Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Day 15 on Lexapro.

10:54 pm

It is getting easier for me to go to work, though I still get a sick feeling before I leave the house in the morning. Sometimes I give in to it and sometimes I don’t. I wonder now if it is more of a Pavlov’s dog type of response than anything else.

Work was almost enjoyable this day. I stayed busy, which helped. When time came to pick up Miss Em, I was excited to see her. Some of my energy is starting to come back. When I was depressed, I guess it wasn’t as easy for me to enjoy her…and that makes me so sad. I was so numb for a while…so tired…and muddy…that I know I wasn’t as available to her…emotionally…mentally…physically…as I would have been at full capacity. I attributed it to the exhaustion of being a single parent. Now I know it was more than that…but knowing there is a solution to the problem gives me hope that I can once again be a fully attentive and emotionally available parent…single or not.

When she was born, I was completely engaged in the world of motherhood. She was my entire universe. Everything I did, said, thought…had to do with her. Even when I became pregnant…from the time I knew she was growing inside me, my heart beat for her. I loved her more than I thought humanly possible. In my mind and my soul, I was resolved to give her only the best I possibly could…to instill in her the things I hadn’t been as a kid…I wanted her to be confident…to know she was smart…I wanted her to love other people…even people who weren’t easy to love…I wanted her to be confident enough to love with her whole heart without fear of repercussion…and be confident enough to still feel needed and loved and important when someone she loved might not love her back…I wanted her to be smart and strong…emotionally strong…I wanted to instill in her the coping mechanisms I had lacked so sorely as a child…I wanted her to look at the everyday problems of life and deal with them with ease…and look at the harder problems in life and face them with determination and resolve…I wanted her to celebrate her creativity…to be strong in her skills…but to know that, at the heart of the matter, underneath it all, she is a good person…a loved person…a very valuable and needed person…despite what she can and can’t do…that, at the heart of the matter, she is valid. I wanted her to know this. I wanted to instill this in her from the very start. I wanted to plant these seeds and nurture them and guide her along the way. I wanted to support her without carrying her…to teach her to take care of herself…and encourage her to surround herself with a loving, caring support network…so that she can grow strong individually and socially. I wanted her to have all of this…I wanted it for her badly…right from the very start.

And I was so proactive in making it happen. Anything I thought I could do to bring these things to light for her, I did. Every decision was calculated. Every parenting choice was thoughtfully deliberated and carefully chosen. I was careful with her diet…her sleeping habits…her socialization. I was so careful because I knew that all of this was instrumental in her health and well-being…and that it would for the rest of her life. I wanted so badly to instill these habits from an early age…to teach her well…so that when she got older, they would be natural…so that maybe, if she ended up with some of the same challenges I’ve faced, they would be easier for her. That’s what I wanted.

But I slipped. When my husband left, things naturally became hard. Looking back now, I can see that my mind kind of drifted…and it drifted in a way to protect myself from the great pain and loss I was experiencing…great pain and loss in losing someone who, though not easy to be with, I had loved very much. I had loved him…and I had loved the idea of being with him. I had loved being a wife. In losing him, I lost the dream that he would one day get better and everything would be alright…and there was great pain in that loss as well. What is more, in losing him, my daughter lost her dad. He was a troubled man…he had many challenges he faced in his everyday life that most people will never understand…he was not easy to be with as a husband…but, he was good to her. He loved her very much. The joy she brought him was apparent…and vice versa. Sometimes, he cared for her better than I did…especially in the last days…when I had to sleep to avoid being with him…when I had to stay up all night to avoid being woken up by him yelling in my face…or by him dumping me out of bed…when I had to stay up all night and sleep all day…to hide. I know that it doesn’t make any sense, but losing him was still a loss.

And it hurt. A lot.

When he left…or when I told him he could not come back…my mind went to another place. In a way, it fuzzed over. I was in a daze…and I started going through the motions. I was surrounded by so many loving, wonderful people who helped me get back on my feet…and for the first time in years, I became involved in activities that made me feel good again. In my sick marriage, I had felt necessary. In some ways, I had felt sorely needed. I missed that feeling of importance…of placement…of belonging to something…to someone. But, involvement in activities made me feel needed again. I made friends who needed me, too. And in what I did not then recognize as a bipolar state, I began to try to fill the ever-widening hole in my being with the little snippets of every day life that made me feel good…the people, the compliments…the attention. Of course, when you try to fill a hole with things that are not salves for the problem, the hole only becomes bigger and more unruly until it becomes obvious that the solutions to your problems aren’t solutions at all…and have, in a large sense, become part of the problem as well.

(People and compliments and attention are all well and good, mind you…but they should be icing on the cake…never relied upon to fill the core of your being…fickle and unreliable as they are.)

Somewhere in the meantime, I lost my baby. No. I did not lose her. I lost me…or I feel like she lost me. How blasted unfair. In the greatest love I have ever known, I had never wanted to waste a minute…to never let a second go by that I didn’t relish with great fervor…I truly do love being a parent…love being a mom…love her. But the more exhausted I became, the more depressed…and then manic…I became, the more difficult it was for me to function in every day life. It became difficult for me to take care of myself…and consequently, to take care of her. And I start letting things slip…like the structure I had felt was so important…like the balanced diet and the good night’s sleep and the reading books every day and the set-your-watch-by-it bedtime routine and the discipline…little by little, these things fell away…and I became lazy about being a role model and about the things she saw and heard…and little by little, it began to show.

And now that my mind is clearing, I can’t help but feel horrified. I never meant to be a bad mom…and I know that, in many ways, I was. There will be people who will want to tell me that even on my worst day, I was still a better mom than many. And there will be others who will want to tell me that, yes, I did screw up…that I did slip…and that some of the choices I made and the things I did were of poor taste and sorely bad judgment. But, nobody has to say anything. I know with every fiber of my being that both of these statements are true.

I know that everything is in God’s plan. I know that I went through this time for a reason…that she went through this time for a reason. Because I believe that God is very good, I can’t help but think this reason must be very good, too. Perhaps it was a staunch reminder that I must be extremely proactive in the way I raise her…so that she will have every chance at becoming a fully capable, bright and confident young woman.

God knows that is what I want for her.

So, I will sit down and think of what it is that I want for her…and for us…and what I will have to do to make that happen. I will start off small, so as not to overload myself…but I will write about it…to keep myself on track and keep you updated on our progress. I want to be honest about our journey…I feel that is what will help most.

Nighttime is getting easier for me. This day, I was very tired and managed to sleep restfully. Tomorrow, I will come up with concrete goals for my daughter and myself. Last week, my goal was to make it through work for five hours every day. I met that goal. It is time for new goals…pertaining to the things that matter. I need to rebuild my inner core…or build it anew for the first time ever. I have to figure out what is at the heart of my inner being and go from there.