New me, new meds

After two years of trial and error, a lot of failed self-care and a break down in the doctor’s office, I finally did it.

I got medicated.

I’ve officially been taking my anti-depressants for six weeks now, and honestly? Why did I not do this sooner? I’ve been so much calmer. I don’t snap as quickly. I say yes more often. Rage is not my default reaction anymore. I can’t say that I’m happy, per se, but I’m laughing authentically again. And I think that’s really the end goal. I needed something to get me out of the hole. A ladder, a boost up to the first step. Now it’s up to me to find ways to climb the rest of the way out.

I’ve been writing again. Sort of. This is the first blog in a while but I’ve been jotting things down. I’ve been bullet journaling, and using my planner more. Turns out designing and organizing my planner is actually really soothing for me. I never look at it once it’s filled in but the process is really calming. Something about beautifying a blank space. I’ve been reading but not letting myself get completely lost in it. I want to start yoga again but I’m a bit worried that I’ll start in on some negative self-talk because it’s been so long since I’ve done yoga that I’m nowhere near where I used to be, and back sliding is a trigger for me. Also, there’s the pregnancy which makes things more complicated. I want to be able to move my body, I know it’s good for me and baby to move my body, but I’m just so tired. It’s much more exhausting to be pregnant with two kids at home than it was the first time around. So I’m taking baby steps. Learning what brings me peace and what doesn’t and acting accordingly. Or at least I’m trying to.

Maybe it’s the pregnancy, maybe it’s the meds, but this is the first time I haven’t been feeling overwhelming guilt when I take time for myself. I have a history of taking the time and then beating myself up over it but things seem to have shifted. I’m not pushing myself at 100% all the time. I can take an hour or two in my office working and not feel awful about it, and then I take the kids outside and not spend the whole time dreading it. It’s strange, but in a good way. It’s like I’m getting back to the old me again in some ways. I don’t think I’ll ever find her again fully, but I’m accepting that. Slowly. For today anyway. Like I said, baby steps.

Nothing Says Christmas Like a Panic Attack

When I was vacuuming my living room floor yesterday afternoon, I had a panic attack. I could not stop the tears, could not catch my breath, could not stop the thoughts that were trying to pull me under. I was lost in a spiral of “Of course my husband doesn’t love me, he didn’t shovel the back steps for me. He doesn’t care that I’m worried about slipping and falling, he just doesn’t care at all. Why would he, I’ve been a terrible wife and mother, he obviously thinks I’m lazy and gross because he says the house is a shit hole every time he comes home, why would he care enough to shovel the stairs?” It was on repeat, over and over until I made myself cry. And I couldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop.

So basically everything that I was worried about with this pregnancy came true. It was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think, but even still I’m a bit in shock at how deep my feelings actually went. I went into this pregnancy so scared to go back to the headspace I was in two years ago, and here I am. Crying alone in the bedroom because I convinced myself my husband doesn’t love me.

It’s been building, I’m aware of that. Work has been stressful. There hasn’t been much support with my team in the classroom, I’m letting things slide and not being the educator I usually would be. I’ve shouldered most of the stress of the room and it’s gotten to me. Every day my stomach is in knots just thinking about going into work, and I come home so exhausted that I can barely even breathe, much less parent. It takes everything in me to make it until bedtime, and then I lay awake and I can’t sleep. I’m so tired. My patience is so thin. I’m snapping at G. and L., my poor husband can’t catch a break, it feels like my life is shambles.

Through all of this, I know I’m neglecting myself. I haven’t made any time for myself. I’m disassociating with romance novels and TikTok, but that isn’t the same. I’m drowning in carbs and screen time and none of that is healthy. I’m fully aware of this, but I’m just so tired I can’t be bothered to even try. I thought vacation would help, but it hasn’t. Every day S. asks things of me around the house, the kids need time and attention, and all I want to do is sleep and read and just exist. And so. It all came to a head when I found myself gasping for breath around the tears on my bed because the cord from the vacuum knocked over a can of Pepsi and spilled on my freshly washed floors.

I need to go back to counselling. It’s got to happen. I’m going to call my therapist in the new year and set something up. I’m so scared. I don’t want to fall apart again. It was so hard to start putting the pieces together, and I don’t know if I can do it again.

2 week wait

Today is day 10 out of my first two week wait. I could take a pregnancy test if I wanted to.

So why don’t I want to?

Every other time we tried to get pregnant, I took so many pregnancy tests. I wasted so much money, so much time, so much anxiety on pregnancy tests. It was all I could think of, even though I know that worrying wasn’t going to change anything, and testing too early won’t help the anxiety. I knew these things, and I still took so many tests. And now this time, I don’t want to test at all. I’m too scared of the answer, no matter what it is.

When we talked about having a third child, I was all for it. I wanted another so bad. I have so many friends that are pregnant and I was so jealous, I wanted that so badly.

Now that the time is here and there’s the possibility that I could actually be pregnant… I have so many regrets. Not regrets, that’s not the word. More like, misgivings. I have misgivings.

I found a notebook I had been journaling in when I was newly postpartum with L. He was around 3 months old, and I could feel this fog of blackness just settling around me. I was numb. I read through all the words I had written and I could feel those feelings again, and all I could think was why? Why am I trying to put myself through this again? Why would I open myself back up to the possibility of that? It was so cold and so lonely, and I had so many regrets about upsetting the status quo. It took so much to find a new normal that I don’t know if I really want to fuck with that again.

Then another part of me wonders, if getting pregnant broke my brain, maybe getting pregnant will fix it. Maybe the flux of hormones will reset whatever is out of whack in there. Who knows?

So I’m just waiting. Waiting to see if my period come or not. If it doesn’t come by next weekend then I’ll suck it up and I’ll test and I’ll know for sure one way or the other. And we’ll deal with whatever the answer is. I think maybe I know what I want to happen. I don’t think I want it to happen yet. I don’t know if I want it at all. I may have made a mistake. If I have this many misgivings, it must mean that I think I’m making a mistake, right?

I don’t know if I can admit that to my husband.