Hey Folks,
It’s been more than a month of mood disorder-iness. My doctor and I tweaked my medication and it has made a difference, though I can feel the panic attacks under the medication. Like I know when they would be happening. They’ve just been made quiet and much less frightening. In order to survive, I’ve been avoiding heavy subject matters and anything that might make me panic, which, as a writer, goes against every instinct I have. I’m forcing myself to do it, though and there’s an odd boredom to be associated with my small bubble of the world.
I asked my doctor the big question. No, not that one. “I’m worried,” I admitted, “That I’m not fit to have a child. That I’ll make a bad parent.” My doctor got a look on his face that seemed to indicate that he was a little sad I saw myself as a person who could be a bad parent. He went on to list all of the reasons he thought I was ready to be a mom. Most of them seemed true. But depression, in the midst of it, feels like normality. Like it will never change. Like this affect is the only one I’ll ever have. And who wants a moody mum?
On the bright side, I’d have to be better than this guy:
When former child stars and Tanya Harding think you’re a bad parent, then you’ve really effed it up. See? That’s how I’ll keep my self-esteem up. You Tube. Land of bad parenting.
Anyway, I swear my next post will be about something besides my mood. I have an interesting project I may undertake. It will involve something I never thought I’d do.
Tags: baby, depression, doctors, Family, mental health
June 4, 2010 at 1:28 pm |
Hi
good post but very sad. I did things the other way round- had 3 kids, ‘became’ bipolar (officially) then questioned my fitness as a mother.
there is no right time to have children and it’s easy to get it wrong when you do have them but I’d say the fact you care enough to question your fitness suggests you’ll make a great mama.
We do ok, I hope.
Zoe
xxx
June 4, 2010 at 1:56 pm |
That’s one of the points my good doctor made. That I am self reflective and that I do not take for granted that I will always be well. I plan to read your blog. I feel like hearing other women’s experiences may make it seem possible.
Mental illness sucks.
Howie
June 5, 2010 at 4:15 pm |
Hey–I feel ya. I was terrified of becoming a mom, terrified that the abuse and trauma and resulting mental health issues would mean I would inevitably screw up my child. Becoming a mom, though, has been the most redemptive, healing, amazing experience ever. I never would have guessed how good I could be at this. I think the fact that you’re taking these steps to get healthy already means that you’re light-years ahead of most people who become parents. I can’t remember what kind of therapy you’ve done, but I do have some suggestions for things that really, really helped me and have made it so much easier to be a mom. In addition to meds (zoloft and trazodone for me), I’ve done a lot of traditional talk therapy that has really helped, but what has been absolutely most helpful and even life-saving has been the trauma-therapy I’ve been doing the last couple of years. It’s called Developmental Needs Meeting System and is related to EMDR, but is targeted for people who have trauma and other mental health issues related to poor parenting, neglect, and abuse rather than the more acute and discrete trauma that EMDR is often really effective at healing (like rapes or combat or surviving a fire or car accident). The website is http://www.dnmsinstitute.com/ if you want to know more about it. Within a few months I stopped having the flashbacks and other trauma-reactions I’d had for 11 years straight, and I found that it helped me move through issues that I’d been struggling with for years in traditional therapy in just months. Really really life-changing. Also, a really helpful book is _Parenting from the Inside Out_ by Dan Siegel. He’s a child psychiatrist and neurologist at UCLA Berkley who does research on how various parenting styles affect the brain and how people can heal from them so they don’t end up re-inflicting them on their own kids. It’s a little technical, but from reading your blog, I think you’d love it and be more than capable of understanding it. He also has some really helpful practical suggestions. He says that the biggest indicator by far of how healthy kids will be is not whether or not their parents had healthy childhoods or not, but is how self-aware their parents are and how much they have been able to make sense of and integrate their own difficult experiences into their whole life story. You can do this! Really!
June 11, 2010 at 11:35 am |
Wow! Thanks for all that feedback. Depression and panic are both very isolating and I get lost in my head (and forget to blog.) It was so nice to come back to this. I want to do well at parenting. I’m definitely going to look into the book you recommended.
As for therapy, I’ve done some talk, a lot of journaling and I’m on medication which is currently being tweaked to try to fight off this recurrence of panic. I shy away from hypnotherapy, because it’s similar to some aspects of my abuse. I’ll go look up DNMS and see what it’s got to say.
Thanks again!
Howie
June 5, 2010 at 5:05 pm |
I agree with the first commenter. Very sad. I also suffer from depression/anxiety, but for some reason having a baby was never in question for me. I know my limitations, my problems so well inside and out that I while I may worry about how I am as a mother, I also know how to deal those limitations. If that makes any sense. My greatest worry was PPD.
It’s a hard call. On the one hand, if you wait for “perfect” conditions, you may never get to have children, but on the other hand, you don’t want to be an unfit mother. I wish you all the best in your decisions. Not an easy one, for sure.
June 11, 2010 at 11:38 am |
I know. We’ve waited so long and finally picked a time to start and then all this reared its ugly head again. I have to get it under control soon so we can stick to our plan. I can’t let mental illness take away my chance to be a mom.