Diane of from blank pages had a wonderful idea. 365 moments of joy.
The reason this appeals to me? I'm not an optimist. I consider myself a realist, L, the bestie, calls me a pessimist. Its always been in my nature. I suffer from depression. Throughout the years I've taken medicine and sometimes I don't. Mental illness has a certain stigma attached to it. No one gets crap for having diabetes or asthma, but mental illness is the same. The chemicals in my brain aren't what they should be so I take something to make it function properly. Prior to getting married and getting pregnant I was off of medicine. Pregnancy was very hard and post partum was terrible. I had PPD and didn't want to deal with it or admit it.Finally at about 8 months PP I went to the doctor and I got help.
While doing hair I encounter pregnant women and new moms a lot. Sometimes I can feel their energy and know they feel like I felt. I want to scoop them up and hug them. I will openly tell them about my struggles and not enjoying pregnancy. Too many people don't understand and look down their nose that you don't feel like this huge blessing is upon you. A friend of mine had the same experience years prior and hearing that I wasn't alone made me feel like I wasn't a freak and gave me hope that I wasn't alone.
I wish like anything I could take it back, that time I lost. I missed so much joy and happiness of having a new baby. I missed a lot of joy in my life for those years I wasn't honest with myself and didn't take care of my illness. This is me not missing life. This is me forcing myself to see the good in life even when a day kinda sucks.
Thank you Diane. I don't know if you can understand how I hope we can inspire each other a thousand miles apart.
I love it! (Well, I love that you are so willing to share and that you are joining me!) I hope we can help each other! I just want to give you a big hug!! :) I'm so sorry that things have been hard. I definitely know what it's like to be down and have depression (I had it through high school, but after that it seemed to go away). My other pregnancies were ok, but with this last one, my third, I've had PPD pretty bad. It's the pits, and I know how you feel about missing that time to really enjoy what's going on. I think it's getting better though, and it definitely does help me to look at good things during the day to find something to post about. :) Hopefully together we can both pull through this! Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that there is such a stigma with depression, because a lot of people struggle with it, and I think it would help a lot of people if it was easier to talk about it! Thank you!