The One Where I Tell The Truth

*Alternate Title = "I've Got Piles"  *

This small little peep-hole glance into my life tells an awful lot about what my life has become. There are lists with notes and highlights and check marks and scribbles.  I've always been an organized person.  I've always made To Do Lists.  

The difference is now, these lists are getting to be something different.  My lists used to be organized--they used to map out for me the path I would take to accomplish things, and then I would calmly accomplish those things, feel good about myself, and move on to a new check list of accomplish-able tasks.  

That has changed.  My lists have become unbearable LONG.  They have become urgent.  They have become messy.

In fact, my lists have become piles.  Again, I've always had nice, organized piles in my life.  Check-list type piles.  Not anymore.  Things are messy.  Things are all over the place.  It gives me stress.

No.  It gives me ANXIETY. 

So how did this happen?  What spawned the mess?  The piles?

DEPRESSION.

The seemingly never-ending piles occurred because of postpartum depression.

BIG EXHALE....yes, I just typed it.  I just said it.  I just admitted it.  To anyone who wants to read it.

Where did it begin?  How did my life turn into, well, this?  In 2007 I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and saw a therapist.  I was open about this. 

I learned coping techniques and they worked.  For almost two years.  Then I had a baby.

After Eddie was born, I didn't feel right.  There were lots of things that I attributed it to:  hormones, no sleep, a colicky baby, feeling cooped up in the summer.

Then fall came and I figured I felt these things because I was going back to work and leaving my baby.

Then Cort lost his job and I strangely had a lull in all the bad, guilty, tense, sleepless issues.  Cort was home with Eddie.  I used my anxiety techniques to get myself through the blow of being a one-income family.

Then I started working at CC and I fell off the proverbial ledge.  My sanity went down the tubes...whatever cliche for losing your mind, go ahead and insert here.

I was not me.

It was all the feelings I had after Eddie was born, but multiplied by a zillion.

Working two jobs made me have non-stop guilt.  This guilt lead to me feeling paranoid about people judging me.  I couldn't concentrate on anything.  A simple lesson plan that would normally take me 10 minutes to figure out would take me well over an hour.  I was spinning my wheels on things I used to do without a second thought.

This paranoia caused little sleep.  I couldn't fall asleep even though I was exhausted.  The smallest noise would wake me up and I would have to start all over again.

It was really a vicious cycle.  Not getting sleep amplified all the rest of the bad and heaped on a healthy dose of SNAP at everyone I love.  I felt as if they were judging me the most.

I am so organized, why can't I do it all?  What is wrong with me?  Shouldn't I be great at everything?  If I'm not , SOMEONE is being let down.

This consumed me until the piles crashed all around me.  Everything just fell in one night in a massive breakdown that prompted Cortney to say, "maybe you need to see the doctor."

Just before my breakdown, I had just read a friend's blog describing how she wasn't feeling "right" after her baby boy was born.  All the comments suggested it may be postpartum depression.  I even agreed--I wanted her to take care of herself!

When Cort suggested that I might need a doctor, it started to make sense...I fit ALL the symptoms.  ALL OF THEM.

I went.

My doctor--who does NOT like to turn straight to meds--almost immediately started writing me a script for antidepressants.

They have helped me IMMENSELY. 

My doc did tell me that because I have a history now (anxiety, depression), it's very possible that this could be a fairly permanent thing. Depending on my stress/workload level.

This week I found out my district is making another round of MASSIVE cuts (closing another elementary building, closing our alternative high school, cutting secondary (grades 7-12) positions, among many others).  This puts my job yet again at risk.

The piles grew this week as I struggled with this news.  I was out last week with pneumonia, and it added to the piles.  I started to feel that old weight settling on my chest.

I started reading more about others who have the same issues that I do.  All of them had the same message:  talk about it.  Get it out and let people know.

I struggled with this because although everyone knows I enjoy the center of attention (hello, I BLOG for the world to see), I don't like awkward things like pity or sympathy.  I don't like to seem like I am whining. (Even though I do whine a lot about non-important things...like the dumb zit I just got today...ugg!).

I think you get what I am saying.

Yes, it was hard for me to put this out there.  But the deciding vote for this was when Cortney told me he thought I should put it out there.  It's like washing your hands of it.

So.

The piles will still be there when I get to work tomorrow, but because I have supportive people in my life who love me no matter what, I think...yes...I do...I see a light at the end of all those piles.

Light and peace.