“I hope they see a woman who just shows up—even if it’s with a messy bun and overstretched yoga pants. A woman who stood, flopped, failed, fell, then rose again when she was ready. She didn’t fake it until she made it, she just came in and was honest about who she was.”
‘I hope they’ll see a mother who spoke up. I hope they see a woman who got married but still maintained her identity.’: Mom reflects on what she hopes her children ‘see’ in her as they get older
‘Get down from there.’ ‘Please stop. That is dangerous.’ Aggressive meltdowns led to restraining him to prevent self-harm or harm to others. Finally, we decided to medicate our son.’
“Barring the dangerous, we would not say a word. Nothing. No emotion. Silence. Instead of avoiding a festival or a park because, what if he has a meltdown in public, we say ‘Yes.'”
‘So, do you think you’re depressed?’ one doctor awkwardly asked me. I replied quietly, ‘I don’t think so?’ all while screaming, ‘I just wanted to be saved.’ This was the biggest mistake of my life.’
“If I dared to mark the box that said I had suicidal thoughts daily, I would be hospitalized. If I marked those terrifying boxes that my life was just too much for me to handle, I was admitting to the world I was ‘crazy’. I would lose everything I held dear.”
‘It was bottle after bottle. After 32 years of marriage you would think he would have walked away because he had every reason to.’
“At that moment, I was not his. That was a feeling I never want to feel again. A partial hysterectomy ended my childbearing years. The days seemed to drift by with dark clouds hiding the bit of sunshine left in my life.”
‘I had never been aware of the world of anti-depressants. How can you be THAT sad? I didn’t get it. Then my 2-year-old was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma.’
“It was then that I understood depression. I was completely overwhelmed. I was getting frustrated with my daughter who couldn’t help or control anything she was doing or what was happening to her. I felt crazy.”
‘There’s no sperm in your semen.’ What was I supposed to tell my wife? This was the one thing she wanted in life.
“Sperm. Freaking. Extraction. Had to get naked and lay on a table. The doctor ‘numbs’ your nether regions with a shot (which HURT A WHOLE FREAKING LOT) and tells you, ‘That’s it, that’s the worst part.’ So now you can kick back and relax. LIES. ALL LIES.”
‘Dear Anxiety, you have been in and out of my life since I became a mother, and this season, the one I am in right now, is one of the hardest.’
“You used the fear of trying to parent my newborn babies alone to destroy every particle of confidence in my being. I remember calling my sister sobbing because I was so overwhelmed with three crying babies that all needed me.”
‘8 months before this picture was taken, at the recommendation of my gynecologist, I went off Zoloft for the first time in a decade.’
“‘It’s better if you just get off of it,’ he said to me, without ever asking if I thought that would be the right choice for my personal situation. Wanting to start off on the right foot as a mother, I was obedient and followed his instructions without question. What I didn’t know, however, was there were other options.”
‘It doesn’t mean I’m broken. It means I’m strong enough to ask for help.’
“So here’s the thing about depression that also makes it soooo dangerous- sometimes you don’t even realize you have it until the fog clears and you actually want to go places and do things.”
‘I was a victim, but I am a survivor’: Woman’s miraculous journey from scarring physical abuse, to severe PTSD, to ‘hope and happiness’
“15 years after my trauma, I am still learning to love my body for what it is, scars and all. It has taken a long time for me to be comfortable showing them, but they are mine and they remind me how far I have come. Your trials in life will make or break you. I was a victim, but I am a survivor.”
