Mommy's Project 52:9 Caring

Caring...

I have always cared for others...other people, animals, sometimes even material objects; never for myself though. That is something I am learning now, and something I am relearning when it comes to others.

After the birth of my youngest, I stopped caring. About everything. I stopped doing everything. I did not take care of myself. I really didn't care if I was home with my family or at work or anywhere. I stopped taking care of the house. I stopped doing our finances. I didn't even care if I was mean to others. As I said...I stopped doing EVERYTHING, and I stopped CARING! It took about a year for me and my husband to really accept that there was a problem. A very serious problem. Postpartum Depression. Sure, during that year, I had good days, but the bad days were far more common. By this time, I was at a very violent point in my life. My husband and I were fighting all the time. I was always angry. All I did was yell at my girls, mostly for minor things that could have, and should have, been handled in a very different manor. I never actually hurt anybody or anything, but I had the desire. A very deep desire. And it scared me.

I finally sought help. I was prescribed medication, but being the stubborn person that I am, I refused to take it. I did however seek out a therapist. I guess I felt that medication was like sweeping the problems under the rug instead of truly dealing with them. Whether that was the right view to have or not really doesn't matter. What matters is that I found a great therapist who has helped me make wonderful progress.

It's been a year now that I have been seeing her. In that time, I have come to accept many things that I honestly would have preferred not too. I have learned that I need to care again. Care not only for my children and my husband, but also for myself. I have always put myself on the back burner. Everybody else was more important, making them happy, making sure they were taken care of, and making sure that they had everything they needed or wanted. Yes, it has been a long, hard year of accepting things and learning things, but I am learning. Slowly, I am learning to care again. I thank God that my wonderful, truly caring, husband had the patience to stand beside me though all of this. For the way I treated him (and sometimes still do), most others would have gone screaming in the other direction.

One day at a time

This last month has been crazy and I am going to throw this out there even though it's very hard for me to talk about.

I have been to the doctor and have been prescribed medicine which i am choosing not to take. I am seeing a therapist though and it seems to be helping things. My attitude for the past year just hasn't been where it should be. My fuse has been extremely short. Apparently, this is in part postpartum depression. There are some other issues that are tied in with it, but the postpartum depression has seemed to amplify what was already going on. Something had to give, and hopefully this path that I am taking will make me myself again. I don't like the person that I have become. It has only been a few weeks, but I can already tell that there is at least a small difference. I still have a very short fuse and my attitude is not anywhere near where it should be, but I am working on it. At the suggestion of the therapist, Todd and I need to have a weekly date night so that we can get back to being a couple and not just two parallels. We started that this week and it was nice to be alone together and be able to talk about anything and everything. I also need to start speaking my mind more instead of worrying about how my feelings will affect others. That's a hard one for me. Obviously, I don't want to just be a bitch and tell everybody off when they upset me, but I do need to find a way to constructively get my feelings across. Most importantly though, I need to realize my feelings and the reason for those feelings. For now though, I am just taking things one day at a time.