling them he was suicidal and asking them to check up on him. 

I grew more and more unstable every day, and quite honestly I drowned in my depression. I didn't want to go on, and I was honest about it to the therapist my parents were making me see (they'd gotten worried a month earlier and made me see her). My therapist was really worried, and when I refused to sign a safety contract, she told my dad it was time to take me to the hospital. She said it couldn't wait until the next day, and the next thing I knew I was in the emergency room. From the emergency room I spent over a year in a residential treatment center receiving therapy most weekdays. From this I grew more confident and learned how to deal with my depression and how to care about my health more than my weight. I was 112 pounds when I was admitted. 

I share this information in hopes that it makes parts of Urian's and mine relationship clearer, and because it really is a big part of the story. 

Over a year, maybe closer to two, after all of this happened Urian and I started talking again. Soon we were meeting up for coffee. One thing led to another, and a tickle fight led to a kiss. It was the most real, most romantic kiss I'd ever had. It was spontaneous and there was no over thinking. There was no planning to make it less special, and everything about it felt right. That moment changed us forever. We were dating in no time, and our relationship was easy and fun. 

Urian is nerdy, brilliant, funny, and very very awkward. He's not at all the person I envisioned myself marrying, but he is so much more. He proves his love for me every day, and it's the small romantic things that mean the most to me. 

After almost six months of dating, Urian proposed to me. He proposed to me in the same place we realized we needed to be together, the park where we brought our coffee and kissed for the first time. He had even asked permission from my dad to marry me. The diamond was small, but there was so many artistic details about it that made it unique and perfect. I started planning the wedding immediately for the next summer. 

He came with me to pick out my dress, and to make sure I got the one I wanted he paid for it. He bought me a beautiful necklace to go with it, and a veil. We spent every moment that we could together, and he continued to help me though things I wouldn't have gotten through without him. I learned to completely let go of everything to do with my eating disorder by leaning on him. 

Our wedding day came sooner than I thought it would. My weight had gone up because of birth control, we had it in my parent's backyard because of money (and to make my mom more comfortable. Because of her illness she doesn't have a lot of energy.), and I didn't look the way I had wanted to. I didn't care about any of those, though. Everything looked perfect to me just the way it was, because day was to join me to my best friend. It was about the commitment, and finally I didn't feel as scared and superficial. And it took an incredible amount of trust for me to walk to that alter. 

Urian was more handsome than I had ever seen him. None of the details that had gone into planning all of it mattered the moment I saw him. I didn't see the suit or the color I chose for flowers. I saw my best friend waiting for me, waiting to commit his life to me. Our wedding was the happiest day of my life up to that point. 

Everything that followed that day only added to the happiness. We found out we were pregnant, we enjoyed our time planning and enjoying the pregnancy. We found out that we would soon have a son, and we picked out names for him. We welcomed him into the world and we knew joy. 

There will never be a year quite like this one. This year has been wonderful and hard. It's been full of joy and full of trials. I've had my husband with me every step of the way, and he's taught me trust and happiness. 

There will be many more years, but this one will always stick out for what it is. A year of firsts, and a year of togetherness. 

Heres some pictures showing special moments shared between the two of us: