Less Than Perfect Easter Dinner

Easter Dinner.  It doesn't initially sound like a big deal especially since we wouldn't be cooking for extended family, they live too far away.  But for me this was a big deal this year.  I felt like cooking a big meal, and that is a big deal when you review the past year.  A year ago we were settling back into live in Florida and trying to regroup from our sudden U-turn in life.  Last May we I tried a gluten free diet to solve the depression and low energy that I was plagued with.  Soon after we discovered we were going to have a third baby.  All that leads to this Easter when I am celebrating my own new life with a gluten free diet and a family that has a place to be rooted.

I wanted to cook Easter dinner to celebrate.  I had the perfect plan.  Steaks on the grill, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and for good measure some festive cupcakes.  Then we made it hard on our selves, we added guests, doubling the crowd, less than 24 hours before the meal.  And to add to it we didn't finalize the menu until 3 hours before when 1/2 the party was going to the store.  We added hot dogs for the kids to save the steaks for the adults and made big pans of the sides.  We didn't have praline topping for the sweet potatoes and we blackened the first round of hot dogs for the kids, and one child refused to eat her dinner, leading to a melt down.  So much for a perfect dinner, at least the gluten free cupcakes turned out yummy and of course celebrating with friends was way better than doing it by ourselves.

Check out some more posts about Less than Perfect Meals and Jill Savage's new book No More Perfect Moms at Jill's blog.

Road to Recovery

Many people have expressed concern and checked in with us on how my health is doing.  I am happy to report that I'm doing well and think of examples every week that remind me where I was and how far I have come.  Anxiety has shown up a little more but with some adjustments its under control.

On days that i feel worn out I still have the energy and compassion to care for our children.  I didn't realize how much I had defaulted to Bob taking care of them, when I didn't feel like it.

Recently the kids and I went to SeaWorld for the morning, Lydia had been asking.  Not only did we survive the trip but we all had fun and mommy still had some energy left to make dinner.

We have had added some extra stress to our lives in choosing to purchase a house right now.  During our searching most the paperwork fell to me and although it was overwhelming at times, I was always better the next day.  I didn't take me 3+ days to recover from the stressful day.

Life is good, I know I am enjoying life again instead of surviving it.

New Neighbors, New Answers

We found our current house in an unconventional way: we looked on the missionary bulletin boards for the area. We had found our last house this way and we trusted the integrity of the community. We moved in to our house without seeing before hand; we made all the arrangements over the phone with the landlord. We had some pleasant surprises like the awesome treehouse in the backyard, and we are enjoying getting to know many of our friendly neighbors.

The couple next door works for Cru, a missions organization next-door to Wycliffe, and they were the ones who posted the listing we saw. Bob as been able to get to know them more as she has shared some rides to work. In one conversation our recent life detour came up and they also shared about their own depression and what they discovered was causing it: an auto-immune disorder called Celiac, which is an intolerance to gluten. It just so happens that it is a genetic disorder that also runs in my family, but I had never thought I suffered from it. I began doing some research and in addition to the digestive system symptoms that others in my family have had (that I never have detected), depression, fatigue and anxiety are all symptoms as Celiac effects how your intestines absorb nutrients.

I have changed my diet over the course of a few weeks, starting first with my breakfast choices and noticed an immediate change. So between some antidepressants, which I will hopefully be weaning off of in time, and a major diet change, I have energy once again to enjoy life and not just get through life.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying this is a huge breakthrough for me and looking back I can see the symptoms all the way back to college. It can be a very tricky disease to diagnose, with a biopsy being the only sure way to diagnose it. We will keep you posted as we find out more.

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Caleb at 20 months

Lydia, August 2010

Caleb is quickly approaching the age Lydia was when he was born, and I'm gaining some perspective on what the last 20 months have been like.  Caleb is starting to talk and have his own opinions.  He is fascinated by the world around him and still needs lots of attention and cuddles from mom.  To think that I was about to have this toddler and a newborn.  I am beginning to feel more justified in my stress level for the last year and 1/2.  I am enjoying my 2 wonderful kids and watching them grow up side by side.  I'm not in a hurry to expand our family right now and dream of what it would be to have a baby when Caleb is as independent as Lydia (only 1 in diapers!).

Its been a wild ride the last 2 years and Caleb has been a huge blessing and gift from God in his easy going personality and good nature.  I am thankful to be walking out of the fog of depression and enjoy my kids as they grow up.

Caleb, March 2012

Depression: Never Say Never

I said I'd never to it... that I was better now and the past was behind me.  

Then I looked in those 2 innocent faces that call me mama,

 and I realize I'm doing it for them.  

I fought depression as a teenager and thought I'd won the battle forever.  I put that painful chapter behind me.  I had defeated it and it was gone.  That is until the last year, when we slowly realized the depression was back.  On a good day I was able to function and on a bad day Bob would cover for me and I hid in our bedroom.  Getting some assistance from medication was looking like a better idea every day.  I needed the medicine to help reset my brain chemistry so I could better function.

I owed it to my kids.  They deserved a patient mom who could deal with the interruptions of motherhood, who wanted to sit on the floor and play with them instead of insisting on a movie to babysit them.  A mom who didn't get anxious about taking them to the store alone.  I did it for my kids.

I tried medication to see if it would help because my kids deserved a healthy mom.  I now take my medication because I see the person I had become and I'm glad I'm back to being me.  I want to stay me, I forgot that I once enjoyed playing with my kids and they aren't always in the way.  I want enjoy and thrive in my life and not survive.  And right now, my brain needs some help to process everything.

I'm thankful everyday that the first medicine I tried had a huge positive impact on my health.  I'm thankful that this week as my husband returned to a full time job away from home I was able to enjoy the little moments with my kids every day.  The smiles seemed bigger and the laughter was louder than it has been for a long time.  I'm thankful I tried medication again.

Depression: What Colors Can You See?

Over the past few months when Cynthia has been battling depression, it has affected our whole family. It has definitely changed the way I view depression: before I had personal experience with it, I didn't think much about it but subconsciously assumed that anything that a person thought could be "un-thought". Any thinking pattern that wasn't desirable just needed to be replaced by a thinking pattern that fit the direction you wanted to go, and after that was done then you'd feel better.
I've learned, though, that when Cynthia is in a low time (her incidents of depression are very irregular and unpredictable, so the difference between her "up" days and her "down" days are very dramatic), her whole thinking process changes. The best analogy I've thought of is that it's as if a person has a disease that periodically affects their brain so that they can no longer see the color green. When the person is "normal", they can see fine, but when the disease affects them they can't see the same. They even know mentally that green still exists, but that knowledge isn't helping them because, as I've heard said, "perception is reality". They're not comforted by someone assuring them that green objects still exist the same as ever, they're not encouraged by pressures to "meditate on green objects", and they're not helped by advice to "just concentrate on the green that you can see". In that moment, until something changes, green doesn't exist for them.
In my analogy, green is encouragement, or hope. When Cynthia is in a "down time", the same motivations, encouragements, and passions that drive her when she's "up" don't even exist for her, and encouraging her in the same way that I could encourage her normally just doesn't work. That's why most depression advice I've read (and I'm no expert, I'm just generalizing) doesn't help much: most of them are the same ways that we can all encourage ourselves when we feel discouraged. Those ways work great when the problem is just that the green we can see is getting crowded out temporarily by all the blue and red objects in our lives. The problem is that depression fundamentally changes a person's perception: if it's impossible to see green anymore, you have to get back to normal sight some other way, other than just "seeing different". Just like that, depression requires more than just "thinking different".

Depression: It's Our Problem

Cynthia was dealing with depression for months before we realized what it was. At first it just seemed like Cynthia would get in a mood where she was unreasonably touchy, couldn't be satisfied and was too tired to do the things that used to excite her. Then the next day she would be dramatically better. It was a roller-coaster for awhile, but we started to finally see that it was a noticeable pattern, and we started to realize that maybe it wasn't just "moods", maybe it was something physiological.

I can understand the temptations as a spouse to draw away. I didn't know when we got married that I was agreeing to having to be a single parent one day every couple weeks, or to spending late nights trying to encourage Cynthia when nothing I say helps, or to having her attack me unfairly. As we've slowly come to realize more of what it is, however, I'm realizing that when I was married this is what I signed up for. I'm very thankful that when the pendulum swings back and Cynthia's back to "normal" she's still the same wonderful person I married. Since this is the case I know that in the "down" times she's not herself, and part of serving her "for better or for worse" is taking care of her through tough times as well as enjoying the happy times. I know some people have to deal with a spouse who always treats them like I was describing, and I feel for them, but I thank God that I'm not dealing with that. I'm still married to an amazing, delightful woman, and I'm helping her through something she's being attacked by periodically, like a disease.

Depression isn't just her problem to deal with on her own. I don't make her feel guilty when she can't do what she usually does and I pick up the slack. I try to not argue or get angry with her when she's down and says things that feel unfair, untrue, or hurtful. I'm seeking to help her, reading about how I can assist her, encouraging her and sticking with her when she needs it. That's what I agreed to when I said those vows on our wedding day. If it meant staying by her bedside if she got cancer I would do it, and so I'm going to do the equivalent in this situation, when she being attacked by a different, but in some ways very similar, affliction.

What's Next: Dealing with Depression

We shared with our January newsletter that we aren't heading to Nigeria because we have realized I have moderate depression.  We have tried to fight this unwanted roadblock for several months without even realizing what we were fighting.  In October we remembered the member care department at Wycliffe and I started talking to someone.  She had me take a survey to see where I fell on the scale.  1 being not depressed and 5 being severe, I was a 4.  That was a surprise.

We worked at it and I had someone to talk to who could help me process everything that was going on.  At Christmas my counselor sought some other opinions from colleagues and they unanimously agreed talking wasn't enough and I needed some stronger help to win this battle.  This made Bob and I reexamine the plans that we had been building our life on.  But most important we decided we wanted to fight together.  So we are beginning to make plans for a different kind of life, one where first I can be whole, and second where we can all enjoy life again.

One sleepless night not so long ago I stumbled upon a blog that has brought much comfort and support over the last few weeks.  Post-Partum Progress.  It started as one woman's battle with PPD, but it has grown to being a place for information and hope for all women with Post-Partum Depression.