Mothering, Labels, Guilt, Exhaustion and Postpartum Anxiety Disorder, Part 1 Hop on the Merry-Go-Round

Part One: Hop on the Merry-Go-Round!

This is Part 1 of a 3 Part series.
 Part 2
 Part 3

** This has not been easy for me to write. It took many hours and an extra set of eyes to proofread. However, I wanted to put it out there because if it helps one person, then it has done its job.**

 I've been a mother for 12 years now. The first 10 of those years were spent going full speed ahead.

Stress, perfection and guilt were my main focus.

(For myself, not my children)

I grew up in a rather odd situation that was very heavy onto the guilt and perfection side. I watched it, I was taught it, I lived it, I became it. That ole family tree is hard to change.

I guess I can't blame myself for trying to be and do it all. Most of us mothers do. There are books and websites dedicated to the perpetuation and inevitable recovery of it. It is even the main theme to many, many movies. What once was the rare mother who felt the need to seek motherly perfection, has now become a pandemic of exhausted, malicious, scared and labeled women.

The Labels

The Labels are so much of a part of life now that it is who you are. You either pick your label and live up to it every moment, or they pick the label for you and you live the rest of your life/parenting career trying to fix it.

It is like a merry-go-round that we hop onto at the beginning of parenting and it seems fun. Then that merry-go-round turns into a hellish roller coaster ride that never ends.

While I could go on and on about labels, mommy wars, the perfect Proverbs 31 woman, everything wrong with all of that mind set. I'm not. At least not today.

Today I'm going to talk to you about ME, and how I fell apart after Anna was born. How my labels almost did me in. How Mommy perfection made me crumble. How exhaustion, guilt and anxiety made my body shut completely down.

The four years between Addison and Anna were very busy years. I was deep in the Mommy guilt, perfection land, which came along with many, many  "Musts".

The house Must be clean, always. We must make Mary and Martha proud.

The Children Must be well behaved (Because bad behavior is a reflection on my mothering skills.) The budget Must be perfect

The meals Must be healthy and have the most current popular label (Dairy free, gluten free, vegetarian, low carb, etc)

The detergent and all cleaning products Must be homemade.

As well as the bread, yogurts etc.

I Must lose 100 lbs

I Must be fit, modest, beautiful, capable....

I Must be a natural birth, cloth diaper, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping...mother. Any less might have been fine for some, but not for me.

I Must be a stay at home Mom but also work on the side helping the husband build our business.

Rest was for lazy people.  

The list went on and on..and once you picked up one 'Must" you couldn't drop it again. That was failure and I wasn't a quitter.
  (I also didn't ask my husband for help. He worked two jobs, One was nights..and I just did it myself. Asking for help meant I was failing and couldn't maintain my responsibilities. (I feel the need to mention that this was self-imposed, not from my husband.)

I managed to maintain most of that for a while. I Lost 91 lbs, became annoyingly fit, the house was clean, the bread was fresh, the kids were shiny and bright, Dustin quit his job and worked from home, we bought this house and started renovating on the side, all while homeschooling and maintaining EVERYTHING.

I can remember the exhaustion of early motherhood setting in when the oldest two were young. I learned to ignore it and medicate it with caffeine. You learn to adjust and just keep moving forward. You assume that the exhaustion is just a part of life. You can sleep when you die, rest is for quitters.

When I became pregnant with Anna I figured it was great. I can totally maintain all of that and do it bigger and better this time. While my pregnancy with her was the least high risk of them all.I still struggled and was frustrated that my body wasn't keeping up with my standards.

After I had Anna, (natural labor, of course) and it was a rather 'fast and violent' delivery. (The Dr's words, not mine. Looking back. I would agree.) I expected to just bounce back. I had this. I was Super Mom. Then things started to not go as I had planned.

Anna was not able to nurse. I ended up pumping full time and supplementing with donor milk and then eventually formula. This was a huge blow for me. I had nursed the first three and had built quite a tall pedestal for myself. Giving her formula and admitting that I couldn't do it, was REALLY hard.

I also decided that we didn't really need a break from school, ever. Especially after a baby. I was already sitting rocking a baby, We might as well be learning, RIGHT?! Sure!

This was also while Emma was at the height of her sickness and was up most nights coughing and unable to breathe.

I had Anna in September. In October a drunk driver crashed into our yard while the kids were outside playing. I had been having some anxiety after Anna was born. The drunk driving incident pushing my body over the edge.

It turned into full blown anxiety every single day. It wasn't something I was doing by worrying about things. I would just wake up every single morning feeling like I was having a panic attack. I did what any mother of the 21st century would do... I ignored it. Ate healthier, worked out. and just pretended it wasn't there. It would go away; it had to.

I'm sure you can imagine how that went. LOL

Surprisingly...I managed to keep it from my husband and most people who knew me. I really did think that it would eventually get better. I just had to keep doing the right stuff and moving forward. But no resting; that was for quitters. I could fix this with vitamins, vegetables, and staying really busy.

Looking back now..I really was being dumb. I was drowning on the inside, but convinced it would get better. I just had to try harder. *Facepalm* Life could not stop because of me. That was nonsense. I had people to raise and to care for.

In February all four of the kids had been sick off and on for months. I kid you not, one child fell sick during Thanksgiving and everyone was sick in cycles from there on out...if not everyone all at once.
 (Emma was still very, very sick. Scary sick, and we had no answers. We didn't begin to be able to find help for her until March.)  

That night in February, all of the girls were sick. Sleeping in the living room. I slept on the floor and made my rounds with the nebulizer. I hadn't actually slept in days. At 3 am, I did something I never do. I woke up my husband. He got up to help me. I can remember telling him how much I needed help. He thought I meant with the girls, which I did..but not completely. I was crying out for help. I was suffocating on the inside. I needed help, any help. I was drowning. But since I hadn't really mentioned all of my issues to him, he didn't fully understand. This was the beginning of me telling him how sick I was feeling.

After that night he did help to make sure I was getting more sleep and taking it a little easier.

But I didn't really do that. I was still just ignoring and trying to just keep moving.

Sometime after February, In April (I think. It is all a little fuzzy now. I cannot remember much at all from Anna's first year. That is hard for me to admit and accept.) My body started to deteriorate. Things started to go wrong. My hair was falling out. I was breaking out in hives, had constant diarrhea(For over 6 months straight), my stomach was always upset,  I started having allergic reaction-type episodes after eating vegetables, fruits and nuts, I was still having the anxiety, always feeling in a state of panic and my body was a constant mess of tension...never able to relax.

Then in one day in early June my throat shut down. I could still breathe, but I could not swallow. My throat muscles had clamped shut.  We didn't know what was going on. I thought it was an allergic reaction. We called 911. That was the first of two squad rides.

After that first squad ride...multiple dr visits, specialists, tests and medications followed. They said words like Thyroid Cancer, Oral Allergy Syndrome. An Epi-pen was my new constant companion. They never could give me answers, not conclusive ones..and it started to make me feel like I was losing my mind..but I never did manage to connect the anxiety with all of the other physical symptoms. I was living on chicken and rice, to avoid any trigger foods. Even with avoiding the trigger foods, I was still having all of the physical symptoms, including the throat tightening. I couldn’t even peel potatoes or be in the room when Dustin cut open a watermelon.

Finally in August, Dustin said I needed to consider the possibility that this was all combined and related and that we needed to start over at square one.

Thank you for reading; Part 2 will be released next Monday.

~Lyndsay