My Smiling Mask

This being my 600th post, I decided to make it a somewhat significant one.  I've been struggling with the "to tell or not to tell" for quite awhile.  For you regular readers, I suggest you grab a cup of coffee.  I have a feeling this is going to be a long one.

My struggle over the decision to share this involved many different questions.  I am not embarassed to talk about it, but I do fear being judged, even though I have no control of  "it".  That is the reason many women don't want to talk about "it" - they don't want to be judged or thought of as a bad mother.  So here goes...here is where I take off my mask...

My story starts in September of 2006, shortly after Mike and I were married.  That is when we decided to try and have a baby together.  Without going into all the details why, we were added to the fertility clinic waiting list in January 2007.  In January 2008, our number came up and it was a long year of needles and pills that ended in a failed IVF cycle in December 2008. 

On May 1, 2009, I finally saw the two little blue lines that I had desperately been waiting to see...we were finally pregnant.  I cried.  I laughed.  I hugged Mike until his head just about popped off.  My dream was finally coming true!  Within a few weeks, the happiness I felt gave way to nausea and vomiting.  Shortly after that, depression came crashing through the door.  By the time I was 12 weeks pregnant, it became almost a daily struggle to stop myself from committing suicide.

It made absolutely no sense - at the point in my life when I should have been at my highest, I was, instead, at rock bottom.  No, not just rock bottom - there was rock bottom, six feet of crap beneath it and then me.  It sucked.  I didn't want to get out of bed.  I didn't want to go to work.  I didn't even want to be (dare I say it) pregnant.  I didn't want to do anything.  We didn't have cable upstairs at the time so, for the most part, I just sat in the living room and stared out the window, like one of those anti-depressant commercials.  And then, if something ticked me off (like the lint trap not being cleaned out), I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry and cry and cry. 

In the midst of my tears,  a voice would say, "Just do it...just kill yourself.  Then you don't have to deal with any of this".  And you know what the one thing was that stopped me from going through with it?  My dog, Shandi.  Everyone else would know where I was (even if they didn't understand why), but Shandi?  The dog that parks herself on the back of the couch the moment I leave the house and doesn't move until I come home again?  She wouldn't know where I was.  And she would lay on that couch wondering where I was until the day she died.  And the thought of her pathetic little sad face absolutely crushed me.  But I guess it also saved me.

I did have my good (and even great) days.  But there were definitely moments when I had to put a smile and pretend everything was okay.  The morning following an "episode", I would berate myself for ever thinking such a stupid thought.  Even though I felt depressed, I still knew life was worth living so I couldn't figure out why these extreme thoughts were coming to me. 

Mike knew that I was depressed, but he didn't realize to what extent.  The night before my 30th birthday party, I had to drive to Saskatoon to pick up my birthday cake.  I decided that would be my moment...Shandi would come with me and I would drive head-on into a semi truck to guarantee we would both die.  As the day wore on, I began to get scared.  I didn't want to die, but I didn't trust myself driving alone.  I ended up asking Mike if he wanted to come with me, using the excuse that I had spent the day cleaning the house and was tired.  It was on the drive home where I finally told him the truth - that I had been having invasive thoughts about committing suicide for the past two months.  Mike took it so well.  The fact that he didn't screech the van to a stop and yell, "I dont' know who you are anymore!" is further proof of why I love him.

Mike suggested telling our family doctor, but I felt embarassed.  I know that I am intelligent, strong-minded person and this...this...thing just made me feel like I was weak.  Two more weeks went by and we dealt with a few more episodes.  Mike was okay with my crying in the bathroom, just as long as I didn't lock the door.  He understood that I just needed to be by myself and that I would ask him for help or to talk if I wanted to.  Finally, on my four month check-up, I decided to tell my doctor.

I have to laugh at the memory of that appointment. My doc went through all the regular pre-natal things and then I asked a couple questions about various ailments I was experiencing.  The conversation was interspersed with a few jokes/laughs here and there.  Then, I remember saying, "I know you have other patients waiting, but there's just one more thing..." and then BAM! I burst into tears and my voice went higher and higher while I choked and snorted and tried to explain what was happening.  My doctor was so wonderful about it.  I remember that he made a request for me to see a counsellor and pyschiatrist before he wrote a prescription for anti-depressants.  He told me I could phone anytime I needed to and if I needed to talk to him, I didn't need an appointment.  I think just knowing I had supports starting to move into place helped a lot.

I decided not to take the meds while pregnant, but I did pursue the counselling and what a difference it made.  I met with the oh-so-wonderful Jennifer every week for the first little while and, the better I felt, the further apart we gapped the appointments.  I was very pleased with myself for making it through the pregnancy without relying on the meds.

As the due date loomed closer, I wasn't afraid of the labour and delivery.  That's just physical pain and I knew I could handle it (or that the meds would cover it up).  What terrified me the most was the thought of post-partum depression.  Knowing what my mind had already put me through with the suicidal thoughts, I couldn't imagine what PPD or post-partum psychosis would do to me. 

The big day arrived and Katelyn was born on January 12th, 2010.  We were in hospital for four days.  The first full day we were home, I was sitting in the comfy chair in the living room and cuddling Katelyn.  I was busy drinking in her newness and loving on her when I heard a voice in my head, "Just do it...just throw her".  Over the next seven days, the thoughts increased.  They were telling me to pick Katelyn up by her arm and smash her into the wall.  Or to dump my hot coffee on her.  Or to push my thumb into her eyeball.  Or to take a sharp knife and make equally spaced slits on her forehead.  The fact that these thoughts were not happening during moments of frustration absolutely terrified me.  For some reason, I felt they would have been justified if they would have come while she was crying and unconsolable.  Needless to say, I was distraught.

To once again find myself in the happiest moments of my life and to be plagued by such invasive, horrible thoughts made me feel absolutely crazy.  I kept the thoughts bottled up until I couldn't take it anymore.  On the eleventh day, I broke down and told Mike.  I was terrified that I was going to end up being locked away or, worse yet, they would take Katelyn from me.  Mike told me to phone Jennifer immediately.

We saw Jennifer that afternoon and I cried as I told her.  I just felt so horribly embarassed.  I decided then and there to start taking medication.  This first year of Katelyn's life is too precious and too important for me to miss out on due to being "out of my mind".  After several more counselling sessions, I was pegged as having obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I will do another post that goes into more detail, but the gist of it is that the majority of my obsessions center around harmful/aggressive thoughts.  As I look back on my life, I can see that I've been plagued with OCD since I was 11 years old.  I just always thought I was crazy.

Five months later, the thoughts of harming Katelyn continue.  The big difference is that there is no anxiety that follow the thoughts.  Some of you might be thinking, "How can you think about drowning your daughter and not feel stressed about it?".  It's because I know the thoughts are not me.  They come from a little tiny monster in the back of my mind that I have no control over.  The biggest reason I feel safe from these thoughts is based on the fact that I've never followed through with any of the other aggressive thoughts I've had throughout my life.  Because I've never put a steak knife in Mike's back or randomly shoved the heel of my hand into someone's face, sending their nose crunching up into their brain (even though I have thought about both many, many times just out of the blue) tells me I will never harm Katelyn.

So there you have it.  Like I said earlier, I've struggled over whether or not to share this.  But after attending The Smiling Mask documentary debut the other night, I realized that I am definitely not alone in my experience.  But more on that another time. 

As for comments, total silence would be just about the worst response I could get.  Tell me you think I'm crazy and I should be locked up. Tell me you experienced the same thing.  Or just randomly pound at the keyboard like a monkey on a typewriter.  I don't care what you say...in this case, saying something is better than saying nothing.

It feels great to finally be able to take off my mask.