The Week I Lost My Mind

This post will be dedicated to all my female friends that walked me from lost to the other side of the street in the last two weeks. Ironically, I've not met most of you in real life, but your thoughts and love can bring me to tears. You are so loved in return.

I told you in the last post that a lot has been going on. Truth is, most of it has been going on in my head. Seems my hormones had me raging, spiraling, and drowning.

Ugh! Where do I even begin on this. I feel like it's so important to be honest so other women know it's ok, you will get to the other side.

The beginning.

It started slowly in November, there is no date I can pinpoint in my mind. I do remember not being able to sleep after Trent woke me up at night. Laying in bed after the 4:30am feeding, watching the clock tick by. Sometime the next morning I'd tell Rich, 'Yeah, I think I fell back to sleep around 6am. or at least that's the last time I saw the clock.'

At the time, I thought it was busy mom syndrome. Just my mind starting to make lists in the middle of the night of the need to's and have to's for the next day.

Thanksgiving in Texas seem to revive me a bit. Time with family. Great bonding with my sister. Life was great, but I still wasn't sleeping.

Then I got the flu. I got so dehydrated that urgent care hooked me up to two bags of fluids. Rich was awesome, he always amazes me at stepping up when it's needed most. Trent, my boob-a-holic breastfed baby was on short supply due to mommy not being able to catch up on the dehydration.

In that four days of flu chaos, Trent's will broke and he finally took a bottle at almost 6 mths old. And there was no going back, we cold turkied the cherubic, little addict right off breastfeeding.

Little did we know what this would do to ME at the time.

It was almost Christmas and I just really wasn't feeling it. Bah hum bug. Didn't want to go anywhere. Wasn't happy about much of anything. Started getting really frustrated with things around the house. The kids. The cleaning. The budget. The spouse.

Christmas is my favorite time of year. This did not make sense.

Then the family arrived, but not mine. It was all of Rich's family. Let me state now, that I love my in-laws, but I got pissed. Every. Single. Meal. for eight days was to be at their house. We'd invite the cousins over to play, only to be told they wouldn't leave the Nonnie. I actually remember raging at Rich that ''Some adult in that house needs to realize that Christmas is happening at our house too! I want memories of Trent's first in MY den, at MY dining table.'' (If my in laws read this, know that I love you it was just the hormones!)

Spiral, spiral, spiraling into the rage I went.

Now, I was angry at life, angry that I'd given up my career, angry that I couldn't sleep, angry that Nora wanted to play with me, angry that Trent was not being his happy baby self.....

Down came the snow. Snow that trapped us in the house for almost a week.

I lost my mind.

I was vacillating between ecstatically happy to see the kids and annoyed that they were not somewhere else. I would count the minutes until bedtime when I would be free again to be me, except not me. I just didn't want to be mommy, and honestly...I barely wanted to be a wife either. My brain was on a BLAH setting that I couldn't disengaged.

Me would have done the laundry. Me would have run errands. Me would have gone to the gym. Me would not have screamed at my 3 year old. Me would have answered the phone when friends called. Me would not be raging against the blessing of being able to stay home with the kids. Me wouldn't have my husband looking at me with concern and almost fear at my mood swings.

I was drowning and didn't understand why. I did understand that my body hadn't had more than 4 hours of sleep a night for well over a month and it wasn't because of Trent. You shouldn't look at your child as you rock them to sleep and beg for them not to wake up that night so maybe, just maybe you'll sleep. I also understood that I had no appetite, zilch.

Rich convinced me to go to the doctor on Monday, January 24th. Come to find out, that cold turkey breastfeeding plan had sent my hormones over the edge into a delayed post-partum depressive state with induce insomnia. All that feel good oxytocin that breastfeeding releases was gone....according to Dr. Parman my body went into a withdrawal spiral, like a drug addict deemed delayed post-partum depression.

He writes me a script and off I go thinking all will be fixed in a couple days. Hahaha, oh little did I know!

The prescribed med sent me over the freaking edge. One little pill....so much power.

It was a vicious circle. Every evening as the sun went down my anxiety went up, I was anxious about not being able to sleep, and because I couldn't sleep my brain got more fried and scrambled. I was afraid to be with the kids, not because I wanted to hurt them. NO! But because my mind was telling me 'Your not being a good mom right now, anywhere would be better, they need someone to be happy, you could be hurting them emotionally.'...

By the following Sunday night, I'd only had about 10 hrs of sleep in 5 days, couldn't even make coherent sentences, was nauseous all the time and it was a good day if I ate a yogurt and a granola bar. Weight loss at this point was about a pound a day.

I don't remember a lot about that weekend.

We went out to eat with a friend and I couldn't tell you one thing we talked about at that meal. Almost the whole meal from Ruth Chris came home in to go boxes, looking back I'm surprised the waitress didn't ask if something was wrong with the food.

I do remember telling one of my friends that refers to me as 'Betty Crocker' because of my domesticity that it was more like 'Betty Cracker' now.

Rich took the kids to his parents on Sunday morning at 10am, I napped for about 4 hours that day. My mother in law held me late in the afternoon as I cried because I was so thankful to have the help. She understood, 'I didn't know which way to turn, my world was upside down.' I know on Sunday night before January 31st I was having an anxiety attack about every 1.5 hrs according to Rich, felt like my brain was vibrating in my own head, and at one point begged Rich to make it stop.

I think we've named that night the scariest in our marriage yet. It was a dark, dark moment.

The next day we found ourselves back at Dr. Parman's office. Best explanation, the prescription I was on can cause insomnia in rare cases, it can also exacerbate symptoms....yeah that's an understatement. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people that has the 'rare' symptoms if I react to a medication.

New orders. New meds. A prayer, 'please God let this work, make me whole again.'

Came home. Took one fantastic Xanex, sleep like your in a coma pill and woke up almost 6 hours later at 6pm. That night, I took the Ambien that was prescribed and passed out mid-sentence on the couch at 9:30pm.

The next day, I stood in my bathroom staring at the newest pill in my trio of pharmacuetical happiness with trepidation. I didn't want a repeat of Sunday night, just the thought of that put me in a cold sweat and tremors.

Gulp, it was down and then there was a calm in me. A calm that I hadn't felt in almost two months. There is no decription that I can give to properly define it. Contentment. Hope. Love.

One little pill....so much power, but this time to restore not destroy.

I sat on the floor and played with Nora and Trent's whining didn't sound like nails on a chalkboard anymore. My mom was headed in to help and there was assurance for my heart in that.

I would be ok. But for a time in my life, I was vulnerable, afraid, confused, lost.