Reaching for Help

Dear Readers,

     My days were moment to moment, with a dwindling hope of a future because the hardship of how I was living was more than I could bear.  Caring for my children and husband was my sole existence (and honestly I wasn’t really giving my husband much thought since I considered him capable of making a sandwich, unlike my babies).

Somewhere in my mind and at the suggestion of others I knew I needed to take some time for me, but the degree of neglect I was putting myself through couldn’t be fixed in an hour away.  My cup had less and less, yet I kept pouring myself out to my three year old son (a special needs child), and my eighteen month old (our amazingly patient daughter).  With one car, which my husband needed for the commute to work over sixty miles away, I was on duty all the time. My basic needs were going unmet on a daily basis, and I would ask God to give me more strength to do more.

 My son’s challenging behaviors and lack of speech ability put me on high alert all the time to try to understand him and prevent a meltdown, at all cost.  The filter in which I operated was a relentless drive to keep everyone happy for fear of being abandoned if I didn’t do so. I also wanted to be a good mom with happy children whom I could play with and meet their every need. I wanted to be one hundred percent available.

 I never wanted them to feel forgotten or neglected, but these things were going to happen with the road that was on.  The ongoing mantra in my head was “I must try harder to be a better mother because I am not doing good enough.”   I thought myself ill-equipped to be a mother at all, much less a mom of a son with the possibility of being on the autism spectrum. I was determined to find the “right thing to do” to help him communicate at his age level and to overcome his sensory sensitivities for the sake of all of us who were in denial that there was even a “problem.”  If a child has diabetes society doesn’t blame the parent, but if a child has meltdowns for not wanting to walk the direction a parent needs him to go the parent is blamed for not having a firm hand with the child. The harder I tried the deeper I sank into the depression I was denying.

Sometimes only you know the degree of pain you are in and in the end it is only you who can get the help you need. My only rope of hope I hung onto was that Jesus knew my struggle, and God gave me these children as gifts with the knowledge that I could be their mother.  Every morning I searched the psalms for something to hold onto, and Psalms 22:19 “^“Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help,”   became my constant prayer. It was in the spring of 2011 that I admitted out loud to my husband that I was losing my battle with depression. Once I stopped denying it (denial was my most often used coping mechanism), I sought help at a nearby behavior health clinic.  I made an appointment, and I had to wait another six more weeks until I could get help in order for me do “better”.

The day of my appointment I was told the financial assistance for my appointment I was not qualified for after all. I HAD HUNG ON JUST TO GET TO THIS DAY! I couldn’t walk away, because to do so would have been the end of me.  Even then I considered walking away because of the cost, but I realized that the cost of failing to get myself help was so very much greater.  I had been giving, giving, and giving; and I was depleted in body, soul, and spirit. As I attempted to fill out the forms I nearly started crying uncontrollably because of the guilt I felt for even needing help.

 I believed I should be stronger and that praying and knowing the Lord was enough, but it wasn’t, and it broke my heart to even admit it. It was the bravest and most difficult thing I had ever done and absolutely necessary for the survival of myself and my family.  During that appointment the psychologist asked me how I was, and I just cried and cried.  She asked me why I was crying and I couldn’t even put it into words.  I believed I was failing as a mom because to my way of thinking I was worthless, and I feared losing everyone I loved if I couldn’t get it “right.”. It was that day the pain I had been suppressing started coming out.

Throughout my life if I felt pain, fear, or anger I denied it by saying “I shouldn’t feel that way…; Others have far worse life circumstances…; It’s not that important.”  What others wanted was more important than what I wanted if it meant someone was going to get angry at me and leave me.  Growing up I was used as a shield to protect my mom against my critical and controlling grandparents and she was my shield against the fists of my step-father.  My job was to be a quiet good girl, not to upset anyone, to cheer my mom up, to get good grades and make something of myself, and not do anything to disappoint my mom that would result in her being looked down upon even more by her parents. My anger wasn’t allowed to be expressed and I suppressed it because I feared losing the only parent I had. My sorrow wasn’t allowed to be expressed because my step-father couldn’t handle me fussing as a toddler. My mom divorced my birth father and I haven’t seen him since I was two years old. I have no siblings. The fear of losing my mom would become reality my senior year. I was alone.

So I was a rundown mom, trying to fix everything for everyone else, never letting up on myself to do everything perfect and getting angrier at myself because I was failing and  angrier at my loved ones because I didn’t think they were trying as hard as I was. I kept trying to maintain the “we are a happy little Christian family” image, as I sank deeper and deeper down and losing sight of who I was. This wasn’t just a matter of needing to pray more because I prayed moment to moment just to give me strength to make the kids’ lunch or change their diapers.  I prayed to God to give me more strength to do more.  He did strengthen me, and He held me together, and sustained my family, but not the way I wanted Him to.  God wasn’t going to answer a prayer that resulted in me relying on my strength alone and resulting in my depression getting worse.

 This appointment was the day I found out I was in a moderate to severe depression and had generalized anxiety disorder. By the way, the funding was made available to me, and it was then I realized that I was doing what was right for me and in return what was right for my family.

I believe in the healing power of Jesus and that the Lord works out that healing in different ways.  This was going to be a journey of healing not just from depression and getting freed from anxiety, it was also the beginning of me opening the door that I kept all the pain, fear, anger, and sorrow behind.  I had the key, but only I could open the door and start being honest about what was really going on.  If doing so was just for me I wouldn’t do it, but it was for my husband and children.  I had to face the memories, feel the sorrow, pain, anger, and fear, and let it go to heal.  But most importantly it was time to take care of myself (in all honesty I still feel this is selfish) in order to get out of my pit of depression and free from the cage of my anxiety. A year ago I would not dare to even share my struggle with depression, but the fact that I can share, and with less worry about what you readers think of me, is indeed a miracle.

               If you can relate at all to this blog, please continue to read and comment as you feel comfortable.  This is only the beginning of you seeing the Kaleidoscope of Me.