Tag: mental health

The Anniversary Effect

Erica2 Comments

Last week it suddenly occurred to me that I was nearing my anniversary – July 26th. For a minute I had forgotten all about it, but on a random Tuesday it hit me and I felt a bit sick to my stomach. Today is the 3-year anniversary of the day I was admitted to the psych hospital for postpartum depression/psychosis.

I like to take this day each year to share parts of this story on the blog, in hopes that it might help or encourage at least one person. For whatever reason, this year it is proving to be particularly hard. It’s like reopening the wound – healing has taken place, so it hurts to go back and poke around inside of it.

For those who are new to my blog, I’ve written a series of posts over the years about my experience with severe postpartum depression, which led me to admitting myself to a psychiatric hospital for a week. My son was only 4 weeks old at the time. If you’re interested in reading them, you can search the tag “Postpartum Depression” and find all the posts I’ve written.

That experience was really what inspired me to start this blog – I wanted to be open and honest about my struggles with depression and anxiety, and use it as a way to let others know they are not alone.

Before writing this next section, I went back and reread all of my previous posts, including a draft that I have not made public yet. There’s so much more to say, so much more to the story that is not complete. Someday I would really like to write all of it out, but it feels too hard today.

Instead, today I would like to focus on the idea of trauma, and healing from psychological trauma. As the days were leading up to this anniversary, I found myself really struggling with a lot of anger. It was coming out (mostly at Dean) but at everything in life really. I had an appointment scheduled with my counselor yesterday, and I came in seething. As we talked, I decided to bring up to her that Friday would be three years since I was admitted to the hospital. I couldn’t even say it out loud without crying. I didn’t realize how much this simple date, July 26th, was really causing havoc to my emotional and mental state.

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It’s Just What I Do Now…

Erica3 Comments

Well folks,  I wanted to share that I have actually been consistently working out since about April of this year. (Yay me!)

Back before I began working out, I read a blog post by my cousin Will – who is an avid workout-er… I guess you could call him an athlete – and he talked about how so much of our actions revolve around instant gratification, and how it’s hard to buckle down and do something when you know you won’t see results for a while. His blog motivated me to stop thinking and wishing that I was working out, and just do it. So I started telling myself that exercising was just “something I do now.” Like brushing my teeth or taking a shower. It’s not something I have to wonder if I’m going to do, I just do it.

Honestly, this mindset has been a great strategy for me. Other times when I began trying to work out consistently (my longest stretch in the past was 6 months before I gave up cold turkey), I was always in it for some goal. I wanted to get to a certain weight or look a certain way or be able to run a certain speed or distance. But this time, there’s not a distinct goal – it’s just what I do now.

If I’m honest though, I did have two motivations for starting working out: one was my physical appearance, and the other was my mental health. If you’ve read my blog before, you know physical appearance is something that I can get consumed with. I sometimes struggle to accept how I look. Well, I knew working out would not make me look worse, and I hoped it might improve how I felt about my body as well. I actually have read that working out can make you feel better about how you look, even though you might not look any different at all. I don’t remember the science behind it all, but that intrigued me.

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Going Home

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Today is July 26. It’s my 2-year anniversary. It has been two years since I was admitted to the psych hospital for postpartum depression. I have had this segment of my story written for many months, but had not felt ready to make it public. I feel ready today. 

This post focuses on the day that I was released from the hospital after being inside for a week. If you missed earlier parts of my story and want to read them, you can click on the following links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

It had been a week – an entire week inside a psychiatric hospital. I was pretty sure today was the day I was going to get to go home, although I felt nervous. What if the doctor didn’t deem me “well” enough to leave? What if I was stuck in here forever?

It felt like a game – you had to win over the right people to get out. One being the doctor, the other being your case manager. I remember when Amy came to me that morning and told me I was going to go home. I was so excited – I was going to get out of there!

*Anthony told me I had never looked happier or smiled more than at that moment – it was probably true – I had been quite the recluse, like when I didn’t leave my bed for a few days.

I remember gathering all my things from my provided laundry basket. It wasn’t a lot – I had a few changes of clothes, a few books that I hadn’t read, my toiletries, a few pictures of Calvin that Dean had brought to me … actually it was more than most people had with them. The day I was dropped off, I had nothing except the clothes I was wearing. I was lucky – I had people to bring me more things. But not everyone in here was as lucky.

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