Advisory on Mental Health

A few weeks ago I found myself in what I felt like was an emergency situation. My mental health was deteriorating all summer and I struggled to manage until the day that one trigger blew up everything inside me. I was numb and could not deal with anything or anyone. My body had been breaking down for a while. One night in August I became unexpectedly nauseous. I was restless and unable to sleep and then I began vomiting at 3am. I had brain fog, I tried consuming more electrolytes, convinced maybe the heat of the summer was the issue. I couldn’t recall words and on top of that my irritability was spewing on everyone around me.

In an angry rage one morning I threw every toy, lego and stuffie out of Felicity’s room. She was being disrespectful, rude, and I couldn’t take it. When I spoke to my sister in the car the next Saturday she urged me to seek help, “Please call Kristin (my close friend),” she said. “I want you to go to a hospital.” I called Kristin and she readily made herself available to help how she could. I reached out to a few mental health clinics when I got home but they had to get back to me during the week after they’d reached out to our insurance company. I asked Brandon what to do, should I try to go to this one emergency mental clinic that had awful reviews? I tried to explain to him how awful I was feeling mentally and Felicity began jumping on the couch. She was talking, asking questions about a game she was playing. We became so overstimulated by her interruption and our exhaustion that neither Brandon or I could think straight. Brandon laid on the couch sleepy eyed looking back at my tearful worried eyes. “Ok babe, I don’t know.”

I needed his help, his support, but I had no idea how burnt out he was too. Felicity had been waking up several nights a week. From nightmares, or saying she couldn’t fall asleep, or she wanted to sleep in our room, or she wanted Zelda in her room. We decided to put a cat door on Felicity’s door earlier this year so Zelda could come and go, but Felicity would get upset if Zelda left before she fell asleep. So we tried locking the cat door so Zelda would stay in there. Until Zelda started BUSTING the cat door out of the door, I can’t make this up. Felicity would either wake up from the noise of Zelda’s great escape or Felicity would burst in our room around 11pm, just when we got to that sweet spot of just drifting off to sleep. “Zelda got out! I want someone to sleep with me.” She’d whine.

We would tell her we’d check on her, but she’d still get up in the night. The gentle comforting way wasn’t working. One night when she burst in our room whining we sleepily urged her to go to bed. I said a prayer with her, tucked her in, left her door cracked, turned all the night lights on. When she came in a little while after that I sat up in my bed and yelled, “Get out!!!! Go to your bed Felicity! Get out of our room!” I wasn’t proud of it. I apologized the next day for yelling but also I was wiped and I had no more tools in my toolkit, as my friend says. It’s possible that Felicity was having a difficult time losing Bingley as we all were and sought comfort in the night. But we were spent.

Why am I sharing all of this? Because recently I saw that the US Surgeon General issued an advisory on the mental wellbeing of parents.You might’ve seen it by now too. I was surprised but not surprised. I felt validated. The sleep deprivation alone will wreck you. Something that is literally used as torture is just a daily routine for most parents. Just the other night Felicity burst in our room and said, “Who put me on the couch!?” Brandon and I came to, “What?” We asked in confusion. “What time is it, what are you talking about? We’ve been asleep!”

“You must have been sleep walking Felicity.” Brandon finally said.

“No I wasn’t.” She declared.

We laid our heads on our pillows in frustration. “Please go back to bed Lici.” We said.

When I came downstairs with her the next morning she said, “That’s where I was last night.” She pointed to the disheveled blanket on the couch. Her sleep mask was behind the pillow.

“Yea that was you Lici, sleepwalking. Daddy and I were asleep. Thank God you didn’t fall down the stairs, my word.” I said. She looked at the couch in disbelief that she did all that on her own without remembering how she got down there. My eyes widened at no one as I made my way to make my morning coffee.

Sometimes Brandon would make himself 3 cups of coffee a day just to stay awake. This seems like a little bit of junk science to me but still extra coffee always makes me think of this old study about spiders and their webs. LOOK at the caffeine web. Nothing good is happening there, just utter chaos. What could sleep deprived, caffeine fueled minds possibly be doing other than send us into anxious spirals? Now I’m not knocking coffee at all here. I’m on a solid two cups a day, but my point is that sleep is important and most parents kiss that goodbye. We thought we had such a good sleeper. Felicity was an amazing infant. She slept long stretches, fell asleep on her own well and all of sudden she just started waking up. Maybe that’s why it feels really tough. We’re not used to it.

About 3 years ago my therapist diagnosed me with Depression. I wasn’t totally caught off guard as this was something that my mother struggled with. When my mom told me that she didn’t get medication until I was in high school and she wished she had sooner I felt the push to try it while Felicity was little. I silently struggled with passive suicidal ideation for years before getting help. If you don’t know, it is essentially feeling consumed with thoughts of suicide, in the passive form I had no desire to make a plan to harm myself. My therapist described this as a coping mechanism. As a child I think I was often left to self soothe, to figure out my own feelings and what grew was loneliness and self loathing. As I became an adult I learned to self soothe in this way. I would go be alone, I would pray, and the thoughts would flood my mind. My therapist told me it was a way for me to imagine the pain I felt inside going away. She urged me to see my doctor. This article has some great info on the subject.

As one of my 30 before 30 goals I decided it was finally time to find myself a Primary Care Physician. I liked who I found alot and told her how I was feeling. I told her I went to therapy but I still felt a mental block where I just couldn’t get over my past. I filled out a form where she found that I scored an 18 out of 20 for depression and a 16 out of 20 for anxiety. She prescribed me an antidepressant and wanted to see me back in a month to see how I was doing. When I came back I felt like a totally different person. I was looking at the same questionnaire thinking, “Huh, I haven’t even thought about that in the last two weeks, but I know that before the medication I definitely was.” My doctor happily greeted me. “It seems like it’s working for you.” She said.

I nodded. “Yea, I feel great!”

She told me my depression score came down to a 2 out of 20 and my anxiety a 0 out of 20. Medication can be a miracle too! And this was one, a miracle I believe. 

I want to advocate for my mental health because I do wish it was more talked about for my own mother’s sake. I wish she could have had help sooner because she deserved that. The best way to honor her was to take her advice and advocate for myself. I’m grieving my childhood, reparenting my inner child, while also parenting my daughter, and oh yea also be a loving wife and a caring friend and community member. That’s enough to make my head explode. And readers it did! This summer, I was overwhelmed and burnt out. Suicidal ideations returned with a fury. My nervous system lost it’s marbles. 

My sisters took Felicity to VA for a week so I could regroup and get better. I took the first few deep breaths I’d taken in months. I spent a week trying to get into therapy. I called two mental health clinics in our area and quickly turned them down when I realized they would cost $5000 upfront. After I got off the phone with the first clinic I felt a bit in shock and began panicking. My leg started shaking and my vision was blurry. I called a psychiatrist and played phone tag with 7 different therapists and 1, only one therapist could get me in the next week. That felt lightyears away but it was something. In the meantime I tried to get my nervous system back in order with dog therapy, basically just playing with our new dog Birdie. Going on walks with B, doing guided meditations, soaking in worship, reading my bible, journaling, breathwork, taking to loved ones and trusted friends, working out, and going to bed early. I finally got myself in a good headspace, and have developed a few new routines, it’s been a journey.

The seriousness of the warning is real. For me in particular parenting feels heavy because I’m trying to break cycles that previous generations for whatever reason could not break. However I cannot break every cycle and in many ways I begin to overcompensate which leaves me exhausted. As the warning hints at, we’ve come a long way from having a village to raise a child. Many people have to create their own village, and we have but it takes work, time, and mutual understanding. The cost of camps around here is insane. I mean they’re great but they’re close to $300-$400 a week for some and that’s half days! When I was trying to find a new sitter recently I was in shock that a girl in her young 20s told me her rate was $30 an hour. Brandon and I usually go out for a 4 hour window. Enough to get some dinner, talk, and do something else fun. With $120 spent on a sitter alone we’d probably need to just go to McDonalds and talk in the car in the parking lot! I’m not knocking fast food here I’m just saying that getting out for a date night now and then is important as parents. I think date nights have been essential in our marriage honestly, especially to just have a break from the bedtime routine. But getting a sitter is expensive. So lack of sleep, cost of therapy to manage our own childhood traumas so we can show up for our kids, cost of childcare it’s a lot!

We all need a little help sometimes and that’s ok.